Acadia (; French: Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. Settlers primarily came from the southwestern regions of France, including Poitou-Charentes and the Aquitaine region (now known as Nouvelle-Aquitaine), as well as Poitou and Anjou. The territory was inhabited by various First Nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy who referred to the region as Dawnland.
The first capital of Acadia was established in 1605 as Port-Royal. Soon after, English forces of Captain Argall, an English ship's captain employed by the Virginia Company of London attacked and burned down the fortified habitation in 1613. A new centre for Port-Royal was established nearby, and it remained the longest-serving capital of French Acadia until the British siege of Port Royal in 1710. There were six colonial wars in a 74-year period in which British interests tried to capture Acadia, starting with King William's War in 1689.
French troops from Quebec, Acadians, the Wabanaki Confederacy, and French priests continually raided New England settlements along the border in Maine during these wars. Acadia was conquered in 1710 during Queen Anne's War, while New Brunswick and much of Maine remained contested territory. Prince Edward Island (Île Saint-Jean) and Cape Breton (Île Royale) remained under French control, as agreed under Article XIII of the Treaty of Utrecht. The English took control of Maine by defeating the Wabanaki Confederacy and the French priests during Father Rale's War. During King George's War, France and New France made significant attempts to regain mainland Nova Scotia. The British took New Brunswick in Father Le Loutre's War, and they took Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean in 1758 following the French and Indian War. The territory was eventually divided into British colonies.
The term Acadia today refers to regions of North America that are historically associated with the lands, descendants, or culture of the former region. It particularly refers to regions of the Maritimes with Acadian roots, language, and culture, primarily in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward Island, as well as in Maine. "Acadia" can also refer to the Acadian diaspora in southern Louisiana, a region also referred to as Acadiana since the early 1960s. In the abstract, Acadia refers to the existence of an Acadian culture in any of these regions. People living in Acadia are called Acadians, which in Louisiana changed to Cajuns, the more common, rural American, name of Acadians.
Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano is credited for originating the designation Acadia on his 16th-century map, where he applied the ancient Greek name "Arcadia" to the entire Atlantic coast north of Virginia. "Arcadia" is derived from the Arcadia region in Greece, which had the extended meanings of "refuge" or "idyllic place". Henry IV of France chartered a colony south of the St. Lawrence River between the 40th and 46th parallels in 1603, and he recognized it as La Cadie. Samuel de Champlain fixed its present orthography with the r omitted, and cartographer William Francis Ganong has shown its gradual progress northeastwards to its resting place in the Atlantic provinces of Canada.
As an alternative theory, some historians suggest that the name is derived from the indigenous Canadian Mi'kmaw language, in which Cadie means "fertile land".
The history of Acadia was significantly influenced by the great power conflict between France and England, later Great Britain, that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Mi'kmaq had been living in Acadia for at least two to three thousand years. Early European settlers were French subjects primarily from the Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine regions of southwestern France, now known as Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The first French settlement was established by Pierre Dugua de Mons, Governor of Acadia, under the authority of the French King, Henri IV, on Saint Croix Island in 1604. The following year, the settlement was moved across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal after a difficult winter on the island and deaths from scurvy. There, they constructed a new habitation. In 1607, the colony received bad news as Henri IV revoked Sieur de Mons' royal fur monopoly, citing that the income was insufficient to justify supplying the colony further. Thus recalled, the last of the French left Port Royal in August 1607. Their allies, the Mi'kmaq, agreed to act as custodians of the settlement. When the former lieutenant governor, Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt et de Saint-Just, returned in 1610, he found the Port Royal habitation just as it was left.
During the first 80 years of the French presence in Acadia, there were numerous significant battles as the English, Scottish, and Dutch contested the French for possession of the colony. These battles happened at Port Royal, Saint John, Cap de Sable (present-day Port La Tour, Nova Scotia), Jemseg, Castine, and Baleine.
From the 1680s onward, there were six colonial wars that took place in the region (see the French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War). These wars were fought between New England and New France, and their respective native allies. After the British siege of Port Royal in 1710, mainland Nova Scotia was under the control of British colonial government, but both present-day New Brunswick and virtually all of present-day Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France, until the Treaty of Paris of 1763 confirmed British control over the region.
The wars were fought on two fronts: the southern border of Acadia, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine and in present-day peninsular Nova Scotia. The latter involved preventing the British from taking the capital of Acadia, Port Royal (See Queen Anne's War), establishing themselves at Canso (See Father Rale's War) and founding Halifax (see Father Le Loutre's War).
From 1640 to 1645, Acadia was plunged into what some historians have described as a civil war. The war was between Port Royal, where the Governor of Acadia Charles de Menou d'Aulnay de Charnisay was stationed, and present-day Saint John, New Brunswick, where Governor of Acadia Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour was stationed. There were four major battles in the war, and d'Aulnay ultimately prevailed over La Tour.
During King Philip's War (1675–78), the governor was absent from Acadia (having first been imprisoned in Boston during the Dutch occupation of Acadia) and Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin was established at the capital of Acadia, Pentagouêt. From there he worked with the Abenaki of Acadia to raid British settlements migrating over the border of Acadia. British retaliation included attacking deep into Acadia in the Battle of Port La Tour (1677).
In response to King Philip's War in New England, the native peoples in Acadia joined the Wabanaki Confederacy to form a political and military alliance with New France. The Confederacy remained significant military allies to New France through six wars. Until the French and Indian War the Wabanaki Confederacy remained the dominant military force in the region.
There were tensions on the border between New England and Acadia, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine. English settlers from Massachusetts (whose charter included the Maine area) had expanded their settlements into Acadia. To secure New France's claim to Acadia, it established Catholic missions (churches) among the four largest native villages in the region: one on the Kennebec River (Norridgewock); one further north on the Penobscot River (Penobscot); one on the Saint John River (Medoctec); and one at Shubenacadie (Saint Anne's Mission).
During King William's War (1688–97), some Acadians, the Wabanaki Confederacy and the French Priests participated in defending Acadia at its border with New England, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine. Toward this end, the members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, on the Saint John River and in other places, joined the New France expedition against present-day Bristol, Maine (the siege of Pemaquid (1689)), Salmon Falls and present-day Portland, Maine.