Talk:Acadians

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Marriage and Family

I propose a new section. Their family life was unique with a near 100 percent marriage rate (illegitimate children less than .6 percent). Source is "Some Aspects of the Demography of Port Royal, 1650 - 1755", by Gisa Hynes.

Also, their higher than normal birth rate of 4.5 % and higher than normal rate of children living to adulthood (75 %). 70.172.249.114 (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Most Louisianans Not 'Acadians', they're Cajuns

Most of the people cited as American Acadians are not 'Acadians' by any reasonable definition. They're Cajuns. These are distinct groups, and have been for a long time. The 'Acadian' identity for over a century has been associated with Canada, with some overflow into Maine. Most edits propping up Louisiana as having hundreds of thousands of Acadians, rather than Cajuns, seem to come from outside of either region, from people who genuinely don't seem to know what they're talking about. I propose that Acadians in the modern era are predominantly from eastern Canada, while folks down in Louisiana are members of the distinct Cajun culture, ethnicity, and diaspora.

Acadians and Cajuns are different groups. 142.134.238.24 (talk) 04:36, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Indigenous connections

I'm not sure that Miꞌkmaq and Métis should be listed as related ethnic groups. French ancestry among Red River Métis is mostly from the upper Great Lakes and Quebec, generally not Acadia. The sentence claiming that "In some cases, Acadians intermarried with Indigenous peoples, in particular, the Mi'kmaq" may be Wikipedia:UNDUE. The second source references "Acadian-Métis" or "Eastern Métis", which is a controversial topic, and they are considered fraudulent by the Manitoba Métis Federation. The first source says that "No single, overarching Indigenous-French relationship existed in Mi’kma’ki", that the "Wabanaki had a much more significant relationship with the French than any Mi’kmaw community", and that writers such as Olive Dickason "over-emphasized the importance of Acadian/ Mi’kmaw métissage..." Perhaps this could be a blip mentioned somewhere in the article if it needs to be mentioned at all, but it doesn't belong in the opening. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 15:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Métis are not related to Acadiens from what I know, other than both being francophone groups. They are on opposite sides of the country almost - Métis even live in NWT. Generally all early euro-canadian ethnic groups have intermarried with Indigenous peoples at some point, so I agree it's strange on this article unless particularly spotlighted by sources. Theevu (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I've removed the content for being irrelevant and undue. The page for Louisiana Creole people also has some unsourced assertions about Native Americans. I'm also not sure the talk page tag for WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America is applicable either. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

A relevant excerpt I saw recently was in Bartl (2021). She comments on this specific phenomenon directly:

"Neither the Louisiana Creole Heritage Center (2015b), nor standard literature on Creoles or American Indians in Louisiana – like Brasseaux, Fontenot, and Oubre (1994) or The Handbook of American Indians – Southeast (Fogelson 2004b), define Creole identity as being partly Native American or vice versa. There are some Creole communities that have intermixed with Native Americans or whose members have married into multi-ethnic groups of Native American descent, but these are locally limited to certain settlement areas. These groups will be discussed within this chapter on Louisiana."

She quotes the following passages in reference to this:

"For eighteenth-century Louisianans, 'Creole' (uppercase 'c') signified 'of local origin.' Hence black and white children born in the colony were designated Creole to distinguish them from Louisiana’s European and African settlers." (Brasseaux, Fontenot, and Oubre 1994, XI)

"(…) in present-day Louisiana, the term 'Creole' refers most commonly to persons of full or mixed African ancestry, their French dialect, and their Roman Catholic traditions. Creoles of African heritage generally employed the term 'Creole of Color' in reference to Creoles of mixed-ancestry and used the term 'black Creole' to refer to Creoles solely or largely of African descent." (Bernard 2007, 136) Theevu (talk) 16:17, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

References