Crofters and Habitants: Settler Society, Economy, and Culture in a Quebec Township, 1848-1881

Terry A. Crowley is an associate professor of history at the University
of Guelph.

A detailed examination of an insignificant township in a marginal area
of Quebec might not appear at first as the most dazzling of prospects
for historical inquiry, but Simon Fraser University historian Jack
Little has managed to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. The objects
of his attention are Scots and French-Canadian settlers who acquired
land near Lake Megantic in the Eastern Townships during the
mid-nineteenth century. With a sure hand, he skillfully unravels the
society they created. Demographics, geographic mobility, family
dynamics, farm production, the workings of local capital, the role of
religion, and the formation of schools and local government are
developed adroitly within the comparative framework afforded by looking
at two different ethnic groups who inhabited the same geographical
setting. Their experience is compared and contrasted with what we know
from other local soundings that historians have undertaken in recent
years.

For too long historians perpetrated national stereotypes originally
created long ago. Attention to the backgrounds of his settlers—in the
Isle of Lewis in Scotland and in the St. Lawrence Valley—allows Little
to provide cultural explanations for the patterns and differences that
he uncovers, without falling into the trap generated by preconceived
notions about supposed national characteristics. The result is a book
that is more thought-provoking and readable than many previous studies
of this type. In recreating a world that has been truly lost, Crofters
and Habitants makes a vital contribution to our understanding of
Canadian history.