“As for the Acadians, they endured dérangement of a different sort as well. The word also refers to mental agitation—the “madness” with which the God of the Old Testament cursed those He dispossessed in the first diaspora. Wrenched from home and separated from neighbors, spouses, and children, Acadians experienced psychological suffering to match their physical hardships. Their lot, declared a shattered exile dumped on Boston’s docks late in 1755, “was the hardest … since our Saviour was upon the earth.”