The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec
In 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.
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Ties of Blood and Marriage
Lines of Authority
Lines of Community
An Industrial Landscape
A Picturesque Landscape
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 decembre disputes Dizy Dorvilliers Duclos E.F. Hale early nineteenth century economic Eglise elite Elizabeth Hale European France Francois French regime godparents Gouin Greffe habi Hale to Lord hemp Ibid ironworks Jacques janvier Jesuit estates Jesuits John Craigie John Hale juillet Lanaudiere land landscape Lefebvre Lord Amherst Lower Canada Madeleine de Vercheres mars merchants militia captains minots NA-Hale Nonetheless Notre-Dame-des-Anges Nouvelle-France octobre parish parishioners Paroisses Perade Pierre priest production Quebec Registres des lettres river Riviere Batiscan Saint Saint-Francois-Xavier Saint-Stanislas Sainte-Anne and Batiscan Sainte-Anne rivers Sainte-Genevieve seig seigneur of Sainte-Anne seigneurial court septembre settlement social St Lawrence valley Thomas Coffin timber tion tithe trees Trois-Rivieres Trottier UT-Hale Vercheres Vercheres's Voyer wheat
Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe and the World, 1648-1789
No preview available - 2005
All Book Search results »