Acadia

History
The name Acadia is traditionally attributed to the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, who in 1524 explored the continental region and gave it the name of the mythical Greek land of Arcadia, land of abundance.

The island of Terranova got his name in 1497, when the Venetian explorers Giovanni and Sebastiano Caboto discovered it. However, while Terranova got colonized already in 1536 by the French (who anyway took possession of the settlement of Cortréal, built by the Portuguese explorer Miguel Corte-Real in 1528 and resulting the most ancient settlement of North America) and in 1583 by the British, the first European settlers came to actual Nova Scotia only in 1604, guided by a French huguenot gentleman named Pierre Dugua de Mons and a French explorer named Samuel de Champlain, who took possession of the land in the name of the king of France. These first settlements (Port-Royal in 1605, Annapolis Royal in 1610) gave birth to the colony of New France. In 1624 the king of England James I assigned the land to Scottish settlers, against any legittimate right; when he died, his son Charles I made the same thing, encouraging British migration to that land named by his father Nova Scotia. In 1654 the French conquered the Mi’kmaq territory, occupied by the original indigenous population of the Mi’kmaq, and Nicholas Deny became the first governor of the detached colony of Acadia. In 1655 France founded Plaisance on the western coast of Avalon peninsula (on whose eastern side was situated Cortréal), making it the capital of the colony of Plaisance which covered the southern coast of Terranova, while the British kept colonizing the northern part of the island. During the War of the the Great Alliance (1688-1697) the English conquered Acadia, but had to give it back to France with the peace treaties. However, during the Spanish Succession War, England occupied Acadia and this time France was forced to cede both it and Plaisance with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, maintaining only the Île-Royale (later Cap Bréton) where soon the French built the fortress of Louisbourg in order to protect their traffics with Quebec. After the definitive conquest of Quebec, the English conquered Louisbourg and obtained also the Île-Royale, naming it Cape Breton and joining it with Nova Scotia (name which at that time designated the whole provinces of actual Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, except the St. Jean Island and the Magdalenes Isles, later Charlotte and Magdalene). Fearing revolts and insubordination during wars by the Acadians, in 1755 the English governor Monkton destroyed over 6000 Arcadian houses and expelled the inhabitants; this caused a terrible civil war named the Grand Dérangement between the Acadians refusing to leave their homeland and the British, which nearly caused another war between Great Britain and France and which ended in 1763 when with the Treaty of Paris the order of expulsion was retired.

Anyway though, the insatisfaction of the inhabitants of the colony, especially the local élites, against the British oppressors had risen to irreversible levels on both the Acadian and Terranovian side and many of the British settlers, especially the Scottish ones fled to Nova Scotia because of the English control over Scotland. When in 1773 the American rebels started their War of Independence with the Boston Tea Party, Nova Scotia followed along and the next year, 1774, an Acadian nobleman and shipowner of St. Andrew, Frederic d'Ornans, took contact with both the main representers of the separatist intellectual and economic élites of Nova Scotia and Terranova and the American delegates at the Congress of Philadelphia. In 1775 the heads of the first Council of Acadia and Terranova reunited in Fort Anne, where they promulgated the Regia Charta, the actual Acadian constitution, and proclaimed the independence of the Free Kingdom of Acadia and Terranova, with Frederic D'Ornans as king (whose charisma earned him the surname of “Enlightened King”). The Council reunited many exponents of different realities, such as the Acadian catholic bishop of St-Pierre Jacques Servette, the Scottish general Bartholomew Callaghan, the Terranovian admiral Mathieu Calabrais and even three women: Isabel Chapman, a British poetess and Enlightened intellectual, Véronique Fremont, a Swiss woman migrated from Geneva and rapidly become the richest banker of the colony, and Charlotte d'Ornans, noblewoman, cousin and wife of Frederic d'Ornans.

Thanks to the still uncontaminated and unexplored lands of continental Nova Scotia (actual New Brunswick), to five mercenary regiments hired in German Brunswick and to the great knowledge of the land by the indigenous tribes which stood alongside the Acadian rebels against the British accused to steal their lands, the war against the colonial government far in Halifax rapidly favored the rebels: in 1776 the Acadian forces put under siege the city of Amherst, and at the end of the year they were already at the gates of Truro. The colonial government in Halifax, which initially underestimated the gravity of the situation, after many revolts throughout the peninsula finally decided to demand some military reinforcements from the motherland, and by the summer of 1777 Great Britain sent enough men and equipment to rapidly push the rebels back to Amherst; on the 18th of February 1778, the Brunswicker mercenaries guided by their general Albrecht Von Karlstadt managed to stop the English advance at the gates of the city with the terrible Battle of Amherst, which caused enormous losses among the Brunswickers but stopped the British for the time sufficient to the French reinforcement to reach Acadia: on March the French broke the siege of Louisbourg by the English forces and Cap Bréton was finally freed. On April Plaisance was occupied, and on May both the Acadians and French took Yarmouth and pushed the British back to Truro and beyond. Finally, on the 25th of May 1778 the French fleet bombed Halifax while the Acadians entered the city whose gates had been opened by the people of the city after the last, decisive revolt: Halifax was ransacked and destroyed, and the English forces, requested on the American battlefields, had to abandon the land: the 3th of June 1778, the king of Great Britain recognized the independence of Arcadia and Terranova.

The new country organized itself on a federal and directorial structure, despite keeping the monarchic basis according to lady Chapman’s theories, for which any country needed a king and a dynasty in order to represent both the continuity of the country’s independence and the equilibrium of the political forces. Count Frederic d'Ornans and his wife Charlotte were crowned king and queen of the Kingdom of Arcadia and Terranova; the royal family obtained the place of main representative of the Royal Council, the executive branch of the government composed by the king, the queen and seven others Counselors. The Federal Parliament was created unicameral: a single chamber, or Great Chamber, which reunited fifteen representatives for each of the twenty-two provinces in which were divided the five states of Acadia: Nova Scotia (seven provinces), New Brunswick (named in honor to the soldiers died in Amherst to defend it; five provinces), Charlotte and Magdalene (St. Jean Island was renamed in honor to the queen in Charlotte Island; three provinces), and Terranova (seven provinces).

Although many exponents of both the government and the parliament proposed Moncton, which was in the right middle of the country and very close to the site of the Battle of Amherst, the capital city was settled in Fort Anne, renamed Fredericton in honor to the king: a city close enough to the border between Acadia and the newly constituted United States of America, situated on a river which led to the port of St. John; both situations would have allowed the government to rapidly flee to the USA or elsewhere in case of a feared new British invasion. The danger of a new war against Great Britain, now that the Independence War against the USA was over, became more incipient as the French Revolution exploded in France, meaning the complete loss of the historical and precious ally as such ally lost his interests in North American issues. In order to protect itself, Acadia applied to join the United States; being a monarchy though, the country was refused. However, thanks to their diplomacy and charisma, king Frederic and queen Charlotte convinced the first president George Washington to put Acadia under United States protectorate. In the first decades of XIX century, as Great Britain became involved in the Napoleonic wars, Acadia started his slow but constant economic growth alongside with north-western USA. Following the example of the Gran Duchy of Tuscany and the theories of Cesare Beccaria brought by lady Chapman, Acadia became the second state in the world to abolish death penalty in 1793; seven years later, Acadia abolished also slavery.

Between 1812 and 1815 the country got shaken by another war between the United States and Great Britain; during this war, Acadian ports were used by American ships as bases while they fought against British ships. Except for a few naval bombings in Grandhaven (the city founded on Halifax ruins), Yarmouth, Louisbourg, Plaisance and St-Pierre, the British didn’t touch Acadia, preferring to wait until the defeat of the Americans before annexing the small little kingdom: fatal error, because Acadia became a valid base for American troops and fleet, which from there managed to fight the British out of Marquette (at that time part of Massachusetts), to push them back to Canada and to keep New England’s coasts safe from British attacks.

At the end of the war however, tensions arose both in Acadia and Marquette; in the first one, the élite and the Great Chamber were upset by the fact that Acadia was actually treated as a “fourteenth state” by the Americans, and demanded more independence; in the second one, tensions arose between Massachusetts’ and Marquette’s élite, with this last one claiming secession from Boston. Another issue between both territories was the northern border between Acadia and Marquette; when in 1820 Marquette got his independence, this became a primary issue, since Marquette wanted to establish his borders once and for all; however, many French speaking peoples lived sparsely in Marquette and Acadia claimed his sovereignty over them, so at least at the beginning the discussion was avoided. In 1830 the rising population due to immigration from Europe (mainly Scotland and Ireland) and the rising demand for wood brought both countries to deal with this bone of contention; in 1838 the situation was so tense that both countries nearly came into a war; however, in 1842 with the treaty of Webster-Ashburton, the border was finally established.

In order to limitate the United States influence in their political affairs, both Acadia and Marquette became closer to each other; although this, Marquette maintained closer relation to the US anyway, wether Acadia preferred to remain more related to European powers.

An example is given by the 1860s: when Marquette became more involved in the American Civil War by sending volunteers and selling weapons to the Union states, Acadia preferred to sent troops in Italy alongside with France against Austria, in order to tie a stronger relation with France (his historical ally), relax the tense relations with Great Britain and even gain a new ally in Italy. The relations with this last country became even closer with the Third War of Independence in 1866; Acadian ships in fact helped the Italians against the Austrians in the Sea Battle of Lissa, helping them to win and to claim Venetia from the Austrian Empire. Thanks to this alliance, Acadia gained even more relevance to Europeans eyes, and tied up some important relations even with Prussia.

When in 1875 a terrible fire destroyed the city of Fremont (named after lady Fremont) on the Miramichi river, many Italian immigrants and investors rebuild it and repopulated it; with an act of gratitude, the Government and the Parliament recognized Italian as a co-official language in the city, allowing it to be taught in schools alongside with French and English. From then, the capital city of the Miramichi province became the only town in whole North America having Italian among its official languages and even an Italian name alongside with his native one, Fremonte Canadese, until 1902 when also Plaisance followed the same path due to his important Italian community (at the time 32% of the population was of Piedmontese origins) becoming also known as Piacenza in Terranova.

Thanks to his phil-european politics, Acadia attracted many European investors which helped his economy to grow; the industrial revolution started in the 1840s got impressively bulked up, thanks to his coal deposits which helped to develop the “industrial triangle” Fredericton-Moncton-St.John as well as the “naval axis” Louisbourg-Grandhaven-Yarmouth. Also Terranova knew a discrete industrial development, but only on the Avalon peninsula between Cortréal and Plaisance, the last one becoming leader in food processing, especially in the production of chocolate and the refinery of sugar coming from Carolina. At the first railway inaugurated in 1842 between Fredericton and the royal residence of Beausejour (named after Fort Beausejour, the residence occupied by the royal couple during the war of independence next to Moncton), soon the economic growth and many Swiss, french and Dutch investments added one of the most capillary railway net of whole North America (at that time); by the end of the XIX century, from St-Pierre and Edmundston (named after king Edmond d'Ornans, son of Frederic I and Charlotte) to the “industrial triangle”, and even down to the “naval axis” through Amherst and Truro, all the main cities of Acadia were connected among themselves. Also Plaisance and Cortréal got their railway connection, in 1859; to see other railroads in Terranova however, we must wait until 1889, when the Cortrèal-Corbray railway was finally inaugurated. Belle Époque brought a high urban development, and the cities of Acadia started to compete in architecture by building magnificent liberty buildings such as the Parliament House in Fredericton, the Royal Palace of St.Anne and the Summer Residence of Beausejour, the catholic cathedrals of Edmundston and St-Pierre, the Nova Scotia Capitol Hall in Grandhaven and many more buildings.

Despite all the strong relations with Europe however, the I World War failed to directly engage Acadia: while Marquette sent a corp of 6’000 soldiers alongside with the US, Acadia preferred to keep his commerces going by selling ships and other goods to both the central empires and the Entente. Anyway in 1919 the kingdom joined the Legacy of Nations, seeing it as a way to finally get rid of the constant fear of being suddenly invaded by that Great Britain with which Acadia was struggling to create friendly relations. The explosion of the Great Depression during the ‘20s caused a consistent amount of difficulties to Acadian economy. This caused a big and creepy wave of fascist tendencies to spread all over the country, bringing the government to worsen even more the yet strict barriers against immigration; the king, with the approval of the Parliament and the Government, signed the Wardship Act, an act which discriminated the immigrants coming from Marquette, Canada or Corraile by the race and the amount of money possessed. The Wardship Act allowed Acadia to successfully allocate his slight surplus of workforce by encouraging the creation of new enterprises (since only those with enough money to start an enterprise were accepted in the country) and by eliminating the probable concurrence brought by immigrants looking for jobs, but also stopped the population growth and caused the labour wages to rise. The II World War as well didn’t see much of an engagement by Acadia: the king’s and Government’s positions were strongly alongside the Axis powers, but since the whole kingdom was too small and weak and completely surrounded by countries favorable to the Allied Forces, Arcadia kept his neutrality. After the war, in 1946 Acadia joined the United Nations; during the Cold War the country was aligned with the NATO although it became part of it only in 1969; in 1974 the Wardship Act was abolished, but it still remained very difficult for immigrants to obtain the Acadian citizenship. In 1996, after severe tensions between catholics and protestants, following the example of Denmark (1989) the Civil Unions were legalized; in 2004 finally also homosexual marriage is legalized, alongside with adoption by same sex couples.

Languages
The languages ​​spoken in Acadia are four, that is, in order by number of maternal locals: English, French, Italian and Gaelic. The first three languages ​​are defined as "national and official" at federal level. Since 1938 the Gaelic is also a "national language" and since 1999 it is also the official language "in relations with the people of Gaelic-speakers.” That is, every official document published in Acadia must be available in English, French and Italian, while providing a Gaelic version only on request.

The organization of the school system is left to the individual provinces, so in each province the teaching is given in the official language or official languages ​​of the province, while the study of at least one of the three national languages ​​is compulsory. Almost all school programs also include teaching as a foreign language of Spanish. Every Acadian citizen has the right to be able to address the national institutions in one of the three official languages ​​and receive an answer in that language. This also applies to the Gaelic. However, this multilingualism does not apply to provinces and municipalities, where each territory decides independently on local language issues.

The linguistic breakdown is as follows: English 72,5%, French 21,0%, Italian 4,3%, Gaelic 0,6%, others 1,6%.

Religion
At federal level, Acadia has never had a state religion. Freedom of worship is guaranteed by Article 7 of the Regia Charta since 1775.

The Acadian religious landscape is quite varied: the most practiced religion is the Catholic one that collects, however, less than half of the believers 38%. To the Reformed Evangelical Church adheres 29% of the population. Islam is the third religion by number of believers: 4% of the population. Orthodox Christians as a whole (Serbian Orthodox Church, Greek Orthodox Church, Macedonian Orthodox Church and Russian Orthodox Church) account for 1.9% of the population. The Jewish community is concentrated today especially in the cities where it is organized in the community: it represents 0.25% of the population. According to the Royal Statistical Office, 20.6% of the Acadian population does not adhere to any religion, and 1.23% do not give any indication.