Canadiens-français

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 following the military defeat of French troups and Canadien militiamen formalized what was already true: the Canadiens no longer controlled their own lives. The British left them to their farms and trades, and in 1774 even allowed them to practise Catholicism, unprecedented in the British colonial empire. But they were not in charge. Those who had not gone back to Europe were now subjects of the British crown.

The current Québec motto "Je me souviens" is only the first of three lines that translate as "I remember that, born under the lily, I grow up under the rose," the lily meaning the Bourbon monarchy of France, and the rose meaning England. For my fourth and fifth great-grandparents, people born in Canada who died in British North America, the motto was literally true.

After the Conquest, there was no further migration from France. My Acadien ancestors had long since fled from the British to Canada. Now they were all together in the British colony of Quebec. Among those roughly 70,000 French-speaking settlers (and descendants of settlers) along the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal to Tadoussac and up the Saguenay Fiord were all the people I descend from. My particular forebears lived on Île-d'Orléans, across the river south of Québec, and in settlements downriver along the right bank.

Most of the men of the next several generations either farmed the land or did any of several trades: blacksmith, teamster, river navigator, fisherman, and more. The women continued as housekeepers, midwives, and healers. Most gave birth to many children. Some died giving birth to their last.

From the earliest agricultural settlement, farms had been arranged as they were in France: long, tracts straight back from the river. Unfortunately, with many sons in every generation, an allotment would have to be divided into narrower and narrower lots. Sons without land could hope to learn a trade or to enter the religious life. If they managed to get an education, they could practise law. That didn't happen in my family. Rural poverty in Québec was severe, and they were part of it.

In the late 1840s and 1850s, two sets of great-great-grandparents picked up and moved from the long-settled area south of the river between Québec and the US border, called the Beauce, to an area about 75 km southwest near Lac William in the Appalachian foothills. They left behind family and friends. That indicates, if not desperation, at least an inability to thrive where they and their parents and grandparents were born.

The 1861 Census of Canada list occupations. Six of my great-great-grandfathers were farmers. One of my great-great-grandfathers, who had lost his wife nine years before, was living with a relative, and the occupation of all the men in the house was "journalier," day labourer. Men with no land.

One more second great-grandfather died young, before the 1861 census. He is listed as a blacksmith on his marriage record. His father had been a navigator. When his sons came of age, they worked as day labourers, not farmers.

By the time of the 1871 census, some of my great-grandfathers and great-granduncles were old enough to work, but few of them were listed as "farmer." Most were listed as "journalier" or "voyageur." Since there was no longer a fur trade, I don't know what "voyageur" meant. Perhaps it meant someone who transported people or cargo by water, or perhaps someone who travelled to get work. Some sons of working age had no occupation listed at all.

By the 1880s, children of the second great-grandparents who had already migrated internally, my great-grandparents, left family behind yet again, crossed the border into New Hampshire, and settled in a mill town. By the 1890s, two other sets of great-grandparents had migrated from Kamouraska and the Beauce to one or another New Hampshire mill town. All sought a way to have steady work, make decent money, and allow their children to have a better life.

My paternal grandfather's mother died young, and his father did not migrate. Instead, in 1900, my grandfather, then 14 years old, left home and went to New Hampshire. He shows up in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census living with his older brother and other young men and boys. The French-Canadian head of house was also owner of a brickyard, and his workers lived in his house. For each of the men, the relation to head of house is listed as "servant" and occupation as "Labor, Brickyard." Fourteen years old, speaking only French. I can't even imagine.

My European ancestors settled the Saint Lawrence valley with great hope, were conquered, got poorer and poorer with less and less hope, and finally left Québec and Canada behind for life in the United States. People went back and forth across the border for a while, many hoping to return to Québec, but eventually families were sundered and the culture was disrupted.