Free Republic

Silver cross reveals a piece of Acadian history Jill St. Marseille, Canwest News Service Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008 Experts hope a small piece of Acadian history that offers a rare glimpse into pre-deportation Canada may open a wider window on that sore point in the country's past. The three-centimetre silver cross was discovered in Grand Pre, N.S., during an archeological dig by Saint Mary's University in 2006. Its physical properties and 250-year-old grave mark it as part of an important historical era - the deportation of thousands of Acadians in 1755. The tiny cross may even have links to...

from “Evangeline” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- a poem particularly near and dear to the people of Louisiana. All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience! And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom, Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee!" Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow, Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. Under the humble walls of the...

<p>CANDIDATE PROFILE: Blanco, leading in polls, refuses to fade John Hill Posted on September 1, 2003 BATON ROUGE - Kathleen Blanco looks up from the official document that puts her name on Louisiana's fall gubernatorial ballot: "Kathleen Babineaux Blanco," just as it has appeared on ballots the past 20 years.</p>

<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- French bashing has even cropped up in Louisiana, the bastion of Cajun and Creole culture where "freedom fries" were out of the question when French President Jacques Chirac refused to back the war in Iraq.</p> <p>Now, however, a movement has sprung up to stop a Dec. 20 visit by Chirac. There are reports of harassment of French teachers, and the links to the French have become an issue in the state's attempt to capitalize on the bicentennial celebration of the Louisiana Purchase.</p>

LAFAYETTE — South Louisiana’s Frenchness comes from many sources, some of them quite remote from continental France. Whatever its origins, a local authority says, the Louisiana French culture is far removed from that of Paris and even the French provinces. The Acadians were generations removed from their native land by the time of their exile from Canada and referred to themselves as Acadians, not Frenchmen. Likewise, black people and white people flocking to Louisiana from the West Indies had been there for generations, and although they brought a French language to Louisiana, they also brought Caribbean customs. Bonapartists fleeing France;...