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The History & Psychology of a Family
Chapter 2 The Roots of the French-Canadian Family Throughout our family trees there are historical factors that have a bearing on how the fruit of those trees will develop and ripen. Branches may be grafted and develop fruit that is distinctly colorful and flavorful or pitted and sour. Some of the growth stages will produce abundantly, while others will remain barren and unproductive. We can attribute some of these productive or unproductive stages in development to genetic make-up, but many times growth will be stunted or prosperous because of the environmental factors that surround the tree. Throughout this chapter, I will explore my family tree and its growth, development, and transplantation within different environments. I will research the cultural, historical, and religious events that governed the paths that my ancestors followed and were affected by. This information will allow me to see the roots and trunk that carry the weight of my bough and as Carson McCullers says, will show me how my family tree are “the we of me.” When tracing ancestry from a French-Canadian background it is important to understand the country of France and the formation of its colony in North America, Canada. According to Encarta Encyclopedia (1995), the discovery of Canada is credited to explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534. Cartier made several visits to the coast of Canada and down the St. Lawrence River. He named many of the places along the St. Lawrence River and visited various Native American villages including those on the site of what is now known as Montreal and Quebec City. Several attempts by the French to settle Canada culminated with failure. Many European countries continued to visit Canada and utilize its resources of fur and fish, but no attempts to settle Canada were tried for several decades after its discovery. “In 1604, Samuel de Champlain created the first permanent colony at the mouth of the St. Croix River” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 10). Champlain would continue to explore and claim further lands for his country. Other explorers would come to Canada and expand France’s holdings over a large portion of North America. These early explorers were seeking to increase the fur trade that proved to be a stable source of income and more productive than the original expeditions that sought out “gold, silver, or other riches” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 11). Throughout the seventeenth century, people from France would emigrate and begin to settle in their new colony. Before we can investigate the society that developed in Canada, we must look at the society that existed in France, the places within France that contributed to the population of Canada, and the reasons French men and women emigrated from their homeland. In Frenchmen Into Peasants (1997), Leslie Choquette tells us that, Male emigrants stemmed, after Northwest, Center-west, and greater Paris, from the southwestern sea-board and the great valleys that prolong it: the Dordogne, the Garonne, and the Gers. Secondary female departures, however, were concentrated in the pays de grande culture that radiate out from the capital in all directions: Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, and Orleanais. Furthermore, the proportion of urban departures was two-thirds for emigrants as a whole but over three-quarters in the case of women. (p. 54) Her facts indicate that most emigrants that came to Canada were from the western part of France (see map Fig.1) and the majority were situated in Atlantic coastal communities. She also indicates that the largest majority of emigrants were from urban areas. Choquette includes the fact that many emigrants came to Canada as members of the French military. These military emigrants came from all sections of France, but they were of a small minority and probably did not leave France in a desire to settle in the new colony. She also does not rule out the effects of the recruiting efforts that existed as a consideration when determining the locality of emigrants. In certain instances this normative geography of emigration could be perturbed or distorted by an extraneous factor: the personal efforts of a recruiter. In the case of Anjou, the recruiter’s influence probably did little more than accentuate a current that would have existed anyway owing to the accessibility of the Loire; but straying farther from the ‘natural’ bases of Canadian recruitment--for example, in Perche--one must consider the extent to which this type of personal accident could actually generate a new migratory stream. (Choquette, 1997, p. 99) Through her information, Choquette gives us several exceptions to the majority of locations that provided emigrants to the new colony. Military service and recruiting efforts provided various locations throughout France that contributed to the “peopling of Canada,” but she concludes the largest majority of emigrants were located along the Atlantic provinces of France in urban areas. Though Choquette attempts to represent all possible reasons for emigration, she is unable to ignore the societal composition that dominates those emigrating from their homeland. The social origins of French emigrants to Canada, like their regional origins, were representative of a very particular sector of the French population. Indeed, the peculiarity was almost as much geographic as social, since the social pyramid among the emigrants resembled that within France’s great cities: very few peasants, a healthy contingent of elites, and a huge number of artisans. Comparing the emigrant pool to the overall population indicates that the poor were everywhere underrepresented, especially so in rural areas and at a distance from the Atlantic seaboard. (Choquette, 1997, p. 127-128) Choquette believes that those who emigrated were already experiencing prosperity and were seeking to surpass their opportunities in France by attempting to secure a greater fortune in the wilderness of Canada. She stipulates that France was experiencing a high rate of mobility during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that people were moving in and about France. Considering that most of the emigrants were single, it is easier to understand why they might have been willing to seek their fortune across the ocean where there was less competition. Choquette seems amazed that people chose to go to Canada. She points out that the West Indies was another popular emigration destination and far superior in climate to Canada. She reasons that many emigrants did not plan to settle in Canada permanently and that their migratory practices within their own country made emigration across the Atlantic seem unassuming. In France, the prominent role played by structured temporary movements meant that many of the emigrants who reached Canada never viewed their transatlantic voyage as irreversible. Current composed of temporary emigrants could not only send, but also recall, people from Canada. In contrast, the much lower return rate by British emigrants for North America may be seen, in part, as a consequence of differing migratory traditions. (Choquette, 1997, p. 246) Dyke Hendrickson (1980), in his book Quiet Presence, also considers Canada a hazardous venture for emigrants. “The newcomers also were challenged by long, harsh winters, a rude change from the more temperate European climate. The wildness of the country, its lack of population, and absence of urbanization made life difficult” (p. 13). Though Hendrickson (1980) agrees that Canada was not a particularly attractive destination for emigrants, he does not agree with Choquette’s information on the exclusion of the poor from the settlement of Canada, Of the non-military settlers, it is said that many were apprentices and part-time tradesmen. Successful merchants and established professionals were in the minority, as they saw little reason to leave comfortable lives for a future of hardship....The rural sectors of France provided many recruits. The countryside was in a stagnant state: peasants barely survived, as harvests were meager and the jobs hard to find....Thus urban entrepreneurs often persuaded the downtrodden rural poor to travel to the new world. They could convince the poor into a life of uncertainty more easily than they could entice the prosperous. (p. 12) He continues to tell us that many immigrants “consisted of poachers, smugglers, and counterfeiters” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 12). Historical accounts often differ in the data they give. The information given by Hendrickson and Choquette differed greatly. I tend to think that Choquette’s information was probably more accurate. Her book was very detailed and specifically dealt with the topic of emigrating from France to Canada, but it is only fair that the reader receives both views when looking at the heritage of the French-Canadian people. Where they do not agree on the social status of the emigrating French people, both Hendrickson and Choquette conclude that the Catholic religion was a dominant factor in “New France.” A major purpose of French exploration, however, was the desire to spread the Catholic faith. In 1642, French missionaries contributed to the founding of Montreal. In the following years, clerics spread like tributaries through the new land with the goal of bringing the word to countrymen and “savages” alike. (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 11) Choquette (1997) informs us that emigrants to Canada were required to be Catholic, but also gives us this information, “Both Protestants and Jews could reside in the colony for extended periods or even settle there, provided that they eschewed non-Catholic forms of worship” (p. 149). France’s attempt to create a colony that was of one religious factor can be contributed to the “Reformation” that was taking place at this time in France. Hendrickson (1980) quotes historian Mason Wade, “...the destiny of New France was shaped by the fact that in the 17th century, the great age of Catholic Revival in France, the renewed energy of the Church found in America an outlet from the restraint imposed at home by the dominance of state” (p. 11). How to Trace Your Family Tree by The American Genealogical Research Staff (1973) and Encarta Encyclopedia (1995), gave me some information on the “Catholic Reformation.” Europe had endured several centuries of religious upheaval. In the 15th century, three popes reigned simultaneously. Their differing views caused Catholics a great deal of confusion and split the church. The Protestant Reformation or creation of the Protestant Religion was a result of this rift and based on the teachings of Martin Luther. In England, the Reformation was an important aspect of the politics of the monarchy. In this case, Henry VII appeared to embrace it in his attempts to divorce his wife and take a new queen: he instituted a new church which, though seemingly opposed to Catholicism, was really only slightly different, mostly in it organization. (The American Genealogical Research Staff, 1973, p. 24) The Catholic Church countered the Protestant movement with the “Catholic Reformation” and through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries leaders of the church attempted to unify church doctrine. Many of their efforts were directed toward the poor or peasants within France. Hendrickson’s quote leads me to believe that the ruling factor in France still had a great deal of control over the Catholic Church. The church’s presence in Canada gave them an opportunity to create an environment where they were the controlling hierarchy. “From the beginning of the colony, the church provided more support than either the crown or the court” (Hendrickson, 1980, p.11). This was perhaps their opportunity to create a colony that exemplified Catholicism. Puritans came from England to escape the monarch’s control of the Protestant Religion in an attempt to, “purify the English Angelican Church of its Catholic tendencies” (The American Genealogical Research Institute Staff, 1973, p. 24). With this in mind, we can better understand the philosophical ideologies that created the underlying conflicts between colonists from England and France. The presence of a third party, one that contributed to the interaction and fabrication of the French and English colonies, cannot be ignored. The Native American population was faced with the adaptation of a foreign people who desired to control the land they had inhabited for thousands of years. The French and English also sought to mold the Native Americans into their likeness, salvage them from their savageness, and convert them to the ways of the Puritanism or Catholicism. Both the French and English contributed to “saving” these people, but they did so in different ways and the relationship they established with the Native Americans is a distinct example of their philosophies. Colin Calloway (1992) describes the relationship between the French and Indians in his book The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800. French missionary and fur-trading activities produced interdependence, intermarriage, and a network of relationships with the Abenakis that the English never duplicated or appreciated. By the eighteenth century many western Abenakis had acquired French names and donned French clothes. Many others were baptized as Catholics, wore crucifixes, and were buried in French cemeteries. (p. 18) The English did convert some Native Americans, but they never really accepted them into their communities as the French did and intermarriage was not heard of in early Puritan colonies. Where there was a battle for control of the continent, there also existed a battle for the control of religious ideology. Catholics and Puritans considered their religions the chosen religions and the only ones acceptable in God’s eyes. This is evident in the many stories of captives taken from the colonies of New England and transported to Canada where they were pressured to convert to Catholicism. In the Unredeemed Captive, John Demos (1994) describes the reaction of the family of Deerfield captive Eunice Williams on hearing the news that she has married, They cannot face it, cannot quite write the words without tears. But they know. And they grieve. For Eunice, their Eunice--a young gentlewomen, daughter to the Reverend Mr. Williams, minister at Deerfield, and child of so many prayers--has just been married. And her husband is a “Philistine” indeed. An Indian. A Catholic. A savage. (p. 99) This description describes the horror felt by the Puritan community that had prayed for the redemption of this captive child for over ten years. Her marriage and religious conversion created much sorrow because, in their minds, she was lost to God. Colin Calloway (1992) describes how the English settlements, and in some cases the French settlements, forced many tribes from their land. Most tribes were mobile societies before the colonists came. They usually had certain areas that they traveled to at different times of the year. In the winter, they settled in an area that was adequate for hunting and shelter, while in the summer, another area provided cleared fields in which to raise crops. Each region had a special purpose for the support of the tribe. Colonists often took over this land for their own use. The Indians fought back, but they were usually outnumbered and driven off. Many tribes moved north toward Canada. ...Abenaki exiles who set out for Canada often stopped short when they reached a suitable refuge, namely the remote areas of northern Vermont and New Hampshire. The country around the headwaters of the Connecticut River, which seemed so inhospitable to the English, offered the Indians an advantageous strategic location with easy access to their French allies. (Calloway, 1992, p. 85) Henry De Puy (1852) gives us the impression that the French needed the Natives to increase their population and relied upon them as allies for their battles with the English. The fact that the Catholic Church had a great deal of political clout in Canada gives greater substance to their acceptance of the Natives among them. Missionary settlements for Native Americans were very common in Canada. The most famous Abenaki missionary settlement was called Saint Francois-de-Sales, located on the St. Francis River in the province of Quebec. The inhabitants of this community were often known as the St. Francis Indians. The conversion of these people, as well as, the conversion of captives from Puritan communities in the English settlements was probably considered a victory for the Catholic Church and its desire to increase its membership. There were many written accounts of captives in different sources. The facts of the raid upon Deerfield, Massachusetts that the Unredeemed Captive ( Demos, 1994) is based on are well known because John Williams was a prominent figure and direct descendent of the first colonials. However, the story of his daughter, Eunice, was not uncommon among children taken into captivity. “Over 1,600 captives were taken from New England during the French and Indian Wars; hundreds of these followed the ‘captives’ trails’ through Vermont, and scores disappeared without a trace, many into Abenaki villages” (Calloway, 1992, p. 25). Again, the French seemed to accept this Indian tradition of adopting captives into Indian families and treating them as members of their families. They often participated in their “raiding parties” and many missionaries considered the conversion of these captives of much more importance than reuniting them with their families. The French seemed to be able to assimilate some of the Indian culture into their way of life and accepted these changes, for maybe selfish reasons, more easily than the Puritans. In fact, the Puritan’s strict and unbending lifestyle might have contributed to the reasons many captives refused to return to their homes when given the opportunity. ...the ‘savage’ child experienced a notable mild regimen--at least by European standards. And this seems to have been true for captive children as well....Deerfield’s own Joseph Kellogg, taken in the massacre but subsequently repatriated, confronted the parallel question of why so many had willingly accepted Catholicism. His answer was as follows: “The Indians indulge the english boys abundantly and let them have the Liberty they will...and so an easy way of life and libertinism is more prevailing with them than any affection they have to religion.” (Demos, 1994, p. 144) We cannot exclude the fact that many of those who chose to stay were children when they were taken and had often forgotten their language, customs, and families when they were given the opportunity to return to their homes. It is insinuated that Eunice Williams was angry with her father for having left her with the Indians and for his remarriage after his redemption. Eunice’s mother was killed by the Indians on the trail from Deerfield to Canada because she was weak and unable to keep up with the others. The recollections of a child who might have considered her father stronger and more powerful than her captors could have created the illusion that she was abandoned by her father and that his grief for the death of her mother was nonexistent. Demos (1994) also describes the Puritan disgust for the French and Indians as a fear rather than an abhorrence. And at some deeper (mostly unacknowledged) level, there will be growing worry that the process might reverse itself--so as to make the currents of change run the opposite way. Instead of their civilizing the wilderness (and its savage inhabitants), the wilderness might change, might uncivilize them. This they will feel as an appalling prospect, a nightmare to resist and suppress by every means possible. (p. 4) How frightening this must have been, yet how realistic and prophetic. For many would find themselves, as captives, faced with this prospect and perhaps happy with its outcome. It seems that the French formed an alliance with the Indians that was never duplicated by the Puritans and though that is basically true, there were in the early years of Canada’s founding, periods of unrest. “Though the French were to become known for their ability to cultivate friendship with the Indians, they experienced hostility from time to time” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 13). When Champlain arrived in Canada, the Iroquois Nation that consisted of five separate groups were battling the Adirondack Indians. Champlain joined the Adirondacks because they were settled in the territory he had claimed for France. The story of Champlain’s first encounter with the Iroquois Nation has been written in several ways. From Henry De Puy (1853), we have this account, Near the place where the fortress of Ticonderoga was afterward erected, the Indians, with whom Champlain was exploring the country, encountered a body of two hundred Iroquois, who were on their way down the lake on a war expedition. Loud shouts at once arose from both parties, as they snatched up their weapons and prepared for action. Champlain and the two Frenchmen with him each armed with an arquebuse (firearm), participated in the conflict, and as the Iroquois had no previous knowledge of fire-arms, they soon fled in dismay, leaving fifty warriors dead on the field, while ten or twelve prisoners were captured by the Adirondacks. All engaged in this expedition went to their homes highly pleased with Champlain, and from this time onward, their several tribes were firmly attached to the French and their interests. (p. 28) Calloway (1992) tells us about how this conflict affected the Iroquois and their view of the French, “Champlain’s decisive interference, gunning down a number of Mohawk warriors and putting the rest to flight, initiated the Iroquois hostility to the French and set in motion radical changes in the style and purposes of intertribal conflict” (p. 61). The introduction of emigrants and their motivations for settling Canada, as well as, the use of firearms changed centuries of culture, customs, and interaction between the tribes of Native Americans. “Nowhere did firearms, and the European fur trade that peddled them, exert more far-reaching consequences than among the Iroquois....For more than a century, Mohawk warriors from the west posed a greater threat to both the French in Canada and the western Abenakis than did English soldiers and settlers from the south” (Calloway, 1992, p. 62). Disease was another affliction that Europeans delivered upon the Indians according to Colin Calloway (1992). Many tribes were completely ravished from typhus, diphtheria, influenza, measles, or smallpox. Caught between two nations and unable to compete with the modern arsenal and immunity from disease that their invaders possessed, the Native Americans were forced to flee, assimilate, or be annihilated. Either way they turned, they would never find their way back to the culture of the pre-colonial years. To understand the settlement of Canada, it is imperative to compare the differences between the colonies established by the English and the French. I have already discussed the religious competition and the Native American affiliation. The political decisions that were made in far away Europe affected the colonies and their eventual survival or submission. Much of the history that exists in Northern New England and Canada is related to the conflicts that continued between France and England on the European home front and extended to the North American colonies. The ruling parties had different priorities in their colonies and this proved to be the deciding factor in their quest to control the North American continent. . Though the flow of immigrants continued through the early 18th century, the French did not populate their colonies like the English....Any major commitment was discouraged in favor of King Louis XIV’s plan to dominate Europe. So while France was withdrawing from its colonial support, the English sent ship after ship across. The crown wanted to create a colony; this crown felt domination of the new land would result in commercial and strategic advantages. By 1750, New France had a population of 60,000 while England’s colonists numbered 1.25 million. (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 13) The political conflicts between France and England would be continually played out on both continents. The religious and dynastic struggles that bloodied the battlefields of Europe in the War of the League of Augsburg and the War of the Spanish Succession would have seemed as incomprehensible as they were remote to the western Abenakis. But the North American counterparts of these continental clashes--King William’s War, 1689 to 1697, and Queen Anne’s War, 1702 to 1713--initiated a new phase of conflict as Indians and Europeans waged raids of attrition that affected the future of North America. (Calloway, 1992, p. 92) This alternating pattern of armed conflict and tense “peace” continued for many years. England and France embarked on a crusade to seize control of North America. Their Indian allies were expected to take on their cause and declare their allegiance to leaders they had never met and causes they were unaware of. Those aligned with France would suffer a tremendous defeat and the face of North America would be changed forever. In The French-Canadian Heritage In New England, Gerard Brault (1986) describes the fate of the French in their defeat and the conclusion of the French and Indian War, In 1759 a battle lasting a mere twenty minutes on the Plains of Abraham, before the walls of Quebec City, sealed the fate of New France. Although the British would henceforth predominate in Canada, the French inhabitants of Quebec and certain other areas of that country would succeed in maintaining their language, traditions, and separate nationality. This historical struggle is indelibly engraved on the French-Canadian mind and explains, in a large measure, the extraordinary persistence of certain cultural traits among Franco-Americans even after several generations. (p. 6) This loss was not surprising to the historians who have recorded its passing. Choquette (1997) shares her thoughts, “Viewed in the context of demography, the British conquest of New France appears less as the strategic victory of Wolfe over Montcalm than as the unstoppable progress of a human steamroller” (p. 304). The French residents were not plentiful enough to compete with the more populated English colonies. The French attempted to trade in a large portion of North America and although most of the conflicts for control of North America existed in the northeast region of the continent, the military was dispersed in all directions. France was a major landholder in the New World at the outset of the 18th century. Just 100 years later, it had lost everything. France gave up Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the vast Hudson Bay Region in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In 1763, France lost Canada. And when Napoleon signed the Louisiana Purchase agreement in 1803 that gave up claim to the heartland of southern North America for a modest $15 million, France was without holdings on the continent. (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 15 & 16) Another factor that I have touched upon earlier in France’s loss of the continent, can be attributed to the mother country’s inability to consider the colony an asset worth investing in. In fact, there is evidence that France considered any commitment in its colony a threat to the economic stability of the mother country. “In practice it was torn between desire for a healthy, expanding colony and fear of colonial competition; however, the fear won out often enough to compromise seriously Canada’s ability to capitalize on economic opportunity” (Choquette, 1997, p. 283). Imagine, if you can, the lives we in North America would live now if France had defeated the British and gained control of the continent. Our language, customs, religions, and lifestyle would most probably be entirely different. In imagining how different things would be for you, perhaps you can grasp the changes that were brought upon the French in the transfer of their colony. The results were surely not immediate, but the effects of British control would change their lives for many generations. The English were assertive in taking over government land and commerce, which left the French with the unrewarding jobs as farmers and small merchants. By British law, no Roman Catholic could vote, nor be elected or appointed to public office. Though the Quebec Act of 1774 allowed the French the right to religious and political activities, it was with apprehension that the French faced the future. (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 16) After their victory over France, the British had little reprieve. They were faced with the American Revolution and called upon the French people they had conquered for support. France had joined the American colonists in their quest for sovereignty from the British. The French-Canadian people were called upon to fight their countrymen and perhaps even family relations. “At the Battle of Yorktown, for instance, when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in 1781, French soldiers and sailors outnumbered the revolutionary forces by three to one” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 16). Their loyalty was divided. Britain had no time after the French and Indian War to put into place a government that could force the French colonists to fight in their defense. This lack of government and the fact that England had embarrassed itself in Acadia earlier in the 18th century, might well have saved many Quebecers from forced participation in the American Revolution. Acadia consisted of land in Canada and the United States. It existed when the boundaries between the United States and Canada were still undecided. It was made-up of what is now known as Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island, lower New Brunswick, and a large segment of Maine. (See map Fig. 2) Many French emigrants resided in these areas. “The English claimed the territory following the Treaty of Utrecht (1713)....the Acadians agreed to a qualified oath of allegiance to the British Crown....They were to have freedom of religion, and exemption from military service” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 20). During the French and Indian War, England demanded that they fight against their fellow countrymen or be found guilty of treason. If they chose not to fight, they would be sent away and their property taken. During 1755, thousands of Acadians were abducted and put on ships that dropped them in cities along the Atlantic Coast line and even took them to England. Their families had no idea where they were. Many returned to their homes but were unable to regain their lands. “Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution descended on Acadia between 1775 and 1780...In need of land to offer the loyal colonists, the British again evicted the French” (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 23). This episode according to Hendrickson (1980), “stands out as a disgraceful chapter in the British treatment of the French on this continent” (p. 23). With the dawn of the 19th century, the plight of the French descendants in Canada was harsh. Rural Canada was poor. The years following the Conquest were barren and unproductive for most French families. The French had been trappers and traders. Now they were thrust into roles as small farmers, roles they were untrained for. The English would sow the seeds of industrialization in Quebec and Montreal, but the French were not to be a part of this new wave of economic activity and prosperity. Discrimination, if not outright exclusion, kept the habitants anchored to the earth. (Hendrickson, 1980, p. 17) As the century progressed it became harder and harder to divide the farmland among the many sons born in the large families of French-Canadians. The nineteenth-century Quebec farmer, like his New England counterpart, tilled the soil, planted, and harvested according to age-old custom and stubbornly resisted any change. He did not use manure or any other kind of fertilizer, kept turning over the same old top soil with a shallow plow, sowed unclean and unimproved seed, allowed weeds to grow everywhere, and knew nothing about crop rotation. As if this were not enough, Quebec farms were also infested by insect pests and suffered the injurious effects of blight....The only harvest that did not fail was the human one. The population of Quebec was about 60,000 at the time of the Conquest. Less than a century later, in 1851, the French-Canadian population had increased to nearly 670,000. (Brault, 1986, p. 52) With these facts in mind, we can see that life for the French-Canadian was considerably simple, yet extremely poor. Large families and poor crops produced a cycle where eking out a living became a difficult task. Surprisingly, Hendrickson (1980) tells us that the French-Canadians led a somewhat contented life. Lack of financial success did not mean the habitants considered their lives meaningless. They stressed their Catholic faith, their belief in the family, and their occasional soirees with friends and neighbors. They were tenacious in retaining their language, religion, and culture, despite England’s increasing pressure to belittle their values. (p. 19) Even with all their unity, the fact remained that there was not room for the growing generations to carry on this lifestyle. In The French-Canadian Heritage In New England, Gerard J. Brault (1986) tell us that during the second half of the nineteenth century, due to economic disasters in Canada, many French-Canadians began to immigrate to the United States. They usually came in small family groups. Their destinations were the factories and mills located throughout New England. As they crossed the border, many had ideas of returning to their homeland. Like the French emigrant of the 17th and 18th centuries, these French-Canadians planned to amass a sum of money that would allow them to return to Canada and resume a better life. As I approach the beginning of the 20th century in my research, I have come to the place where my French-Canadian branch of the family tree has begun to bud. My paternal grandfather and grandmother were born in 1896 and 1904 respectively. My maternal grandfather and grandmother in 1900 and 1901. The roots of my family tree have grown large. They now extend into the United States. The tree, the roots, the history that helped it grow and created the knotholes and irregularities, as well as, the foliage and fruit, are ready to spring forth several generations of growth. This is the limb of the tree that supports me. Contact: mary_gd@yahoo.com
Posted 5/29/2007
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