Acadia consisted of what became three provinces of Canada: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. It was distinct from the French colony around the St. Lawrence River known as New France. In 1604 an expedition of about eighty men from France settled on an island in the St. Croix River and the following year moved to Port Royal on mainland Nova Scotia. The early settlers suffered from scurvy, and many colonists returned to France in 1607. Only a handful of French settlers pursued minor commercial pursuits from then until the core group of what became the Acadian population settled in the 1630s under the leadership of Governor Isaac de Razilly. Between 1670 and 1750, the Acadian population grew from approximately five hundred to some twelve thousand.
The majority of Acadians lived in small agricultural communities around the Bay of Fundy. They quickly cultivated very productive land by using dikes to reclaim wetlands. Until the construction of the massive fortress of Louisburg on Île Royal (Cape Breton Island) in the 1720s, no other French community was within easy reach of the Acadians, and they thus developed a tradition of autonomy. They also built good relations with the aboriginal peoples of the area, the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet, and established trade links with the English colony of Massachusetts.
During the imperial wars between France and England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Acadians' autonomy proved difficult to maintain. In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht permanently transferred the mainland of Nova Scotia to England. Acadians had often declared themselves neutral in wars between France and England, and the English attempted, with little success, to have Acadians take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. In 1749 the English founded Halifax as a counterweight to Louisburg. In 1754 another war began between France and England, and in 1755—after continued efforts to have Acadians take an oath of allegiance—Governor Charles Lawrence began forcibly deporting the Acadians, expelling approximately eleven thousand by 1762. While some Acadians avoided expulsion, the majority found themselves expatriated to France or dispersed to other English colonies. Louisiana, a French colony until ceded to Spain in 1762, became a popular destination of exiled Acadians, where they became known as Cajuns.
In 1764 the Acadians were allowed to return upon taking an oath of allegiance. However, during the Acadians' exile, approximately twelve thousand New England colonists, known as the Planters, had taken over much of the Acadians' former lands. Returning Acadians thus settled on marginal farming areas in southwest Nova Scotia, eastern New Brunswick, parts of Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island. The English forced the Acadians to settle in marginal areas to develop frontier regions and because they believed that weak Acadian communities might be assimilated. However, the Acadians preserved their language, religion, and folk traditions, and in the 1830s and 1840s they began collectively to reassert themselves. More Acadians entered politics, where they insisted on the recognition of Acadian identity, especially their language and religion. The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow assisted this nascent Acadian nationalism when he published his famous poem, Evangeline, in 1847, in which he told the story of lovers torn apart by the expulsion.