Distinctive Cultural Region

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that Quebec is unique within English-speaking North America because it is a large, self-contained geographical region that is characterized by a strong, if no longer overwhelming, French-speaking presence and by a culture that is still informed by Roman Catholicism. With this in mind, the writer looks at how the religious and political ties of eighteenth century Quebec (Upper Canada as it was known then) into a distinctive cultural region that remains distinctive even today. In so doing, the paper emphasizes how religion became a means of producing a society that was highly hierarchical even by the standards of its time - and how politics reinforced these unbending class cleavages. The writer explains that to understand why Quebec today is different from its Anglo counterparts, one must understand how religion and politics worked together more than two hundred years ago to create the French Canada of today.

From the Paper:

"During the seventeenth century and, by all accounts, into the eighteenth century, as well, these religious orders sought to convert the indigenous peoples to the Roman Catholic faith. As an example of just central the Roman Catholic Church would be to eighteenth century French Canada, it is instructive that the priests actually pre-dated the farmers or habitants who would later be charged with trying to make the inhospitable lands of the area yield sustenance fit to maintain a thriving colony. Be that as it may, one should not be left to think that Roman Catholic French Canada in the eighteenth century was entirely under the sway of the Church and its stern injunctions; to wit, while the people of Lower Canada were, by and large, devout and pious, there were never as many priests around as the Church would have liked and creeping secularism was always a threat to the social fabric."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barkan, Elliott Robert. "French Canadians." In the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom, 388-401. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. 388-401.
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "Le Refus Global: Revolution in the Arts." CBC Archives: Arts & Entertainment. 2006. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 1 Jun. 2007 <http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-68-109/arts_entertainment/refus_global/>
• Crowley, Terry. "The Inroads of Secularization in Eighteenth-Century New France: Church and People at Louisbourg." CCHA Historical Studies, 51 (1984): 5-27.
• Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. "Keweenaw Ethnic Groups: The French Canadians." An Interior Ellis Island. 2007. Michigan Technological University. 1 Jun. 2007 <http://ethnicity.lib.mtu.edu/groups_FrCanada.html>

More papers on Distinctive Cultural Region:

• Persuasive Essay # 133839 : "Development of Quebec as a Distinctive Cultural Region"
• Analytical Essay # 133853 : "The Culture of Quebec"
• Persuasive Essay # 104360 : "Quebecois Cultural"

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