Quebec Act

The Quebec Act of 1774 was an Act of the British Parliament setting out procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. It had long been consider by the British North American Colonists to have been related to the Coercive Acts passed at around the same time and in response to the Boston Tea Party. It is also the only act of Parliament specifically mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

In order to secure the allegiance of the approximately 70,000 French Canadians to the British crown and to provide for civilian government, first Governor James Murray and later Governor Guy Carleton promoted the need for action. This eventually resulted in the Quebec Act of 1774.

Background

After the French and Indian War, a victorious Great Britain achieved a peace agreement through the Treaty of Paris (1763). Under the terms of the treaty, the Kingdom of France chose to keep the rich sugar islands and gave up its vast North American territories known as New France. New France was then considered less valuable, as its only significant commercial product at the time was the fur trade. The territory located along the St. Lawrence River, called Canada by the French, was renamed Province of Quebec by the British.

Following the Treaty of Paris, the British government did little to establish civilian government in the former French territories. Except at Forts Detroit and Michillimackinac, the territory was governed by the British army under martial law. At the Forts, civilian officials to regulate the fur trade (known as commissaries) also operated.

During the 1760s, French civilians as far away as the Mississippi River began complaining and defying British law for the lack of civilian government. At one point, General Gage considering deporting the habitants as the British had done to the French population of Acadia during the French and Indian War, but this was abandoned as impractical and too expensive. To quell this growing French dissent, the British passed the Quebec Act to provide for civilian government.

The Law

The law extended the boundaries of Quebec southward to the Ohio River and westward to the Mississippi River (the western boundary of the British territory at the time). The act recognized two different legal traditions: French law for civil cases and British law for criminal cases. Roman Catholics were granted full religious freedom while they were denied similar freedoms in either Britain or its colonies. Such recognition of what the Anglicans considered religious error flew in the face of establishment religion.

The Act establish four additional political jurisdictions in the Great Lakes region. Lieutenant governors were appointed for Detroit, Michilimackinac, Vincennes, and Illinois. The governor of Quebec was granted the right to appoint a legislative council but Parliament rejected any other form of representative assembly mainly because representative government had not be part of either the French or habitant tradition.

Effects on the Province of Quebec

The Quebec Act restored the former French civil tradition for private law, which had been suspended in 1763 in favor of military rule and allowed for the Roman Catholic faith to be practiced. It replaced the old oath with one to George III which had no reference to the Protestant faith.

Reaction in the Thirteen Colonies

The Quebec Act was one of the Intolerable Acts denounced by the American colonists, further contributing to the American Revolution. They pointed to the lack of representative government in Quebec as proof that Parliament meant to extend its tyranny over North America.

Frontiersmen from Virginia and other colonies were already entering the area annexed to Quebec and land development companies had already been formed to acquire ownership of large tracts and sell land to settlers. In spite of clauses denying this intent, the seaboard colonies argued that the Quebec act was attempting also to invalidate their western land claims. The seaboard colonists also denounced the Act for promoting the growth of Papism and cutting back on traditional English rights and freedoms in favor of a French-styled system.

The Quebec Act in Operation

Henry Hamilton was appointed lieutenant governor at Detroit in 1775. Hamilton had power to establish courts in Detroit and Michilimackinac but the start of the American Revolution inhibited any further implementation of the Act until after the war. Later, when Hamilton became the military commandant at Fort Detroit, civilian administration was again merged with military administration.

Historiographical Interpretations

Langston (2006) looked at press reaction in New England and found that newspaper editors of the time explained how the Act reorganized Canadian governance, established direct rule by the crown, and limited the reach of English law to criminal jurisprudence. Editors such as Isaiah Thomas of the The Massachusetts Spy drew links between the Quebec Act and legislation circumscribing American liberties, such as the Tea Act and the Coercive Acts. Editors shaped public opinion by writing editorials and reprinting opposition letters from both sides of the Atlantic. The First Continental Congress, which met from 5 September to 26 October 1774, addressed the inhabitants of Quebec, warning them of the perils of the increasingly arbitrary, tyrannical, and oppressive nature of British government.

The Act was never enforced outside Canada. Its main importance was to anger the Americans, weaken the King's supporters (Loyalists), and speed the confrontation that became the American Revolution. When the war started, an unsuccessful effort was made in Parliament to repeal the laws in hopes of mollifying the angry Americans, but it was too late and there was no repeal. The Treaty of Paris (1783) gave the lands south of the Great Lakes to the United States.