Riendeau A Roger E. Brief History of Canada

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Royal Government and

a Distinct Society

(1663–1760)

or the ﬁ rst half-century of its existence, New France was like an

orphaned child in desperate need of parental support. But France

could only afford to give attention to its overseas empire on a sporadic

basis. When measured against recurring international warfare and

civil unrest featuring religious dissension and royal succession crises,

the affairs of a distant colonial frontier with scarcely 3,000 people

could easily fall to the bottom of the public agenda of a major world

power. But at a critical moment, the interests of France and its strug-

gling Canadian colony converged, even if only temporarily. From 1663

to 1672, King Louis XIV and one of his chief advisers, Jean-Baptist

Colbert, took over the control of New France, instituting a new form

of government, providing for the defense of the colony, giving impetus

to settlement, and encouraging the development and diversiﬁ cation of

the economy. Although events in Europe would continually distract the

attention of the French Crown, New France was effectively transformed

from a struggling colony at the mercy of the fur trade to a viable agrar-

ian society distinct from that of France and any other that would blos-

som on the North American frontier.

A Grand Imperial Design and Authoritarian Rule

The assumption of government control by Louis XIV in 1661 ushered

in the golden age of French imperialism. More than his predecessors,

the young king appreciated the potential value of his overseas empire

not just as a source of wealth but also as a symbol of the power of

France throughout the world and the glory of its absolute ruler. King

Louis XIV launched his grand imperial design under the able direction

of Colbert, who as minister of the marine was responsible for the ﬁ nan-

cial well-being and economic development of the nation and all of its

colonies. Like Richelieu before him, Colbert was deeply committed to

the principles of mercantilism, which held that the key to national

wealth and power was the maintenance of a favorable balance of trade.

By exporting more than it imported, a nation could achieve a level of

economic self-sufﬁ ciency that promoted prosperity in peace and secu-

rity in war. By supplying raw materials and serving as markets for ﬁ n-

ished products, colonies reduced the imperial power’s dependence on

foreign trade and enhanced its shipping and shipbuilding industries.

While the French colonies in the East and West Indies offered the most

promising opportunities for commercial expansion, Colbert was con-

vinced that the marginal colony of New France could also make a valu-

able contribution.

In addition to furs, Colbert expected New France to provide France

with timber and ship masts, which were then being imported from Rus-

sia and Scandinavia. He also hoped that the colony could become an

agricultural producer and thereby become part of a triangular trade

network with the French West Indies and France. Manufactured goods

could be shipped from France for consumption in New France; the

same ship could then proceed from New France with a cargo of grain,

peas, and ﬁ sh to feed the slaves on the French West Indies plantations;

from there the ship could return to France with rum, molasses, and

sugar. In this regard, Colbert was inspired by the English, who were

already developing a similar triangular trade with their American and

West Indian colonies.

Before Colbert could fully implement his mercantilist plan, New

France had to be placed on a more stable, secure, and self-sufﬁ cient

footing. Colbert wanted New France to become a “compact colony”

concentrated in the St. Lawrence Valley rather than being spread across

the continent. Achieving this goal would require a strong centralized

administrative framework closely controlled from France. Colbert initi-

ated the process of administrative reorganization by revoking the char-

ter of the Company of New France in 1663. A royal edict established a

new form of government based on the absolute authority of the king

and modeled along the lines of the administration of a French province,

but with modiﬁ cations to take into account the uniqueness of the

North American frontier environment (Eccles 1964, 1965).

Under the edict, the king delegated authority over the royal colony

to the minister of the marine, who formulated policy on the advice of

the senior administrators in the colony—the governor, the bishop, and

ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND A DISTINCT SOCIETY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

the intendant. These three locally based ofﬁ cials comprised the Sover-

eign Council (replacing the Council of Quebec) along with a number

of minor ofﬁ cials—ﬁ ve councillors, the attorney general, and the clerk.

The Sovereign council (renamed the Superior Council in 1703) was the

sole governing authority in the colony, acting as a legislative, adminis-

trative, and judicial body. As a legislative body, the council had the

authority to pass local regulations concerning ﬁ nance, law and order,

and trade, subject to amendment and veto by the king on the advice of

his minister. As an administrative body, the council was conﬁ ned to

registering, proclaiming, and enforcing royal ordinances, since all

major decisions were made in France. As a judicial body, the council

exercised the authority to establish lower courts and to act as a court of

appeal in criminal and civil cases, although the royal council in Paris

was the ﬁ nal court of appeal.

The three major ofﬁ cials of the Sovereign Council were assigned

speciﬁ c duties in a manner designed to prevent any one of them from

becoming too powerful. The nominal head of government—the gover-

nor—was customarily a noble and a soldier who was responsible chieﬂ y

for military affairs and diplomatic relations with the neighboring Native

tribes and the English colonies to the south. He tended to be most pow-

erful in times of war and could exercise considerable control over the

fur trade. While the governor could veto the actions of the other ofﬁ -

cials, he had to justify his actions to the minister of the marine, who

often did not take kindly to interference with the other ofﬁ cials. Second

in rank was the intendant, who was responsible for justice, ﬁ nance,

economic development, and general administration. In effect, he was

the day-to-day business manager of the colony, and the scope of his

role became more wide-ranging as the colony grew. An increasingly

important function of the intendant was to organize the entire male

population into militia units and to appoint captains from among the

most respected men in the community to command them. In addition

to their military function, these captains of militia served an important

civilian role as the liaison between the intendant and the rest of the

population.

When the Sovereign Council was ﬁ rst formed, the bishop ranked

directly below the governor in political power by virtue of his respon-

sibility for attending to the social and spiritual needs of the colony and

for evangelizing the neighboring Native population. But the powers of

the bishop were signiﬁ cantly reduced with the advent of royal govern-

ment. Because the Jesuits had effectively run the colony for most of the

three decades prior to 1663, Louis XIV and Colbert were concerned

about the excessive authority of the church and instructed the governor

and intendant to make the church subordinate to the authority of the

state.

Despite the best efforts of Colbert, the functions of the three ofﬁ cials

occasionally overlapped, thereby leading to jurisdictional and personal

friction among them. Although the governor remained the supreme

authority in principle, the expanding functional realm of the intendant

enhanced his power to the point where he could exert more inﬂ uence

depending on the circumstances. Although the bishop’s power steadily

declined, controversial moral issues such as the sale of liquor to the

Natives could lead to clashes of interest with the governor and inten-

dant. Furthermore, leaders with strong personalities such as Governor

Louis Buade, comte de Frontenac (1672–82, 1689–98), Intendant Jean

Talon (1665–68, 1669–72), or Bishop François de Laval (1659–84)

were capable of wielding power and inﬂ uence beyond the limitations of

their position. The level of political conﬂ ict also depended on the will-

ingness of the central authorities to intervene and impose their will.

Louis XIV and Colbert were able to keep political dissent in check

by eliminating the elected syndics inaugurated during the later stages

of company rule. Any vestige of representative institutions was thence-

forth excluded from the government of New France. The highly

authoritarian and centralized nature of royal government was consis-

tent with the prevailing doctrine that the king ruled by divine right.

The lack of representative government in the form of popularly elected

assemblies did not necessarily mean that despotism and tyranny pre-

vailed. While the people could not publicly assemble on their own, the

authorities could govern with due consideration to their interests and

views. Colbert’s instruction to Frontenac in 1672 clearly indicates the

paternalistic spirit of royal government: “It is well that each speak for

himself and none for all.” Although government came from above

rather than below and the power of the Crown was uncontested, the

governor or intendant occasionally called public meetings to ascertain

the views of the people on issues that affected the general interest.

Moreover, King Louis XIV believed that he was required to govern in

the interests of all of his subjects regardless of their wealth and social

status and that human rights took precedence over property rights.

The paternalistic absolutism of royal government was no substitute for

democracy, but it represented a profound improvement over negligent

company rule, and its administrative framework endured until the end

of the French regime with little evidence of public discontent (Fré-

gault 1954).

ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND A DISTINCT SOCIETY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

Immigration and Settlement in New France

Once Colbert had established the administrative framework of royal

government, his major priority was to populate the colony. But before

he could entice settlers to New France, he had to fortify the colony

against the threat of Iroquois attack. In 1665 Alexandre de Prouville,

marquis de Tracy, was dispatched to New France along with more than

1,000 regulars of the Carignan Salières regiment. The next year de

Tracy led these distinguished soldiers in addition to 400 Canadian mili-

tia in an invasion of Iroquois country in present-day New York State.

The Iroquois were so impressed by this massive display of force that

they decided to make peace with the French in 1667. The peaceful

20-year interlude that followed allowed the colony to grow and the fur

trade to expand.

Although the Carignan Salières were disbanded following the truce

with the Iroquois, about 400 members of the regiment were persuaded

to settle along the Richelieu River between the St. Lawrence River and

Lake Champlain, the main Iroquois invasion route. Inspired by the

military settlements of ancient Rome, Colbert arranged for another

400 discharged soldiers to be sent to Canada in the hope that they

could be called upon to defend the frontier while increasing the farm-

ing population.

This scheme to combine defense and settlement was part of a more

ambitious plan to populate the colony ably administered by Intendant

Talon. Although private individuals and religious organizations had

brought out small contingents of settlers in the two decades prior to his

arrival in the colony in 1665, Talon realized that immigration on a

more substantial and organized scale would be necessary if New France

was to fulﬁ ll Colbert’s mercantilist design. Settlers who could clear and

farm the land were recruited, mostly from Normandy in northwestern

France, by offers of free passage and land on easier terms than might be

available to them in the homeland. When Talon conducted a census in

1666, he discovered that, out of a population of about 3,400, men out-

numbered women by a ratio of at least three to one. To alleviate this

shortage of marriageable women, Colbert sent over about 800 women

with limited prospects at home—popularly known as ﬁ lles du roi

(daughters of the king)—to serve as wives for the settling soldiers and

other eligible bachelors. Another source of immigrants were engagés, or

indentured laborers, who were bound by a three-year contract to work

for an established farmer in exchange for a wage. When their contrac-

tual obligations had been fulﬁ lled, about 400 of these workers decided

to stay in the colony and farm their own land.

By 1672, when Talon’s term as intendant ended, approximately

4,000 men and women had been sent to New France at the Crown’s

expense, with the result that the population of the colony approached

10,000. Thereafter, government-subsidized emigration was reduced to

a trickle in the wake of the outbreak of war with the Dutch Republic,

followed by a succession of other European conﬂ icts that would con-

tinually divert France’s attention away from its North American empire.

In this regard, geography proved to be a major factor in determining

France’s lesser commitment to populating its overseas colonies than

that of its chief European adversary. Great Britain was an island that

could be readily defended by a strong navy without need of a substan-

tial standing army. In addition to requiring a strong navy to compete

with the English, France had to maintain a large standing army to

defend its frontiers against surrounding land powers, most of which

were potentially hostile. Therefore, England could afford to permit a

large-scale emigration of surplus population to its American colonies,

whereas France feared a shortage of vital human resources for military

purposes.

With the decline of immigration, New France had to rely on natural

population growth. To this end, early marriages and large families were

encouraged by royal decree. In particular, an edict of 1669 established

a comprehensive system of rewards and punishments to induce young

women to be married by 16 years of age and young men by the age of

20. The government also provided for substantial gifts of money to

couples with 10 or more children, a forerunner to modern family allow-

ance provisions. Indeed, a high birthrate, although partially offset by a

high infant mortality rate, was largely responsible for the rise in the

population of New France to about 15,000 by the year 1700 and to

more than 60,000 by 1760. Certainly, this number was modest in com-

parison to the 1.5 million people who inhabited the English colonies to

the south by the mid-18th century. Nevertheless, the initiatives of Col-

bert and Talon had ensured the survival of the 300-mile strip of settle-

ment hugging the St. Lawrence shore between Quebec and Montreal

(Eccles 1969).

The growth of settlement and the increasing interest in farming

raised concerns about the availability and efﬁ cient distribution of land.

The Company of New France had succeeded in transplanting the

French system of land distribution and landholding to New France but

had failed to achieve the desired results of advancing colonization.

Under the seigneurial system of tenure, all land belonged to the king

who customarily granted tracts to inﬂ uential nobility as a reward for

ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND A DISTINCT SOCIETY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

favors or in return for military support. The noble landholder, or sei-

gneur, in turn, divided the land into smaller parcels, serviced it, and

distributed it to peasant farmers or censitaires in exchange for yearly

rents, military service, and due respect and obedience. In New France,

the Crown granted seigneurial rights as a general term of the fur-trad-

ing monopoly. In granting seigneurial rights to the Company of New

France in 1627, the Crown speciﬁ ed obligations with respect to coloni-

zation. The company, in turn, granted more than 50 seigneuries in

1633–34, but the landholders proved to be more interested in obtaining

title to large tracts than in clearing and settling them.

To make seigneurialism work in the Canadian frontier required state

intervention and some modiﬁ cations to the system. Under royal gov-

ernment, supervision of the seigneurial system was assigned to Inten-

dant Talon, who upon his arrival sought to eliminate land speculation

by specifying that land had to be settled and cultivated. He also initi-

ated the policy of limiting the size of seigneuries to prevent the rise of

a class of large landowners who might challenge royal authority. To

reinforce this intention, the Crown issued the Edicts of Marly in 1711,

This painting by Frank Craig (1874–1918), dedicated in 1908 on the 300th anniversary of the

founding of Quebec, depicts political authority in New France, as Bishop Laval greets Governor

Marquis de Tracy and Intendant Jean Talon.

(Library and Archives Canada C-010621)

stipulating that unoccupied seigneuries would revert back to the

Crown. The power of the seigneur was further checked by the fact that

the censitaires owed military service to the Crown as members of the

militia led by captains chosen from among their ranks. Unlike his coun-

terpart in France whose power was enhanced by his authority to raise

his own army to offer in service to the king, the seigneur in New France

had no military authority over his censitaires, thereby limiting his status

to little more than a gloriﬁ ed land settlement agent.

Whereas in France the seigneurial system sustained a hierarchical

social structure in which a wealthy land-owning class thrived on a

dependent and often oppressed peasantry, in New France the intendant

vigilantly enforced the mutual rights and obligations of the seigneurial

participants (Trudel 1956; Harris 1984). The seigneur’s primary obliga-

tion to the Crown was to settle tenants on the land, to arrange for its

cultivation, and to defend the seigneury in times of attack. The Crown

granted the seigneury in perpetuity to the seigneur and his descen-

dants, provided that these obligations were fulﬁ lled. If the seigneur

chose to sell his holding, the purchaser had to pay the quint (equivalent

to one-ﬁ fth of the selling price) to the Crown. The seigneur was

expected to maintain a responsibly occupied manor house as the

administrative center for the seigneury, to build a ﬂ our mill for use by

the censitaires, and to provide for a lower court to settle minor disputes

that might arise between tenants. He could not refuse a land grant to

any genuine applicant.

In exchange for the use of the land, the censitaires were obligated to

pay the seigneur a speciﬁ ed annual rent or cens et rentes, customarily

equivalent to about one-tenth of their annual income and payable partly

in money and partly in produce. The censitaires also had to build their

own houses, clear the land granted them, pay the banalité (equivalent to

one-fourteenth of the ﬂ our that they ground at the seigneur’s grist mill),

perform the droit de corvée or contracted work for the seigneur (usually

three days per year) and for the Crown (one or two days per year), and

to maintain the portion of road that passed through their farms. While a

censitaire’s holding customarily passed to his sons by inheritance, if he

did choose to sell it, the purchaser had to pay the lods et ventes (equiva-

lent to one-twelfth of the selling price) to the seigneur.

If either the seigneurs or the censitaires failed to fulﬁ ll their respec-

tive obligations, the intendant could, and frequently did, revoke the

royal grant. The apparent balance between the interests of the seigneur

and censitaire that the intendant was consistently careful to maintain

was not attributable to any egalitarian spirit but rather to the realities

ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND A DISTINCT SOCIETY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

of the Canadian frontier. The shortage of settlers compared to the

abundance of land in New France fostered a more accommodating rela-

tionship between censitaire and seigneur. With the wilderness close at

hand promising freedom and fortune in the fur trade, the censitaire in

New France had alternatives if life on the seigneury became unbearable.

Unlike his counterpart in France, he never became an oppressed serf of

an impoverished peasantry. The seigneur realized that his right of ten-

ure was dependent on the willingness of the censitaire to occupy his

land, and therefore, he readily overlooked lapses in obligations and

delinquencies in seigneurial dues. Although he enjoyed enhanced

social status, the seigneur seldom became a member of an aristocratic

or privileged class. A hierarchical social structure did emerge in New

France, but the gap between classes was much narrower than it was in

France (Frégault 1954; Trudel 1956).

The seigneurial system provided for a gradual but orderly growth of

self-sufﬁ cient rural communities along the rivers of New France. By

1715 almost 200 seigneuries had been opened up along both sides of

the St. Lawrence River from below Quebec to above Montreal. Because

every settler desired land fronting the river for immediate access to

transportation and ﬁ shing, farms took on a peculiar pattern of long

rectangular strips that became narrower as successive generations

divided their lots equally among the family’s sons. Later in the century,

as the front concessions ﬁ lled, a second row of narrow strip farms

stretched back from the ﬁ rst, with a roadway between the two. With the

lower reaches of the Canadian Shield restricting northern settlement, a

traveler following the St. Lawrence from Quebec to Montreal could see

virtually all of New France.

Within the social organization of the seigneurial system, an agricul-

tural economy was able to take root and eventually ﬂ ourish, thereby

reducing the dominance of the fur trade in the colonial economy.

Indeed, Colbert and Talon believed that for the colony to prosper and

fulﬁ ll the mercantilist design, it had to develop other resources for

export besides beaver fur and become less dependent on French

imports. Talon directed farmers to cultivate not only food crops but

also nonfood crops like ﬂ ax and hemp. He started a brewery, and the

introduction of domestic animals opened up possibilities for local pro-

cessing of leather, textiles, and dairy products. Talon foresaw that the

forests could be exploited for lumber, potash, and tar. His construction

of a shipyard laid the foundation for a more active shipbuilding indus-

try at Quebec in the next century. He sought to open mines and to start

an iron industry, although a lack of skilled labor and capital prevented

the working of the iron deposits near St. Maurice until the 1730s. In the

ﬁ nal analysis, few of the enterprises that Talon attempted to foster

ﬂ ourished after his departure from the colony in 1672. Talon’s hopes to

build up trade with the West Indies in lumber and ﬁ sh met with limited

success because of the difﬁ culties of winter navigation along the St.

Lawrence and the closer proximity of New England, where supplies

were more readily and cheaply available. So, while New France gradu-

ally developed a thriving agricultural sector, the fur trade remained the

heart of commercial life.

As Colbert and Talon were reviving the fortunes of the St. Lawrence

colony, the prospect existed, albeit momentarily, that Acadia might

beneﬁ t from royal paternalism upon its return to the French empire by

the Treaty of Breda in 1667. Talon wanted to strengthen the defense

and develop the resources of this neglected outpost in order to link it

into the imperial trade with Quebec and the West Indies. In 1671 60

settlers were sent to Acadia to raise its population to 500. Although the

colony was once again left to develop on its own by the following year,

the population continued to grow to more than 800 by 1686, to over

1,100 by the year 1700, and to nearly 1,800 in 1714. The vast majority

of the population farmed the fertile marshlands of the Annapolis Val-

ley, the Minas Basin region at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and along

the Chignecto Isthmus, which connects present-day Nova Scotia and

New Brunswick. Port Royal remained the largest settlement, but small

outlying communities emerged to the northeast during the 1670s and

1680s, including Beaubassin (now Amherst), Grand Pré (now Wolfville),

and Cobequid (now Truro). Once again, English conquest interrupted

the progress of the colony as Port Royal was captured and destroyed in

1690 but returned to France by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. It was

becoming apparent that France did not care enough to defend Acadia

and England had little wish to keep it.

Royal government also provided temporary assistance to the newly

established French settlement in Newfoundland. Beginning in the early

1660s, the French settled the south shore of the Avalon Peninsula at

Plaisance (now Placentia). The deep, ice-free harbor offered an excellent

refuge for French ships and countered the English settlements along the

eastern shore of the peninsula. The French government provided free

passage and one year’s ﬁ nancial support to encourage settlement in Plai-

sance. French ﬁ shermen at Plaisance maintained themselves largely by

trading their catch to New England ships. But the colony languished after

French assistance diminished in the early 1670s, and its population was

never more than half the size of the English settlements.

ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND A DISTINCT SOCIETY