migration

Some thoughts on Migration

We have to turn toward the economy of pre-1850 Quebec and the United States to gain some sort of understanding of · what caused the habitant to start casting glances toward the other side of the border.

Ralph Vicero, in his splendid thesis on French-Canadian immigration to NPH' England, studies in great detail the economic and demographical crisis which gripped Quebec starting in the 1840's. On the map, the Province of Quebec occupies a deal of space. Great riches are to be found in the forests and the mineral resources of the province. Unfortunately, the amount of arable land is quite limited. The habitant was first and foremost a farmer. Farming was the only way of life that his people had ever known. Farming was furthermore possible on the land south of the St. Lawrence River, extending toward the border with the United States. Agriculture could also be carried on in a narrow band of territory north of the River. Add to these two zones, the area around Lac St-Jean and the largely untouched tracts north of the Ottawa River, and one sees that agriculture could not expand indefinitely in Quebec.

The next element in the demographical picture was the prodigious fertility of the Quebec people. Given the need for large families, so that the land could be tilled, the population of Quebec had doubled every twenty-seven years since the British conquest.

The descendants of the 65,000 French subjects transferred to the British crown in 1763, by 1851, numbered 669,528.

Since nearly all new households needed to establish themselves on the land, and since the ancestral farms could only be divided so many times before they could no longer support an average family, most children in a given family needed to look outside their native parish for new land.

This approach worked as long as there was land to be had. By mid-century though, the picture was no longer very bright. The French-Canadian, for various reasons, preferred staying within the old seigneuries on lands that had originally been granted to noteworthy individuals under the French Regime.

Culturally speaking, life in the seigneuries was homogeneous and non-threatening. English speakers, put-off by the very cultural facets of seigniorial life that attracted the Catholic French, opted to start their farms elsewhere. For the French-Canadian, this had the effect of concentrating the French speaking population in a surprisingly small number of counties. The densest concentration of population among French Canadians was to be found in the old seigniorial counties between the area west of Montreal and the city of Trois-Rivières, and along the Richelieu and Yamaska rives. Another area of high population density was to be found around Quebec City and extending along the south shore of the St. Lawrence downriver toward Kamouraska.

Ever-shrinking farm sizes might have sufficed to house and feed the population for another generation, had agricultural calamity not intervened. The habitant put great stock in his wheat crop, from which he derived much of his spare cash at year's end. Potatoes also occupied an important place in the farm family's diet.

Thanks to the appearance of the "wheat midge" in Quebec in the early 1830's, the wheat yield would suffer a precipitous drop. By 1844, the yield had fallen to 30% of what it had been in 1827.

With the decrease in the size of the wheat harvest, the habitant had little choice but to increase the proportion of land devoted to other crops. The potato came to fill this critical dietary need.

Yet after the potato blight made its appearance in Canada in the mid-1840's, this crop too would suffer a disastrous decline in production. Between 1844 and 1851, the Province's potato harvest would be cut in half.

The population continued to rise throughout the period. It has been estimated that the number of French-Canadians grew 400% between 1784 and 1844, while the amount of cultivated land grew by only 275% in the same span of time. Land was available in the Eastern Townships, but the land titles cost money, sums of cash the size of which many French-Canadian farmers did not have. Furthermore, settling in the Townships would have meant severing themselves from family and friends, and risking cultural identity in an English-speaking environment. It was obvious from this situation that "something had to give."

Migrating to New England offered one solution. Yet before mid-century, the cotton mills were not in a position to offer on a large scale what the French-Canadian needed. Granted, small French-speaking enclaves existed in upstate Vermont, and in the Blackstone Valley of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. But it would not be until after the Civil War that French-Canadians would be needed in large numbers to offset Irish workers lost in battle and the native New England stock which, more and more, were leaving the region for the open spaces of the far Midwest. In these pre-Civil War times, the French-Canadian did not seem to have lost his taste for agriculture. His attitude seems to have been that if farming no longer worked as it should in Quebec, the habitant would merely try it elsewhere.

The lands of the American Midwest were no stranger to the French-Canadian. We should remember that French-speakers partook in the funding of nearly every large Midwestern city: St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Paul, to name but a few. French explorers had opened up the interior of the continent in the 17th and l8th centuries. They had frequently taken native women as brides, with the result that a sizeable number of Sioux and Chippewa carried French-Canadian surnames.

In Illinois, the story developed somewhat differently. Granted, Joliet and Marquette had been responsible for using the Chicago portage in 1673. Because of this adjacent shortcut between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, Chicago would later grow into the great metropolis of the American Midwest.

Control of the Chicago area shifted from French to English in 1763, before landing in American hands at the time of Independence. American control was only theoretical, however, as British troops would not abandon this important fur trading site for several more years.

American control was established once and for all by the building of Fort Dearborn in 1803. This became the nucleus of the future city.

French-Canadians were certainly not numerous, but they did form the basis of Chicago's population. It is noted that in the election of 1826, twenty-one of the thirty-five registered voters in the town were French-Canadians. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the Great Lakes were free to navigation from the east. More importantly for towns bordering on the Lakes, their agricultural produce could now be shipped to eastern cities. The population of Chicago would grow apace: from less than 100 in 1830 to 4,470 in 1840 and 29,963 in 1850.

. One has only to think of the impoverished French-Canadian farmer back in Lower Canada, his wheat crop in ruins, his potatoes rotting in the field, to wonder how long it would take for the news of Illinois' prairie riches to reach his ears.

In fact, the first French-Canadian settlers started trickling in by the mid-40’s. A study of census returns for French-Canadians living in Will County, 50 miles south of Chicago in 1850, shows that 250 families were already living on the land. Of these 110 reported underage children born in Illinois. Furthermore, the earlier of these Illinois births showed that at least 22 French-Canadian families were present at the future Bourbonnais by 1846. The number was undoubtedly larger if one factors in a portion of the families who did not have young, Illinois-born children to declare to the census taker.(1)

Read Page Two.



	Some thoughts on Migration We have to turn toward the economy of pre-1850 Quebec and the United States to gain some sort of understanding of · what caused the habitant to start casting glances toward the other side of the border. Ralph Vicero, in his splendid thesis on French-Canadian immigration to NPH' England, studies in great detail the economic and demographical crisis which gripped Quebec starting in the 1840's. On the map, the Province of Quebec occupies a deal of space. Great riches are to be found in the forests and the mineral resources of the province. Unfortunately, the amount of arable land is quite limited. The habitant was first and foremost a farmer. Farming was the only way of life that his people had ever known. Farming was furthermore possible on the land south of the St. Lawrence River, extending toward the border with the United States. Agriculture could also be carried on in a narrow band of territory north of the River. Add to these two zones, the area around Lac St-Jean and the largely untouched tracts north of the Ottawa River, and one sees that agriculture could not expand indefinitely in Quebec. The next element in the demographical picture was the prodigious fertility of the Quebec people. Given the need for large families, so that the land could be tilled, the population of Quebec had doubled every twenty-seven years since the British conquest. The descendants of the 65,000 French subjects transferred to the British crown in 1763, by 1851, numbered 669,528. Since nearly all new households needed to establish themselves on the land, and since the ancestral farms could only be divided so many times before they could no longer support an average family, most children in a given family needed to look outside their native parish for new land. This approach worked as long as there was land to be had. By mid-century though, the picture was no longer very bright. The French-Canadian, for various reasons, preferred staying within the old seigneuries on lands that had originally been granted to noteworthy individuals under the French Regime. Culturally speaking, life in the seigneuries was homogeneous and non-threatening. English speakers, put-off by the very cultural facets of seigniorial life that attracted the Catholic French, opted to start their farms elsewhere. For the French-Canadian, this had the effect of concentrating the French speaking population in a surprisingly small number of counties. The densest concentration of population among French Canadians was to be found in the old seigniorial counties between the area west of Montreal and the city of Trois-Rivières, and along the Richelieu and Yamaska rives. Another area of high population density was to be found around Quebec City and extending along the south shore of the St. Lawrence downriver toward Kamouraska. Ever-shrinking farm sizes might have sufficed to house and feed the population for another generation, had agricultural calamity not intervened. The habitant put great stock in his wheat crop, from which he derived much of his spare cash at year's end. Potatoes also occupied an important place in the farm family's diet. Thanks to the appearance of the "wheat midge" in Quebec in the early 1830's, the wheat yield would suffer a precipitous drop. By 1844, the yield had fallen to 30% of what it had been in 1827. With the decrease in the size of the wheat harvest, the habitant had little choice but to increase the proportion of land devoted to other crops. The potato came to fill this critical dietary need. Yet after the potato blight made its appearance in Canada in the mid-1840's, this crop too would suffer a disastrous decline in production. Between 1844 and 1851, the Province's potato harvest would be cut in half. The population continued to rise throughout the period. It has been estimated that the number of French-Canadians grew 400% between 1784 and 1844, while the amount of cultivated land grew by only 275% in the same span of time. Land was available in the Eastern Townships, but the land titles cost money, sums of cash the size of which many French-Canadian farmers did not have. Furthermore, settling in the Townships would have meant severing themselves from family and friends, and risking cultural identity in an English-speaking environment. It was obvious from this situation that "something had to give." Migrating to New England offered one solution. Yet before mid-century, the cotton mills were not in a position to offer on a large scale what the French-Canadian needed. Granted, small French-speaking enclaves existed in upstate Vermont, and in the Blackstone Valley of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. But it would not be until after the Civil War that French-Canadians would be needed in large numbers to offset Irish workers lost in battle and the native New England stock which, more and more, were leaving the region for the open spaces of the far Midwest. In these pre-Civil War times, the French-Canadian did not seem to have lost his taste for agriculture. His attitude seems to have been that if farming no longer worked as it should in Quebec, the habitant would merely try it elsewhere. The lands of the American Midwest were no stranger to the French-Canadian. We should remember that French-speakers partook in the funding of nearly every large Midwestern city: St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Paul, to name but a few. French explorers had opened up the interior of the continent in the 17th and l8th centuries. They had frequently taken native women as brides, with the result that a sizeable number of Sioux and Chippewa carried French-Canadian surnames. In Illinois, the story developed somewhat differently. Granted, Joliet and Marquette had been responsible for using the Chicago portage in 1673. Because of this adjacent shortcut between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, Chicago would later grow into the great metropolis of the American Midwest. Control of the Chicago area shifted from French to English in 1763, before landing in American hands at the time of Independence. American control was only theoretical, however, as British troops would not abandon this important fur trading site for several more years. American control was established once and for all by the building of Fort Dearborn in 1803. This became the nucleus of the future city. French-Canadians were certainly not numerous, but they did form the basis of Chicago's population. It is noted that in the election of 1826, twenty-one of the thirty-five registered voters in the town were French-Canadians. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the Great Lakes were free to navigation from the east. More importantly for towns bordering on the Lakes, their agricultural produce could now be shipped to eastern cities. The population of Chicago would grow apace: from less than 100 in 1830 to 4,470 in 1840 and 29,963 in 1850. . One has only to think of the impoverished French-Canadian farmer back in Lower Canada, his wheat crop in ruins, his potatoes rotting in the field, to wonder how long it would take for the news of Illinois' prairie riches to reach his ears. In fact, the first French-Canadian settlers started trickling in by the mid-40’s. A study of census returns for French-Canadians living in Will County, 50 miles south of Chicago in 1850, shows that 250 families were already living on the land. Of these 110 reported underage children born in Illinois. Furthermore, the earlier of these Illinois births showed that at least 22 French-Canadian families were present at the future Bourbonnais by 1846. The number was undoubtedly larger if one factors in a portion of the families who did not have young, Illinois-born children to declare to the census taker.(1) Read Page Two.