National Acadian Day
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The National Acadian Day is celebrate each year on August 15, day celebrating the Assumption of Mary. It is during the first National Convention of the Acadians held at Memramcook in 1881 that the Acadian leaders received the mandate to fix the date of this celebration.
The choice of the date was the object of a debate at the convention between those wishing for Acadians to celebrate June 24th, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, and National Day of French Canadians since 1834, and others wishing the celebration to occur on August 15.
The arguments put forth by those who favored June 24 were:
- Acadians must unite with the other francophone Canadians in common objectives before the anglophone majority of Canada.[1]
- August 15 occurs during harvest, so it would be difficult for all to be free for the celebration.
The arguments put forth by those who favored August 15 were:
- The Acadians constitute a distinct nationality and must adopt its own national day.
- The adoption of a national day distinct from that of French Canadians will not prevent unity between the two peoples.
- June 24 occurs during seeds, so it would be equally difficult for all to be free for the celebration as well.
- August 15 is Assumption Day, Catholic celebration of Virgin Mary, patron saint of the Acadians.
During the period of time, a good number of people among the Acadian leaders were traditionalists wishing for the conservation of the values and customs of pre-revolutionary France. This did not however prevent the Acadians from adopting a tricolor flag three years later at the Miscouche convention.
Abbot Marcel-François Richard, who favored August 15, is believed to have had an influence on the decision with the speech he gave at the convention. His arguments were:
Indeed, it appears to me that a people which, during more than a century of hardship and persecutions, has managed to preserve its religion, its language, its customs and its autonomy, must have acquired enough importance to deserve that it takes the means to solemnly assert its existence; and that could not be done in a more efficacious way than by the celebration of a national day of its own... Let me now point out some of the motivations which must lead you to choose the Our Lady of Assumption as the National Day of the Acadians preferably over Saint-Jean-Baptiste day. The Canadians having chosen Saint John the Baptiste as their patron, it seems to be that unless we want fuse our nationality in theirs, it is urgent for the Acadians to choose a day particular to them. It it well worth noting that we are not the descendants of Canadians, but of France, et consequently I see no reason leading us to adopt Saint-Jean-Baptiste day as our national day... We must endeavor to chose the day that reminds us of our origin. I dare even say that the Assumption day has always been and must always be the national day of the Acadians, descendants of the French race. Louis XIII had vowed to dedicate his empire to the Holy Virgin and wanted that Assumption day be that of the Kingdom. Now a few years later, he sent the first colonists to take possession of Acadia. They had to consequently bring with them the usages and customs of their fatherland, and if unfortunate circumstances prevented them from being free of labour on their national day on a regular basis, it is nevertheless true to say that the national devotion of the Acadians is the devotion to Mary.[2]
In the end, the members present at the convention decided on August 15.
The Vatican ratified the choice of the Acadian convention many years later in a proclamation issue on January 19, 1938. [3]
Since June 19, 2003, a National Acadian Day officially exists in virtue of a law of the Parliament of Canada. [4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Quand célèbre-t-on la Fête nationale des Acadiens?, in the site of the Acadian Museum of Prince Edward Island, retrieved on February 10, 2008
- ^ Quand célèbre-t-on la Fête nationale des Acadiens?, in the site of the Acadian Museum of Prince Edward Island, retrieved on February 10, 2008
- ^ The Acadian Symbols, Yarmouth Vanguard, 14 August 1990.
- ^ National Acadian Day Act, Canadian Legal Information Institute, retrieved on February 10, 2008
