Trip to Quebec

Taking my first trip to Quebec last month was very interesting. Quebec, specifically the quaint old city and military fortress, are remnants of a bloodier and less certain age. I wonder if the savage fighting between England and France is well understood by most people from this region today, but my visit there brought a lot back to the forefront of my mind.

What is of particular poignancy to me is my own French Canadian, or to be more succinct my Acadian French, ancestry in light of traveling to Quebec. I have pondered the role of my ancestors in the unfolding of history and know some things from genealogical research.

What follows are excerpts from Wikipedia about Acadia and the violent history of the region.  I will include something about the forced resettlement of the Acadians by the British during the 1700s.

The history of Acadia was significantly influenced by the warfare that took place on its soil during the 17th and 18th century. Prior to that time period, the Mi’kmaq lived in Acadia for centuries. The French arrived in 1604, and Catholic Mi’kmaq and Acadians were the predominant populations in the colony for the next 150 years.

A number of years later, Acadia was plunged into what some historians have described as a civil war in Acadia (1640–1645). The war was between Port Royal, where Governor of Acadia Charles de Menou d'Aulney de Charnisay was stationed, and present-day Saint John, New Brunswick, where Governor of Acadia Charles de Saint-Ettienne de la Tour was stationed. In the war, there were four major battles. D'Aulnay ultimately won the war against La Tour. 

During the next seventy four years, there were six colonial wars that took place in Nova Scotia and Acadia (see the French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father le Loutres War). These wars were fought between New England and New France and their respective native allies before the British defeated the French in North America (1763). After the New England Conquest of Acadia in 1710, mainland Nova Scotia was under the control of New England, but both present-day New Brunswick and virtually all of present-day Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France.

The war was fought on two fronts: the southern border of Acadia, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine. The other front was in Nova Scotia and involved preventing New Englanders from taking the capital of Acadia, Port Royal, establishing themselves at Canso and founding Halifax.

So, unlike the present status quo, the history of the northwest Atlantic has been fraught with violence, which reached it's apex about 250 years ago. The French Canadians, who were the defeated people in the struggles here, became in many cases second class citizens who had to deal with lower pay for the same work as Anglos, etc. 

It is so odd to think of the Kennebec River as the front in a war. So distant in time seems the armed conflict of that era. 

In reading In The Devil's Snare, by Mary Norton, those accused of witchcraft were likely really guilty of aid to my ancestors. Although the witches in Salem are best remembered, there were actually more witch trials north of Salem along the Massachusetts frontier towns of Andover and Haverhill. The Puritan society sought to protect itself against the French and Native forces fighting against the British. The witch trials actually came after devastating raids on English settlements in southern Maine. The society of the Puritans identified those who aided the natives as witches, rather than spies or traitors. Somehow I identify more with the Indians and accused witches than the Puritans.

In my own family, there are phenotypic manifestations of native Canadian ancestry. I am quite interested to know how that worked in earlier times.

More later...