Scott W. See. The History of Canada. Second Edition

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while his allies battled French forces in Europe. The plan, now

crystallized after more than one hundred years of struggle, was to

conquer New France.

The war went through two distinct phases. French successes at

staving off superior English and American forces, with the great

exception of losses in Acadia, marked the first. The second period,

defined by swift and definitive defeats of the three crucial centers of

French power in North America from 1758 to 1760 led to the

Conquest. In the conflict’s first phase, from 1754 to 1757, the British

failed in several attempts to take French positions. At the same time,

marauding bands of French Canadians and their Amerindian allies

operated as far south as the Carolina colonies. Under the capable

leadership of the Marquis de Montcalm, the French maintained a

superior military posture. While power struggles involving Mont-

calm, the Canadian-born governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, and a

corrupt intendant named François Bigot undermined their efforts, the

French enjoyed several military successes. These included taking Fort

Oswego on Lake Ontario, Fort William Henry in the upper Hudson

valley, and the defense of Fort Carillon (later renamed Ticonderoga)

below Lake Champlain. The sole important failure during the war’s

first phase was the capture of Fort Beauséjour, located at the head of

Chignecto Bay in Acadia, in June 1755 (see “A Military Perspective

During the Seven Years’ War” in the Documents section).

The Acadian Expulsion

One of the most profound tragedies of the final conflict for imperial

control of North America was the expulsion of most of the Acadian

population, an event known as le grand dérangement. The French

presence in Acadia, the region around the Bay of Fundy, was less

structured and of greater ethnic complexity than in New France.

Settled during the seventeenth century, Acadia developed a unique

society that included aspects of French, Scots, and Mi’kmaq cultures.

Acadians built dikes to reclaim salt marshes in an area with strong

tidal action. They produced wheat and livestock and spoke a

distinctive dialect. Although they were nominally affected by French

governance, they engaged in a fitful trading relationship with

60 The Acadian Expulsion

New England, especially Boston. Unfortunately, their location placed

them in a dangerous borderland in the repeated wars for continental

control.

After the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, when much of Acadia formally

fell under British control, the Acadians attempted to survive by main-

taining a neutral status. For decades the British were relatively

content to leave the Acadians alone. However, the establishment of

Halifax in 1749, which introduced a formidable British military

presence in Acadia as well as some settlers, and the beginning of yet

another war increased the pressures on the neutral Acadians. By the

early 1750s both the French and the English looked with a degree

of suspicion on the group. New Englanders, especially those from

Massachusetts, coveted the Bay of Fundy for its settlement and

economic potential.

The Seven Years’ War brought bad news to the region, including

the capture of the garrison at Beauséjour, with some Acadian defenders

in the fort, and a new English governor named Charles Lawrence.

A soldier, Lawrence pressured the Acadians to take a stronger oath

to support the British crown than the one they had typically agreed

to since the Treaty of Utrecht. This new oath clearly indicated an

allegiance to Britain and opened the distinct possibility of pressing

Acadians into military service. Despite the ominous tone of Lawrence’s

new administration, Acadian leaders had no reason to believe that this

phase of events would change the status quo that had been in place for

decades. They judged incorrectly. Administrators in Halifax decided

to remove the Acadian population in 1755.

During the deportation, mainly carried out by New England

recruits, about 7,000 Acadians were forcibly rooted out and placed on

ships. The initial plans for an orderly evacuation disintegrated as

extended families were divided. Compounding the ordeal, many ships

lacked adequate provisions. Farms and buildings were put to the torch

to force Acadians off the land. More Acadians were rounded up and

evacuated in subsequent years, but about 2,000 fled to the interior to

avoid deportation. Acadians were scattered to all the American

colonies, although many died on board ship because of insufficient

supplies and disease. While some American communities struggled to

incorporate the Acadians thrust into their midst, prejudice and glaring

religious and cultural differences undermined their efforts. In addition,

some migrated to Ile Royale and Ile Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island).

The Acadian Expulsion 61

Others resettled in New France. About 2,500 made their way to

Louisiana over time. Skilled in draining the marshland of the bayous,

they became the core of the state’s Cajun population. There are now

well over one million Acadian descendants in Louisiana.

After the war several thousand Acadians returned to their

homeland to relocate in the present-day Maritime Provinces,

particularly New Brunswick. Their distinctive culture and devotion

to Roman Catholicism continued and perhaps was strengthened by

their harrowing experiences. Generations of Acadians orally trans-

mitted the memories of the deportation. The American writer Henry

Wadsworth Longfellow, after hearing a version of the Acadian

diaspora, crafted a poem in the 1840s. Evangeline received

international attention; it also helped to kindle an interest in studying

the history of Acadia and in coming to grips with the impact of le

grand dérangement (see “The Acadian Experience” in the Documents

section).

The Conquest

The second phase of the Seven Years’ War, three bleak years for the

French, led to the collapse of New France. Pitt increasingly devoted

war materiel, men, and money to the enterprise. New France’s

shortcomings were progressively having an impact. A seemingly

endless series of wars and dwindling resources took a toll on French-

Canadian society, while a superior Royal Navy effectively blockaded

the colony. The British in 1758 captured Louisbourg, the thriving

French presence on Ile Royale, after a seven-week siege. The most

important target, Quebec City, loomed as both a symbolic and

strategic prize. Situated at the original site of an Amerindian

settlement, Quebec possessed formidable natural defenses thanks

largely to its towering heights. General James Wolfe, a young British

commander, laid siege to the city, pounding the town with his

artillery throughout the summer of 1759. In addition, he destroyed

homes and communities along the St. Lawrence. Seizing an

unexpected opportunity, he boldly maneuvered his men up a path

north of the walled city, a direction that Montcalm’s defenders did

not anticipate. This permitted Wolfe to position about 4,500 of his

62 The Conquest

men on the summit of the cliffs on fields known as the Plains of

Abraham. Without waiting for nearby reinforcements, Montcalm

met Wolfe in open battle in a European-style engagement on the

Plains with a roughly equal force on September 13, 1759. About

fifteen minutes of fierce battle sealed the fate of North America. Both

generals died—Wolfe on the field and Montcalm the next day—and

the city surrendered a few days later.

Despite the shocking loss of Quebec, the French did not

capitulate. Indeed, a large French force returned to lay siege to

Quebec in the spring of 1760, and a battle with even greater casualties

was fought and won by the French at Sainte-Foy. Yet the crucial

knockout blow came thanks to Pitt’s grand design. Reinforcement

ships that appeared when the ice let out of the St. Lawrence in the

spring flew the British flag, not the French. A superior navy and

attention to shipping more men and war materiel to North America

helped to write the script for the continent’ s future. Montreal’s

defenders surrendered in September 1760 to superior numbers of

British and American forces, providing an anticlimactic engagement

in the struggle to capture New France.

The Treaty of Paris in February 1763 ended the Seven Years’ War

and brought a swift end to New France. France essentially retreated

from the continent, retaining only the fishing stations of St. Pierre and

Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland. They remain French

possessions to this day. France also received fishing rights on

Newfoundland’s north shore and kept several sugar islands in the

Caribbean, including Guadeloupe and Martinique. Louisiana was

granted to the Spanish in a separate arrangement. In a compressed

series of moments, the British had their trophy: an immense territory

ranging from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic

seaboard to the Mississippi River system.

The Conquest’s Impact

The Conquest, a seminal event in Canadian history, is laden with

both pragmatic and symbolic meanings. On the practical side, the

Conquest led to a new form of administrative control for the former

New France. New British colonies were created out of New France

The Conquest’s Impact 63

and other North American possessions. Changes were forthcoming in

the control of the fur trade system. Perhaps most profound, the

governance of roughly 70,000 residents of New France presented a

formidable challenge for the new British masters. Canadiens were a

decidedly different population group. They spoke a foreign language,

practiced Roman Catholicism, and adhered to distinct cultural

traditions. Perhaps most problematic of all, they had been a fervent

enemy of the British and Americans for over a century.

The symbolic aspect of the Conquest holds equal importance in

understanding modern Canada. The Conquest, along with certain

memories of New France and its demise, infuses history and politics

to this day. The historical meaning of the Conquest varies sharply.

The debate centers on the fate of the various components of New

France—the habitants, elites, church, economy, and culture. Arguments

range from pessimistic voices that maintain the British crushed—

“decapitated” in the popular metaphor—New France’s thriving

bourgeoisie, to optimistic assertions that a more beneficial period

emerged following the British victory, albeit after a protracted struggle.

This more positive approach suggests that the relatively unenligh-

tened Canadiens were guided into a new era of self-governance and

economic diversity as a consequence of the painful Conquest.

Independent of these historical arguments, two points remain

central to an understanding of the French-Canadian experience and

the ways in which Canada’s political and social development has been

defined by the collapse of New France. The Conquest, as its name

suggests, represented the defeat of a people. Equally important, many

interpret the event as the utter abandonment of most of the French

Canadians—many of New France’s elite returned to France after the

war—to their fate in North America without significant concern. To

paraphrase a classic interpretation, the French imperial masters, after

being at a disadvantage at the end of the Seven Years’ War, chose to

retain possession of some Caribbean islands instead of their vast

northern holdings. Mindful of a flagging fur industry and limited

prospects for colonial development in New France, the French chose

“sugar over snow.” The twin dynamics, defeat and abandonment,

would be thoroughly woven into the social and political fabric of

French Canada. Because it spawned challenges for linguistic, religious,

cultural, and political survival, the Conquest shapes Quebec’s relation-

shipswithitsfellowprovincestothisday.Theemphasisonsurvival

64 The Conquest’s Impact

underscores a French Canadian ethos that is still alive and well, as

evidenced by the phrase on the Quebec license plate: Je me souviens.

I remember.

New France Becomes Quebec

The English, with their American allies, now had the prize that they

had pursued for decades. It had taken four large-scale wars and scores

of minor skirmishes to bring about the defeat of New France. What

awaited now was a solution to the complex problem, at least from

the British perspective, of administering its newly won possessions.

Moreover, in the immediate future loomed questions concerning the

colony’s governance and economy, the fate of the Roman Catholic

church, and the disposition of the inhabitants. Acadia’s population

had been deemed a manageable size for deportation, but removing

over 70,000 French Canadians was logistically and practically

impossible. The post-Conquest era until the mid-nineteenth century

would see a series of administrative experiments and a strengthening

resolve of both French Canadians and English-speaking Canadians to

exercise more control over their lives in the larger embrace of the

British Empire. In short, the two groups faced a thorny challenge to

find a means to cohabit peacefully and successfully in a common

administrative framework called British North America.

New France Becomes Quebec 65

Chapter 4

British North America

(1763–1850s)

Britain at the Helm

Momentous changes occurred for the peoples of British North

America from the post-Conquest period until the mid-nineteenth

century. At the same time, deep historical trends, defined by the

different cultures and religions of European-based groups and Native

peoples, continued to guide political, economic, and social develop-

ments. For the inhabitants of British North America, most of whom

were clustered along the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic coastline,

life continued to present challenges. The British experimented with

administering their conquered territories and an alien French-Canadian

population. Appointed governors and administrators often clashed

with popularly elected assemblies. Amerindians, who still vastly out-

numbered whites, lost control of much of their territory and resources.

Wars and violent upheavals continued to characterize colonial life.

The American Revolution (1775–1783) triggered an out-migration

of thousands of Loyalists, the Napoleonic conflicts provided a

context for the War of 1812, and in the 1830s a series of rebellions

broke out in two of the colonies. The definitions of two polit ical

entities in North America—one American and the other British

North American—were more sharply etched as the result of conflict

and diplomatic resolutions.

Britain at the Helm 67

A bush farm near Chatham, Upper Canada, probably painted in 1838.

Source: Library and Archives Canada / Philip John Bainbrigge Collection / C-011811

The century after the Conquest witnessed a reformulation of

existing colonial territory, sowed the seeds of Canadian political

union, intensified the impulse for northern and western expansion,

reinforced the exploitation of traditional staples, altered trading

patterns, introduced new technologies and manufactures, and brought

different immigrant groups to the colonies. On the eve of Confedera-

tion in the 1860s, British North America was inhabited by peoples with

distinctive cultures, languages, and religions. Somewhat paradoxically,

it had one foot firmly planted in the Old World of the British Empire

and the other placed in the New World of North America.

The Quebec Experiment

Remarkably, considering the long struggle to remove the French

imperial presence from North America, the British displayed some

ambivalence about administering the former New France. A bloody

struggle in 1763 with Native peoples led by Pontiac, chief of the

Ottawa, presented a sobering reminder of the limitations of British

control over the continent’s interior. The Royal Proclamation of that

same year, which created the colony of Quebec, also angered British

American settlers because it created a vast region for Amerindians

west of the Alleghenies. While the Proclamation promised popular

representation for Quebec, it provided the context for assimilation of

the Canadiens. Roman Catholics were prohibited from holding

offices, and lacking formal recognition, the Roman Catholic church

and the seigneurial system were left to wither.

Despite its intent, the Proclamation failed to achieve its goals on

both the Canadian and American levels. The offensive Proclamation

line added to a growing list of irritants that the American colonists

used as rationales for breaking away from British control. In Quebec,

the large number of anticipated anglophone settlers failed to materialize.

Even Sir Guy Carleton, the colony’s second governor, recognized the

essential fact of New France’s legacy: Quebec would forever remain the

home of the Canadiens.

Accepting the flaws in their original plan, the British responded

with a statute that led to dramatic consequences in both Canadian

and American history. The Quebec Act, passed in 1774, was an

adjustment in British policies in Quebec and a reaction to growing

The Quebec Experiment 69