• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Europe: Ukraine & Russia
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • La Princesse de Clèves
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The Art and Music of Russia
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: The Exodus

The Exodus: Canadiens leave Canada

01 Saturday May 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Bilingualism, Canada, Canadian History

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Clarence Gagnon, l'abbé Lionel Groulx, le curé Labelle, Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, Seigneurial System, The Exodus

La Maison rouge par Clarence Gagnon

—ooo—

In earlier posts, I discussed Louis Hémon‘s Maria Chapdelaine (1913). Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) was born in France but visited Quebec in 1912-1913. He went North to the small community of Péribonka. Having worked with French Canadians, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine and sent his manuscript to a publisher in France. He started walking west, but he was hit by a train.

In my discussion of Maria Chapdelaine, I also introduced the legendary Antoine Labelle (1834-1891). Antoine Labelle was a priest who encouraged Quebecers who had no land to go North, to the Lac-Saint-Jean FR or up the Ottawa River and “make land,”(faire de la terre). They were running out of land. Others, however, went to the United States.

Since the 1850s, or perhaps as early as the Rebellions or 1837-1838, Quebecers were moving to the United States.The thirty acres French colons (colonists) had farmed since the 17th century were a peau de chagrin.[1] They could no longer be divided among sons. Moreover, when the Seigneurial System was abolished in 1854, farmers could buy their ancestral land if they had money. The censitaires who could not buy their thirty acres had to pay “rente” for a lifetime.

Faire de la terre, making land, is the choice Maria’s father has made. Maria falls in love with François Paradis, but he dies in a storm, hoping to spend Christmas with Maria. An émigré to the United States, Lorenzo Surprenant, also wishes to marry Maria, but she will live and die as her mother lived and died. She marries Eutrope Gagnon who is “making land.”

My grandfather left Canada because he could not making a living in his native land. He went to the Canada d’en bas,[2] a down below Canada, or New England states. Traditionally, Quebecers had left for the pays d’en haut, north. They became voyageurs or worked as loggers (bûcherons) or river drivers (draveurs). Raftsmen drove the lumber down rivers, which was very dangerous.

Draveurs / Raftsmen (Bytown is Ottawa and the Ottawa River is l’Outaouais)

However, French Canadians left Québec for reasons other than unemployment. There were jobs in the United States, but French-speaking Canadians did not escape the spellbinding notion that, in order to be rich, one migrated to the United States. It was described as a land of plenty. My grandfather was unemployed, so he went to work in a New England factory. He saved his money and bought a large farm. Owning land was everything.

It remains true, however, that nearly one million[3] French-speaking Canadians left Canada mostly because they could not make a living in their country. Besides, although it did not happen the minute Confederation was signed, provinces legislated the exclusive, or nearly exclusive, use of French as a language of instruction. Sir Wilfrid Laurier could not accommodate immigrants and refugees. Needy French-speaking Canadians could not go west.

For instance, under Premier Sir James Whitney, Ontario was not prepared to have a dual system of education. In July 1912, Whitney’s government passed Regulation 17, which banned the teaching of French in schools beyond the first two or three years. This measure inflamed French-Canadian opinion across Canada, but more so in Quebec. French-speaking Quebecers wondered if they should accept conscription.

In 1922, Quebec nationalist, Lionel Groulx, a priest, published L’Appel de la race, (the call of…). Jules Lantagnac, a lawyer, has married Maud Fletcher, a Catholic Anglophone. They live in Ottawa. He is elected into office in Ontario, but wants his children to be educated in French. His wife opposes him and she threatens to leave him if he supports a motion by Kamouraska (Quebec) Member of Parliament, Ernest Lapointe. The marriage falls apart. A few years ago, Lionel Groulx, Quebec’s most prominent nationalist ever, was accused of racism. Although I would rather read Gabrielle Roy, I will say that race also means breed and that Lantagnac’s roots are a French and bilingual Canada. Sir James Whitney, was influenced by Ontario Orangemen. Sir John A. Macdonald, the main father of Confederation, was an Orangeman and the Orange Order was anti-French and anti-Catholic. (See James Whitney, Wikipedia.)

But French-speaking Canadians had friends.

They [French Canadians] have adopted our system, but there are two things they have clung to, their religion and their language. I believe that their national sentiment is even stronger than their religious sentiment—I really believe so. The national feeling among them is intensely strong, but I would ask you English, Irish and Scotch descendants born in this country, and brought up here, supposing a regulation similar to No. 17 were passed in the Province of Quebec, what do you think our duty towards it would be? Supposing Sir Lomer Gouin—I cannot imagine it—but supposing he did have the courage, or the nerve, so to speak, to pass a regulation of that kind. There would be a rebellion in this Province, I think. And here we have our French-Canadian brethren in the sister Province who by constitutional means are trying to obtain the repeal or the modification of the regulation, or some other settlement of the question which would be satisfactory to all concerned.)

Mr. JUSTICE McCORKILL, in Bilingualism by N. A. Belcourt speech given at the Canadian Club in 1916.
Gutenberg [EBook #25040]

George-Étienne Cartier (1814-1873), the Prime Minister of Canada East, signed Confederation. Quebec was part of a federated Canada. He was pleased that Quebecers would keep their language, their religion, and their Code Civil. He negotiated Manitoba’s entry into Confederation. But could he presume that a dual system of education would be opposed? He died in 1873, twelve years before Louis Riel was executed.

However, it remains difficult to say to what extent being confined to one province hurt French-speaking Canadians. Emigration to the United States was a loss. All I know is that the people living in Canada are compatible. So many French-speaking Canadians are federalists. They inherited a Constitutional Monarchy and liked that system. One could speak. As for Sir John A. Macdonald, he had a dream. Canada would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. That vision was enibriating, but…

RELATED ARTICLES

  • La Question des écoles / The Schools System.2 (28 April 2021)
  • La Question des écoles / The Schools System (24 April 2021)
  • Le Vent du Nord’s “Confederation” (21 April 2021)
  • About the Seigneurial System, cont’d (23 August 2020)
  • About the Seigneurial System (21 August 2020)
  • Félix-Antoine Savard: Menaud Maître-Draveur: a Metaphysical Land (1937) (14 January 2014)
  • Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Part Two) (1938) (29 July 2012)
  • Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Part One) (1938) (27 July 2012)
  • Louis Hémon: Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine (1914; 1916) (7 June 2012)
  • Louis Hémon: Maria Chapdelaine (1914; 1916) (26 January 2012)
  • Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin (1846) DCB/DBC (5 June 2012)
  • Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle (1846) DCB (3 June 2012)
  • Canadiana.1 (page)
  • Canadiana.2 (page updated 2 May 2021)

Sources and Resources

  • Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, illustrated by Clarence Gagnon (1881-1942), is a beq.ebooksgratuits.com/.pdf FR
  • Maria Chapdelaine, W. H. Blake, transl. is Gutenberg [Ebook 4383] EN
  • [The Project Gutenberg eBook of Address Delivered Before The Quebec Canadian Club At Quebec, by The Honorable N. A. Belcourt, K.C., P.C..]

_________________________
[1] I am borrowing from Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) who wrote a novel entitled La Peau de chagrin. Shagreen shrinks. It may, therefore, represent life, love, and all paradis perdus (paradise lost)
[2] Pierre Anctil, « La Franco-Américanie ou le Québec d’en bas », in Maurice Poteet, responsable, Textes de l’Exode (Montréal : Guérin Littérature, collection Francophonie, 1987), pp. 91-111.
[3] Télesphore Saint-Pierre, « Les Canadiens des États-Unis : ce qu’on perd à émigrer », in Maurice Poteet, responsable, Textes de l’Exode (Montréal : Guérin Littérature, collection Francophonie, 1987), p. 47.

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

“Meeting of the Delegates of British North America to Settle the Terms of Confederation, Quebec, October 1864” by Robert Harris, 1883

© Micheline Walker
1st May 2021
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Would that Robert Baldwin and Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine …

22 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada's Great Ministry, Canadian art, Canadian Confederation, Canadian History

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Confederation, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, Robert Baldwin, The Exodus, The Reform Party, Union

Paysage à Québec
Marc-Aurèle Fortin Paysage à Québec (Galerie Alan Klinkhoff)

Baldwin and LaFontaine: Union

The victory of the Reform Party on 24 January 1848 was one of the most significant in Canadian history.

Baldwin, LaFontaine and Responsible Government, The Canadian Encyclopedia

English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians are not incompatible. Lord Durham suggested an assimilative Union, but Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, the Reformers, mapped out a genuine union.

Sir George-Étienne Cartier had good reasons to persuade his province to enter into a strong partnership: Confederation. Confederation had French-speaking opponents, but several French Canadians wanted to join. Therefore, I wish that Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine had been alive during Confederation.

But …

Le curé Labelle asked farmers to go north and make land (faire de la terre), but many couldn’t. When the ancestral thirty acres (trente arpents) could no longer be divided or were too expensive to purchase, when, moreover, there was no prospect of employment in Quebec, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 French-speaking Canadians and Acadians left for the United States. This period of Canadian history is called the exodus.

When Québécois fully realize the harm John A. Macdonald inflicted on 1) Amerindians, 2) French Canadians, and, to a large extent, on 3) English-speaking Canadians, they must stay calm. All must stay calm.

We have a future to build, and it must be built harmoniously.

About Covid-19

A word on Covid-19. Quebec and other Canadian provinces have entered the second wave of the Covid-19 crisis. Let us protect one another and ensure that people do not commit suicide. Losing one’s position is a terrible affliction, but this is a crisis, and governments must help. People are afraid. My little area of Quebec is a pale yellow zone, but that will probably change. Quebec City, Québec’s capital, is this province’s current pandemic epicentre. However, it seems Covid-19 will not spare anyone. I’ve been indoors since early March. It isn’t good. Yet, I pity those who must go out. Let us help one another.

A few novels tell about the exodus and the many obstacles French Canadians had to face. These are:

  • La Terre paternelle (Patrice Lacombe; 1846) (novel: Canadiana.2)
  • Maria Chapdelaine (Louis Hémon; 1914) (novel: Canadiana.2)
  • Un Homme et son péché (Claude-Henri Grignon; 1933) (novel: Canadiana.2)
  • Trente Arpents (Ringuet; 1938) (novel: Canadiana.2)
  • Alexis de Tocqueville on Lower Canada (17 September 2018) (a related posts)
  • Lord Durham’s Report
  • Le curé Labelle
  • See Canadiana.2

I have written posts about all four novels. Besides, these are novels I have taught. As you know, my teaching load was extensive: six areas. I also created language-lab components. It was all but lethal.

L’Appel du Nord by Jack Warwick (Érudit series)
Textes de l’Exode (David Hayne‘s article)
Le Développement des idéologies au Québec by Denis Monière (Érudit series)

Love to everyone 💕

© Micheline Walker
22 Octobre 2020
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Europa

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,692 other subscribers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

Recent Posts

  • The American Debt Ceiling “Ritual”
  • The Golden Age of Dutch painting: a Prelude
  • Winter Scenes
  • Epiphany 2023
  • Pavarotti sings Schubert’s « Ave Maria »
  • Yves Montand chante “À Bicyclette”
  • Almost ready
  • Bicycles for Migrant Farm Workers
  • Tout Molière.net : parti …
  • Remembering Belaud

Archives

Calendar

June 2023
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  
« May    

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

micheline.walker@videotron.ca

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

  • Follow Following
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Join 2,484 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: