My Sixth Great Grandmother
(about 1744 to 1780)
Daughter of Antoine Babin and Catherine Landry
Husband Pierre Guidry
Mother of Pierre, Joseph, Jean Baptiste, Olivier, Paul, Augustin
In the mid 1700s, an eleven-year-old Acadian girl’s day-to-day life experience would have been vastly different from an eleven-year-old American girl’s life in the twenty-first century. Yet, there are some life experiences that can be much the same no matter in which century a person lived: forced deportation from your homeland, hatred and mistrust in the new land you did not choose to live in, religious persecution, hopes and dreams for a homeland, marriage, and children. Claire Babin, my sixth great-grandmother, was an eleven-year-old Acadian who experienced all those things.
Claire Babin was born about 1744 in Acadia.[1] Catholic church registers that may have recorded her birth and baptism were lost or destroyed during the deportation era, a time when Acadians were exiled from Nova Scotia at the direction of Charles Lawrence, Governor of Nova Scotia. No surviving records have been found of her parents’ marriage, or the baptism of any of her siblings.
No records have been found of Claire’s immediate family living in Acadia. The fact that they were documented in Port Tobacco, Maryland, in 1763 means they had lived on the Acadian peninsula in 1755 when Acadians were deported. The Acadians deported to Maryland had previously resided in the parishes of St. Famille and L’Assomption in Pisiguit, the parish of St. Charles in Grand Pre and Riviere-Aux-Canards, and St. Joseph in Grand Pre.
Claire and her family were victims of Governor Lawrence’s “great and noble scheme” to rid Nova Scotia of the hated Catholic Acadians. They set sail on one of four ships with more than 900 Acadians to Maryland in November 1755. They were forced to leave behind almost all their possessions.
Imagine the confusion young Claire experienced upon being torn from her home and being separated from her friends and extended family. All she had ever known was no more. Her father was probably stunned that Governor Lawrence would send them into exile. Her mother would have worried about caring for her seven children in terrible circumstances. Claire and her immediate family boarded a ship that was grossly overcrowded. Supplies of food and water on the ship were scarce. Children would have been crying, and people would have been sick. There was no room to move about, it stank, and the hold was dark and dank. The Acadians bore so much indignity.
Governor Lawrence sent Acadians to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Georgia, and South Carolina. He did not notify the colonies of his plan. Claire’s ship arrived in Maryland sometime in December. Maryland and the other colonies were shocked when the Acadians arrived at their ports. The colonies were not prepared to receive the exiles. Government policy stopped the many Catholics in Maryland from housing the Acadians who shared their Catholic faith.
Maryland did not treat the deported exiles well. Some Acadian families went door to door begging food and shelter. The Maryland Assembly passed a law that allowed children to be bound out and forced to work for others if their parents could not provide for them. Hopefully, Claire’s father found work to provide for the family.
Claire’s family likely attended Mass at St. Ignatius Catholic Church at Chapel Point, Maryland. St. Ignatius parish was established 100 years earlier. Her father may have been buried in the cemetery near the church, which has a picturesque view of the Port Tobacco River.[2]
Claire’s name first appeared on a list of Acadians in Port Tobacco, Maryland, on 7 July 1763. She was about nineteen years old and lived with her father Antoine Babin, her mother Catherine, her brothers Francois, Firmin, and Charles, and her sisters Rose, Anne, and Marie. Three other Babin families were in Port Tobacco, as well as families with the surnames of Breaux, Landry, Benoit, and Richard. Port Tobacco had the second largest population of Acadians in Maryland.[3]
The Seven Years War–also known as the French and Indian War–ended in 1763, but it would be almost four years before the Acadians in Maryland could choose their new homeland. They received letters from Acadians who settled in Louisiana as early as 1765. Finally, some of the Acadians in Port Tobacco sailed to New Orleans, Louisiana, on the Jane, leaving on 17 December 1767. Claire’s family was most likely on that ship. The consular certificate states there were 150 French Neutrals (as the Acadians were also known) as passengers, along with their baggage.[4] Claire would have been about twenty-three years old when the family arrived in Louisiana.
Sailing from Maryland was hard and took almost two months. They arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, in early February 1768. They were given a week to recover before Spanish Governor Ulloa directed the newly arrived Acadians to settle at Fort of Saint Louis in Natchez (today, Natchez, Mississippi) to serve as militia. Governor Ulloa gave the Acadians the tools and supplies they needed to farm and establish homes. They were to plant wheat and tobacco. The Acadians had also brought wheat grain with them to plant. Building dikes and roadways were required for flood control and commerce. The Acadians could attend church services at the fort chapel until their own church was built.[5]
Three boats were made available to the Acadians to transport them from New Orleans to Natchez. The Acadian men to were help the Spanish row the boats. If someone was sick or pregnant, they would travel to Natchez later. When they reached Point Coupée, they were to pick up supplies. While traveling along the river, Spanish envoys would visit the other Acadian families who had arrived earlier to see how they were managing.
Claire’s family was allotted six arpents of land (about 6 acres) with her mother, Catherine Landry, as head of household of six children.[6] They were told they could live in the fort until simple shelters were built. Later, they could build sturdier homes. As in Maryland, there were several Babin, Landry, and Breaux families nearby. Clearing land to plant corn after establishing shelter was the next priority. To eat, the Acadians could hunt deer and bear.
The next installment of Claire’s life will delve into her life in Louisiana.
[1] Chandler, Richard E. “Odyssey Continued: Acadians Arrive in Natchez.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 19, no. 4 (1978): 446–63 (specifically, p.459). http://www.jstor.org/stable/4231823. In a list of Acadian Families dated 7 February 1768: “Widow Cathalina Baven, 47; Tilman Baven, 21; Carlos, 18; Clara, 24; Quitan, 22, Rosa, 14; Isabel 04.” Robichaux, Albert J., Jr., Colonial Settlers Along Bayou Lafourche (Harvey, Louisiana), p.7. In the 1770 Census of Ascension: “Pierre Guedry 26, Claire Babin his wife 26, Pierre Guedry, his son 5 months.” If Claire was 24 in 1768 and 26 in 1770, then she would have been born around 1744.
[2] “Acadians in Port Tobacco,” Acadians Were Here, acadianswerehere.org (https://www.acadianswerehere.org/acadians-in-port-tobacco.html : viewed 19 January 2025).
[3] “Acadians in Port Tobacco,” Acadians Were Here, acadianswerehere.org (https://www.acadianswerehere.org/acadians-in-port-tobacco.html : viewed 19 January 2025). An image of her marriage record on this same page of the website named her parents as D’Antoine Babin and Catherine Landry citing Point Coupée Parish, book 3 pp., 270-271.
[4] “Acadians in Port Tobacco,” Acadians Were Here, acadianswerehere.org (https://www.acadianswerehere.org/acadians-in-port-tobacco.html : viewed 19 January 2025) an image of the permit citing “Permit – Ship ‘Jane’ to come to New Orleans from Potomac (17 Dec 1767) (PPC Legajo 187-A-1).”
[5] Chandler, Richard E. “Odyssey Continued: Acadians Arrive in Natchez.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 19, no. 4 (1978): 446–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4231823. This article cites “Instructions for the settling of the Acadians on land near the Fort at Natchez…” from the General Archive of the Indies, Section 5, Government, Audiencia of Santo Domingo, Legajo 2585, microfilm available at the University of Southwestern Louisiana archives.
[6] Chandler, Richard E. “Odyssey Continued: Acadians Arrive in Natchez.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 19, no. 4 (1978): 446–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4231823. This article cites two lists of the colonists’ names from the General Archive of the Indies, Section 5, Government, Audiencia of Santo Domingo, Legajo 2585, microfilm available at the University of Southwestern Louisiana archives.