His father Gabriel Godin, dit Chatillon, a naval officr, was the second lieutenant at Fort Saint-Joseph (Fort Nashwaak) in 1692. His father was a trader with the Wabanaki Confederacy. Joseph worked with his father and eventually became the King"s interpreter.
A British officer described Godin as having "a man of some consequence and had a commission as Major of Miliitia." His home was at Sainte-Anne-du-Pays-Bas (present-day Frederickton, New Brunswick). As an Acadian deputy, he represented the Acadians from Saint John to the Nova Scotia Council in 1736. In 1749, at the outbreak of Father Le Loutre’s War, Godin became the official leader of the Acadian militia on the Saint John River.
They rebuffed the efforts of both John Gorham (1748) and John Rous (1749) to establish control of Saint John River.
During the, in February 1759, Acadian militia leader Joseph Godin dit Bellefontaine and a group of Acadians ambushed the Rangers. Eventually Godin and his militia was overwhelmed by Hazen"s rangers.
Godin resisted Hazen"s efforts to get him to sign an oath of allegiance, even in the face of Hazen torturing and killing some of Godin"s family members in front of him. The rangers scalped six Acadians and took six prisoners during this raid.
Godin “by his speech and largess. had instigated and maintained the Indians in their hatred and war against the. English.” Godin was taken prisoner by the rangers and brought, after having been joined by his family, to Annapolis Royal.
From there he was taken to Boston, Halifax, and England.
Later he was sent to Cherbourg.
