The name
Acadia, first spelled Arcadia, appeared in 1524, when the
Italian explorer Giovanni Verrazano, sailing for France, visited
the Atlantic coast of North America.
In April of
that year, he stopped at a place where he found the vegetation
so lush and beautiful that he called it Arcadie, which was a
region in ancient Greece that the poet Virgil immortalized
because of its beauty and because of the simplicity of its
people.
According to
Verrazano's report of his travels, his Arcadia "appeared to be
much more beautiful (than the other Newfoundland banks) and full
of very tall trees. We named it Archadia (sic) owing to the
beauty of the trees."
Various
studies have placed Verrazano's scenic site in different places.
Historian Samuel Eliot Morison flew along the Atlantic Coast
from Cape Fear River to Barnegat, New Jersey, "in search of a
hilly section with big trees." He wrote, "I have no hesitation
in locating Verrazano's Arcadia at Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina....Later mapmakers continually moved it eastward until
it became Acadia, the French name for Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, and part of Maine."
Jean Daigle,
editor of "The Acadians of the Maritimes," places Arcadie, as he
reports Verrazano's original spelling, "in the region of present
day Washington."
According
to Daigle, "The peninsula that Verrazano named Arcadie is today
called Delmarva because it covers parts of American states
(Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia). Not until the 17th century
do we find the word Arcadie applied to the areas further north
now known as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The letter "r" was
soon dropped and the name became Acadia."
Naomi
Griffiths, and some other historians say that the name has
nothing to do with Verrazano, that it comes from the Micmac
Indians who lived there. She says, "It was the French who first
sent an expedition to settle that part of America which would
produce the Acadians. They used the Indian name of the lands,
and spelt it on their maps in many different ways, such as "la
cadie" and LaCadye."
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