Deux-Montagnes

The comté of Deux-Montagnes was created in 1830 with the division of the comté d’York into three parts: Ottawa, Vaudreuil and Deux-Montagnes. Deux-Montagnes is bordered in the east by the comté de Terrebonne, to the south by the Rivière des Outaouais and the Lac des Deux-Montagnes, to the west by the parishes of Saint-Benoît, Sainte-Scholastique and Saint-Colomban and finally to the north by the boundaries of the township of Gore. It included the parishes of Saint-Benoît, Sainte-Scholastique, Saint-Colomban, Saint-Augustin, Saint-Eustache, the mission of the Lac des Deux-Montagnes, part of the parish of Saint-Jérôme and also part of the Township de Morin.[1] The comté was made up of three main seigneuries: seigneurie du Lac des Deux-Montagnes[2], seigneurie de la Rivière-du-Chêne[3], seigneurie de Blainville et d’Argenteuil[4] and also the cantons de Gore, Chatham and Glengarry.[5]

In the seigneuries, settlement initially took place slowly. After 1755, settlement accelerated and was concentrated especially on the mouths of the various rivers. By 1830, the seigneuries of Blainville and Rivière-du-Chêne had reached their full capacity. New arrivals were therefore directed towards the seigneurie of the Lac des Deux-Montagnes. The Sulpiciens, who had begun the process of colonisation in the Deux-Montagnes, had land at Oka for an Amerindian mission. [6] Between 1779 and 1790, population began to settle on both side of the rivière au Prince and the rivière du Chêne and from Saint-Jean to Saint-Benoît because of the fertility of the soil. There was also a concentration of population from Saint-Étienne and Saint-Vincent to Saint-Placide and Saint-Joseph to Saint-Joseph-du-Lac.

The Lac des Deux-Montagnes, the Grande and petite rivière-du-Chêne, the rivière du Nord, the rivière au Prince, the Belle rivière and the rivière Saint-Jean provided water for irrigation and flooding replenished the fertile soil that allowed the cultivation of different kinds of grain and other agricultural products. [7] The most important economic activity was the growing of wheat that made up about eighty% of all production. The comté was particularly affected by the agricultural crisis of 1830. Obsolete farming techniques, scarcity of land and the rapid increase in population all helped increase the difficulties of the farmers. [8] Gradually, wheat production was replaced by oats and potatoes. Exploiting the resources in the forests was second in importance in the comté. According the Bouchette, the main trees present in the comté were ash, maple, beech, oak and birch. Logging sites were found on the edges of the rivière du Nord providing work in the winter months. This explains the presence of five saw-mills in the seigneurie de la rivière-du-Chêne and six in Blainville that served regional demand. [9]

The comté de Deux-Montagnes was the most effected area on the north bank of the St Lawrence in 1837. The comté contained anglophobes and francophobes in more equal numbers than in Acadie and there were 435 loyalists who were active in combating 213 Patriotes. In Saint-Eustache and Saint-Scholastique, there were families who had contempt for those of French origin and members of the Protestant Orange Order lived in Saint-Hermas and Saint-Scholastique. There were also American loyalists in Saint-André, Carillon and in the cantons of Gore, Chatham and Glengarry.[10] This distribution of loyalists was the result of the division of comtés carried out by the colonial government in the late 1820s and early 1830s to strengthen the anglophone position. The seigneurie du Lac des Deux-Montagnes, seigneurie de la Rivière-du-Chêne and the seigneurie d’Argenteuil as well as the cantons of Gore and Chatham were settled by immigrants of British origin. It is not surprising political tensions emerged between loyalists and Patriotes in the Deux-Montagnes in the late 1820s.

The division of British and French Canadians in the Deux-Montagnes was slow to develop and, as in the Richelieu was never complete. In June 1827, the residents of the comté de Deux-Montagnes held an assembly at Saint-Eustache. The purpose of this assembly was to express their attachment to the British Crown but in a text of seventeen resolutions, the residents including William H. Scott[11], Jacques Labrie[12] who, until his death in 1831 was the leading French Canadian reformer in the region, Jean-Joseph Girouard [13] and Jean-Baptiste Dumouchel[14] denounced the attacks on the French Canadian deputies. It was this assembly that established the first comité de correspondance. The committee was not radical in its attitudes but Nicolas-Eustache Dumont, a co-seigneur of Mille-Îles denounced its members to Lord Dalhousie. In July, several militia officers including Scott and Dumouchel were dismissed for having taken part in Parti Patriote meetings during the election campaign that year and as a protest Girouard resigned his commission as a militia captain in January 1828. On 10 July, the loyalists (Globensky, Dumont, de Bellefeuille and Dorion) held an assembly to protest about the Patriote assembly and respond to its resolutions. This marked the creation of two groups who confronted each other in the Deux-Montagnes in the succeeding decade.

In 1832, an assembly was held to protest against the abuse and favouritism in the granting of land establishing a committee of 34 members to protect French Canadian interests. In the 1834 general election, Girouard and Scott stood as candidates for the Parti Patriote against Brown and Globensky. The main areas of debate in the election were the question of subsidies and custom duties. The election was fought with some violence but despite attempts to intimidate French Canadian voters by Scots and Irish Orangemen from the neighbouring townships,[15] Scott and Girouard held the Deux-Montagnes for the Patriotes. [16] However, the election reinforced the ‘hatred that had already developed in the comté against the British officials.’[17] In the aftermath of Gosford’s proclamation banning assemblies in 1837, the Patriotes in the Deux-Montagnes decided to attack the properties of officials and the British loyalists in the area: ‘À bas les résolutions Russell, à bas la proclamation!’ [18]

Opposition to colonial government grew especially over favouritism in granting administrative posts and land and the arbitrary decisions of the Executive Council. The Patriote assembly at Saint-Benoît in 1836 decided to boycott the purchase of British manufactures as a way of putting economic and financial pressure on the government. Reaction to Russell’s Ten Resolution was especially strong in the Deux-Montagnes strengthening support for the Patriote movement. Saint-Eustache (Jean-Olivier Chénier and William Henry Scott) and Saint-Benoît (Jean-Joseph Girouard) were now the major centres of Patriote resistance. Papineau visited Saint-Eustache and Saint-Benôit before moving on to the meeting at Saint-Scholastique on 1 June[19] arranged by Scott and Girouard. Girouard was a thinker rather than a man of action and although Scott had used violent rhetoric against the authorities, he was also firmly against the use of force. There were growing political divisions between inhabitants punctuated by charivaris against loyal French Canadians and British settlers. The Comité permanent des Deux-Montagnes, which had become particularly effective after the meetings in June, began organising volunteer companies of militia under the command of elected officers. In early October, Patriotes in the Deux-Montagnes began to elect magistrates [20] to replace those appointed by the government, an initiative praised at the St-Charles meeting. [21] Yet, their major weakness was the proximity of troops stationed at Carillon and St Andrews and the Highland Scot settlements in Glengarry, very different to the Richelieu valley where Patriotes were stronger and less threatened by Loyalist volunteers or regular troops.

Patriote military mobilisation began in early October 1837 but made little progress largely because Scott and Girouard were hesitant to take command. Both men now found themselves caught up in the growing militancy of Patriote leaders, Jean-Olivier Chénier [22] and Luc-Hyacinthe Masson.[23] Scott attempted, with the support of Jacques Paquin, Saint-Eustache’s parish priest, to moderate the actions of the more militant and on 12 November hurried to Montreal to urge Papineau to restrain the protest but without success. Perhaps it was a justifiable fear that Scott and Girouard might waver that led Montreal Patriote leaders to go to help with military preparations in the Deux-Montagnes. Francois-Marie-Thomas, Chevalier De Lorimier, [24] joint corresponding secretary of the Comité central et permanent de Montréal arrived at Saint-Eustache on 15 November and Amury Girod, who said he had fought in South America the following day and immediately took the lead in military preparation. Girod had been at the assembly at Saint-Charles and following a meeting with Papineau, O’Callaghan and Nelson offered to go to the north to help organise armed resistance. [25] Chénier called a meeting on 18 November to decide what to do if warrants were brought to Saint-Eustache for the arrest of the Patriote leaders. Scott believed that they should protect themselves and was immediately elected lieutenant-colonel of the Patriote forces; Chénier was named a major with seven captains including De Lorimier. This was followed by a council of war that decided, after lengthy debate, not to destroy the bridge at Saint-Rose to delay the approach of regular troops as Girod argued. Girod was further angered by Scott’s ambivalence to armed action: the Patriotes did not have the arms or ammunition and delaying tactics should be used. Girod failed to persuade Scott of the need for immediate action and Scott persuaded Chénier to support him. The result, Girod wrote, was ‘deadly inactivity’. [26]

By late November, Girod had moved his headquarters from Saint-Eustache, which he saw a largely loyalist community, to the more conducive Saint-Benôit. Here he not only found Girouard but Etienne Chartier, [27] the local priest and a militant Patriote who was ready to gird his sword and preach direct action if not take part in it. Chartier raged against the colonial regime in his sermons unlike other priests in the Deux-Montagnes who condemned the rebellion and eagerly defended obedience to the civil authority. [28] At meeting at Saint-Benôit on 23 November, Girod was elected as General of the Army of the North and Chénier lieutenant-colonel to replace Scott who had temporarily left Saint-Eustache for Saint-Thérèse. Girouard remained in Saint-Benôit with a reward of £500 on his head and was regarded by the authorities as the Patriote leader in the Deux-Montagnes. The attack against Saint-Benôit was expected to come from the loyalist Carillon-St Andrews area and Patriotes barricaded the roads leading to the north-west of the village.

News of the Patriote victory at Saint-Denis arrived on Friday 24 November with an urgent message from Robert Nelson for the Army of the North to attack Montreal while its garrison was occupied in the Richelieu. Girod urged the local chiefs to storm the city the next day but was rebuffed by Girouard, Chénier and Chartier who decided to remain on the defensive. Instead of storming Montreal, the Army of the North moved from Saint-Benôit on 29 November and established its main armed camp at Saint-Eustache hoping to anticipate Colborne’s next move. Just how important this decision was to the eventual outcome of the rebellion is difficult to estimate. Girod was right that the opportunity of attacking Montreal while its garrison was absent was lost. Had Montreal fallen, it would have brought the Patriotes further support and given Papineau leverage in any future negotiations with Gosford and Colborne. However, movement of Patriotes south towards Montreal would have left the Deux-Montagnes exposed to attacks by loyalists, and in that context, the decision was understandable.

The major problem facing Girod was the lack of arms, ammunition and ordnance. Some was obtained from Scott and commandeered from loyalist stores. Girod had been told by Scott that there were four cannons, 150 stands of arms and 60 barrels of powder in the Iroquois village of Kanesatake (Oka). [29] He left Saint-Benôit with 240 men at night on 30 November, arrived at the village the following day and was joined by Chénier with 100 men from Saint-Eustache. On their arrival, they pillaged a Hudson’s Bay Company storehouse and took eight muskets, three barrels of musket balls and one cannon and also plundered stores belonging to the priest securing a barrel of pork and ammunition. In Kanesatake, Girod obtained permission to speak with an Iroquois chief. The unnamed chief expressed his wish to remain neutral and refused to lend or sell his guns and cannons to the Patriotes concluding by stating:

Brother, I will not interfere in this dispute between you and Your Father, defend your rights, and when I hear the thunder of your arms, I will consider in my breast whether I am not obliged to assist you.[30]

François Bertrand, a habitant from Côte Saint-Joseph who acted as Girod’s interpreter provided a different version of events. [31] According to Bertrand, the chief reminded Girod that he was satisfied with his British father although the recent quantity of presents had been disappointing. In addition, Girod made a relatively empty promise that he would give more territory to the Indians if they actively joined the rebels. The Kanesateke chiefs may have rebuffed Girod but the following day gave their cannon to the St. Andrew’s Loyalist Volunteers.

The raid on Oka and the armed camp at Saint-Eustache, especially the military use made of the convent confirmed Scott’s opposition to the rebellion. Scott was caught between the actions of militant Patriotes that he found increasingly unacceptable and the government. Gosford put a price on his head on 1 December but the Patriotes also threatened him with proceedings for treason. [32] Despite this, Scott refused to assume the military leadership of the village. On 3 December, he sought to disperse the armed men in Saint-Eustache and spoke with such authority that by the evening the camp was deserted. Yet, this was a short-lived victory and Chénier soon regained the initiative sending messengers to neighbouring Patriote centres urging them to reinforce Saint-Eustache although when Girod reached the village from Saint-Benôit on the evening of 5 December there were only 28 men in the camp. The following day, Patriote volunteers arrived from the north: 114 from Saint-Joachim soon followed by 150-200 from neighbouring villages. However, in early December, the number in the camp fluctuated between 700 and 1,500 men.

The problems at Saint-Eustache were only part of the difficulties facing Girod. There were growing tensions at St-Benôit between Girouard and Chartier. Girouard was having reservations about armed resistance and Chartier accused him of cowardice, and there were also rumours that other leaders were prepared to negotiate with the government to secure their property and lives. The Patriote leaders at Saint-Anne-des-Plaines admitted that proclamations of Montreal magistrates and an increase in troops in Saint-Martin saw support for rebellion dwindle. Three days earlier, they had offered Girod a thousand men, now they said their men could not be relied on. Girod also faced a problem of disorder within Patriote ranks that he could not control. There had been problems at Oka and in Saint-Eustache loyalist homes were now looted. He did finally succeed in having the Porteous Bridge near Saint-Rose demolished to stop the approach of regular troops but at a price. It led to confrontation between forty armed men from Saint-Rose and a small force Girod had sent to the village to recruit for the camp and Girod’s men had little choice but to retire. Girod was planning to attack the regular troops at Saint-Martin completely unaware of Colborne’s preparations in Montreal suggesting a major gap in the Patriote intelligence system.

In early December, Colborne had been concerned by Patriote activities on the United States border and had these raids continued his attack on the north might have been delayed. Notwithstanding, the actions of the Missisquoi Volunteers at Moore’s Corner ended any immediate prospect of further raids. By 7 December, the Richelieu valley had subdued and partially disarmed and had been reinforced with troops from Quebec. Colborne had already garrisoned Saint-Martin on 4 December to prevent rebels destroying the Lachapelle Bridge over the Rivière des Prairies and four days later a detachment of the Royal Montreal Cavalry was also sent to reconnoitre the Deux-Montagnes to ascertain Patriote and Loyalist strength and disposition before advancing with his main force. Colborne was also concerned that bad weather would delay troops in the south and that this would prevent them joining the expedition to the north but the weather was unusually mild until mid-December.

On 13 December, Colborne left Montreal with his main army of 1,280 regulars and 220 volunteers for Saint-Eustache and Saint-Benôit leaving four companies of the 24^th Regiment and large numbers of Montreal Volunteers to protect the city. Unlike in the Richelieu, there were important centres of loyalist support close to the Deux-Montagnes and north of Lacute Orangemen and to the south the Highland Scots of Glengarry were keen to march. Moreover, at Carillon, the meeting place of the Ottawa and the Lac des Deux-Montagnes, there was a detachment of regular troops under Major Townshend originally part of the force brought down from Upper Canada. The operations against Saint-Eustache were to be undertaken by two brigades commanded by Colonel John Maitland and George Wetherall, supported by the Royal Montreal Cavalry, the Montreal Rifles and the largely French Canadian Saint-Eustache Loyal Volunteers commanded by Captain Maximilien Globensky. His brigades followed separate routes for the twelve miles to Saint-Martin avoiding the direct road to Saint-Eustache that the rebels expected them to take. On 14 December, the army crossed the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles about six miles east of the village while Globensky took a more direct route arriving opposite Saint-Eustache at 11.15 am. [33]

Girod concluded that Globensky was leading a small advance force and sent Chénier with 300 men across the ice to intercept them. While they were crossing the ice, Colborne arrived on the north bank of the river to within a mile of the village and immediately ordered his artillery to sweep the Patriotes with grapeshot. This threw Chénier’s detachment into confusion and they quickly retreated towards the church. There were around 900 men in the village that morning, around half with muskets but as Colborne’s force came closer, Chénier and Girod were dismayed to see 500 of their force withdraw, many of them carrying arms. The two leaders tried to restore order but only persuaded 200 to 250 men to take up defensive positions in the convent, church, manor house as well as positioning small squads in Scott’s house on the main street near the church and in other nearby houses. It was soon clear to that Colborne intended to encircle the village: Maitland’s brigade was already marching to the rear of the village while Wetherall’s troops were beginning to cover the north-eastern area. The Patriote leaders concluded that resistance was futile and one by one galloped away to Saint-Benôit. Girod tried to halt the rout at the rear of the village but then decided to ride to Saint-Benôit for reinforcements. His reception from Girouard and the other leaders in Saint-Benôit was not surprising; they accused him of deserting his men and of being a coward. It was too much for Girod who grabbed a carriage and made off on the northern road towards Saint-Thérèse, something he could have done earlier had his intention been simply to flee. The end came on 17 December when, under imminent threat of arrest, Girod blew his brains out at Rivière des Prairies.

By noon, troop manoeuvres had been completed and the rebels were surrounded. Only Chénier and a hard core of determined fighters remained; their position desperate but they refused to parley. Colborne ordered his artillery to fire on the Patriote stronghold but with little effect. He then moved infantry forward to clear Scott’s house and the other fortified houses on the main street. This allowed the Royal Artillery to move one of its howitzers into the main street to face the church in an attempt to batter down its doors. At the same time, a second battery opened up from the fields about three hundred yards north-east of the church but after an hour of little had been achieved. Yet, a small detachment of the Royals sent to reconnoitre the church managed to set fire to the presbytery and the ensuing smokescreen gave the opportunity for frontal attack. Chénier and his men were stationed in the gallery of the church and tried to get clear of the burning church through the windows. There was little sympathy for the Patriotes: it was only six days since many of the troops had attended Lieutenant George Weir’s military funeral in Montreal. The fifty-eight who had followed Chénier were killed almost to a man. Father Paquin witnessed the last moments of the battle

Realising that all hope was lost, Dr. Chénier saw that he could no longer defend himself from inside the church, for it had completely succumbed to the flames. He gathered up several of his men and jumped out of the windows with them, on the convent side. He was trying to escape, but he could not get out of the cemetery, and was soon struck by a bullet and collapsed. He died almost immediately.[34]

He stated that:

Dr Chénier’s body was found around 6 o’clock...the doctors opened it up to determine the cause of death, but it is untrue that his heart was torn out and made an object of curiosity. [35]

Many of the rebels in the presbytery, convent and manor house had escaped before they were surrounded and the buildings fired but they fled across the ice straight into the muskets of Globensky’s Volunteers and the Royal Montreal Rifles. The assault on the church ended the four-hour battle.

By 4.30 pm, the armed camp at Saint-Eustache was in flames, 70 Patriotes lay dead, 15 wounded and 118 captured. The British and volunteer losses were negligible: one killed and eight wounded, of whom two later died. The wounded, both regulars and Patriotes, were taken to the Black Bull Tavern that had been converted into a temporary hospital. Army surgeons cared for all the wounded with equal care, reciprocating the treatment given by Patriote doctors at Saint-Denis. That night the lootings and burnings of Saint-Denis and Saint-Charles were repeated, but on a larger scale. The troops, especially from the 32^nd were bent on avenging the death of Weir, and the volunteers had scores to settle with the Patriotes. Chénier’s and Scott’s homes were burnt by command but later that night some 60 other houses and barns were destroyed. Although later accounts of the battle attribute the burning and looting to volunteers, whose own houses had been looted in previous weeks, the military authorities were not averse to an exemplary display of severity to warn other Patriotes in the area that rebellion came at a price.

In the days that followed, soldiers and volunteers terrorised the area. Colborne did not know how many rebels were in the Deux-Montagnes or how well they were prepared for resistance. Loyalists in Saint-Eustache were convinced that Saint-Benôit was well fortified and that the camp contained several thousand men. That was not the case. Girouard and Girod had made no effort to establish a fortified armed camp other than some barricades on the roads leading out of the village. Girouard’s main concern was not an attack from Saint-Martin but from the loyalist communities at Carillon and St-Andrews and when he heard of the debacle at Saint-Eustache he advised habitants to hide their arms and stay quietly at home. He then escaped to Coteau-du-Lac where he surrendered to his friend Lieutenant-Colonel John Simpson a few days later. The other Patriotes leaders in Saint- Benôit also fled but they too were soon apprehended. The Montreal leaders who had fled to Saint-Benôit, including De Lorimier and curé Etienne Chartier successfully made their way to the United States.

Colborne did not know this when he left at the head of his two brigades on the morning of 15 December. He had not gone very far when he was met by fourteen men carrying a white flag who offered to surrender to him on behalf of the habitants of Saint-Benôit, Saint-Hermas and Saint-Scholastique. Colborne agreed on condition that the habitants should give up their arms. Colborne’s troops advanced on the village arriving at roughly the same time as Major Townshend with his troops and volunteers from the Carillon-St Andrews area. The following day, Colborne ordered that the houses of the three main leaders in the village should be burned but 89 other building including the church were torched largely by volunteers. Colborne’s use of volunteer troops was a deliberate calculation since they struck fear into the rebels and being local remained in the area after the regular troops had gone.

Colborne left Saint-Benôit to return to Montreal in the morning of 16 December arriving later that afternoon. Before he left, he ordered Colonel Maitland and his troops to tour the neighbouring villages to disarm habitants. Maitland arrived in Saint-Scholastique around one o’clock having burned two leaders’ houses in Saint-Joachim. Some 300 inhabitants surrendered 50 stands of arms and Maitland left the village around eight o’clock on 17 December after burning three or four houses belonging to Patriote leaders reaching Saint-Thérèse early in the afternoon. The troops remained in the north until 19 December disarming habitants and assisting the Montreal magistrates who had been sent to receive the oath of allegiance from the inhabitants of the district. The Deux-Montagnes was severely punished during the Rebellion. During the battle of Saint-Eustache on 14 December 1837, the church was burned and the following day Saint-Benoît was ransacked and many houses destroyed despite having surrendered. After the Rebellion, the comté saw a decline in its population as many young settlers moved to the United States or Montreal while those who remained practised subsistence farming. [36]

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[1] Ibid, Courville, Serge, dir., Paroisse et municipalité de la région de Montréal au XIXe siècle (1825-1861), Répertoire documentaire et cartographique, p. 55. See also, ibid, Laporte, Gilles, Patriotes et Loyaux, pp. 257-290.

[2] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, pp. 102-104.

[3] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, p. 487.

[4] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, p. 107.

[5] The use of the term ‘canton’ in Canada is the French Canadian equivalent of the English word ‘township’.

[6] Ibid, Laurin, Serge, Les régions du Québec: Les Laurentides, p. 31.

[7] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, p. 108.

[8] Ibid, Giroux, André and Chapdelaine, Claude, Histoire du territoire de la municipalité régionale de comté de Deux-Montagnes, p. 19.

[9] Ibid, Laurin, Serge, Les régions du Québec: Les Laurentides, p. 34.

[10] Ibid, Dubois, Abbé Émile, Le feu de la Rivière-du-Chêne, Étude historique sur le mouvement insurrectionnel de 1837 au nord de Montréal, p. 50

[11] Ibid, Globensky, Maximilien, La Rébellion de 1837 à Saint-Eustache, 1883, pp. 224-225, provided a brief, slanted biography. ‘William Henry Scott’, DCB, Vol. 8, 1851-1860, pp. 791-792, is more balanced.

[12] ‘Jacques Labrie’, DCB, Vol. 6, pp. 381-382. See, Lemire, Jonathan, (ed.), Jacques Labrie: Écrits et correspondances, (Septentrion), 2009.

[13] ‘Jean-Joseph Girouard’, DCB, Vol. 8, 1851-1860, 1985, pp. 330-334, provides a good biographical study; see also, Messier, pp. 213-214.

[14] ‘Jean-Baptiste Dumouchel’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 258-259.

[15] Lemire, Maurice, ‘Les Irlandais et la rébellion de 1837-1838’, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 10, (1995), pp. 1-9.

[16] [J.-J. Girouard] Relation historique des événements de l’élection du comté du lac des Deux Montagnes en 1834; épisode propre à faire connaître l’esprit public dans le Bas-Canada, Montreal, 1835; reprinted, Quebec, 1968, give a decidedly Patriote view of this event.

[17] Ibid, Dubois, Abbé Émile, Le feu de la Rivière-du-Chêne, Étude historique sur le mouvement insurrectionnel de 1837 au nord de Montréal, p. 66.

[18] Ibid, Dubois, Abbé Émile, Le feu de la Rivière-du-Chêne, Étude historique sur le mouvement insurrectionnel de 1837 au nord de Montréal, p. 79.

[19] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 47-56.

[20] Ibid, Dubois, Émile, Le feu de la Rivière-du-Chêne, pp. 101-106, considers the issue. La Minerve, 20 October 1837, lists a total of 22 magistrates elected for St-Eustache, St-Herman, St-Benôit and Ste-Scholastique. See also Boileau, Gilles, (ed.), 1837 et les patriotes de Deux-Montagnes: les voix de la mémoire, (Éditions du Méridien), 1999. See also, ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 207-213.

[21] Laurin, Clément, ‘Administration parallèle du comté de Deux-Montagnes par les Patriotes, en 1837’, Cahiers d’histoire de Deux-Montagnes, Vol. 5, (2), (1982), pp. 25-28.

[22] Prévost, Robert, Chénier, l’opiniâtre, Montreal, 1940 is a short biography but see also Globensky, Maximilien, La Rébellion de 1837 à Saint-Eustache, pp. 220-224, passim. ‘Jean-Olivier Chénier’, DCB, Vol. 7, 1836-1850, pp. 171-174, is more recent. See also Laurin, Clément, ‘Bibliographie de Jean-Olivier Chénier’, Cahiers d’histoire de Deux-Montagnes, Vol. 5, (2), (1982), pp. 58-66.

[23] Séguin, R. L., ‘Biographie d`un patriote de 1837: Dr. Luc Hyacinthe Masson (1811-1880)’, Revue d`histoire de l`Amérique française, Vol. 3, (1949), pp. 349-366, Désilets, Andreé, ‘Luc Hyacinthe Masson’, DCB, Vol. 10, 1871-1880, pp. 499-500 and Messier, p. 328.

[24] ‘Francois-Marie-Thomas, Chevalier de Lorimier’, DCB, Vol. 7, 1836-1850, pp. 512-516; Messier, pp. 308-309.

[25] Ibid, Bernard, Philippe, Amury Girod, pp. 157-164, considers the decision at Varennes.

[26] Ibid, pp.179-213, explores Girod’s role in the Deux-Montagnes.

[27] Audet, F. J., ‘L’abbé Étienne Chartier’, Les Cahiers des Dix, Vol. 6, (1941), pp. 211-223, is a useful biography; see also Messier, pp. 105-106.

[28] On this issue, see Chabot, Richard, ‘Le Rôle du bas clergé face au mouvement insurrectionnel de 1837’, Cahiers de Sainte-Marie, Vol. 5, (1967), pp. 89-98. Ibid, Amury Girod, p. 181, details the attitude of clergy in the Deux-Montagnes.

[29] Sossoyan, Mathieu, The Iroquois and the Lower-Canadian Rebellions, 1837-1838, McGill University Press, 1999, considers this issue in detail.

[30] His diary for the period 15 November-8 December 1837 has been published as ‘Journal kept by the late Amury Girod, translated from the German and the Italian’, Report of the Public Archives, Ottawa, 1923, pp. 370-80, see pp. 377-378 for the Oka raid.

[31] Voluntary examination of François Bertrand, Archives Nationales du Quebec ‘Documents relatifs aux événements de 1837-1838’, No. 736, cit, Aubin, Georges and Martin-Verenka, Nicole, Insurrection: Examens voluntaire, (Lux), 2004, pp. 24-25

[32] Scott had little choice but to flee but on 19 December, he was captured and imprisoned in Montreal, charged with treason and released only on 10 July 1838.

[33] Journal historique des événements arrivés à Saint-Eustache, pendant la rébellion du comté du lac des Deux-Montagnes depuis les soulèvements…, Montréal, John Jones, 1838, cit, Globensky, Maximilien, La Rébellion de 1837 à Saint-Eustache, pp. 41-80. Walter, Johnson, Pastor Ivictus: or, Rebellion in St. Eustache, (Quality Press Ltd.), 1931, is a later idiosyncratic history. Paiement, Raymond, La bataille de St-Eustache, (Editions Saint-Martin), 1975, is the most recent detailed account. Laurin, Clément, ‘Bibliographie de la bataille de Saint-Eustache’, Cahiers d’histoire de Deux-Montagnes, Vol. 5, (2), (1982), pp. 10-14.

[34] Ibid, Journal historique des événements arrivés à Saint-Eustache, pendant la rébellion du comté du lac des Deux-Montagnes depuis les soulèvements…, p. 64.

[35] There is some question whether the victorious British army treated Chénier’s body with respect: Dufebvre, Bernard, ‘Le coeur de Chénier’, La Revue de l'Université Laval, Vol. 6, (10), (1952), pp. 839-843, and Seguin,Robert-Lionel, ‘À propos du coeur de Chénier’, Revue de l’Université Laval, Vol. 7, (8), (1953), pp. 724-729. ‘Daniel Arnoldi’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 25-27, considers his role in the autopsy.

[36] Ibid, Giroux, André and Chapdelaine, Claude, Histoire du territoire de la municipalité régionale de comté de Deux-Montagnes, p. 21.

L’Acadie

The electoral comté de l’Acadie was established by the reforms of 5 October 1829 and covered a vast area extending 32 kilometres along the western bank of the Richelieu and varied between 13 and 25 kilometres wide. To the south it bordered the United States and was adjacent to the comté de Chambly to the north-east. The comté was bordered to the west by the seigneurie de Beauharnois[1] and the township of Hemmingford. [2] In the 1830s, it contained six seigneuries and a small area held in frankpledge and common soccage. The comté included the parishes of Saint-Cyprien, Saint-Valentin and Saint-Édouard and parts of the parishes of Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie, Saint-Rémi and Saint-Philippe. Colonised following the War of American Independence, in the decades before the Rebellions, its socio-economic structure was dominated by the agricultural sector and showed little economic diversification. [3]

The comté, covered in place by marshes, was under-developed by Lower Canadian standards; it seems that the difficult conditions for colonists partly explain this situation. [4] The region showed uneven development between different seigneuries and between different farmers on the same fief. However, Acadie had several prosperous farmers among its 11,419 residents in 1831 even if conditions for the majority were poor. [5] Its seigneurs vigorously exploited their habitants and placed heavy economic burdens on both owners of land and tenant farmers.[6] Habitant debt was a chronic problem throughout the region.[7] The seigneurs undoubtedly contributed to levels of distress in Acadie and the seigneurial question became a political issue of major importance during the 1830s. Greer argues that evidence of the worsening relationship between the habitants and the seigneurs in Acadie can be found in the seven anti-seigneurial petitions its deputies presented to the Assembly between 1831 and 1836.[8] Divided between its Catholic French Canadian majority (72.3% heads of household in 1831) and a strong anglophone minority, the comté saw friction between the two linguistic groups. [9] This provided a basis for the growing radicalism of Patriotes and, in many respects the experience of Acadie was typical of the situation in the Montreal district.[10]

The seigneuries in Acadie, however, demonstrate the problem of trying to make generalisations about the area. The seigneuries of De Léry[11] and Lacolle[12], although both were owned by William Penderleath Christie, illustrate the problem. [13] De Léry was a strong settlement with 5,437 habitants in 1831, almost all French Canadian Catholics while Lacolle was less populated with only 2,150 habitants of whom 63% were Anglo-Protestants. The two seigneuries were the only ones in Acadie to have been granted under the French regime and to be managed by the agent William McGinnis.[14] The loyalist American settlers at Lacolle experienced relatively prosperous farming and paid the highest seigneurial royalties in Lower Canada during the 1830s. De Léry, by contrast, was not as prosperous and in 1835, several habitants were dispossessed because of arrears.[15] The remaining four seigneuries were, until 1820, part of the canton of Sherrington but they were included in Acadie as a government solution to litigation between the seigneur of Lasalle and the rightful owners of the canton. In 1837, the seigneurie of Saint-Georges (2,198 habitants largely French Canadian in 1831) was the property of seigneur François Languedoc, deputy of the comté from 1831 to 1834. The seigneuries of Twaite (346 habitants largely French Catholics) and Saint-James (502 habitants of varied ethnic origins) had been held since 1825 by John Boston, a Montreal lawyer and an important loyalist. Finally the seigneurie of Saint-Normand (437 habitants, more than 90% French Catholics) had been the fief of Collin McCallum since 1835. It appears that the level of both droits d’entrée and seigneurial dues were high across all of the seigneuries in Acadie.[16]

With 398 identified Patriotes, the comté de l’Acadie was strongly mobilised, particularly in the parish of Saint-Cyprien and in the village of Napierville,[17] areas with a strong French Canadian petite bourgeoisie who played a central role in the radical movement. [18] Based on the list of 2,100 Patriote names compiled by Bernard, Patriote support in the comté consisted largely of habitants (91% for the comté as a whole but higher in Saint-Valentin and Lacolle with 97% and 96% respectively. Anglophones were significantly under-represented in the Patriote organisation in the comté. Cyrille-Hector-Olivier Côté[19], a young doctor from Napierville and Lucien Gagnon[20], a 42 year old prosperous peasant from Pointe-à-la-Mule led the movement in Acadie. Côté had not only been deputy for Acadie since 1834 at the age of twenty four, but played a leading part in the planning of the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and acted as treasurer and general of the camp at Napierville. Under the pseudonym of ‘Agricola’, he took a radical position on seigneurial tenure.[21] Lucien Gagnon, famous for his violent temper, was less important than Côté although he was primarily responsible for mobilising Pointe-à-la-Mule and was an important recruiter for the Frères Chasseurs.[22]

The comté de l’Acadie was an important area of Patriote activity in both 1837 and 1838 and saw considerable military action. On 12 July 1837, an anti-coercive assembly took place at Napierville, the most important Patriote demonstration in the comté during 1837, according to La Minerve attended by 4,000 people.[23] The Patriote assembly was attended by Papineau, O’Callaghan, T.S. Brown, Côté, Gagnon and Merritt Hotchkiss[24] who like Côté was deputy for the comté and passed twenty resolution including one especially critical of the seigneurial system. On 24 July, there was also a loyalist meeting organised in the village of Napierville by Joseph Brisset and the seigneurs François Languedoc and John Boston.[25]

Two months later on 10 September 1837, a further Patriote assembly at Napierville denounced the dismissal of magistrates and militia officers by the colonial government and demanded that pressure should be exerted on loyalists to resign their posts.[26] Following this assembly and the reorganisation of the local militia, there were several charivaris, orchestrated by Côté, against a number of loyalists including Dudley Flowers[27], a lieutenant in the militia, curé Amiot of Napierville and Doctor Timoléon Quesnel, a local magistrate.[28] A delegation from Acadie, which only arrived at the last minute, attended the assembly at St-Charles on 23 October 1837 where Côté’s call to arms caused consternation among the more moderate Patriotes.[29]

The village of Pointe-à-la-Mule acted as the centre for Patriote initiatives in Acadie led by Gagnon, Côté and François Paradis.[30] Operations were largely aimed at intimidating and disarming loyalists and Captain George Phillpotts in a report to Colborne described the situation in Acadie as terrible. [31] An arrest warrant was delivered to Côté’s address. By mid-November, Pointe-à-la-Mule had become the site of an armed camp from where, led by François Nicolas and Amable Daunais, an attack on the soldiers at St-Jean was planned for late November. However, their force was too small and their contribution to the rebellion was to execute Joseph Chartrand, a loyalist volunteer from St-Jean was visiting the parish of L’Acadie and was accused of being a government spy. Tried by court-martial in the local schoolhouse, he was found guilty, tied to a tree and shot.

Côté and Gagnon had been among the first Patriote leaders to cross into Vermont on 20 November in search of weapons where they had been joined at Swanton by other fugitives but also welcomed by French Canadians already settled there. [32] Gagnon was soon back across the border gathering men and weapons and made his way back to Swanton with 66 recruits. With Patriotes already there and a few Vermonters, his force numbered around 200 men. On the evening of 6 December, about 84 Patriotes carrying substantial munitions moved across the border towards the town of St-Césaire where rumour placed Wolfred Nelson establishing a new camp. Gagnon had already succeeded in alarming Loyalists in the whole region and Colborne immediately dispatched troops and cannons to St-Armand. However, before his troops reached the border, the Patriotes were ambushed by 300 Missisquoi Volunteers led by Captain Oran J. Kemp at Moore’s Corner, a little crossroads between St-Armand and Philipsburgh.[33] During the twenty minute skirmish, five Patriotes including Bouchette were captured and one killed and the rest retreated across the border. This reverse put an end to the rebellion in 1837 and in February 1838 loyalist forces in the area were reinforced when 300 Glengarry Volunteers occupied Napierville.[34]

The comté de l’Acadie played a role in Robert Nelson’s attempt to invade Lower Canada from the United States in November 1838. At the head of French Canadian refugees and American volunteers, he planned to invade southern Lower Canada and then to march on Montreal. The majority of the Chasseurs gathered at Napierville on 4 November for the most important Patriote gathering during the rebellions. [35] Also, depending on the estimates, between 1,500 and 5,000 Chasseurs gathered in the parish of Saint-Cyprien. They were guided by a large flag with two blue stars hanging from the maypole of a local militia captain.[36] A hundred loyalists were imprisoned, including militia Captains C. Fortin and P. Gamelin and merchants T. Thompson, W. Wilson, L. Odell and Orange Tyler until freed by Colborne’s troops on 10 November.

Around midnight on 3 November, Robert Nelson and a dozen supporters including Charles Hindenlang and another called Touvrey, both soldiers of fortune who had served in the French army sailed northwards on Lake Champlain to the Canadian border. [37] Nelson had some $20,000 in cash, the remnants of the Chasseurs treasury, a six-pounder cannon and 250 rifles and ammunition. Both the force and the supplies were less than he expected. There had already been a decline in active American support for the movement because of the increased patrols on both sides of the border. Nelson was unperturbed expecting that the regulars garrisoned in Montreal would be drawn away by an invasion of the upper province. He seems to have learned little from the previous February. Much like De Lorimier at Beauharnois, rebel successes were in people’s minds rather than on the battlefield, propaganda to persuade hesitant Hunters south of the border to commit themselves to action.

Nelson landed at Vitman’s Quay, three miles north of the border and twenty miles from Napierville, about 1.00 am on 4 November to a silent welcome. There was no Patriote army but there were large numbers of loyalist volunteers at Hemmingford, fifteen miles to the west, at Lacolle six miles north and at Odelltown three miles away and regulars were stationed at Ile-aux-Noix. With difficulties, the small party hid the armaments and headed north arriving at Napierville about 9.00 am where Côté was waiting with nearly 3,000 men though only a tenth had arms. Nelson again proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada, Côté was made commander-in-chief and Hindenlang organised the companies and battalions. By the morning of 5 November, patrols were scouring the country for recruits and food and later that day, Hindenlang’s organisation complete, the army marched by Nelson in grand review. The following night, a force of 500 under the command of Côté, Gagnon, Touvrey and a Polish colonel Oklowski headed south towards Vitman’s Quay to retrieve Nelson’s guns. It swung to the west of Lacolle to avoid volunteers but between Lacolle and their destination blundered into a small volunteer force that was dispersed with hardly a dozen shots. This was sufficient to rouse the loyalist forces in Lacolle, the Lacolle Frontier Volunteers but the Patriotes continued to Vitman’s Quay to find the arms intact. With volunteers converging from Hemmingford in the west, from Lacolle and from the east across the Richelieu, the Patriotes tried to force their way through to Napierville. Yet, within fifteen minutes, they had scattered leaving eleven dead and the weapons and Côté and almost the entire Chasseur force headed south towards the border. By the morning of Wednesday 7 November, a few stragglers made their way back to Napierville and news quickly spread through the camp. By the evening, of the 3,000 who had gathered there, only 1,200 remained.

This defeat led Nelson, on Thursday 8 November to decide to try to retrieve the weapons presumably still in Lacolle and at 9.00 am, led his men south. By dusk, his force had fallen to 600 men and he ordered a night encampment and then rode off into the darkness, he later argued, to make his own reconnaissance. Hindenlang had sent out armed patrols and one apprehended Nelson who was dragged back to the camp. Nelson protested that he had not been making for the border but his officers were hard to convince and the camp was in uproar. A semi-trial followed at which he was finally able to allay Patriote suspicions of betrayal and on the morning of Friday 9 November, the army continued its march south. Hindenlang commanded the centre, the left surrounded Nelson and the right spread out through the fields along the road. However, at Odelltown, 200 loyalist volunteers were waiting with the Patriote cannon standing in front of the church. After two hours of indecisive fighting, the loyalists, now reinforced, surged forward to push the Patriotes out of the cluster of barns and buildings round the church and after five more sorties in the next hour the remaining Patriotes were exhausted and low on ammunition. Hindenlang moved to the left to consult Nelson, but he had not been seen for two hours. With volunteers arriving from Hemmingford and from Clarenceville across the Richelieu, the last of the Patriotes fled leaving fifty dead and as many wounded. By dusk, Nelson, who had slipped away from the battle, was safely across the border but Hindenlang was captured and taken north to Montreal. The battle of Odelltown was the decisive battle of the rebellion. With the rout of the Chasseur forces and Nelson’s flight across the border, the rebellion had failed. [38]

Repeating what occurred in 1837, before Colborne arrived at Napierville the following day, Pierre-Remi Narbonne[39] surrendered to Lewis Odell.[40] The actions of loyalists and regular troops in 1838, unlike the previous year, were repressive and brutal in Acadie. In Napierville, for example, eighty houses were destroyed and in the parish of Saint-Cyprien 170 Patriotes were arrested. This did not represent the end of the Patriote agitation and secret assemblies took place at Pointe-à-la-Mule in the spring of 1839 and the seigneurie of Lacolle was the target of punitive incursions from March 1839 until June 1843. The comté de l’Acadie is important in trying to understand the character of rebellion in 1837 and 1838. Its particular socio-economic structure, the radicalism of its habitants and Patriote leaders as well as the importance of the military operations that occurred there placed Acadie at the centre of the Lower Canadian political crisis of the 1830s. [41]

---

[1] Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, (Éditions Élysée), 1978, pp. 111-114 on the seigneurie de Beauharnois.

[2] Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, 1986, p. 42; Courville, Serge, dir., Paroisse et municipalité de la région de Montréal au XIXe siècle (1825-1861), Répertoire documentaire et cartographique, (PUL), 1988, p. 51; Laporte, Gilles, Patriotes et Loyaux: Leadership régional et mobilisation politique en 1837 et 1838, (Septentrion), 2004, pp. 207-225.

[3] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 54, 62.

[4] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 63, 64.

[5] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 63, 64; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[6] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[7] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 77.

[8] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 243; ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 79, 121, 124, 130.

[9] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 146.

[10] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 142; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43, 55

[11] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, p. 175.

[12] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, pp. 178-180.

[13] Ibid, Noel, Françoise, The Christie Seigneuries: Estate Management and Settlement in the Upper Richelieu Valley, 1760-1854. See also, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 184-186.

[14] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 44 -46; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[15] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 44.

[16] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 44.

[17] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 85.

[18] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Rebellions de 1837-1838: Les Patriotes dans La Memoire Collective et Chez Les Historiens, p. 297.

[19] DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 208-211; Messier, pp. 118-119.

[20] DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 333-335; Messier, pp. 199-200.

[21] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 249.

[22] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 90-91.

[23] Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, (VLB), 1987, pp. 135-143.

[24] Messier, p. 240.

[25] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 156; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 254-255. Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 148-152.

[26] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 194-196.

[27] On Flowers, see DCB, Vol. 7, p. 239.

[28] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 213, 219, 222, 224, 242.

[29] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 89.

[30] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 161.

[31] Senior, Elinor Kyte, Redcoats & Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38, (Canada’s Wings Inc), 1985, p. 79.

[32] Bernard, Jean-Paul, ‘Vermonters and the Lower Canadian rebellions of 1837-1838’, Vermont History, Vol. 58, (1990), pp. 250-263.

[33] Bouchette, Robert-S.-M., Mémoires de Robert-S.-M. Bouchette 1804-1840, originally published in the Revue Canadienne, republished, Montreal, (1903), pp. 41-44, gives a participant’s account of Moore’s Corner. ‘Robert-Shire-Milnes Bouchette’, DCB, Vol. 10, pp. 77-78. Ibid, Senior, Elinor Kyte, Redcoats & Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38, pp. 144, 154.

[34] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 161.

[35] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 168.

[36] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 305.

[37] ‘Charles Hindenlang’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 411-412.

[38] Senior, Elinor Kyte, ‘The battles of Lacolle and Odeltown, 1838’, Journal annuel de la société historique de la vallée de la Chateauguay/Chateauguay valley historical society annual journal, Vol. 13, (1980), pp. 13-20.

[39] See DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 412, 484-485, 514; Messier, pp. 350-351.

[40] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 177, 178. Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Odell (1782-1843) commanded the 2^nd Battalion Arcadian Militia and was in the Battle of Odelltown, 9 November, 1838.

[41] The Union Act of 1840, section 19 stated that ‘the said Counties of L’Acadie and Laprairie shall be united into and form one county to be called the County of Huntingdon...’

Fertility

Fertility levels had already stabilised by the 1830s.[1] The lower marriage age that had contributed to the increased natural growth of the early industrial revolution gave way after the depressed 1820s and 1830s to later marriage, a slight increase in the proportion of women who never married and lower birth rates of 35-36 per thousand women in the 1840s compared with over 40 per thousand around 1800.[2]

Sex education was as contentious then as it is today and for young girls was usually assigned to their mothers. However, this was increasingly felt to be an unsatisfactory approach and by the 1890s, there was considerable support for girls being taught ‘some of the necessary physical facts’. The content of that education remained a difficult question. The Reverend Edward Lyttleton was quite clear in 1900 that more sex education was needed but that girls required less information than boys. He argued,

...for most girls it would be enough for the parent to advise that the seed of life is entrusted by God to the father in a very wonderful way, and that after marriage he is allowed to give it to his wife. [3]

The problem was that sex education was inextricably linked to different views about female sexual character and the religious emphasis on moral restraint. There were certain limitations on marriage. First, new appliance methods of birth control (the rubber condom, Dutch cap and douche) were invented, marketed and adopted during the last decades of the nineteenth century but they were rather expensive for general use until after 1914. Since marital fertility was reduced, it must be assumed that some combination of sexual abstinence, coitus interruptus, accurate use of the safe period and induced abortion were the most likely means by which family limitation was brought about. [4]

Nineteenth and early-twentieth century writings on birth control provide a revealing source for attitudes towards female sexuality and social roles. Advocates of birth control were seen as supporters of atheism, depravity and social unrest especially by organised religion and the medical profession. Effective birth control shattered the link between sexuality and reproduction and created the real possibility of greater sexual freedom and control for women as well as helping to reduce family size. Michael Ryan, an evangelical physician argued in 1837,

None can deny that, if young women in general were absolved from the fear of consequences, the great majority of them…would rarely preserve their chastity. [5]

Chastity according to Ryan was a consequence of fear of pregnancy. Birth control brought the possibility of unrestrained female sexuality and with it the breakdown of sexual control and social order. Medical opposition to birth control was expressed in a mixture of warnings about the injurious results for health and the associated moral decline. The Lancet, virulent in its condemnation of contraception commented in 1869

A woman on whom her husband practises what is euphemistically called ‘preventative copulation’, is, in the first place necessarily brought into the condition of mind of a prostitute… [6]

There was, however, an unresolved problem in medical thinking grounded in class. Self-denial was recommended as fertility control. However, the working-class could not be expected to show restraint such was ‘the natural predominance of the animal life in the illiterate.’ [7] Doctors were generally unwilling to recommend contraception but also assumed that there was little restraint in working-class sexuality. This reinforced the widespread anxiety in the assumed sexual depravity and unrestrained breeding of the poor. Medical conservatism was illustrated when H.A. Allbutt was struck off the medical register for publicising birth-control methods in his popular The Wife’s Handbook in 1887. There were, however, strong public advocates of birth control and of the right of women to choose whether and when to have children. Francis Place and Richard Carlisle popularised methods of contraception in the 1820s. The publicity surrounding the Bradlaugh-Besant trial in 1876 was a major boost to the birth-control cause and opponents in the middle and upper classes felt increasingly pressure from what they called ‘the evil in our midst’.

Abortion was probably the most important female initiative in family limitation in this period, particularly among the very poor. In the 1890s and early 1900s, the British Medical Journal traced the diffusion of abortion involving the use of lead plaster from Leicester to Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield and though some of the larger Yorkshire towns. By 1914, abortion was common in 26 out of the 104 registration districts north of the Humber. Among northern textile workers, poverty and the need to work probably played the most important part in the decision to seek an abortion, but it is also important to recognise that working-class women saw abortion as a natural and permissible strategy. Withdrawal was undoubtedly the main method by which the decline in working-class fertility was achieved. One of the main reasons for this was the cost of sheaths: 2/- to 3/- for a dozen when the average weekly wage for labourers did not rise above 20/- a week. Withdrawal was a cheaper, if less reliable, method. It also raises the issue of women’s sexual dependency and that some degree of male co-operation was necessary.

Secondly, despite religious and cultural beliefs that delayed the adoption of family limitation in some sectors of society, increasing secularisation caused barriers to be broken down. The argument that family limitation represented the diffusion of birth control from the professional and upper middle-classes (the maid learning from her mistress) to the lower classes does not stand up to close examination. Among the first to limit family size were ‘skilled’ non-manual and commercial workers such as shopkeepers, and clerks who were also prominent among cautious late-marriers. There were considerable differences in marital fertility between different types of area in 1891. Relatively low birth rates in textile districts and residential towns, with large numbers of single women in domestic service and middle-class households, contrasts with earlier and more universal marriages with larger families among iron and steel-making and coal-mining communities where the abundant use of high-paid boys and young men in the mines reduced incentives to limit families, while fewer opportunities for female employment and the stereotyping of women meant that girls married earlier.[8]

Thirdly, social factors such as the availability of marriage partners in areas of high emigration or persistent out-migration throughout rural England limited marriage levels and affected births.[9] Limitations on marriage in certain occupational groups, for example, living-in domestic servants and farm labourers, also affected local fertility patterns.[10] The general increase in the mean age of marriage to about 25.8 years for women and some two years higher for men by 1850, and further increased from the 1870s, also reflected changing economic circumstances and the desire for more spending power and independence. [11] There were considerable differences between industrial areas, where there were more and earlier marriages and rural areas where marriages tended to be later and between different social classes. Urban labourers and miners married young; prudent white-collar workers, shopkeepers and the middle-class postponed marriage until they felt able to afford it. Many single children who moved to the city, whether as a domestic servant or an industrial or office worker often lived for a time in lodgings before taking on family responsibilities. Hence the large number of households with lodgers reflected in census enumerators’ books.

Fourthly, economic incentives to limiting the number and spacing of births were strong where women were prominent in the workforce. In the mills of Lancashire or West Yorkshire or in the Potteries women might delay having children or have a smaller family and return to work as soon as possible. Increasing numbers of women involved in shop and, from the 1890s, office work might also have deferred marriage and limited their families. Among the middle-class, the increasing expense of raising children with rising costs for domestic servants and school fees, as well as a growing desire for greater freedom and more money to spend on luxuries and entertainment, were obvious incentives to having fewer children. Even within geographical areas there were often significant differences in rates of marriage. In London, there was a very close relationship between the proportion of women married and the percentage of women employed in domestic service. In Hampstead the proportion married was 0.274 while in Poplar, in the East End, it was 0.638 in 1861 and little had changed by 1891.

As child mortality gradually declined from the 1860s, there was less need for large families and more incentive to put space between births so as to avoid excessive pressure on mothers and households. The average family size fell from 6.2 children in the 1860s, to 4.1 for those marrying in the 1890s and to 2.8 for the 1911-marriage cohort. The rapid decline in the average age at which the mother’s last child was born, from age 41 to 34 over this period is a clear reflection of deliberate spacing and limitation of births within marriage. In the nineteenth century marriage set the bounds for sexual activity. This does not mean that illegitimacy, bridal pregnancy, prostitution and adultery were uncommon, especially in certain localities, but it does give marriage a direct demographic importance that is all but lost today. Illegitimacy or bastardy existed in the nineteenth century and in East Anglia and eastern England in general was sufficiently large for one to begin to doubt the importance of marriage as a social and legal event.[12] But elsewhere in England, and especially off the coalfields, non-marital fertility was low enough in 1851 at only 5% or 6% of births were illegitimate for the institution of marriage still to be accepted as having particular importance as a regulator of fertility rates. By 1911, only 4% of all births were illegitimate in England and Wales. It can be asked whether the forces that resulted in decline in marital fertility also led to the reduction of non-marital fertility. [13]

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[1] Wrigley, E.A., ‘Explaining the rise in marital fertility in England in the “long” eighteenth century’, Economic History Review, Vol. 51, (1998), pp. 435-464.

[2] Soloway, R.A., Demography and Degeneration, (University of North Carolina Press), 1990 and Szreter, Simon, Fertility, class and gender in Britain 1860-1940, (Cambridge University Press), 1996 deal with the controversial question of declining fertility in contrasting ways. Woods, R. and Smith, C. W., ‘The decline of marital fertility in the late nineteenth century: the case of England and Wales’, Population Studies, Vol. 37, (1983), pp. 207-225 and Woods, R., ‘Social class variations in the decline of marital fertility in late 19^th century London’, Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 66, (1984), pp. 29-38 are important papers. Gillis, J.R. et al., (eds.), The European Experience of Declining Fertility: A Quiet Revolution, 1850-1970, (Blackwell), 1992 and Lestheaghe, R. and Wilson, C., ‘Modes of Production, Secularization and the Pace of the Fertility Decline in Western Europe 1870-1930’, in Coale, A.J. and Watkins, S.C., (eds.), The Decline of Fertility in Europe, (Princeton University Press), 1986, pp. 262-291 provide a European perspective..

[3] Lyttleton, Edward, The Training of the Young in the Laws of Sex, (Longman, Green), 1900, p. 85.

[4] Banks, J.A., Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England, (Liverpool University Press), 1964, McLaren, A., Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century England, (Croom Helm), 1977 and Soloway, R.A., Birth Control and the Population Question in England 1877-1930, (University of North Carolina Press), 1982 provide a useful introduction to a vexed subject.

[5] Ryan, Michael, The Philosophy of Marriage, in its social, moral and physical relations: With an Account of the Diseases of the Genito-urinary Organs, which Impair Or Destroy the Reproductive Function, and Induce a Variety of Complaints: with the Physiology of Generation in the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms..., (John Churchill), 1837, p. 12.

[6] ‘Checks on Population’, The Lancet, 10 April 1869, p. 500.

[7] Ibid, ‘Checks on Population’, p. 500.

[8] Williams, N. and Galley, C., ‘Urban-rural Differentials in Infant Mortality in Victorian Britain’, Population Studies, Vol. 49, (1995), pp. 401-420 and Williams, N. and Mooney, G., ‘Infant mortality in an “age of great cities”: London and the English provincial cities compared, c.1840-1910’, Change and Continuity, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 185-212.

[9] Anderson M. & D.J. Morse, ‘High Fertility, High Emigration, Low Nuptiality: Scotland’s Demographic Experience, 1861-1914’, Population Studies, Vol. 47, (1993), pp. 5-25, 319-343.

[10] Seccombe, W., ‘Starting to Stop: Working Class Fertility Decline in Britain’, Past and Present, Vol. 126, (1990), pp. 151-180 and debate with R. Woods, Past and Present, Vol. 134, (1992), pp. 200-211. See also Seccombe, W., Weathering the storm: working-class families from the industrial revolution to the fertility decline, (Verso), 1993.

[11] Lewis, Jane, (ed.), Labour and Love: Women’s experience of home and family 1850-1940, (Basil Blackwell), 1986 is a good starting-point on the experience of home and family. Lane, Penny, Victorian Families in Fact and Fiction, (Macmillan), 1997 provides a novel analysis of the issues. O’Day, Rosemary, The Family and Family Relationships 1500-1900, (Macmillan), 1995 takes a longer perspective. Banks, J.A., Victorian Value: Secularism and the Size of Families, (Routledge), 1981 is concerned with the implications of changing gender-ratios in the late nineteenth century and continues the argument about birth control. Gillis, J.R., For Better, For Worse; British marriages, 1600 to the present, (Oxford University Press), 1985, takes a long perspective on marriage while Dyhouse, Carol, Feminism and the Family in England 1880-1939, (Cambridge University Press), 1991 looks at the politics of the family.

[12] Levene, Alysa, Williams, Samantha and Nutt, Thomas, (eds.), Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700-1920, (Palgrave), 2005 contains several relevant papers; see also Crafts, N.F.R., ‘Illegitimacy in England and Wales in 1911’, Population Studies, Vol. 36, (1982), pp. 327-331.

[13] Anderson M. ‘Fertility Decline in Scotland, England and Wales and Ireland: Comparisons from the 1911 Census of Fertility, Population Studies, Vol. 52, (1998), pp. 1-20.

Mortality

Levels of mortality changed little between the 1820s and the 1870s after which they moved hesitantly downwards to the turn of the century. There were three major factors influencing health and mortality. First, socio-economic forces such as rising real wages and improved living standards and diet offered some improvement though not to the urban poor. Secondly, bio-medical factors offered few major breakthroughs in curative medicine before the late nineteenth century despite better hospital provision and improved treatment and containment of epidemic diseases especially those of childhood such as scarlet fever, diphtheria and measles. Finally, environmental conditions put great pressure on the larger towns in which an increasing proportion of the population lived but improvement was restricted. Only with effective legislation to improve sanitation, water supply and housing and to apply effective measures of preventive medicine, especially the control of epidemic diseases were these gradually eliminated.[1] Medical science may have changed slowly but improving public and private medicine and, from 1850 onwards, more and better-run hospitals improved health and life expectancy, especially among the middle-classes.[2] The introduction of school medical services in the 1900s helped through regular eye, dental and hair inspections since head lice were a universal scourge in poorer areas.[3]

While most epidemic diseases resisted cure, prevention and treatment could limit their impact. During the epidemic years of 1831-1832, 1847-1849 and in the 1860s average mortality of about 22 per thousand rose to 24-25 per thousand. Excess mortality in large cities and industrial areas was reflected in the contrast, identified by William Farr, between the ‘Healthy Districts’ (rural and suburban areas) that had an average life expectancy at birth of 51.5 years in the late 1830, and the ‘Poor Districts’ (unhealthy inner cities and many industrial areas) where it was less than 29. This gap narrowed from the 1880s when it began a slow fall to 47.5 and 66.3 years for County Boroughs and Rural Districts respectively in 1911. The close link between high population density, overcrowding and death rates, especially among infants and children underlined the continuing important of environmental and socio-economic factors in health and mortality.

The wide discrepancies in life expectancy and the principal reason for failing to improve this until after 1890 was high levels of infant mortality. Child deaths began to decline erratically from 1830 and more steadily from the 1860s; only from 1900 was there a parallel fall in infant mortality. In late nineteenth century England between 15% and 20% of deaths occurred to those under the age of one year with about 25% for those under five years. Infant mortality in the unhealthiest cities was more than double than in healthy rural areas and twice that of suburban areas. In Glasgow, intra-urban mortality in the 1870s ranged from 21 to 46 per thousand with even wider discrepancies between wards of 69 to 166 per thousand. The mortality of infants born to unmarried mothers was substantially higher than that of legitimate children and roughly one third of all infant deaths occurred during the first month of life.[4]

Over three-quarters of the fall in mortality between 1848 and 1901 was brought about by a decline in diseases such as scarlet fever, diphtheria and measles and those caused by infected water and food such as typhoid, cholera and, most significantly, dysentery and diarrhoea, a major cause of child deaths in summer months. There was also considerable improvement in the prevention of respiratory tuberculosis thanks to better housing, nutrition and nursing. There was no improvement of other bronchial deaths, including pneumonia and influenza, to which growing air pollution undoubtedly contributed. Even in the countryside substantial differences in mortality reflected environmental and nutritional contrasts. In the Fens, for example, damp and humid summer heat tainted food and increased mortality in areas where babies were weaned young.  Where children were breast fed and/or had access to fresh milk, as in many areas of upland England infant mortality was often below average.

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[1] Woods, Robert and Shelton, Nicola, An atlas of Victorian mortality, (Liverpool University Press), 1997 provides a graphic representation. Winter, J.M., ‘The Decline of Mortality in Britain, 1870-1950’, in ibid, Barker, T. and Drake, M., (eds.), Population and Society in Britain, pp. 101-120 and Millward, R. and Bell, F.N., ‘Economic Factors in the Decline of Mortality in Late Nineteenth Century Britain’, European Review of Economic History, Vol. 2, (1998), pp. 263-288 consider the evidence.

[2] Hardy, A., Health and Medicine in Britain since 1860, (Longman), 2001 and The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine 1856-1900, (Oxford University Press), 1993.

[3] Houlbrooke, R., (ed.), Death, Ritual and Bereavement, (Routledge), 1989 contains some useful papers and Barnard, S.M., To Prove I’m not Forgot: Living and Dying in a Victorian City, (Manchester University Press), 1990 provides a specific case study on Victorian attitudes to death. Woods, Robert, ‘Physician, heal thyself: the health and mortality of Victorian doctors’, Social History of Medicine, Vol. 9, (1996), pp. 1-30 looks at the medical profession.

[4] Woods, Robert, ‘On the historical relationship between infant and adult mortality’, Population Studies, Vol. 47, (1993), pp. 195-219 and Children remembered: responses to untimely death in the past, (Liverpool University Press), 2006 and Woods, R., et al., ‘The causes of rapid infant mortality decline in England and Wales, 1861-1921’, Population Studies, Vol. 42, (1988), pp. 343-366 and Vol. 43, (1989), pp. 113-132. See also, Williams N. & Mooney, G., ‘Infant Mortality in an “Age of Great Cities”: London and the English Provincial Cities Compared, c.1840-1910’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 175-212, Reid, A., ‘Locality or Class? Spatial and Social Differentials in Infant and Child Mortality in England and Wales, 1895-1911’, in Corsini, C.A. & Viazzo, P., (eds.), The Decline of Infant and Child Mortality: The European Experience 1750-1990, (Martinus Nijhoff), 1997, pp. 129-154 and Graham, D., ‘Female Employment and Infant Mortality: Some Evidence from British Towns, 1911, 1931 and 1951’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 212-246.

Malthus

In 1803, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) published a second edition of his An Essay on the Principles of Population, a work that had been first published anonymously five years earlier.[1] The main tenets of his argument were radically opposed to contemporary thinking. He drew attention to the consequences of untrammelled population growth, arguing that it would double every twenty-five years and that existing resources would not rise sufficiently to support such growth. Although the ultimate check on population for Malthus appeared to be want of food arising from the different ratios according to which population and food supplies increased, the immediate checks ‘are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery’. Of these, the ‘positive checks’, as Malthus called them, included

...all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague and famine.[2]

The ‘preventive checks’ could largely be equated with ‘restraint from marriage which is not followed by irregular gratifications’, while

...promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed and improper arts to conceal the consequences of irregular connections, are preventive checks that clearly come under the head of vice.[3]

In England, Malthus argued, the checks on population were much affected by social class, the opportunities for employment and the physical, especially urban, environment. Self-imposed restraint on marriage operated with ‘considerable force throughout all the classes of the community’. The population model Malthus developed was one in which the rate of demographic growth was influenced by mortality, fertility and net migration. When the rate of population growth begins to rise there will be an increase in the price of food that will reduce the level of real wages. Lower real wages might lead to increased mortality or affect the prospects of marriage that will automatically increase the level of temporary or permanent celibacy. As a result, fertility will fall and the growth of population slow down as it would if mortality were to be increased. This is called a self-regulation or homeostatic system.

There is much in what Malthus wrote that is relevant to the post-1830 period but during the nineteenth century ways were found to escape from the weight of Malthus’ law.[4] First, the association between population growth rates and food prices appears to have been broken even during Malthus’ lifetime. Secondly, while the relationship between mortality and real wages persisted, the latter began a long-term improvement. Mortality was probably reduced as a result, though difference between classes persisted. Improved standards of living were only one of many potential reasons for falling mortality. Thirdly, marital fertility took the place of nuptiality as the principle influence on changes and variations in general levels of fertility. Family limitation came to be widely practised. Finally, the closed system described by Malthus was thrown open to new forms of destabilising influences. Cities grew at the expense of villages and the Empire at the expense of Britain.

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[1] Malthus, T.R., An Essay on the Principle of Population, Or, A View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness: With an Inquiry Into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal Or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions, various editions. Winch, Donald, (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, (Cambridge University Press), 1992 is an annotated version of the 1803 edition while Gilbert, Geoffrey (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, (Oxford University Press), provides an accessible copy of the 1798 edition. Winch, D., Malthus, (Oxford University Press), 1987 is a good short discussion.

[2] Ibid, Winch, Donald, (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, p. 23.

[3] Ibid, Winch, Donald, (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, p. 24.

[4] See, Komlos, John, ‘The industrial revolution as the escape from the Malthusian trap’, Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 29, (2000), pp. 307-331 and Thomas, Brinley, ‘Escaping from constraints: the industrial revolution in a Malthusian context’, in Rotberg, R.I. and Rabb, Theodore Kwasnik, (eds.), Population and history: from the traditional to the modern world, (Cambridge University Press), 1986, pp. 169-193.