The Quebec Act was an item of legislation passed by the British Parliament in June 1774. It established procedures for government, administration and law in Quebec, a province acquired from the French in the Treaty of Paris a decade earlier. Though the Quebec Act did not directly concern them, its content raised alarm in the 13 colonies, particularly among New Englanders who shared a border with Quebec. Many saw the Quebec Act as still another piece of punitive legislation, designed to punish, surround and threaten the miscreant colonies.
The province of Quebec
Quebec was a large province in the north-east corner of North America. Initially settled by the French over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, it was surrendered to Britain in Treaty of Paris (1763) at the end of the French and Indian War.
Prior to the 1774 act, Quebec occupied a section of land surrounding the St Lawrence River, running from land just north-east of Lake Huron to the Labrador coast. It shared borders or ran close to the New England colonies of New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Quebec had been the most populated section of New France. By the signing of the treaty in 1763, the province contained around 70,000 residents. Its largest towns were Quebec and Montreal, both situated on the St Lawrence River and located within travelable distance from New York.
The challenge of government
The acquisition of Quebec presented the British government with several challenges. The province had to be somehow placed under British control and law – but the vast majority of its European inhabitants were French-speaking Catholics accustomed to different administrative and legal systems.
It did not help that French numbers in Quebec continued to grow rapidly, mirroring population growth in the 13 colonies. Despite the British victory in 1763, French emigrants continued to cross the Atlantic to settle in the region. Numbers in Quebec increased by as much as 20,000 people in the decade after 1763.
British legislators recognised that simply imposing their systems of government and law on Quebec would not succeed. It would inflame tensions with French colonists and risk a situation not unlike that developing further south in the 13 colonies. Instead, a series of compromises were required.
The Quebec Act
These compromises were drafted, debated and codified in the Quebec Act, which was signed into law by George III in June 1774. The act expanded the size of the Province of Quebec almost threefold, adding vast stretches of land around the Great Lakes and west of the Ohio River. Much of the land handed to Quebec had been denied to American colonists by the Proclamation of 1763.
The act also dictated how the new province would be governed and administered. Under its provisions, Quebec would be ruled by a governor appointed by the Crown. The royal governor would be supported by an advisory council but no elected legislature.
In terms of the law, the act allowed Quebec a fusion of British and French legal systems. French civil, property and contractual laws in use prior to 1763 were retained and allowed to continue. British common law would apply in criminal and public matters. French systems of land tenure and distribution were also preserved.
The legislation also established religious freedom, at least for Catholics, declaring that “His Majesty’s subjects professing the religion of the Church of Rome in the said Province of Quebec may have, hold and enjoy the free exercise of [their] religion”. Additionally, there would be no religious oaths or qualifications attached to public office in Quebec.
Colonial responses
By 1774, many in the 13 colonies were accustomed to interpreting every act of Parliament relating to America with suspicion and alarm. Responses to the Quebec Act were no different. Fuelled by paranoid xenophobia and religious concerns, some claimed that this explicit encouragement of French Catholicism in North America would lead to the expansion of Catholicism and inevitable confrontation with their own religions.
It did not help that the borders of Quebec ran closest to the New England colonies, once the crucible of Puritanism, where conservative religious prejudices thrived. Many influential New Englanders, particularly among the clergy, feared and despised Catholicism. They mocked its unreformed doctrine, its ornate ceremonies, Latin masses and control by a single man thousands of miles away in Rome.
These views were echoed by some powerful figures in the rebellious colonies. Samuel Adams, as might be anticipated given his religious fundamentalism, raged against the Quebec bill. More surprisingly, this view was supported by Samuel’s more measured cousin, John Adams. George Washington called the act a “diabolical scheme” while the young Alexander Hamilton, then only a student, condemned it as being driven by “arbitrary power and its great engine, the popish religion”.
Further south, where anti-Catholic hysteria was less prevalent, some opposed the Quebec Act on more practical grounds. The western territories absorbed into Quebec were still being eyed by settlers and land speculators in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. The Quebec Act was another nail in the coffin of their ambitions. Benjamin Franklin was one who also opposed the act and likely for this reason.
Outcomes
The Quebec Act only heightened the distrust of Britain already prevalent in the 13 colonies in 1774. Many found it unthinkable that Parliament could legislate to protect the political, legal and religious rights of Frenchmen while denying similar rights and compromises to their British subjects.
Many who were not panicked by Catholicism or jealous of land claims were still concerned by the political implications of the Quebec Act. By handing power in Quebec to a governor unrestrained by an elected assembly, the British were establishing a form of arbitrary rule. Some in the 13 colonies saw this as their future if action wasn’t soon taken.
One ambition of the legislation was to encourage loyalism and compliance within Quebec itself. By granting French Canadians their established legal rights and religious freedom, British leaders hoped to absorb them into the empire as loyal subjects, perhaps as a buffer against the rebelliousness in neighbouring New England. In reality, most of the French in Quebec happily accepted the changes but remained indifferent to Britain and politically neutral.
“Negative reaction to the Quebec Act was caused by a misunderstanding by several of the groups involved. The act on paper was to appease the French and preserve the fur trade in Canada. [But] the act was not well received and the lieutenant-governors never established control of their districts. The colonists saw the act as a penalty imposed on them for their resistance to British taxes… In fact, the main provisions of the act had been worked out before the Boston Tea Party even took place. The colonists believed that a Catholic strong-hold with autocratic rule had been created to threaten them. The act also overruled claims to western lands contained in the original charters of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Another concern was the military threat of British troops based at the rear of the Thirteen Colonies.”
Walter Scott Dunn, historian
1. The Quebec Act was British legislation passed in mid 1774 that focused on organising the Province of Quebec, a large territory obtained from France in 1763.
2. It expanded the size of Quebec to take in the Great Lakes and large areas west of the Ohio Valley, including territory prohibited from settlement by the Proclamation of 1763.
3. The act also established a governor and non-elected council in Quebec and allowed its French-speaking residents to retain their systems of civil law and religious freedoms.
4. The act was met with condemnation and hostility in the 13 colonies. The most intense voices feared that allowing freedom of religion would lead to the spread of Catholicism in American.
5. Other colonists were angered by yet another barrier to expansion and settlement in the western territories, as well as the arbitrary system of government established in Quebec.
Citation information
Title: ‘The Quebec Act’
Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: https://alphahistory.com/americanrevolution/quebec-act
Date published: July 16, 2019
Date updated: November 22, 2023
Date accessed: April 25, 2024
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