, Québec Province, Canada (Quebec)
Life in New France, 1663-1760

THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY
At the time of New France, and particularly after 1663 when the colony began to thrive, a distinctive way of life worked out in Canada. It still leaves its mark on French Canada today. A glance at the society of New France not only reveals the world of the seventeenth-century colonists but throws light on the life and outlook of the modern French Canadians, who form nearly one-third of the present Canadian population.

To begin with , life in New France was fashioned on authoritarian lines: that is, power was concentrated at the top of society, and the mass of the colonists were used to obeying authority, not to governing their own lives. This did not necessarily mean an attitude of dependence or meek docility. The people of New France showed their sturdy self- reliance in other ways. Yet in matters of religion, govern- ment, and relations between classes of people, French Canada readily accepted direction from above. There was little of the demand for religious independence and self- government, or the levelling of social distinctions which generally marked the English colonies to the south. In these unruly provinces the trend was toward democracy and the emphasis was on liberty. New France instead put its faith in ordered authority, not disorderly freedom, and stressed duties, not rights.

The forms of government helped shape this attitude in New France. All power depended finally on the King. He and his ministers at Versailles supervised even the minor details of government in the colony, and little could be done without their direction. Their control might have been well- intentioned, kindly, or even wise; but it was absolute. This was paternal absolutism at its best and worst. It developed in New France the habit of looking beyond herself for guidance and leadership. Similarly, the government within New France was absolute and paternal as far as the inhabitants were concerned. Except for the popularly chosen captains of militia in each parish, there were no agencies of local self-government, nor elected bodies voicing public opinion. A few attempts to include elected representatives in the councils of government were soon cut short. New France never learned to manage its own affairs—or even to ask to do so. The society of French Canada was also hierarchical in structure: it was graded into distinctly separate upper and lower layers. The bulk of the colonists, or habitants, were farmers and formed the broad lower order. On the upper levels were the government officials, the large landholders, or seigneurs, and the principal clergy. In between the two main groups the wealthy fur-trade merchants and the ordinary fur traders did, in a sense, represent a commercial or middle class. In reality, however, New France had virtually no middle class. The big fur merchants tended to be closely linked with the government officials; and since there was little commerce in the colony apart from the fur trade, and no industry to speak of, there were very few tradesmen and only a handful of artisans. They did not form an effective middle class.

As for the ordinary fur trader, he hardly belonged to the colony at all. His world lay far beyond in the forest. He visited the settled areas only occasionally to obtain his earnings, spent his money on a wild spree, and disappeared again into the woods. The life of the independent fur trader, the coureur-de-bois, seemed glamorous and free (actually it might be bitterly hard) and it attracted many reckless spirits away from the farmlands. But, far from the fur trader forming a real part of the society of the colony, he almost represented a minus quantity, a subtraction from it.

Accordingly, with hardly any middle class between upper and lower orders in French Canada, the division in society was clear-cut, indeed. Furthermore, the system of land- holding established definite social distinctions. Land was held according to the seigneurial system. It was granted in large blocks to the seigneurs, who rented it in smaller holdings to the habitant farmers. The habitants paid their seigneur various forms of rent and performed certain services for him. The result was to create two groups on the land: the seigneurs, who were landlords with special privileges and authority, and the habitants, tenant farmers, who owed not only rent and services but honor and respect as well. In the English colonies, on the other hand, while there might be large and small farmers, and sometimes landlords and tenants, there were not the same class divisions fixed by law, and most farmers owned their own land.

The seigneurial system, therefore, was a major factor in making the society of New France authoritarian and hierarchical in character.

Laforest, Thomas J., Our French Canadian Ancestors, Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, 1984

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