History of Quebec FInal exam Flashcards
What is Quebec?
- Challenging to discuss the history of Quebec, because the definition of what Quebec is has changed over time
- Name to identify Quebecois people has changed - Quebecois was given after the Quiet Revolution, terms as french Canadian, Canadian, Quebecois
- Quebec does not exist in a vacuum
The Laurentian Axis
- Important river system
-Area with limited agricultural potential - Settlement, Concentrations of people along the st Laurent axis and or saint Laurent lowlands - because they have more agricultural potential
- geographically separates St Lawrence Lowlands and Great lakes Lowlands
Three sisters agriculture
Three sisters agriculture - an advanced and effective way to produce calories for a dense population. If the population is dense greater ability to exploit resources and military strength.
- main crops are squash, corn, and beans
How do we know about Indigenous history?
The St Lawrence Valley in 1500
2 main confederacies
Wendat confederacy - by lake Simcoe
Haudenosaunnee confederacy
Other polities
The Hochelagans and Stadaconans
Inu and Algonquins north of St Lawrence valley
Hunting and Gathering vs Agriculture
Hunting gathering vs agricultural
Exist together - hunting-gathering leads to a more varied diet vs agricultural
Less risk for hunter-gatherer fish societies and agricultural societies have more reliable access to food
- Two ways of providing calories
Two main confederacies at war
Wendac and haudeshawnee have been at war for a while (low-intensity conflict)
- 15th, 16th century
Why do Europeans send explorers to North America?
- Europeans arent producing anything that china and india want
- Belief that all wealth comes from gold and silver, because only thing China and India will take in return for goods
- Chinese government remonetizes government with silver
Beaver
- Beaver had been hunted to extinction in french
- Pellting, felt, barbed, waterproof
- Main thing of value french find
Jacque Cartier
- French send Jacque Cartier
- He is looking for a way to get across north America
- Northwest passage
- Route to India and china
- Because the Ottoman empire is taking Constantinople
Is contacted by Stadaconans - Makes contact with the Hochelagans
Beaver - Cartier does not understand this is not a colonial space, can’t impose rule
- kidnapped a few people
Champlain
diplomat, soldier
- arrives where Cartier had been, and Hochelagans had been destroyed, were no longer there
- forms alliance with Algonquin and Inu
- set up a colony for trading beaver, in exchange for defence against Huadeshawnee expansionism. “The Great Alliance.”
- understood that indigenous alliances were the only thing keeping them in their position
- becomes first to join Indigenous war group - to attack Mohawk party
- founded Quebec and New france
France’s early explortaion
- One must integrate into trade networks
- Early french explorers don’t get that they can’t colonize the population
The Start of the Franco-Wendat Alliance
- Between Wendac confederacy, Algonquin, Inu and French
- Set up by Champlain
- defensive based alliance
- ## in return Champlain gets permission to settle
Did french know they were in a massive war in 17th century?
- drawn into an already existing conflict between Haudeshawnee and indigenous
- start arms race as indigenous see potential in firearms and demand them from their allies
Dutch arms trade
Dutch set up in Albany
- become an arsenal for indigenous communities
- Haudeshawnee become best armed in North America
- french ask indigenous to convert to Christianity to get arms
The 1640s, what epidemic began to hit communties?
- small poxs
- decimated Wendac as they lose a lot of Leadership and leads to Haudeshawnee going on offensive resulting in Wendac dispersal
Early Fur trade
- Fur trade is centred on Heronia and Wendac confederacy
- becoming middlemen
- trapping beaver themselves and conducting trade with the french
- removing the Wendac, changes structure of the fur trade
- centered around Montreal, French now have to contribute
Devlopment of New France
17th century, chartered a company to devlop new France but does not work
- French state takes over as a crown colony
- New France is now controlled by the French state and exists only to serve
- also a military garrison, as French fight Haudeshownee
- Bring down regular strength regiment to push into Haudeshawnee confederacy territory
- get raw materials, no diversifying economy
1701 - great peace of Montreal signing
- ends warfare
- Champlain started New France’s involvement to be at War with the Haudeshwonee
- numerous nations signed
- solves new frances biggest safety threat
New France Labour and Feudalism
- Labour is too expensive, too few europeans
- No possibility for military shipbuilding, bad wood quality
- last feudal society
New France seignoral system
- lord is granted a piece of land by the crown
- his job is to encourage people to settle on land and rent out land plots
- give people riverfront access
- farms are near one another
- narrow plots
- peasant and seigneur relationship of responsibility to one another
1730s-1740s “golden age” of New France
- Population was increasing
- Urban society (20% of ppl lived in city)
7 Year of war breaks out against the English
- British and french are shooting at each other in 1756 in Europe
- France loses
- major event in French Canadian history for many
- caused the clerical elite to go back to France
- France had pulled its forces into the interior
- France give up new France but keep important colonies like St domingue
Anglo protestant commercial class
- settle in Montreal
- deurbanization
- population growth in rural countryside
- anglo bourgeoisie take charge of the Fur trade