Old Subjects vs. New Subjects in Canada

From Mark R. Anderson’s article on Borealia, I learned that the population of Canada in 1775 was divided between “new subjects” and “old subjects.”

Confusingly, the “new subjects” were the French inhabitants who had lived in the province the longest, starting before the British won it in the Seven Years’ War. They were newly subject to the rule of George III.

The “old subjects” were the new Canadians, people of British descent who had come to the province from other parts of the British Empire in hopes of enjoying commercial and political privileges.

The Quebec Act of 1774 granted the “new subjects” more political and especially religious authority than the “old subjects” had hoped the francophones would have, simply on the basis of being more numerous and experienced in the province.

That law prompted protests in New England, such as the Suffolk Resolves, but also protests in Montréal, as Anderson describes:

On the morning of May 1, 1775, the very day that the historic Quebec Act entered effect, Montrealers discovered this shocking vandalism to King George III’s marble bust, prominently displayed near Notre Dame church on the central Place d’Armes. . . .

There is evidence that the king’s bust represented more than just British rule over Canada, serving as a symbol of elite French Canadians’ embrace of the new imperial regime, too. . . . Thus, the May 1, 1775 bust defacement would presumably have been taken as an affront to the Canadien leadership class—those who benefitted most tangibly from the Quebec Act, including access to high provincial office in the appointive legislative council.

On May 2, the day after Montrealers discovered the vandalism, a crowd gathered on the Place d’Armes, awaiting a reward announcement. Two men began quarreling. Newly appointed legislative councillor Chevalier François-Marie Picoté de Belestre and merchant David Salisbury Franks raised voices, exchanged insults, and then resorted to blows. Another scuffle promptly ensued when upcountry fur trader Ezekiel Solomons struck affluent shopkeeper Charles Laferte Lepailleur for making an offensive statement.

Read the rest of “The Quebec Act, Two Fights, and Relative Subjecthood” here.