10 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     The Founding of 
     
     the Evangeline Region 
     
    
   
   
    
     Acadian families moved to the Evangeline Region as a di- 
     
     rect result of the leasehold system of land tenure that the 
     
     British had established on the Island in 1767. Before they 
     
     moved, they had been farming for at least 30 years in Lots 16, 
     
     17 and 19 on the shores of Malpeque Bay. Over the years, 
     
     whether they liked it or not, they had respected the demands 
     
     of a series of different landlords. The most notorious of these 
     
     men was Colonel Harry Compton, who arrived from England 
     
     to take care of Lot 17, which he acquired in 1804. For a while, 
     
     it would appear that he and his Acadian tenants got along 
     
     well. However, relations deteriorated to the point where a 
     
     group of tenants decided to abandon their well-established 
     
     farms in the hope of finding a better life in Lot 15. It was 
     
     there that they founded La Roche (Egmont Bay) and Le Grand 
     
     Ruisseau (Mont-Carmel). 
     
    
   
   
    
     Most of the families who moved to this uninhabited part 
     
     of the Island became squatters. They knew that the proprie- 
     
     tor of Lot 15 was not taking care of his grant, so they hoped 
     
     that they would be able to acquire the land legally and thus 
     
     become landowners. Four Acadians did manage to buy 500 
     
     acres in Lot 15 at an auction in December 1813. But it was 
     
     only in 1828, several years after the Island government had 
     
     confiscated the proprietor’s lot, that about 60 Acadians suc- 
     
     ceeded in buying, at a relatively fair price, the land they were 
     
     occupying. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In 1852, the colonial government gave the Acadians the 
     
     opportunity to purchase land in Lot 15 at a reduced rate. By 
     
     doing this, the authorities sought to redress the wrong perpe- 
     
     trated on the Island Acadians by the British government, 
     
     which, after the Treaty of Paris, had not given them back the 
     
     land they were living on prior to the Deportation. To a cer- 
     
     tain degree, Lot 15 was thus reserved for Acadians. This ges- 
     
     ture by the local government in the 1850s partly explains 
     
     why Lot 15 today is the Acadian Township with the most 
     
     homogeneous population and where the French language is 
     
     the most vibrant. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Evangeline Region extends beyond the borders of Lot 
     
     15. As the land in the township filled up with people, the 
     
     children of the founding families, and other families who