Jacques-Dit-Jacob BOURGEOIS
Biography

"When the English seized Acadia in 1654, four years after d'Aulnay's death, Robert Sedgwick, leader of the English expedition, held Jacques Bourgeois as "hostage" to insure that Doucet, in command at Port-Royal, would fulfill the terms of surrender. Cormier says that Jacques was repatriated to France along with other French officers and never returned to Acadia. It was Jacques's son, Jacques dit Jacob, not Jacques, père the soldier, who was the progenitor of the family in Acadia.

Jacques dit Jacob, born probably at Couperans-en-Brie, France, between 1618 and 1621, was a young surgeon recruited by Claude de Razilly, brother of Isaac, after the French re-established control of Acadia in 1630s. Bourgeois came to Acadia in 1641 aboard the St.-Francois and was one of the earliest settlers in the colony. He married Jeanne, daughter of Guillaume Trahan, at Port-Royal in c1643. She had come to Acadia even earlier than he did, in 1636 aboard the St.-Jehan, with her father, mother, and a sister. In February 1653, Jacques dit Jacob stood as a witness to the marriage of Governor Charles La Tour and former Governor Charles d'Aulnay's widow. When Jacques dit Jacob's father returned to France in 1654, Jacques dit Jacob, despite the English occupation of the colony, remained at Port-Royal with his wife and children and became a farmer and a shipbuilder. He also was a merchant, trading regularly with the New Englanders of Boston; he learned to speak English fluently and became the King's interpreter in dealings with the English. Jacques dit Jacob also became a successful fur trader among the Indians and ventured to every corner of the colony. In 1672, he sold a part of his holdings at Port-Royal and, with his two older sons and two of his sons-in-law, pioneered the major Acadian settlement on the isthmus of Chignecto, "the first swarming of the Acadians to establish their hive," as one historian describes it. He built a flour mill and a saw mill at Chignecto to encourage settlement on the wide salt marshes that were perfect for cattle raising. In 1676, part of Chignecto became the seigneury of Canadian-born French nobleman Michel LeNeuf de La Vallière, père, who named his 100-league holding Beaubassin. La Vallière brought in settlers and indentured employees from Canada, in direct competition with the earlier, adjacent Bourgeois settlement. According to Acadian tradition, a clause in La Vallière's land grant title "protected the interests of Jacques Bourgeois and the other Acadian settlers established on the domain," and "it was not long before the two elements of the population merged into one."

Jacques dit Jacob and Jeanne had 10 children. Six of their daughters married into the Cyr, Girouard, Boudrot, Mirande dit Tavare, Maisonnat dit Baptiste, Dugas, LeBlanc, and Comeau le jeune dit Des Loups-Marins families. A French census taker found Jacques dit Jacob living with one of his sons at Chignecto in 1698, but otherwise he spent his final days at Port-Royal. He died at Port-Royal in c1701, in his early 80s. All three of his sons created families of their own, but only two of them had sons."

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