Lafayette in America
June 23, 2025
As we approach the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, a strange, seldom-used word is becoming part of our discourse. “Semiquincentennial” is a mouthful to say, but it is already appearing in the press in an era more used to bicentennials.
I stated in an earlier blog that America would be focusing on the marquis de Lafayette’s return to our soil in 1824-25. At the invitation of President James Monroe and with the enthusiastic cooperation of many municipalities and groups, Lafayette toured our young, expanding country for thirteen months in his late-sixties. At that time, two dozen states showered him with tributes and adulation that even his own country could not have matched. Indeed, the marquis and his living male descendants had been declared on 12 December 1784 as “natural born” citizens of Maryland by its General Assembly, under the Articles of Confederation. Over two centuries later, this status was further clarified and expanded. In 2002, by Act of Congress, Lafayette joined an exclusive list of foreigners given honorary American citizenship since 1963 – Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg, William and Hannah Callowhill Penn, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and two other Revolutionary War heroes, Casimir Pulaski and Bernardo de Gálvez. Frankly, it would be an enormous task to count all the communities, townships, counties, squares, streets, institutions, and monuments named for the admired Frenchman.
Lafayette the teenager came to America as an idealist seeking la gloire yet left as a dedicated veteran and an even greater advocate of human rights than most of our forefathers. Putting comfort, personal fortune and family reputation on the line, the young man’s courage and demeanor endeared him to George Washington, who took him under his wings, increased his responsibilities, and considered him as a son. After his military feats in America, Lafayette built on his reputation as a patriot and statesman in his native country, surviving exile and many political eras until his death in 1834.
Hopefully, history lovers have been able to take advantage of the many Lafayette salutes offered to the public these past few months. Here in the DC-Baltimore region, two particular events in the fall of 2024 attracted Lafayette bicentennial fans. Dr. François Furstenberg, author of When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees who Shaped a Nation (2014), gave a fine presentation on “America’s Rockstar” at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore on Thursday evening, October 10, as part of the ongoing Wye Oak Lecture Series. Shortly afterward, La Maison Française at the French Embassy in Washington hosted a conference entitled “The Multi-Faceted and Multi-Talented Marquis de Lafayette” on Tuesday evening, October 15. The latter involved several scholars representing the embassy, the Foundation Chambrun, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the American Friends of Lafayette, the Lafayette Trail, Inc., and the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia.
While the commemoration will be rapidly coming to a close on September 8, 2025, it is worth checking out such sites as https://thelafayettetrail.org, www.friendsoflafayette.org, and www.lafayette200.org for videos, maps, and other features that can be accessed by future travelers.
Just for the record, listed below is a log of Lafayette in Maryland and Virginia in 1824-25:
7-11 October 1824: Baltimore
12-17 October: Washington, DC
18-19 October: Yorktown, VA
20-22 October: Williamsburg
22-25 October: Norfolk
26-29 October: Richmond, with overnight at Petersburg
30 Oct – 2 Nov: Richmond
4-15 November: Monticello area, with Thomas Jefferson et al.
15-19 November: Montpelier area, with Madison et al.
24-29 November: Baltimore
17-21 December: Annapolis
26-28 December: Baltimore
28-31 December: Frederick, MD
19-20 January 1825: Baltimore, before going to Norfolk and Richmond
28-29 January: Baltimore
3-4 February: quick stop in Baltimore
30 July – 1 August: Baltimore
2-6 August: Washington
10-13 August: Washington
14-15 August: Fredericksburg, VA
16-19 August: Monticello
20 August: Charlottesville
21-22 August: Monticello/Montpelier, leaves for Culpeper and Warrenton
25-29 August: Washington
29-31 August: Woodlawn Plantation and Mount Vernon
31 Aug – 8 Sep: Washington
Perhaps it is a good time for re-reading the account of Lafayette’s visits to Baltimore, Annapolis, and Frederick in Becoming the Frenchified State of Maryland, pp. 422-34, exploring Alan R. Hoffman’s translation of Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825 (2006), or ordering Mike Duncan’s excellent paperback, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution (2021), which covers his entire political life.
Vive L’Acadie et L’Acadiana
June 24, 2025
Last August I was fortunate to participate in my sixth Congrès Mondial Acadien. Having only missed the first one in Moncton, New Brunswick, in 1994 when publicity did not quite reach many of us descendants and historians here in the States, I have never been disappointed with the camaraderie, enthusiasm, and scholarship associated with every CMA. Each of these extravaganzas involves a lot of local and regional planning years in advance, music, conferences, family reunions, and the like, and all have taken place in the Canadian Maritimes except for the CMA in southwestern Louisiana in 1999.
Memories of the 2024 Congrès are still alive chez nous: a long road trip to Nova Scotia aided by the CAT ferry connecting Bar Harbor and Yarmouth; enjoyable outings in Pubnico and at various beaches and coves along the Baie Ste-Marie; the opening day at Pointe-de-l’Église that began with a storm; constant rencontres with Louisiana friends; a most comfortable multiday séjour at the Harbourview Inn in Smith’s Harbor near Digby; return visits to Annapolis Royal and Grand-Pré; a drive to Scots Bay/Cape Split; Guidry, Broussard, and Morin reunions in St-Alphonse, Annapolis Royal, and Belleisle Hall (Granville Ferry); fear and sadness that our aging and structurally-needy friend, St. Mary’s Church at Pointe-de-l’Église, is on the verge of demolition; a day in the artsy Mi’kmaq town of Bear River; delicious fish, local dishes, and chowders; Luckett’s and Blomidon vineyards; relaxing, traffic-free roads; the unique local French dialect; briefly meeting ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; and the joyful tintamarre in downtown Yarmouth on August 15. Each visit to a Maritime province over the years has had for us its own particular character. Even after twelve days, destination choices had to be carefully considered as we shuttled up and down the coast.
While distance has not completely prevented Acadians and Cajuns from enjoying the cultural fruits of either country, Louisiana also created its own individual fête, Le Grand Reveil Acadien/The Great Acadian Awakening, in 2011, when it became clear that the original Acadian homeland preferred to regularly host the CMA by itself every five years.
This year’s Grand Réveil festivities in Louisiana will take place from October 11-18. As the program is being developed, expect an opening day in Abbeville (as in 2022); the concurrent Festivals Acadiens et Créoles in Lafayette’s Girard Park; a tintamarre through the streets of Lafayette; a Genealogy Day at Vermilionville; family gatherings; community days in Loreauville, St. Martinville, and Broussard; and a closing ceremony in Church Point. As more precision becomes available, check out these websites: https://louisianeacadie.com, https://festivalsacadiens.com, https://acadiatourism.org, https://vermilion.org.
Past CMAs (every fifth August):
1994: Moncton and other communities in New Brunswick
1999: Southwestern Louisiana communities
2004: Nova Scotia – Pointe-de-l’Église (Church Point), Grand-Pré, and Windsor
2009: New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula – Shippagan, Caraquet, Néguac
2014: New Brunswick, Québec, and northern Maine – St. John River Valley, Edmundston and Grand Falls (NB), Madawaska and Aroostook County (ME)
2019: New Brunswick – Moncton area and Prince Edward Island
2024: Nova Scotia – Yarmouth and Clare regions
2029: New Brunswick/Québec – Campbellton, La Baie-des-Chaleurs, and southern Gaspésie
GRAs in Louisiana: 2011, 2015, 2022, 2025
In Memoriam, Antonine Maillet
June 24, 2025
This past February 17, Acadie’s greatest voice was no more. Antonine Maillet, age 95, passed away in Montreal. Her literary career began in the 1950s, when she was a nun known as Sister Marie-Grégoire. Her first play, L’Entr’Acte, was performed in 1957; her début novel, Pointe-aux-coques, appeared soon after. Maillet’s studies and teaching began in New Brunswick and expanded to France and Québec. By the time that she earned a doctorate in literature from the Université Laval in 1970, she had received several prizes and scholarships. A year later, her signature drama, La Sagouine, was first staged in Moncton. End credits in the 1997 Bibliothèque Québecoise edition of La Sagouine trace her life and career to that point in time. An amazing number of honorary doctorates had been bestowed on her since 1972 and that number would continue to grow to thirty or so during a noted career that produced twenty novels and twelve plays. The noted author and playwright was a noted scholar of François Rabelais, whose sixteenth-century language greatly influenced her art.
Eventually, she graced more than just the literary world, for she would serve as chancellor of the Université de Moncton from 1989-2000 and as chancellor emeritus after her retirement. It is no surprise that French President Emmanuel Macron made her a commander in his country’s Légion d’Honneur in 2021.
I first ‘met’ Antonine Maillet, Acadie’s most outstanding writer and advocate, by reading Pélagie-la-Charrette, an acclaimed masterpiece that appeared in 1979 and won the prestigious Prix Goncourt. The work requires patience and adaptation to the unique colloquialisms of her people, but it depicts all the grit, determination, and resilience of a displaced woman leading families back to the homeland in the 1770s. In its folksy yet deep narration, expect to discover the soul of a “nation.” The book transcends actual fact and prominently focuses on the town of Baltimore on pages 124 to 155 in my old livre de poche edition. This stands as an extraordinary work of fiction – not a genealogical treasure trove nor an accurate depiction of the fledgling Catholic community and the very real struggle of keeping the town’s simple church open to the public. In actuality, little St. Peter’s in Baltimore was far from being an église blanche au coeur de la ville, possessed no permanent pastor or official registry until 1782, and only welcomed an Abbé Robin, Rochambeau’s army chaplain, in events centered on the Yorktown military campaign! Pélagie’s joy over hearing a Frenchman chanting in Latin was yet to take place in 1774. Nevertheless, Baltimore was a refuge for a small core of exiles, or French Neutrals, mainly in a poor Francophone quarter near the harbor, still about two decades or so away from strongly establishing itself as a business district and center of ambitious mariners.
A quarter of a century after discovering the beauty of Maillet’s prose, I had my one and only opportunity to meet the icon in person on Monday afternoon, August 2, 2004, on the campus of the small Nova Scotian Université-Sainte-Anne, at Pointe-de l’Église, a community on the shores of the Baie Sainte-Marie. My school had gifted me a unique professional experience, which included a five-day seminar at the institution examining “what would represent a vibrant Acadie in the year 2020.” Each day focused on a certain theme. Day 1 was entitled “Art, Culture, and Heritage,” and Mme Maillet’s hour centered on Acadie and the Global Village. It was an honor to greet her at the conclusion of her talk and to share a copy of my second book, Acadians in Maryland.
A final farewell for Antonine Maillet took place at the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption cathedral, in Moncton, on April 12.
[Some of this article was prepared from the an obituary prepared by the Salon Frenette Funeral Home, Moncton, and other sources reacting to her death.]
Canada Day
July 1, 2025
Badly chosen comments in the last few months have severely strained relations between the United States and our friends in Canada. Without getting into personalities and alleged economic and security issues, it is best to celebrate proudly our similarities and long-standing friendship and hope for better days.
Perhaps one good way is to acknowledge all the scholarship that the Centre d’études acadiennes at Université de Moncton has contributed to exploring history and genealogy over many decades. I can only begin to scratch the surface by saluting and thanking three well-known individuals – Stephen A. White, Paul Delaney, and Ronnie-Gilles Le Blanc – who have worked a lifetime continuing the research of their pioneering predecessors. Stephen has the greatest profile here in the States. He is chiefly responsible for the Dictionnaire Généalogique des Familles Acadiennes, two volumes dedicated to Acadian lives in their first century in the Maritimes. On my first visit to Moncton in August 1983, Stephen welcomed a very inexperienced researcher to his office and home. Just like Dr. Carl Brasseaux in Lafayette, Louisiana, he was very willing to introduce me to a field that still refreshes my soul forty-plus years later. His colleagues Delaney and Le Blanc may not have received the same credit over the years south of the border, but, because of them, we know so much more about the dynamics of the deportation in Grand-Pré, Rivière-aux-Canards, and Pisiguit (Pigiguit).
Over the last few months, I have been preparing a new presentation on the Maryland exile and I am so fortunate that “The Moncton Three” have provided so much documentation on Acadians and their tragic displacement from mid-summer to late fall 1755 and beyond. In August 2024, I found a copy of Delaney’s La Liste de Winslow Expliquée (2020) in the sales area at the Grand-Pré historical site and was immediately impressed with its content. I have since spent many hours consulting that work and updating my own detailed analysis of the 1763 census of Maryland Neutrals that appeared on pages 69 to 186 in Acadians in Maryland (see francomaryland.com/lagniappe/ appendix-60-revisiting-the-1763-maryland-acadian-census. Breaking down the deportation process by specific names and villages has added so much to my Maryland narrative.
I might add, as well, that Delaney’s and Le Blanc’s studies work well in conjunction with Don Landry’s research on the ships used in the “Great Upheaval.” Landry shows the intricacies of transporting thousands, as each vessel has a separate mission and personality. How many of us realize that the expulsion involved more than just Governors Lawrence and Shirley and officers Winslow and Murray, but also the complicity of Boston merchants who provided the necessary transports, captains, and crews? And we should not forget that our Virginia forefathers rejected their exiles and kept them detained at anchor for months before forcing them out across the Atlantic.
June, July, and August are months of commemoration on both sides of the border. May we not forget days of regional and national pride beginning with the Québecois Fête de St-Jean-Baptiste on June 24 and ending with Assumption, the Acadian National holiday on August 15.
At the moment, let it be known that our Canadian friends are celebrating the pronouncement of July 1, 1867 that initially brought together New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Québec into a confederation. Moreover, July 1 continues as a date of additional importance, marking the creation of a national holiday in 1879 and official recognition of “O Canada” as the national anthem in 1980. So, whether it be Canada Day, the Fourth of July, or the lesser-known July 28th that focuses on the fateful Acadian deportation order from Halifax in 1755, let’s give a shout-out for liberty whether singing “o’er the land of the free,” standing guard for “the True North strong and free,” or chanting a verse or two of Ave Maris Stella.
Francophones in Maryland 