“THE ACADIAN OF OUR FANCY” : Clothing, community, and identity among the Neutral French, c. 1670-1750

Abstract

“The Acadian of our Fancy” explores Acadian textile culture from French colonists’ establishment outside of Port Royal to the deportation of 1755. It addresses questions of change and identity: did the Acadians maintain a dress style consistent with their provincial French origins, or did they develop a new vernacular? How did developments in material culture shape Acadian identity? This thesis argues that the larger Acadian settlements began to develop a localized clothing system — based on their distinct social, environmental, geographical, and economic contexts — without losing connection to the fashions of the Ancien Régime. It applies an interdisciplinary framework that draws upon fields of dress studies, history, and archaeology. It also interrogates material entanglement theory as an effective framework for dealing with the lack of surviving garments from the period. To this end, it offers an analysis of Acadian dress culture in the settlements of Belleisle, Melanson, and Beaubassin, and among Acadians living in the urban environment of Fortress Louisbourg. It analyzes 709 artifacts related to dress and textile production and use, 284 inventory entries, and 19 textual descriptions of Acadian dress and dress-related items. It demonstrates that climate and geography had a significant influence on dress change, as did new local resources such as sealskin and tisavoyanne dyes. Acadian communities were not only developing a distinctive language of dress but differentiating among themselves as well. Those differences emerged based on location and environment, trade patterns and levels of contact with surrounding groups. Settlers continued to maintain their cultural and economic ties outside of Acadia, engaging in trade and social exchange that influenced their habits. Most distant from centres of colonial authority, Beaubassin’s status as a trading hub made the region a locus for the evolution of Acadian fashion. Other settlements used dress and accessories that reflected their proximity to the urban elite, resulting in wardrobes more typical of European fashion. Some elements of what would later develop into Acadian folk dress were present prior to the deportation, including the striped weave commonly associated with later Acadian dress, but these elements were integrated in a vernacular grounded in contemporary style.