Belshaw Chapter 6: Intercolonial Rivalries, Imperial Ambitions, and the Conquest

Acadian Expulsion

The removal of Acadians and other francophones from Île Royale after 1745, and accelerating after 1755 as the British forcibly removed the larger portion of the colonist population. In French, it is called Le Grand Dérangement.

Annapolis royal

British name for Port Royal

Battle of Sainte-Foy

Battle on April 28, 1760, near the citadel of Quebec with the French/Canadien forces attacking the British. General Murray repeated many of the errors Montcalm made only months before. The British survived (but not without suffering more than a thousand casualties) by hunkering in the fortress until British naval reinforcements arrived.

Bourgeois, bourgeoisie

Originally someone who lived in the town (French: bourg; German: burg; English: borough), typically associated with merchants, professionals, etc. By the 18th century, the bourgeoisie emerged as a distinct social class, a “middle class.”

Chemin du Roy

The “King’s Road,” built in the 1730s; a major infrastructure project in its time. One of the longest continuous roads in North America, it connected seigneuries on the north shore of the St. Lawrence.

Coparcenary

A system of joint inheritance of property. Compare with primogeniture.

East India Company

Established in 1600, the largest of Britain’s chartered trade monopolies. It dominated trade and was an instrument of British imperialism in Asia, as well as the model on which the Hudson’s Bay Company was based.

Father Le Loutre’s War

Also called the Mi’kmaq (or Micmac) War, a 1749–1755 conflict that pitted the Mi’kmaq and some of the Acadian communities against the British and New England interests in Nova Scotia. Name derived from the role played by Catholic Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, a missionary who led the French, Acadian, and Wabanaki forces.

Father Rale’s War

Named for Father Sébastien Rale, a Catholic priest who nominally led the Wabanaki forces, this 1722–1725 conflict is known by several other names as well. It was provoked by New England expansion into unceded Wabanaki territory in what is now Maine and New Brunswick. The French were allied with the Wabanaki against the British and New England forces.

Feudalism

An economic and landholding system of social, legal, and military customs based on notions of mutual responsibility. Land ownership was typically by a manorial elite, for which a peasantry laboured. The aristocratic landowners, in turn, owed labour to the higher nobility, including the king.

Fortress Louisbourg

Established in 1713 as a fishing village, an important fortified centre of trade and naval activity from the 1720s on. Louisbourg was one of the largest towns in New France by the 1740s and an important asset in French efforts to harass the British in Acadia. Twice captured by the British and New Englanders, it was largely demolished in 1758.

Free trade

A philosophy of commerce that calls for limited or no tariffs and protectionism. Free trade is in stark contrast to mercantilism.

Great Peace of 1701

A treaty struck between New France and 40 Indigenous nations. The Great Peace drew to an end the long-running war between Canada and the Haudenosaunee Five Nations and what had become known in some circles as the Beaver Wars. Also known as the Great Peace of Montreal.

Guard hairs

The barbed outer hairs found on many mammal pelts, typically longer than the underpelt and more easily shed

Guerrilla

A form of warfare distinguished by the lack of structure and organization typical of formal warfare. Characterized by ambushes, small units, and lightning raids, guerrilla warfare aims to demoralize and wear down a larger opponent that lacks the same speed and mobility.

Gulf Stream

A strong current that runs from the Caribbean along the east coast of North America, across the6.12Summary 277 Atlantic, and along northwestern Europe. It accelerates sea traffic heading east to Europe and can impede vessels heading west to the Americas.

Illicit Trade

In the context of mercantilism, unsanctioned trade between colonies.

Indentured servant

An individual contracted on a multi-year, fixed-term basis to work in the colonies. Usually taken up by young men and women whose passage would be paid by their employer. At the end of the indenture, young men would typically receive a new suit. Large numbers of migrants from Britain to the Thirteen Colonies are thought to have started in indentured servitude. This system was regularly abused and, in some circumstances, was barely distinguishable from slavery.

Loyalists

British-American colonists who were opposed to the revolutionary position struck by other colonists. At the end of the Revolution, many Loyalists joined an exodus to other parts of British America, particularly Nova Scotia and Quebec.

New Amsterdam

The Dutch colonial settlement at the mouth of the Hudson River in what was once called New Netherland and subsequently renamed New York.

New England

A region in the northeastern United States consisting of six states: Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine.

Nursery of the navy

The Grand Banks and other fisheries in the northwest Atlantic that were regarded by imperial powers in Europe as training grounds for sailors and recruitment grounds for their respective navies.

Pays d’en Haut

A part of New France containing much of what is now Ontario, the whole of the Great Lakes, and notionally all the lands draining into them. Extended as far as the Upper Mississippi and the Missouri. Translates roughly into the “upper country.”

Plains of Abraham

Located near the Citadel of Quebec, it was the site of what proved to be a pivotal battle between British and French/Canadien/Indigenous forces in September 1759

planters

Some 2000 settlers in Nova Scotia in the period between the Acadian Expulsion and the 1780s, drawn from New England.

Primogeniture

System of inheritance that favours the eldest male offspring. Compare with coparcenary

Regicide

The murder of a king

Staple

A raw material or unprocessed product. Fish and furs were primary staples in the early colonial economies of New France and British America. Lumber and grain were later staple exports from New France and British North America.

Status quo ante bellum

A term used in treaty-making meaning a return to how things were before the war

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle

Treaty from 1748 that concluded the War of the Austrian Succession. Restored the status quo ante bellum in North America

Treaty of Paris (1765)

Ended the Seven Years’ War. France ceded all of its territory east of the Mississippi (including all of Canada, Acadia, and Île Royale) to Britain and granted Louisiana and lands west of the Mississippi to its ally Spain. Britain returned to France the sugar islands of Guadeloupe. France retained St. Pierre and Miquelon, along with fishing rights on the Grand Banks.

Treaty of Ryswick (1697)

Terminated the War of the League of Augsburg; restored the status quo in North America from before the war.

Treaty of Utrecht (1713)

Ended the War of the Spanish Succession. French claims on territory in Newfoundland, on Hudson Bay, and Acadia (Nova Scotia) were ceded to Britain, except for Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean.