Maine Historical Society

This lesson plan will introduce students to the history of the forced expulsion of thousands of people from Acadia, the Romantic look back at the tragedy in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous epic poem Evangeline and the heroine's adoption as an Acadian cultural figure, and Maine's Acadian community today, along with their relations with Acadian New Brunswick and Nova Scotia residents and others in the Acadian Diaspora. Students will read and discuss primary documents, compare and contrast Le Grand Dérangement to other forced expulsions in Maine history and discuss the significance of cultural survival amidst hardships brought on by treaties, wars, and legislation.

This lesson plan will give students an overview of how burial sites and gravestone material culture can assist historians and archaeologists in discovering information about people and migration over time. Students will learn how new scholarship can help to dispel harmful archaeological myths, look into the roles of religion and ethnicity in early Maine and New England immigrant and colonial settlements, and discover how to track changes in population and social values from the 1600s to early 1900s based on gravestone iconography and epitaphs.

Maine's Acadian Community: "Evangeline," Le Grand Dérangement, and Cultural Survival

Longfellow's vision of Acadia was primarily influenced by his experiences growing up in Maine. He did, however, use two historical sources that helped him fill in the details of the real Acadia, and what life in Acadian communities was like prior to the removal. Today, Acadie/Acadia is wherever Acadians live. Some Acadians live in regions near to the first communities, such as Nova Scotia, Maine, and Quebec, others, who came to call themselves Cajuns, live in Louisiana and throughout the South, while still others live throughout North America and the world. Though much of the poem "Evangeline" was fantastical, it helped many people of Acadian descent (or, the Acadian Diaspora) reconnect with their history and with other Acadians, and spearheaded a movement to assert their survivance (cultural survival despite forced removals and assimilation by foreign governments). Material culture refers to objects created by people for a particular use. What do these objects make you wonder about?

Maine's Acadian Community: "Evangeline," Le Grand Dérangement, and Cultural Survival

Malaga Island Residents, MMN #23859

Maine's Acadian Community: "Evangeline," Le Grand Dérangement, and Cultural Survival

Acadie, or Acadia, was a region in North America founded by French immigrants in the early 1600s. The land, comprising much of what today is known as Nova Scotia, Maine, and Quebec, is situated on Mi'kmaq Homelands and the Homelands of other Wabanaki peoples. Acadians were forcibly removed from Acadie by British and American government agents multiple times in the interest of re-settling Acadian farmland with Protestants. The Acadie in Longfellow's poem draws from history, and "Evangeline" became a cultural touchstone for people in the Acadian Diaspora in the 19th and 20th centuries. How does this timeline help to contextualize the story of Le Grand Dérangement? What questions do you still have?

Maine's Acadian Community: "Evangeline," Le Grand Dérangement, and Cultural Survival

"Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie" is written in dactylic hexameter, the style of classical European epics such as Homer's "Iliad." Longfellow was familiar with the style as well as European languages, literature, and poetry. He would later publish (in 1867) the first English translation of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" (Italian, 1314) in blank verse. Longfellow's contributions to American poetry and literature included the development and introduction of mythopoetic figures into the cultural consciousness, and thus the creation of new American mythology.

What Remains: Learning About Maine Populations Through Burial Customs

Another way many communities honor their dead is through monuments. In the wake of the Civil War (1861-65) especially, local groups, primarily women, would gather community funds in order to create monuments to fallen soldiers. Monuments also honor other figures from a town, state, or country's history. How do monuments differ from headstones? How are stories told in monuments, and what do they tell us about communities?

What Remains: Learning About Maine Populations Through Burial Customs

The population of what we now know of as the State of Maine has changed throughout the centuries as people establish communities. Maine exists within unceded Wabanaki Homelands, which includes the Homelands of the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, and Abenaki peoples. Some of the earliest settler-colonial communities were French, who established Catholic missions and communities, and English, who established Protestant missions and communities. Many of the burial grounds throughout Maine reflect these earliest European and European-influenced customs, and changed over time. As towns grew, communities were primarily established around places of worship. One thing that all communities tend to have in common is a set of rituals or objects of material culture related to mourning and burying the dead, though what those customs are vary across communities and cultures, sometimes influencing each other.

What Remains: Learning About Maine Populations Through Burial Customs

Headstone of William Pepperrell Hale, 1738, Portland, ME. Photo by Mason Philip Smith, 1966. MMN #12476.

What Remains: Learning About Maine Populations Through Burial Customs

Material culture refers to objects created by a person or group of people for a specific purpose. Material culture generally refers to utilitarian, everyday things, and can encompass a wide variety of objects. Headstones are created by an artisan, whether trained or untrained, for the specific purpose of giving information about a deceased person or family group. Take a look at the headstones in this slideshow: using your iconography worksheets, see what you can infer about the people who made these headstones, and the people they were made for.

What Remains: Learning About Maine Populations Through Burial Customs

Headstone of Joshua Allen, 1805, carved by Bartlett Adams (1776-1828). Photo by Mason Philip Smith, 1966. MMN #12470.