Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1755

As best she could tell, the crime was planned many years prior. But for Jeanne, it began at an inn, in Halifax. 

There was nothing special about the Hemlock Tavern and Inn. The place was neither the finest, nor the humblest of its kind in the budding English town. It was not so respectable as the Great Pontack, but it was clean and the proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Fraser, served a tolerable dinner and ale in the taproom. More important to Jeanne and her father: the Frasers offered six rooms to let above the tavern and, while the owners spoke no French, they were not above accepting the custom of a Papist Frenchman.

Jeanne clattered down the inn’s narrow staircase, clutching her hat in one hand and her skirts in the other. In her rush for the door, she nearly toppled the garrulous Mr. Fraser. 

“Och, Miss LeJeune, where are ye goin in such a hurry? Ah, the governor’s meetin’, of course.” Predisposed to answer his own questions, the Scotsman was short and wiry, and rolled his head to one side as he gave Jeanne the benefit of his inspection. “Ye canna go out in this sun without a hat.” He called to his wife, “Mrs. Fraser! Come help the lass!” 

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With an exasperated bump of her bony hip, Mrs. Fraser pushed her husband aside and stood on her toes to secure Jeanne’s hat. Her husband watched approvingly. “It’s nae good for a leddy’s face to get brown. Already the color of weak tea, ye are!” With a teasing, guileless smile, he added, “We would nae want the gentlemen to think ye a savage.” 

At this, Mrs. Fraser gave her husband a sharp kick in the ankle and was rewarded with a grunt from her spouse. She followed with a quelling look, promising more violence if he continued speaking. 

Jeanne hadn’t the inclination or the patience to tell Mr. Fraser that the color of her skin had little to do with her aversion to hats and everything to do with the fact that her mother had been a “savage.”

“Non, we would not want that, M’sieur,” Jeanne answered with a too-polite smile and the careful pronunciation of her haitches. 

“There, Miss Jeanne,” Mrs. Fraser said, patting Jeanne warmly on the arm. The woman always made a point to pronounce Jeanne’s name in the proper way: Jann, with a soft J at the beginning and a hard N at the end. It was a small thing, but Jeanne liked the woman all the more for it. “That’s better now, is it no?” Mrs. Fraser said, admiring her handiwork. “It’s verra fetching on ye. Is it new? Your father went on ahead of ye, dearie. Tell’t me he would meet ye there. Ye’ll know the way to the courthouse?” Behind Mrs. Fraser, her husband eyed Jeanne with increasing interest.

Assuring the couple she knew her way, Jeanne pushed open the tavern door. But before it fully closed behind her, she heard Mrs. Fraser hiss, “Her mother’s a native, ye clot! A Micmac woman.”

“Like Snow Before Sun”

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Mr. Fraser could be forgiven for not realizing Jeanne was the daughter of a French merchant and a Mi’kmaq woman. He had arrived in Halifax only last year, Jeanne recalled, marrying the widow who owned the tavern mere months ago. To Mr. Fraser, Jeanne was merely the daughter of Martin LeJeune, a successful shipping merchant. That sort of woman carried ribbons or combs in the pockets of her skirt. 

Jeanne carried a knife in her pocket. And one in her boot. Despite her heritage, she looked little different from the French and English who had colonized the province. Jeanne and her brothers had their mother’s dark hair, generous height, and the sculpted cheekbones of the Mi’kmaq; but they had their father’s eyes. A Frenchman’s eyes: clear and green, set a little too far apart, and turned up at the ends like a cat. 

“You look like a proper French woman,” her father had observed that morning, seeing Jeanne in her new dress. Enjoying his breakfast, he sat at a small table in their rented rooms above the Hemlock’s taproom. He smiled as Jeanne finished pinning her hair and surveyed herself critically in the mirror.

“Oh? You mean the English won’t run in fear at the sight of me?” In the mirror’s reflection, she winked at her father and pointedly eyed her bow and quiver of arrows in the corner. “Then I’ve come all this way for nothing. Maybe I should wear my Mi’kmaq clothes instead. I could stand in the corner during your meeting and look fierce. Would it frighten the governor into agreement?”

A wry grin touched her father’s mouth. “I think not, cher.”

The meeting with the governor was the reason Jeanne and her father had come to Halifax, a two-day sail around the tip of the narrow peninsula from their home in Annapolis Royal.

 Jeanne turned on her heel and eyed her father critically. “What have you got on your coat, Papa? If I look like a proper French woman, then you must try to look like a proper Frenchman.” She tugged the offending article of clothing off Martin’s shoulders as he mumbled excuses. “We must make our ancestors proud today, non?”

These French ancestors had called the province Nouvelle-France. New France. When the English conquered it, they renamed the colony Nova Scotia – New Scotland. Jeanne’s mother’s people, the Mi’kmaq, called the land Akadie – a place of abundance. And Martin’s ancestors, the Frenchmen who first colonized the coast, became known as Acadians. 

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Jeanne took a brush to her father’s coat. “The governor won’t be impressed by a dirty coat. He’ll think all Acadians are backward and uncivilized.”

“He thinks that of us already, cher.” Martin waved the thought away and stood, gesturing impatiently for his coat. “Backward, uncivilized, and worse: spies for the French.” 

“You’re off already? The governor’s meeting isn’t until the afternoon.”

“I’m meeting with M’sieur Edward about a shipment of grain.” Martin pulled on his coat and tucked a fold of papers into an inside pocket.

Her father’s shipping business was the other reason they were in Halifax. The governor had summoned Martin and the other Acadian leaders to the new capital, but in his economical fashion, her father would see to some business during their visit.

“I’ll meet you at the courthouse later, then,” Jeanne said, kissing her father goodbye. “Give my regards to M’sieur Edward. Are you sure you don’t need my help?” Educated by the local priest in French, English and math, Jeanne acted as her father’s assistant, often attending his meetings and taking notes.

“No, no,” Martin answered, carefully avoiding her eye. “Finish your breakfast. I’ll manage without you.”

Jeanne watched him go, reflecting that her father would have better luck with the stuffy English grain merchant if she was not present.

At first, everything had gone well on their visit to Mr. Edward’s storehouse near the docks the afternoon before. Jeanne had been demure and quietly helpful. That is, until the contracts had been signed and a celebratory glass of sherry was served.

Mr. Edward was a friendly Englishman, a widower who had been forced to hire an Acadian nanny to care for his four children, there being a shortage of English females in the new settlement. Martin had recommended a young woman for this purpose and asked after the girl between sips. 

“Nanette is a good girl, in her way,” Mr. Edward said. He was a practical man, but feared for his children’s Protestant souls. “But I’m afraid of her Popish influence on the children—” He broke off, realizing his gaffe too late. “Pardon me, Mr. LeJeune. Of course, you must be Catholic as well.”

Martin merely tipped his head in acknowledgment of this fact and took a drink of his sherry. For her part, Jeanne had been raised with a strange mix of Catholicism and Mi’kmaq spirituality and therefore viewed the distinctions between the Christian religions as mere semantics.

“Whatever our differences,” Mr. Edward continued expansively, “I applaud the Jesuit missionaries in the province. It is God’s work to convert the savages to Christianity.”  

Martin choked a little on his sherry and shot Jeanne a look of warning. Ignoring this, Jeanne clenched her glass and said, “M’sieur, you call the native peoples savages — why is this? I thought the Christian way was to show kindness and tolerance, no?”

“My girl,” Mr. Edward said, kindly patronizing, “the native tribes are heathens. Before our people came across the ocean, they lived in ignorance and sin. Perhaps savage is not the kindest name,” he added with a grimace, “but it is the most accurate. For such a primitive people.”

Jeanne blinked. “Primitive?” 

“Forgive her, M’sieur Edward,” her father interjected, looking distinctly alarmed. “My wife was a Mi’kmaq woman, and Jeanne is very loyal to her memory, may she rest in peace.”

“Ah,” Mr. Edward said, studying Jeanne closely. “I understand.” He smiled and said, “No offense given, none taken, my girl. After all, you’re not primitive.” Turning to Martin, he added with a reassuring nod, “A little tall, but a beautiful young woman. Despite her birth.”

Martin accepted this with equanimity, but Jeanne sniffed and said, “Oh, your words do not offend me, M’sieur Edward. You see, my mother taught me a primitive Mi’kmaq wisdom about speech.” She bared her teeth in something like a smile. “The Mi’kmaq, they believe that words are a reflection of the speaker’s soul.”

Mr. Edward frowned. “Eh?”

“That is,” Jeanne said, tossing back the last of her sherry, “your words say nothing about me, and everything about you.”

Marianne Rabalais Sulser, the author of “Like Snow Before Sun,” is a Louisiana native transplanted to Colorado, but she still likes to laissez les bon temps rouler with her husband and three children. Her maternal ancestors were among the Acadians expelled from Nova Scotia in the 1750s, and she brings this overlooked history to life in her fiction. When she’s not writing, Sulser enjoys gardening and volunteering at Denver Botanic Gardens. Find out more about her at MarianneSulser.com.