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In a makeshift fashion, with meat, milk, butter and eggs, berries from the woods and fish from the sea and the rivers, the Acadian women could have saved themselves and their children from death, from hunger or exposure until the winter months, and even later, if some of their house had been saved. Nor should the assistance of the friendly Micmacs be overlooked. At that time, in a state of hostility to the British, they eagerly and warmly would have taken into their wigwams and their encampments the distressed and forsaken women and children of Tatamagouche. Following the Expulsion, sortie parties were sent out from Quebec for the double purpose of harassing the British and rescueing the captives in their hands. The most noted leader in these parties was Bishebert, whom we have already met. His headquarters, at one time, were on the Mirimachi and his men were operating throughout the wilderness of the Peninsula, wherever there were British troops, and settlers or French refugees and captives. Some Tatamagouche women and children may have been rescued by his men and with their help and that of the friendly Indians made their way to their compatriots in St. John’s Island, Cape Breton or across the Missaquash. There is, however, some suggestion that they, too, later on that year, were
taken and like their husbands and fathers, deported. On a decayed manuscript,
among the Lawrence paper is an annotation, which in part reads: Back |
