Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- LAST REVIEWED: 31 January 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 February 2017
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0219
- LAST REVIEWED: 31 January 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 February 2017
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0219
Introduction
Although it has an extensive Atlantic seaboard and is centered around the major riverine route from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes, the Canadian province of Quebec is rarely considered within an Atlantic context. In a similar fashion, the prolific historiography concerning Quebec, like that of Canada as a whole, has most often been oriented inward toward the continent, rather than outward toward the ocean. Furthermore, Quebec historiography has often been focused almost entirely on Quebec itself, conceived of as a nation with its own history, quite apart from (though of course constantly in dialogue with) the rest of North America. In this perspective, the Atlantic perspective recedes even further into the background. There are some exceptions, especially for the period before the British conquest of Canada in 1759–1760, with scholars increasingly placing the French colony within the context of the French Atlantic. However, for the period after the Conquest, such explicit contextualization is rare. This bibliography thus emphasizes works that explicitly or implicitly consider post-Conquest Quebec’s place within the broader Atlantic world, either through connections or through comparison. As such, this is not a bibliography of Quebec history as a whole, and many key works of Quebec historiography are not included here. Chronologically, the article covers the period from the Conquest up to Canadian Confederation in 1867. Geographically, it covers the territory that formed Lower Canada in the mid-19th century, which was essentially the southern part of today's Canadian province of Quebec. It thus omits discussions concerning the Great Lakes basin, the Labrador coast, and the north of Quebec. For the sake of simplicity, the term “Quebec” is used throughout, even though the colony had a succession of different names (Canada, Province of Quebec, Lower Canada, and Province of Canada). Given the broad nature of the mandate, it is impossible to give any general summary of the individual historiographical debates, which are treated in the sections below. However, one overarching theme closely connected to Quebec’s Atlantic context is the relationship between the pre-Conquest Canadien population (French Catholics, later know as French Canadians), the new, largely British immigrant population, and the British Empire, which played out in politics, in economic relations, in society, and in culture and identity. This danse à trois remains fundamental to historiographical debate in Quebec; it is also a dance that has largely excluded minority groups such as Indigenous peoples and blacks, although recent work has been making progress in this regard.
General Overviews
Readers should begin with one of the good recent overviews of pre-Confederation Quebec history, notably Dickinson and Young 2008, Gossage and Little 2012, and Harris 2008. Naylor 2006 provides a broad but controversial global economic perspective. Neatby 1966 and Ouellet 1980 were companion volumes in the Canadian Centenary series but take very different approaches: Neatby focuses on politics and imperial relations while Ouellet concentrates on economic factors as the basis for society and politics. Both need to be treated with caution, although Neatby has stood the test of time better than Ouellet. Vallières, et al. 2008, while only dealing with Quebec City and its region, provides much useful analysis of transatlantic trade, immigration, and cultural links between Quebec and Britain and France.
Dickinson, John, and Brian Young. A Short History of Quebec. 4th ed. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Innovative overview of Quebec history. Emphasizes social and economic developments rather than politics. Adopts 1815 as a turning point, rather than 1760 or 1867, thus setting aside traditional Quebec chronologies and firmly situating the colony within the broader sweep of Western history. First published in 1988.
Gossage, Peter, and J. I. Little. An Illustrated History of Quebec: Tradition and Modernity. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Latest survey of Quebec history in English. Chapters 3–8 concern 1760–1867. Developments in Quebec are frequently traced back to broader transnational influences and situated within the imperial context.
Harris, Cole. The Reluctant Land: Society, Space, and Environment in Canada Before Confederation. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Survey by one of Canada’s foremost historical geographers. The chapter on Lower Canada provides an excellent overview of broad social and economic developments, including rural settlement, immigration, urbanization, and industrialization. Argues that the history of British North America as a whole was shaped by imperialism, commercial capital, and agricultural settlement.
Naylor, R. T. Canada in the European Age, 1453–1919. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Pioneering survey of Canadian economic history, placed firmly in a global context. Chapters 10–25 concern British North America. Many of the interpretations are now questionable in light of more recent research and should be treated with caution. First published in 1987, but written a decade earlier.
Neatby, Hilda. Quebec: The Revolutionary Age, 1760–1791. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Classic survey of post-Conquest Quebec in English. Contains much on Quebec politics, broadly situated within the imperial context.
Ouellet, Fernand. Lower Canada 1791–1840: Social Change and Nationalism. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1980.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Covers economy, society, and politics from Ouellet’s controversial perspective (see Quebec and the Atlantic Economy). The emphasis is on the conservatism of Canadien responses to global changes in ideologies and economies. First published in French in 1976.
Vallières, Marc, Yvon Desloges, Fernand Harvey, Andrée Héroux, Réginald Auger, and Sophie-Laurence Lamontagne. Histoire de Québec et de sa région. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Multivolume history of Quebec City, Quebec’s most important link with the Atlantic world. Provides a great deal of detailed quantitative information. A brief summary is available in English as Marc Vallières, Quebec City (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2011).
Your subscription doesn't include the subject of this book.
Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets