Lt.-Col. John Winslow of Massachusetts was the officer in charge of rounding up and deporting the Acadians from Grand Pré. He arrived on 19 August 1755 with about 300 New England provincial soldiers. He gave no indication of what was to happen, but gave the impression he was there on a routine assignment. His first act was to establish a secure base of operations, because his force was greatly outnumbered by the 2100 Acadian men, women and children living in the Minas Basin area. For his stronghold, Winslow chose the area around the Grand Pré parish church, Saint-Charles-des-Mines. His soldiers erected a palisade around the priest’s house, the church, and the cemetery, and his troops pitched their tents within that enclosure (see Figure 2–32). So as not to upset the Acadians unnecessarily, Winslow informed community leaders they should remove the sacred objects from the church before it became a military base. By early August 1755, the parish priests of Saint-Charles-des-Mines, and of neighbouring parishes, had already been arrested and brought to Halifax to await their deportation to Europe.

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