Profile of Charles Lawrence on Famous Like Me

Charles Lawrence (December 14, 1709 – October 19, 1760) was a British military officer who, as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, was responsible for overseeing the expulsion of Acadians from the colony, the Great Upheaval. He was born in in Plymouth, England and died in Halifax, Nova Scotia).

Lawrence's background

Lawrence followed his father into a military career. His father was General Charles John Lawrence and is said to have served in Flanders under John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough.

The younger Lawrence was commissioned in 1727, and served in the West Indies from 1729 until 1737. He was made lieutenant in 1741 and then captain in 1745. He participated in the battle of Fontenoy in the Austrian Netherlands in 1745. He accompanied his regiment to Nova Scotia in 1747.

Governor of Nova Scotia

He was named lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia in 1754, being officially sworn in on October 21, holding this position until 1756, when he was made governor. He served as the later until his death in 1760.

To his new post he brought an over exaggerated sense of fear of the French. The French Acadians of Nova Scotia who had become British subjects by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) exhibited no willingness to participate in the British-French quarrels that were ongoing in the region at the time. Lawrence however considered the French colonists to be 'fifth columnists'. He ordered that they take an oath of allegiance to George II of Great Britain, the British monarch. The Acadians refused to comply.

As lieutenant governor it was he who was responsible for writing the 1755 Acadian deportation order, securing the approval and co-operation of William Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts. One of the major reasons for the deportation was because the Acadians were aiding and abetting the French indirectly by trading agricultural supplies with the French. This deportation, known to Acadians as the Grand dérangement (see Great Upheaval), was a form of ethnic cleansing; historians estimate that approximately half of all Acadians died as a direct result of it, primarily due to shipwrecks, disease, and exposure. Some survivors eventually reached sanctuary in south Louisiana where they formed the basis for what would become the Cajuns.

In 1757 Lawrence was further promoted to the title of brigadier general and commanded the siege of the French fortress at Louisbourg on ÃŽle Royale (Cape Breton Island).

It was during his tenure, but not with his approval, that Nova Scotia had its first elected legislative assembly which met in 1758. This elected body is the oldest representative body in Canada. He is said to have died of pneumonia in 1760 after over-indulging in a local Halifax banquet.

Sources

• Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia (1987); Brasseaux, Scattered to the Wind (1991); Rushton, The Cajuns (1979).

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