Revolutionary War veteran Clément Gosselin was not alone. Basile Mignault, too, fought in the ranks of the Continental Army. Both would spend the better part of the post-war period in Canada, although Mignault could claim a more settled existence. Indeed, while Gosselin travelled as far as Yorktown, where he was injured, his counterpart’s war was […]
Continue readingThe Canadians of Clinton County: The First Franco-Americans
Some six years after the end of the American War of Independence, Clement Gosselin, a veteran, sought the support of President George Washington. Appeals to the highest executive office were not usual, but Gosselin’s letter, written in French and alluding to a “common enemy,” merits special attention. The veteran, born on l’Ile d’Orléans near Quebec […]
Continue readingKing George III as a Late Stuart (Part V)
Part V: The Exigencies of War See Part IV here. Beyond 1776, it became more difficult for disgruntled colonists to sustain the rhetoric of anti-Catholicism in their claims for emancipation. The reaction to the act of 1774 found an uneasy place in the context of war, especially as Congress sought to woo Catholic Quebec and […]
Continue readingKing George III as a Late Stuart (Part IV)
Part IV: Religious Encounters See Part III here. The invasion was in keeping with recent events outside of the colony, from Lexington and Concord through the capture of Fort Ticonderoga – clearing the Lake Champlain axis – to the Battle of Bunker Hill, all in the spring of 1775. The Continental Congress sought to protect […]
Continue readingKing George III as a Late Stuart (Part III)
Part III: From Redress to Revolution See Part II here. The seeds of the King’s later image as a friend of popery, were thus sown in 1774, and some immediate responses foreshadowed subsequent attacks. In eastern Massachusetts, subjects evoked the memory of “our fugitive parents” who had been “persecuted, scourged, and exiled.” The Quebec Act […]
Continue readingKing George III as a Late Stuart (Part II)
Part II: The Quebec Act See Part I here. Whenever Catholics were politically disarmed, their place in majority British societies involved numerous inconsistencies. More immediately threatened and theologically justified than subjects in Britain, New England’s Puritans also harboured far stronger anti-Catholic feelings than other colonists. Congregationalist ministers identified the Catholic Church as the Antichrist as […]
Continue readingKing George III as a Late Stuart
Part I: Introduction This paper was presented at the University of Ottawa on May 30, 2015. It appeared in print in the next issue of the Canadian Society of Church History’s Historical Papers. ~ ~ ~ The Glorious Revolution cast a long shadow. Through the eighteenth century, English subjects found in it evidence of a […]
Continue readingFranco-American History: On the Menu
In coming weeks, blog posts will address the “human vestiges of the vast continental French empire in North America,” with apologies to the Huguenots. It begins to trace the French-Canadian story as Britain sought to consolidate its hold over its new subjects, and it will carry this drama well past American independence—as far as the […]
Continue readingFranco-American History Blog: A Tribute to Mason Wade (1913-1986)
The several million Americans of French or French-Canadian origin, who are among the oldest Americans of European stock, are for the most part human vestiges of the vast continental French empire in North America. Thus began historian Mason Wade’s essay on Franco-American history in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, published a half-century ago. In the 1950s […]
Continue readingGreetings!
Thank you for visiting my Franco-American history blog. Keep checking in, in coming weeks and months, as this page grows and comes to represent the full range of my research and writing. Do not hesitate to get in touch with questions or comments. I will be pleased to hear from you.
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