The Town of Caraquet invites you to discover the key events of the “Louis Mailloux Affair,” a pivotal episode in our collective history. Occurring in the heart of downtown Caraquet, this nationally significant event embodies the courageous struggle of citizens to defend their fundamental rights. Through their commitment to education and justice, they left a powerful legacy that Downtown Caraquet is dedicated to passing on to future generations in tribute to their determination and vision.
On August 10, 1873, following High Mass, a meeting was held after the women and children had left the church. The citizens, expressing their opposition to the law on so-called non-denominational schools, decided to stop paying their school taxes, like other Acadian communities in New Brunswick.
During the skirmish of January 27, 1875, at the home of André Albert, where volunteer militiamen from Miramichi had come to arrest alleged rioters from Caraquet, Louis Mailloux was shot in the head. He was taken to Dominique Chenard’s store, where he was pronounced dead.
Located opposite André Albert’s home, this inn welcomed Sheriff Vail’s militiamen and constables on the morning of January 26, 1875. It was there, the next day, that they learned that some of the people they were looking for were at André Albert’s house.
On the afternoon of January 27, 1875, the volunteer militiamen, accompanied by Justice of the Peace James Blackhall, went to the home of André Albert. It was there that the tragedy occurred which resulted in the deaths of John Gifford, 22, of Newcastle (NB), and Louis Mailloux, 19, of Caraquet.
On the morning of January 15, 1875, men from Caraquet went to the home of Judge James Blackhall, who was also a school trustee, to demand the keys to the neighbouring school. They intimidated him to the point that he resigned. This action, and the events that followed, were interpreted by provincial authorities as the beginning of the “Caraquet School Riot.”
In September 1874, school trustees Blackhall, Rive, and Sewell hired a teacher, Catherine Dwyer, an Irish Catholic from Rexton, New Brunswick. This decision, made at a secret meeting, provoked growing indignation among the Acadians of Caraquet.
On January 15, 1875, after their visit to Blackhall, the group of men visited several Anglo-Protestant-owned businesses, including the Robins’, where they asked for money and rum. These visits contributed to exacerbating tensions between the Catholics and the Protestant minority in the village regarding the law on non-denominational schools.
Philip Rive, a merchant of Jersey origin and Protestant faith, founded his fishing business, in addition to a general store, in Caraquet in 1870. During the school riots of 1875, Philip Rive served as a school trustee, along with John Sewell and James Blackhall. The store, a building that still stands, was visited by those protesting the school law on January 15, 1875, from where they went to Robert Young’s house.
That same afternoon, January 15, 1875, the group went to the home of Robert Young, who was away at the time, to ask him to intercede with the authorities to abolish the law on non-denominational schools, which they considered detrimental to the flourishing of Catholics. This visit was interpreted as a threat, and a telegram was sent to Young warning him that the Catholic opposition was taking a dramatic and dangerous turn for the Anglo-Protestant minority.
