The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec

An insightful look at the unique society of the seigneuries of Batiscan and Sainte-Anne de la Perade

Examines the seigneuries of Batiscan and Sainte-Anne de la Perade, recreating the social relations between individuals and ethnic groups who inhabited the area. This work shows that successive waves of immigrants sought to appropriate the landscape of the New World and replace it with a physical and cultural reality closer to their European roots.French settlers distanced the indigenous people and flora and fauna to create a landscape that by the mid-eighteenth century had become recognizably European. British industrialists and landowners attempted similar appropriations with far less durable results and the area remained a heartland of French-Canadian life, with a sense of cohesive community. This community spirit, rooted in agrarian landscape, was channelled into the developing sense of colonial nationalism of the 1820s and 1830s. Drawing on maps by explorers and surveyors, correspondence documenting the conflict between a backwoods priest and his parishioners, a gentlewoman's sketchbook, and the documents of a bitter court case between a seigneur's wife and a local priest, Coates illuminates the development of the region and the social, cultural, and economic ties and tensions within it, providing insights into the often hidden values of a rural community.