Contemporary Views of French Canada

The existence of slavery in Canada dates from the end of the seventeenth century.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in The Old Regime In Canada. Continuing chapter 20.

August, September, and October were the busy months at Quebec. Then the ships from France discharged their lading, the shops and warehouses of the Lower Town were filled with goods, and the habitants came to town to make their purchases. When the frosts began, the vessels sailed away, the harbor was deserted, the streets were silent again, and like ants or squirrels the people set at work to lay in their winter stores. Fathers of families packed their cellars with beets, carrots, potatoes, and cabbages; and, at the end of autumn, with meat, fowls, game, fish, and eels, all frozen to stony hardness. Most of the shops closed, and the long season of leisure and amusement began. New Year’s day brought visits and mutual gifts. Thence till Lent dinner parties were frequent, sometimes familiar and sometimes ceremonious. The governor’s little court at the chateau was a standing example to all the aspiring spirits of Quebec, and forms and orders of precedence were in some houses punctiliously observed. There were dinners to the military and civic dignitaries and their wives, and others, quite distinct, to prominent citizens. The wives and daughters of the burghers of Quebec are said to have been superior in manners to women of the corresponding class in France. “They have wit,” says La Potherie, “delicacy, good voices, and a great fondness for dancing. They are discreet, and not much given to flirting; but when they undertake to catch a lover it is not easy for him to escape the bands of Hymen.”

[La Potherie. I. 279.]

So much for the town. In the country parishes, there was the same autumnal stowing away of frozen vegetables, meat, fish, and eels, and unfortunately the same surfeit of leisure through five months of the year. During the seventeenth century, many of the people were so poor that women were forced to keep at home from sheer want of winter clothing. Nothing, however, could prevent their running from house to house to exchange gossip with the neighbors, who all knew each other, and, having nothing else to do, discussed each other’s affairs with an industry which often bred bitter quarrels. At a later period, a more general introduction of family weaving and spinning served at once to furnish clothing and to promote domestic peace.

The most important persons in a parish were the curé, the seignior, and the militia captain. The seignior had his bench of honor in the church. Immediately behind it was the bench of the militia captain, whose duty it was to drill the able-bodied men of the neighborhood, direct road-making and other public works, and serve as deputy to the intendant, whose ordinances he was required to enforce. Next in honor came the local judge any there was, and the church-wardens.

The existence of slavery in Canada dates from the end of the seventeenth century. In 1688, the attorney-general made a visit to Paris, and urged upon the king the expediency of importing negroes from the West Indies as a remedy for the scarcity and dearness of labor. The king consented, but advised caution, on the ground that the rigor of the climate would make the venture a critical one. [1] A number of slaves were brought into the colony; but the system never flourished, the climate and other circumstances being hostile to it. Many of the colonists, especially at Detroit and other outlying posts, owned slaves of a remote Indian tribe, the Pawnees. The fact is remarkable, since it would be difficult to find another of the wild tribes of the continent capable of subjection to domestic servitude. The Pawnee slaves were captives taken in war and sold at low prices to the Canadians. Their market value was much impaired by their propensity to run off.

[1: Instruction au Sr. de Frontenac, 1689. On Canadian slavery, see a long paper, l’Esclavage en Canada, published by the Historical Society of Montreal.]

It is curious to observe the views of the Canadians taken at different times by different writers. La Hontan says, “They are vigorous, enterprising, and indefatigable, and need nothing but education. They are presumptuous and full of self-conceit, regard themselves as above all the nations of the earth, and, unfortunately, have not the veneration for their parents that they ought to have. The women are generally pretty; few of them are brunettes; many of them are discreet, and a good number are lazy. They are fond to the last degree of dress and show, and each tries to outdo the rest in the art of catching a husband.”

[La Hontan, II. 81 (ed. 1709).]

Fifty years later, the intendant Hocquart writes, “The Canadians are fond of distinctions and attentions, plume themselves on their courage, and are extremely sensitive to slights or the smallest corrections. They are self-interested, vindictive, prone to drunkenness, use a great deal of brandy, and pass for not being at all truthful. This portrait is true of many of them, particularly the country people: those of the towns are less vicious. They are all attached to religion, and criminals are rare. They are volatile, and think too well of themselves, which prevents their succeeding as they might in farming and trade. They have not the rude and rustic air of our French peasants. If they are put on their honor and governed with justice, they are tractable enough; but their natural disposition is indocile.”

[Mémoire de 1736.]

The navigator Bougainville, in the last years of the French rule, describes the Canadian habitant as essentially superior to the French peasant, and adds, “He is loud, boastful, mendacious, obliging, civil, and honest; indefatigable in hunting, travelling, and bush-ranging, but lazy in tilling the soil.”

[Mémoire de 1757, printed in Margry, Relations Inédites.]

The Swedish botanist, Kalm, an excellent observer, was in Canada a few years before Bougainville, and sketches from life the following traits of Canadian manners. The language is chat of the old English translation. “The men here (at Montreal) are extremely civil, and take their hats off to every person indifferently whom they meet in the streets. The women in general are handsome; they are well bred and virtuous, with an innocent and becoming freedom. They dress out very fine on Sundays, and though on the other days they do not take much pains with the other parts of their dress, yet they are very fond of adorning their heads, the hair of which is always curled and powdered and ornamented with glittering bodkins and aigrettes. They are not averse to taking part in all the business of housekeeping, and I have with pleasure seen the daughters of the better sort of people, and of the governor (of Montreal) himself, not too finely dressed, and going into kitchens and cellars to look that every thing be done as it ought. What I have mentioned above of their dressing their heads too assiduously is the case with all the ladies throughout Canada. Their hair is always curled even when they are at home in a dirty jacket, and short coarse petticoat that does not reach to the middle of their legs. On those days when they pay or receive visits they dress so gayly that one is almost induced to think their parents possess the greatest honors in the state. They are no less attentive to have the newest fashions, and they laugh at each other when they are not dressed to each other’s fancy. One of the first questions they propose to a stranger is, whether he is married; the next, how he likes the ladies of the country, and whether he thinks them handsomer than those of his own country; and the third, whether he will take one home with him. The behavior of the ladies seemed to me somewhat too free at Quebec, and of a more becoming modesty at Montreal. Those of Quebec are not very industrious. The young ladies, especially those of a higher rank, get up at seven and dress till nine, drinking their coffee at the same time. When they are dressed, they place themselves near a window that opens into the street, take up some needlework and sew a stitch now and then, but turn their eyes into the street most of the time. When a young fellow comes in, whether they are acquainted with him or not, they immediately lay aside their work, sit down by him, and begin to chat, laugh, joke, and invent double-entendres, and this is reckoned being very witty. In this manner they frequently pass the whole day, leaving their mothers to do the business of the house. They are likewise cheerful and content, and nobody can say that they want either wit or charms. Their fault is that they think too well of themselves. However, the daughters of people of all ranks without exception go to market and carry home what they have bought. The girls at Montreal are very much displeased that those at Quebec get husbands sooner than they. The reason of this is that many young gentlemen who come over from France with the ships are captivated by the ladies at Quebec and marry them; but, as these gentlemen seldom go up to Montreal, the girls there are not often so happy as those of the former place.”

[Kalm, Travels into North America, translated into English by John Reinold Forster (London, 1771), 56, 282, etc.]

Long before Kalm’s visit, the Jesuit Charlevoix, a traveler and a man of the world, wrote thus of Quebec in a letter to the Duchesse de Lesdiguières: “There is a select little society here which wants nothing to make it agreeable. In the salons of the wives of the governor and of the intendant, one finds circles as brilliant as in other countries.” These circles were formed partly of the principal inhabitants, but chiefly of military officers and government officials, with their families. Charlevoix continues, “Everybody does his part to make the time pass pleasantly, with games and parties of pleasure; drives and canoe excursions in summer, sleighing and skating in winter. There is a great deal of hunting and shooting, for many Canadian gentlemen are almost destitute of any other means of living at their ease. The news of the day amounts to very little indeed, as the country furnishes scarcely any, while that from Europe comes all at once. Science and the fine arts have their turn, and conversation does not fail. The Canadians breathe from their birth an air of liberty, which makes them very pleasant in the intercourse of life, and our language is nowhere more purely spoken. One finds here no rich persons whatever, and this is a great pity; for the Canadians like to get the credit of their money, and scarcely anybody amuses himself with hoarding it. They say it is very different with our neighbors the English, and one who knew the two colonies only by the way of living, acting, and speaking of the colonists would not hesitate to judge ours the more flourishing. In New England and the other British colonies, there reigns an opulence by which the people seem not to know how to profit; while in New France poverty is hidden under an air of ease which appears entirely natural. The English colonist keeps as much and spends as little as possible: the French colonist enjoys what he has got, and often makes a display of what he has not got. The one labors for his heirs: the other leaves them to get on as they can, like himself. I could push the comparison farther; but I must close here: the king’s ship is about to sail, and the merchant vessels are getting ready to follow. In three days perhaps, not one will be left in the harbor.” [2] And now we, too, will leave Canada. Winter draws near, and the first patch of snow lies gleaming on the distant mountain of Cape Tourmente. The sun has set in chill autumnal beauty, and the sharp spires of fir-trees on the heights of Sillery stand stiff and black against the pure cold amber of the fading west. The ship sails in the morning; and, before the old towers of Rochelle rise in sight, there will be time to smoke many a pipe, and ponder what we have seen on the banks of the St Lawrence.

[2: Charlevoix. Journal Historique 80 (ed. 1744).]

– The Old Regime In Canada, Chapter 20 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.

If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.

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