colony · North America and Oceania
Acadia
Origins
In 1604 Pierre Dugua de Mons and Samuel de Champlain wintered on Saint Croix Island, and in 1605 moved across the Bay of Fundy to found Port-Royal. Raided by English colonists from Virginia in 1613, granted to Scotland as Nova Scotia in 1621 and occupied by Scottish settlers from 1629, the colony returned to France in 1632 and slowly took root.
Rule and society
Acadia was thinly governed, and in the 1640s rival lieutenants Charles de Menou d'Aulnay and Charles de La Tour fought a small civil war. Settlers reclaimed salt marshes with dykes and sluices called aboiteaux, growing wheat and raising cattle around Port-Royal, Grand-Pré and Beaubassin. Close ties with the Mi'kmaq, members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, and trade with New England defined Acadian life.
Decline and legacy
English forces held Acadia from 1654 to 1670 and seized Port-Royal for good in 1710. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 ceded the peninsula to Britain as the Colony of Nova Scotia, and in 1755 the British began deporting the Acadians.
Lineage
On the connections map
Open the full map →Connections (3)
- Acadia was part of New France1604 CE – 1713 CE
- Acadia was a colony of Kingdom of France1604 CE – 1713 CE
- Acadia was conquered by Kingdom of Great Britain1710 CE
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Acadia. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/acadia
- MLA
- “Acadia.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/acadia. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Acadia.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/acadia.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Acadia’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/acadia (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻