Michel Richard was born about 1630, according to the Acadian census. We know he was born in France, because the first French settlers had not arrived in Acadia by 1630.

What we don’t know is where, or the identity of his parents.

Bona Arsenault, in his 1978 edition of HISTOIRE ET GENEALOGIE DES ACADIENS; 1625-1810, quoted on WikiTree and by Karen Theriot Reader, states that:

Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, born in 1639, originally from the Saintonge [an old province in the west part of France, now largely Charente-Inferieure. Its capital was Saintes]. Michel arrived in Acadia with the expedition of Emmanuel Le Borgne and de Guilbault in 1652 or 1651; he was with sieur de Saint-Mas, representative of Le Borgne. (Footnote cites Bona Arsenault’s own Histoire des Acadiens; and Louis Richard, in the Memoires de la Société Généalogique Canadienne-Francoise, vol. VI, no 1 (Jan 1954).)

Unfortunately, no sources were provided, and we know that the 1639 birth year is incorrect. No evidence has surfaced to confirm this location information, so for now, it remains unproven. As more parish records are transcribed and translated, Michel’s family information may come to light, although Richard is not an uncommon surname in France.

Sansoucy

Michel’s dit name or nickname is interesting. Sansoucy, means carefree, or without cares. It does not seem to be a place name, so it would either be a military nickname or indicative of Michel’s personality.

I like to think of him in this light!

A Brother by the Same Name

Michel probably had a younger brother, by the same name, who also settled in Port Royal, marrying Francoise Boudrot about 1663, and having two children with her before passing away, probably about 1667. Francoise remarried to Etienne Robichaud about 1668.

Francoise’s two children by Richard, Madeleine Richard Robichaud, born about 1664, and Charles Richard dit Cadet Robichaud, born about 1667, were known by the surname of their step-father, Etienne Robichaud. However, Charles used the dit name of “Cadet” signifying “the younger” and Y-DNA testing of several descendants has confirmed that indeed, he is genetically descended from the Richard line, not the Robichaud line.

These Big Y-700 tests from the French Heritage DNA Project show that the Richard and Robichaud men from these genealogy lines descend from the same genetic lineage. The common haplogroup, R-FT137222, formed about 1637, with a range that extends in both directions.

Cadet would indicate that both Richard brothers had the same name – a situation not unheard of and found in other Acadian families too, especially if they are half-siblings. We find this same situation occurring in “our” Michel Richard “dit Sansoucy” line, with two sons being named Alexandre. The older Alexander Richard was born about 1668 to Madeleine (Madelaine) Blanchard, and the younger Alexandre Richard was born about 1686 to second wife, Jeanne Babin.

I think the phrase, “It’s complicated,” could sum up the Richard family.

Port Royal

In the 1671 census, Michel is enumerated with Abraham Dugas on one side, and Charles Melanson on the other. Those two men lived directly across the river from each other.

Here, I’m standing on or near the Melanson land, looking across the Riviere du Port Royal at the Dugas land, at left, which is just west of the fort.

Michel Richard was listed as a 41-year-old laborer, or ploughman, wife Madeleine Blanchard, 28, along with seven children, Rene, 14, Pierre, 10, Catherine, 8, Martin, 6, Alexandre, 3, and twins, Anne and Magdeleine, 5 weeks. They have 15 cattle, 14 sheep, and are farming 14 arpents of land.

Twins, especially twins who both lived, are rare.

The census suggests Michel’s birth in 1630, Madeleine’s in 1643, and their marriage about 1656, so after the initial fall of Acadia in 1654.

Taken together, this tells us that Michel Richard was in Acadia prior to the fall and would have been a witness to and participant in those events.

The 1654 Fall of Acadia

In 1654, Michel would have been about 24 years old. He probably arrived in Acadia as a laborer, craftsman, or perhaps even a soldier. If he arrived with his parents or other family members, other than “Cadet” Richard, there was no trace of them by 1671.

Tensions had been escalating in the North Atlantic between the French, English, and Dutch colonies as extensions of their home countries.

In the summer of 1654, Oliver Cromwell in England was outfitting the English colonists in Boston with ships and soldiers to attack the Dutch in New Netherlands, today’s New York.

By the time they were prepared to attack, Major Robert Sedgwick was informed that the war had been settled, and peace was at hand. The trouble was that Sedgwick was prepared for battle, and had been authorized to take other territories belonging to the French after attacking New Netherlands, if time permitted. Given that he could no longer attack New Netherlands, that’s all the encouragement he needed.

He set out to capture all three Acadian forts: Saint John, Port Royal (now Annapolis Royal, NS), and Pentagouet (now Castine, Maine).

On July 14^th, after Fort Saint John surrendered, Sedgwick crossed the Baie Française, now the Bay of Fundy, and attacked Port Royal, which was under the control of Emmanuel Le Borgne. Le Borgne had been at Saint John the day before attacking rival Charles La Tour when Sedgwick arrived there. Le Borgne quickly retreated to Port Royal, which gave him a day to prepare for Sedgwick’s arrival. It wasn’t much time, but better than nothing.

Le Borgne’s men lay in wait and ambushed Sedgwick, killing one and wounding six more. The more experienced professional English soldiers quickly returned fire, ambushed the ambushers, giving them no time to reload, and killed five men. We don’t know if those five men were French soldiers or Acadians.

The French soldiers and Acadians retreated into the fort, where the English laid siege to Port Royal. Knowing that the combined forces of about 200 men in Port Royal stood no chance against the 750 English and colonial soldiers, they surrendered on August 8^th.

Le Borgne obtained generous surrender terms, meaning that the Acadians were to remain unharmed, keep their homes and belongings, be allowed to continue to worshiping as Catholics, and the French soldiers were to be transported back to France. Nevertheless, the English captured 113 men, more than 23 cannons, 500 weapons, and more than 50 barrels of gunpowder. In violation of the agreement, the Sedgwick had the Acadians’ livestock slaughtered.

It’s unclear whether all 113 captives were French soldiers, or a mixture of soldiers and Acadians. It’s unlikely that Michel was a French soldier, or he would have been sent back to France at this time, so he must have arrived in a different capacity.

Le Borgne’s own ship had been captured too, laden with a valuable cargo of alcohol. The surrender terms allowed him to keep the ship, AND his alcohol. He, as a French administrator, returned to France, but his sons were allowed to remain in Acadian, and he was allowed to keep his property. These suspiciously generous terms for Le Borgne personally fueled accusations of treason. The fact that Le Borgne had somehow escaped on July 13^th from Saint John when the English were attacking, instead of fighting to defend Fort Saint John, furthered those accusations.

Regardless, Acadia was now under English control and would remain so until it was returned to the French in 1667 under the Treaty of Ryswick. In 1670, the transfer was completed, and was followed by the 1671 Acadian census, which provides us with a glimpse of what happened in Acadia between 1654 and 1670.

The next census in Acadia took place seven years later, in 1678.

The 1678 Census

The 1678 census was much less specific than the earlier one. We have the name of the head of household, the wife, the number of children by sex, and how much livestock they owned.

Michel Richard’s neighbors, in order, are shown as:

• Jean Labat and Renee Gautrot – Labat was a military engineer who was sent to oversee the reconstruction of the fort. He lived in Port Royal, on the waterfront.
• Rene Landry and Perrine Bourg
• E(tienne) Pellerin and Jeanne Savoye – the Pellerin family lived in Port Royal and eventually owned Hogg Island.
• Francois Brossard and Catherine Richard – Michel Richard’s newly married daughter.
• Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard (their names only)
• Germain Doucet and Marie Landry – lived in Port Royal
• Michel Richard (no wife’s name, but the balance of his family and livestock are listed). Four boys, five girls, living on 10 arpents of land with 21 cattle.
• Michael Boudrot at the brook – Michael Boudrot was the neighbor of Abraham Dugas.

This strongly suggests that the couple lived in Port Royal, and not yet upriver.

Additionally, there’s a very interesting note that indicates that Michel had three separate plots of land:

• Sans Soucy, 29, 1 arpent of high land, bordering at one end of the river, part the other end on the North wood on one side Anthoine Hebert, Denis Godet.
• 6 arpents at Port Royal, Lyon Rampat? Bordering on Germain then on the meadow and the petite Riviere then on Renee Landry
• 3 arpents at gros Cap on Claude Terriot, Barnabe Martin at the road then at the river, 260 frontage

What types of information can we extract from this?

• Michel’s age is not 29, which would place his birth in 1649, an impossibility given his first child’s birth in 1657. He would have been 48 or maybe 49, not 29. Perhaps this was misread or misrecorded.
• Anthoine Hebert lives upriver beside Daniel LeBlanc at BelleIsle and so does the Godet (Gaudet) family, on the North side of the river.
• Gros cap, “large cape,” may be the town of Port Royal itself, or the point of land where it sits, given that the Chemin du Cap is the road leading to the south out of Port Royal.
• Renee Landry lives beside Jean Labat in Port Royal.
• Germain Doucet lives on the other side of Michel Richard in the 1678 census in Port Royal.
• We know, based on Nicole Barrieau’s thesis, that Michel Richard’s land was not among that expropriated in 1705 in Port Royal when the new fort was built, so his land was either further east along the waterfront, on the south side of the main road, along the Cape Path, or had already been settled in another way by 1705.

In 1671 and through 1678, based on the neighbors in the census, and the 1678 census notes, we can determine that Michel lived someplace along the waterfront in Port Royal for most of his life. This makes sense, given that we know that he was in Acadia before it fell in 1654.

Acadians in Gray, authored by Steven Cormier, states, in part, that:

First came Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, a young soldier born in the Saintonge region of France in c1630. He appeared at Port-Royal in the early 1650s in the entourage of Emmanuel Le Borgne. When his term of service ended, he remained in the colony, took up farming, obtained two grants of land from Le Borgne “at some ten to fifteen miles from the fort” on the upper Rivière au Dauphin, now the Annapolis River.

I very much wish Mr. Cormier had provided sources for this information.

Researcher Paul LeBlanc, prior to his death, believed that Michel’s dit name was derived from the location of Saintonge, although a male from Saintonge would be known as a “Saintongese.”

One of the pieces of land referenced by Cormier may be the land where Michel Richard’s son, the younger Alexandre Richard, eventually lived, near Bridgetown. Alexandre married Marie Levron about 1711, whose parents lived directly across the River from Port Royal.

Port Royal in 1686

What was Port Royal like in 1686?

We are fortunate that Labat drew a map in 1686 to encourage investment and settlement in Port Royal.

The church and cemetery are shown in this drawing.

The church is shown with the number #2, and above the church, the cemetery is annotated with #4.

The fort where Michel Richard would have served, assuming he did arrive as a soldier with Le Bourg, is shown in ruins, labeled #3, on the water, by the boats.

If Michel lived upriver in 1686, instead of in Port Royal, they lived in the BelleIsle area where 1500 arpents of prime marshland was awarded by a succession of stakeholders over the years.

Madeleine Blanchard Dies

Based on the 1686 census, Madeleine Blanchard died between 1678 and 1683 when Michel Richard remarried to Jeanne Babin. Jeanne was 15 at the time, so born about 1667, and Michel was 52.

In 1667, Michel had 10 living children, ranging in age from 20 down to 3. He needed a wife, even if his new wife was younger than his four eldest children.

In the 1686 census, we find Michel Richard, age 56, Jeanne Babin, 18, with children: Martin, 19, Alexandre, 17, Marie, 12, Cecile, 10, Marguerite, 7, and Michel, 2. Five other children are married. Marguerite was the last child born to Madeleine Blanchard, and Michel, age 2, is Michel’s first child with Jeanne Babin.

In addition to the blended family, they have two guns, 16 cattle, 30 sheep, and eight hogs on 12 arpents of land.

Based on the neighbors, it appears that Michel is probably living upriver by 1686, but that’s anything but certain. The census taker may not have been recording in the order that people lived. He may also have been paddling back and forth across the river.

The 1693 Census

By the 1693 census, Jeanne Babin has remarried to Laurent Doucet, and they have a three-year-old child, suggesting that they married about 1689.

We know that Michel Richard and Jeanne’s second child, Alexandre Richard, was born about 1686, which places Michel’s death sometime between 1686 and 1689.

Michel’s Funeral

Michel died before the Catholic church, which stood beside the fort in Port Royal, was burned in 1690 during another attack by the English.

His funeral would have been held in the church with the priest saying mass. His coffin would have been carried outside, where he was laid to rest in the cemetery in the churchyard, surrounded by his family and fellow Acadians.

Lost beneath the ramparts of the reconstructed fort today, when Michel was buried, a simple little church and adjacent cemetery behind the ramparts served the Acadian population and the French soldiers, all of whom were Catholic.

Michel was laid to rest within view of the garrison where he may have served, and assuredly defended in 1654. All that’s left of his grave today is mist and memories.

Belle-Ile-en-Mer

After the Expulsion of the Acadians in 1755, a decade later, in 1765, a group of 78 refugee Acadian families made their way to the French Island of Belle-Île-en-Mer where each family gave depositions about the origins of their ancestors.

The French were trying to determine how to help settle the refugees and whether they were actually French descendants. Clearly, they were. The French King settled the Acadian families in four regions on the island, providing them with housing and livestock.

The resulting depositions provide a plethora of information about the earliest Acadian ancestors. Of course, a few generations removed, not everything was perfectly accurate.

According to Stephen A. White, Genealogist,Centre d’études acadiennes January 17, 2005:

In four separate depositions, Michel Richard is mentioned by his Sansoucy dit name. He married Madeleine Blanchard at Port Royal, according to Pierre Doucet, the husband of Michel’s great-granddaughter Marie-Blanche Richard. (Doc. inéd., Vol. III, pp. 53-54).

Pierre mistakenly called his wife’s great-grandmother Anne, instead of Madeleine, but the 1671 census shows her true given name (see DGFA-1, pp. 1373-1374).

Three other depositions confirm the French origin of Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, although two of these attribute the given names of René to him and Marie to his wife, one from his great-grandson Pierre Richard (Doc. inéd., Vol. II, p. 191) and the other from Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, on behalf of his son Joseph, whose wife Angélique Daigre was another great-grandchild of the ancestor (ibid., p. 178).

The last deposition, from Pierre Trahan, whose father-in-law’s first wife was Michel Richard’s daughter, provides no given name for the ancestor and does not mention his spouse at all (ibid., Vol. III, p. 111).

Michel Richard’s Land in Acadia

Alexander Richard, the youngest son of Michel Richard, lived on land upriver, near present-day Bridgetown in 1710, according to the Labat map. This is probably the land granted to his father, Michel, assuming that Steven Cormier is right about Michel being granted land about 15 miles, or so, upriver. It fits that description exactly.

Michel Richard had two sons named Alexandre, the older one by Madeleine Blanchard, and the younger one by Jeanne Babin.

For a long time, I mistakenly assumed that the Alexandre Richard who lived on this land was Michel’s eldest son, Alexandre (c1668-1709), not his youngest, born about 1686. His eldest died in 1709, so it clearly cannot be him living on that land in 1710.

On this reconstructed Acadian map from MapAnnapolis, Alexandre Richard is shown living near present-day Bridgetown. The Gaudet, Petitpas, and Bastarche familes also owned land nearby, settling near Bridgetown and intermarrying.

There’s another possibility to be considered, too.

Based on the 1671 census location of Antoine Babin, this could have been his land before his grandson, the younger Alexandre Richard, farmed it. Antoine died about 1687, leaving 11 children. It’s a stretch to think that his middle daughter, Jeanne, inherited his land, then passed it to her son nearly a quarter century later.

The proximity of the Richard and Babin land to each other is probably more a function of the fact that Michel Richard and Antoine Babin were both granted land, probably by Le Borgne, anout the same time, and may have selected it together. After all, Michel Richard married Antoine’s daughter not long before both men died. Antoine and Michel were about the same age.

Alexandre Richard would have inherited the land from someone. His mother, Jeanne Babin, would have held it after Michel’s death. Her older son, Michel Richard Jr., settled in Beaubassin, so it makes perfect sense for this land to descend to Jeanne Babin, then on to Alexandre, her other son by Michel Richard Sr.. Michel Sr. and Jeanne Babin only had two children.

Perhaps Alexandre’s father, Michel Richard Sr., died before he was able to develop the land, but he was trying to leave something to one of his sons. Maybe specifically the youngest son, whom he knew he would never be able to raise. Michel was 56 when Alexandre was born. For all we know, Michel may have been ill and it’s possible that he died even before Alexandre’s birth.

Of course, the land needed to be dyked and drained for at least three years before it could be farmed, but that could wait until Alexandre was old enough.

I like to think of Michel walking here, selecting the land, imagining his grandchildren playing in the sunshine decades in the future.

This map may be slightly skewed. I used the 1710 original map and landmarks to attempt to locate Alexander’s property more precisely in preparation for a 2024 visit, so let’s see what we have.

Of course, it doesn’t help that some of the geography has been changed in the intervening three centuries. Roads have been laid, rivers have flooded, changing their courses, and, of course, those original maps weren’t 100% accurate.

It was easy to match up both the east bend in the river and the Bridgetown bend, although the Bridgetown bend has changed a bit. I should probably have turned one of these maps upsidedown.

Alexander Richard’s property was probably someplace near or between the two red stars.

Unfortunately, the view from the Harvest Highway and also from 201 is very obscured by trees.

Perhaps the best view of both sides is from the bridge itself.

This is looking south, but keeping in mind that the Acadians specialized in farming reclaimed marshland. The view looking north probably overlooks Alexandre’s fields.

You can see the river running beneath the bridge on the highway, where that first car is located, just before the sign. The fields between this bridge and the river would have been Alexandre’s.

Alexandre, and possibly Michel before him, would have worked these fields, as seen from the bridge over the Annapolis River.

The fields visible on both the left and right sides of the bridge, on the south side of the river, would probably have been his.

The location of the house and barn today, above the fields, is probably near the same place as it was then.

On the northeast side of the intersection of 101 and 201, there’s a small dirt road that serves one farm and also provides utility road access.

I drove up this road until I reached a fence with a warning sign, and the road began to deteriorate substantially.

This well-manicured field is still farmed.

I can see Alexandre tending the crops and farm animals, remembering his father fondly.

The father he never knew, who died when he was just a toddler.

The father who provided for him, even from the other side of death.

I returned to Highway 201, the road along the south side of the river, and turned towards the east bend.

Based on the river bends and the distance between easily identified landmarks, the Richard land may have been as far east as the red arrow.

These fields are hundreds of years old – drained by Alexander Richard and his neighbors and possibly begun by Michel.

Acadian men worked together on these tasks. Everyone helped everyone.

This model shows Acadian farmland. It takes at least three years after a salt marsh is dyked for the salt to wash out so it can be cultivated, and the dykes must be maintained to keep the fields salt-free.

Notice the stream, which is one of the cornerstone anchor landmarks I used to align this Google map with the 1710 map when searching for Alexandre’s land.

Michel Richard’s Legacy

I drove by, looking towards the river over the reclaimed marshland, thinking about Michel.

Did he ever dream that his descendant would return to find him, some three and a half centuries later? WikiTree, which doesn’t include all of his descendants, shows nearly 200,000. That’s ten times the size of the entire county where Annapolis Royal is located today, half the size of the Halifax, Nova Scotia, metropolitan region and one quarter of the population of all of Nova Scotia. That’s incredible for a humble Acadian farmer.

Everyone wants to leave a legacy. Sansoucy, carefree, is what pops into my mind when I soak in this sun-drenched summertime landscape, picturing Michel walking here.

Indeed, perhaps Michel Richard’s legacy of land enabled his son, Alexandre, to be Sansoucy too.

Perhaps a little of his Sansoucy has been passed down to all of us.

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