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Create AccountChester William New, university teacher, historian, biographer (b at Montréal 9 Oct 1882; d at Hamilton, Ont 31 Aug 1960). Raised and educated in Hamilton, New was a graduate of the University of Toronto and McMaster University.
Marie-Joseph Angélique (born circa 1705 in Madeira, Portugal; died 21 June 1734 in Montréal, QC). Angélique was an enslaved Black woman owned by Thérèse de Couagne de Francheville in Montréal. In 1734, she was charged with arson after a fire leveled Montréal’s merchants' quarter. It was alleged that Angélique committed the act while attempting to flee her bondage. She was convicted, tortured and hanged. While it remains unknown whether or not she set the fire, Angélique’s story has come to symbolize Black resistance and freedom.
Claude Chauchetière, Jesuit missionary, painter (b at St-Porchaire-de-Poitiers, France 7 Sept 1645; d at Québec City 17 Apr 1709).
French is one of Canada’s two official languages. Although every province in Canada has people whose mother tongue is French, Québec is the only province where speakers of French are in the majority. In 2011, 7,054,975 people in Canada (21 per cent of the country’s population) had French as their mother tongue.
Jacques Marquette, Jesuit priest, missionary, explorer (b at Laon, France 10 June 1637; d at the mouth of a river later called the Père Marquette R, Mich 18 May 1675).
"It’s hard to forget. In dreams I keep on coming back. Some nights even now, I dream at night. I mean, it’s a long time ago that this war is over. But I still dream sometimes."
See below for Mr. Vicaire's entire testimony.
Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.
The Society of Jesus was founded in Paris in 1534 by Saint Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier who underwent a profound religious experience while recovering from serious wounds. Loyola called the society "The Company of Jesus" to indicate its military spirit. The order was authorized in September 1540 to ordain its members. The name "Jesuits" (meaning those who too frequently use or appropriate the name of Jesus) was used against the order as a term of reproach but in time was accepted by its members.
Kenneth Gilbert, OC, RSC, harpsichordist, organist, musicologist, teacher (born 16 December 1931 in Montreal, QC; died 15 April 2020 in Quebec City, QC). Hon D MUS (McGill) 1981.
The coureurs de côtes were itinerant traders in 18th-century French Canada.
The term francophonie has been in common use since the 1960s. It has several meanings. In its most general sense, it refers to all peoples and communities anywhere in the world that have French as their mother tongue or customary language. The term can also refer to the wider, more complex network of government agencies and non-government organizations that work to establish, maintain and strengthen the special ties among French-speaking people throughout the world. Lastly, the expression “La Francophonie” is increasingly used as shorthand for the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (International Organisation of La Francophonie).
Jean-Mandé Sigogne, Roman Catholic missionary (b at Beaulieu-les-Loches, France 6 Apr 1763; d at Sainte-Marie [Church Point], NS 9 Nov 1844).
Black people have lived in Canada since the beginnings of transatlantic settlement. Although historically very few arrived directly from their ancestral homeland in Africa, the term "African Canadian" is used to identify all descendants of Africa regardless of their place of birth. “Black Canadian” is also used as a more general term. The earliest arrivals were enslaved people brought from New England or the West Indies. Between 1763 and 1900, most Black migrants to Canada were fleeing enslavement in the US. (See also Black Enslavement in Canada.)
See also Black History in Canada: 1900–1960 and Black History in Canada: 1960 to Present.
Between 1840 and 1930, nearly a million francophones from Canada emigrated to the United States. (See also Canada and United States.) Most emigrants came from Quebec. There were also Acadians from the Atlantic provinces. These emigrants lived throughout the Northern US, but most settled in New England. The largest cohort worked in the textile industry. The 1880s and 1890s were the crest of several waves of emigration that ended with the Great Depression. Also known as Franco-Americans, about two million French Canadian descendants live in New England today.
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools is a Catholic religious order founded by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle in France in 1680. In Canada, members are generally referred to as Christian Brothers or De La Salle Brothers. They are not to be confused with the Congregation of Christian Brothers who were founded by Edmund Rice in Ireland in 1802 and whose members in Canada were also called Christian Brothers or Irish Christian Brothers. The Brothers of the Christian Schools were a major force in Catholic education in Canada, especially in Quebec. They first arrived in Montreal in 1837, then experienced numeric growth, geographic expansion and a solid reputation over the next 125 years. The Brothers underwent a significant exodus and decline in vocations with the dramatic religious and social changes spawned by the Second Vatican Council and the Quiet Revolution.
A religious congregation founded in 1831 in Vourles (near Lyons), France, by Father Louis-Marie Querbes to educate boys and to help in the general parish ministry.
Marion De Chastelain, intelligence agent, mother of John De Chastelain, (b 1910, New York, NY; d 1999, Calgary, AB).
Obwandiyag (Pontiac), Odawa chief (born c. 1720 along the Detroit River; died 20 April 1769 in Cahokia, Illinois Country). Obwandiyag was the leader of a loose coalition of Indigenous nations that opposed British rule in what became known as Pontiac’s War (1763–66). The uprising is regarded by many as a historical antecedent to more contemporary Indigenous rights movements.
French Canadian nationalism concerns a wide variety of manifestations of the collective will of much of Canada's French-speaking population to live as a distinct cultural community. Its innumerable ramifications have been not only cultural but also political, economic and social.
Swiss immigration to the territory we now know as Canada began in the late 16th century. The 2016 census reported 155, 120 people of Swiss origin in Canada (25, 235 single responses and 129, 885 multiple responses).
