Grand-Pré National Historic Site
| Grand-Pré National Historic Site | |
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Statue of Longfellow's Evangeline (by Louis-Philippe Hébert) and memorial church
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| Location | Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia |
| Coordinates | 45°06′34″N 64°18′37″W / 45.109444°N 64.310278°WCoordinates: 45°06′34″N 64°18′37″W / 45.109444°N 64.310278°W |
| Governing body | Parks Canada |
| Official name: Landscape of Grand Pré | |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | v, vi |
| Designated | 2012 (36th session) |
| Reference no. | 1404 |
| Country | Canada |
| Region | Europe and North America |
| Official name: Grand-Pré National Historic Site of Canada | |
| Designated | 1982 |
| Official name: Grand-Pré Rural Historic District National Historic Site of Canada | |
| Designated | 1995 |
| Type | Heritage Conservation District |
| Designated | 1999 |
| Reference no. | 29MNS0002 |
 Location of Grand-Pré National Historic Site in Nova Scotia
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Grand-Pré National Historic Site is a park set aside to commemorate the Grand-Pré area of Nova Scotia as a centre of Acadian settlement from 1682 to 1755, and the British deportation of the Acadians that happened during the French and Indian War. The original village of Grand Pré extended four kilometres along the ridge between present-day Wolfville and Hortonville. Grand-Pré is listed as a World Heritage Site and is the main component of two National Historic Sites of Canada.
Grand-Pré (French for great meadow) is located on the shore of the Minas Basin, an area of tidal marshland, first settled about 1680 by Pierre Melanson dit La Verdure, his wife Marguerite Mius d'Entremont and their five young children who came from nearby Port-Royal which was the first capital of the French settlement of Acadia (Acadie in French).
Pierre Melanson and the Acadians who joined him in Grand-Pré built dykes there to hold back the tides along the Minas Basin. They created rich pastures for their animals and fertile fields for their crops. Grand-Pré became the bread basket of Acadia, soon outgrew Port-Royal, and by the mid-18th century was the largest of the numerous Acadian communities around the Bay of Fundy and the coastline of Nova Scotia (Latin for "New Scotland").
During Queen Anne's War, the Raid on Grand Pré (1704) happened and Major Benjamin Church burned the entire village. After the war, in 1713, part of Acadia became Nova Scotia, and Port-Royal, now called Annapolis Royal, became its capital. Over the next 40 years the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to the British crown. Some were motivated not to sign for fear of losing their religion, some were afraid of repercussions from their native allies, some did not want to take up arms against the French and others were anti-British (see Military history of the Acadians).
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