Evangeline

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For other uses, see Evangeline (disambiguation).

Statue of Evangeline - heroine of the Acadian deportation - Saint Martinville, Louisiana

Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie is a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It describes the betrothal of an Acadian girl named Evangeline to her lover, Gabriel, and their separation as the British deport the Acadians from Canada in the Great Expulsion. The poem then follows Evangeline across the landscapes of America as she spends years in a search for him. Finally she settles in Philadelphia and, as an old woman, works as a nurse among the poor. While tending the dying during an epidemic she finds Gabriel among the sick, and he dies in her arms.

By 1845 when Longfellow began working on the poem, the fate of the Acadians had largely been forgotten. Longfellow researched the basic history of the expulsion at the Harvard library and the Massachusetts Historical Society. He learned that the French began to settle Acadie, modern-day Nova Scotia, in 1604. For the next 150 years, they cultivated the land, maintained a friendly relationship with the native Mi'kmaq (Micmac) Indians, and remained neutral in the ongoing conflicts between the French and the English. By the mid-18th century, there were 12,000 to 18,000 Acadians. In 1755 when these British subjects refused to take up arms against the French, they were exiled from their lands, in what the Acadians call "Le Grand Dérangement." The Acadians were scattered far and wide. Many eventually ended up in Louisiana where they formed the basis of the Cajun culture.

Despite the fact that Longfellow had no links to the Acadians or Louisiana, the Cajuns have adopted his story into their culture. “Evangeline” was a name created by Longfellow, but has become relatively common among the descendants of the Acadians. Evangeline is also the name of a Parish in Louisiana, a rural community in Prince Edward Island, and a small settlement in the Acadian Peninsula in New brunswick.

Later works of fiction expanded upon the material of the poem, claiming the “real names” of the characters had been “Emmeline LaBiche” (in Longfellow her full name is Evangeline Bellefontaine) and “Louis Arceneaux” (in the poem, Gabriel Lajeunesse). Among sites which claim a relation to these pseudohistorical figures are a house north of Lafayette, Louisiana, which supposedly belonged to Gabriel, and the grave of Emmeline in the Perpetual Adoration Garden & Historic Cemetery in St. Martin de Tours Church Square, on Main Street, St. Martinville (the site having been determined for its convenience by local boosters about the turn of the 20th century). A statue of Emmeline stands nearby — posed for by silent film star Dolores Del Rio, who starred in the 1929 film Evangeline, and donated to the town by the film's cast and crew.

The name "Evangeline" means "good news" or "bearer of good news", from Greek euangelion, meaning "good news" (generally translated, "Gospel").