G.K. Chesterton never commented upon the fate of the Acadian people, the French-speaking Catholic inhabitants of Nova Scotia who were brutally exiled from their homes by the British in a forced displacement campaign that, in today’s terms, would be called ethnic cleansing. It is likely that Chesterton never knew of this story, just as so many contemporary people have never heard of it. Yet it is a profoundly moving story of religious and cultural steadfastness, of deep loss and deeper love, and of the quintessential desire of a people for a land to call their very own. It is a tale that would certainly have won Chesterton’s sympathies had he not been denied it by the ‘victors’ who write the history books.
A famous legend of the Acadians is captured in Evangeline, an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, now presented in a brand-new edition from ACS Books. With this book, the Society of G.K. Chesterton hopes to shed light on this forgotten chapter of the Catholic history of North America, and celebrate the remarkable resilience and faith of the Acadian people, the ancestors of the present day Cajuns of the southern United States.
This volume contains original prefatory essays by Christopher Check and Joseph Pearce and a foreword by Joe Grabowski, VP of Evangelization for the Society of G.K. Chesterton.