The Development of Elites in Acadian New Brunswick, 1861-1881

William G. Godfrey is a professor of history at Mount Allison University
in New Brunswick.

Sheila Andrew offers a carefully organized and thoughtful dissection of
the several elites that emerged within New Brunswick’s Acadian society
from 1861 to 1881. Her study often runs contrary to assumptions that an
Acadian renaissance was under way in this period, largely orchestrated
by an Acadian elite that on occasion placed its own advancement and
enhancement ahead of rank-and-file needs and aspirations.

Teasing evidence out of such sources as census data and the R.G. Dun
business reports, Andrew isolates four elite groups that had achieved
“measurable success” by the time that this early phase of the
Acadian nationalist movement took hold. Her farmers were operating
“successful farms”; the businessmen had “creditworthy
businesses”; and the educated elites (priests, professionals, and
politicians) had obtained “an above average education” (i.e., stayed
in school beyond the age of 16) and were active in their chosen
vocations. Far from being united and dominant, however, these elites
were fragmented by their diversity, by regional differentiation, and by
the varying pace of urbanization and agricultural development. Marked by
both upward and downward mobility, those elites were never far above the
nonelite “in philosophy or opportunity.” Consequently, what are
assumed to be culminating events, such as the first Acadian National
Convention in 1881, are assessed by Andrew as less significant and
influential. In her view, the emergence and achievements of these
separate elites were merely the “informed response” of the Acadian
people to the improved economic and political opportunities that were
opening to them in the New Brunswick of the 1860s and 1870s.

Perceptive research and analysis make this book a valuable contribution
to our understanding of Acadian society and nationalism. But, the
study’s terminal date precludes consideration of the
later-Acadian-renaissance achievements and changes within the elite. The
conclusions of Martin Spigelman and Raymond Mailhot, for example, while
now rendered questionable for the pre–1881 period, may continue to be
valid for subsequent years.