Settler colonialism and the elimination of the nonnative: Richard LeBlanc, ‘Settler colonialism and the elimination of the Acadian: 1708–1748’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism and the elimination of the nonnative: Richard LeBlanc, ‘Settler colonialism and the elimination of the Acadian: 1708–1748’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025

05Oct25

Abstract: In 1755–63, the British empire expelled Acadians from Nova Scotia and other regions where they lived. Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc argues that understanding this tragic period of 1755–63 requires the consideration of the period of 1749–55 as part of the process toward the Acadian expulsion. This paper goes further back in time and argues that understanding the 1749–55 period requires the consideration of the period of 1708–48 as ideological precondition. It demonstrates that the intention of a series of officials of the British empire to remove, eliminate, and replace the Acadians in 1708–48 took the form of what Patrick Wolfe calls settler colonialism. It also shows that this project of British settler colonialism against Acadians was articulated ideologically in liberal terms and was motivated by what Dirk Moses calls the liberal permanent security of capitalist expansion. This reveals that settler colonial ideology, or discourse, and its enforcement cannot be restricted to the elimination of Indigenous groups and also needs to be understood as an anti-Acadian project of the British empire.

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