Louis-Joseph Le Loutre A missionary to the Micmac Indians and
Vicar-General of Acadia under the Bishop of Quebec, b. in France
about 1690; d. there about 1770. He was a conspicuous figure in
Nova Scotia in the middle of the eighteenth centuary, and his
portrait as drawn by some writers lends colour to the charge
that history is often a conspiracy against truth. Anxious to
justify the memorable deportation of the Acadians in 1755,
partisan annalists and chroniclers of the period represent Le
Loutre as the evil genius and tyrant of the Acadians, the sworn
enemy of the English, and a pastor who threatened with
excommunication and with massacre by his Indians all who
favoured measures of reconciliation with the English Government.
Better accredited historians, however, such as Haliburton,
acknowledge that this picture of the abbé is more caricature
than portrait. The truth appears to be that Le Loutre was a
typical French missionary of forceful character and initiative,
with a natural desire, so long as the matte