The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early QuebecIn the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries French settlers radically transformed the landscape of the St Lawrence river, creating strong local communities that became the crucibles of a New World nationalism. Drawing on the insights and methods of cultural history, Colin Coates examines the seigneuries of Batiscan and Sainte-Anne de la Pérade, recreating the social relations between individuals and ethnic groups that inhabited the area. He shows that successive waves of immigrants sought to appropriate the landscape of the New World and replace it with a physical and cultural reality much closer to their European roots and traditions. French settlers distanced the indigenous people and flora and fauna to create a landscape that by the mid-eighteenth century had become recognisably European. British industrialists and landowners attempted similar appropriations with far less durable results and the area remained a heartland of French-Canadian life, with a sense of cohesive community. This community spirit, rooted in agrarian landscape, was channelled into the developing sense of colonial nationalism of the 1820s and 1830s. Drawing on maps by explorers and surveyors, correspondence documenting the conflict between a backwoods priest and his parishioners, a gentlewoman's sketchbook, and the documents of a bitter court case between a seigneur's wife and a local priest, Coates illuminates the development of the region and the social, cultural, and economic ties and tensions within it, providing insights into the often hidden values of a rural community. Colin M. Coates is director of the Centre of Canadian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. |
Contents
Aboriginal Landscapes | 6 |
Seigneurial Landscapes | 13 |
Habitant Landscapes | 32 |
Ties of Blood and Marriage | 55 |
Lines of Authority | 75 |
Lines of Community | 100 |
An Industrial Landscape | 125 |
A Picturesque Landscape | 155 |
Other editions - View all
Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec Colin MacMillan Coates Limited preview - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
aboriginal agent agricultural Amerindians ANQ-M ANQ-Q Aubry avril Badeaux Batiscan and Sainte-Anne Batiscan Iron Batiscan seigneury Benjamin Joseph Frobisher bishop Canadian census Champlain Charles-Louis church claimed Coffin concessions CPJN crops curé décembre disputes Dizy Dorvilliers Duclos E.F. Hale early nineteenth century economic Église elite Elizabeth Hale European France François French regime godparents Gouin Greffe habi Hale to Lord hemp Ibid ironworks Jacques janvier Jesuit estates Jesuits John Craigie John Hale juillet Lanaudière land landscape Lefebvre livres Lord Amherst Lower Canada Madeleine de Verchères mars merchants militia captains minots NA-Hale Nonetheless Nouvelle-France octobre parish parishioners Paroisses Pérade Pierre population priest production Quebec Registres des lettres river Rivière Batiscan Saint Saint-François-Xavier Saint-Stanislas Sainte-Anne and Batiscan Sainte-Anne rivers Sainte-Geneviève seig seigneur of Sainte-Anne seigneurial court septembre settlement social St Lawrence valley Thomas Coffin timber tion tithe trees Trois-Rivières Trottier UT-Hale Verchères's Voyer wheat
References to this book
Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe and the World, 1648-1789 Raymond Birn No preview available - 2005 |