Disappearance of the Seigneurial System

The demise of the French regime did not in itself put an end to the seigneurial system. The former New France adapted to the new state of affairs. By that time many of the seigneuries had passed from the traditional class of seigneurs into the possession of habitants, public servants and prominent persons who had been enriched by trade or in the exercise of their professions. Whereas in 1663, according to historian Fernand Ouellet, members of the nobility held 60.9% of the lands, that proportion had dropped to 53.6% in 1760.

Seven years after the English conquest, 102 of the 228 nobles who had been resident in the French colony had left it and returned to live in France. 44 seigneuries belonging to old families had been sold. They found buyers in the few aristocrats, members of the bourgoisie and soldiers of French origin who were determined to stay in the country, as well as in some English soldiers and middle-class immigrants.

The British Quebec Act of 1774, retained the fabric of seigneurial tenure. Accelerated population growth soon made the seigneuries profitable, the more so since many proprietors had no qualms about exploiting their habitants, who were still subject to the duties and obligations prescribed under the previous regime. But even when put on a more commercial basis, agriculture still suffered from poor soil management and many French Canadians were forced to emigrate from the seigneuries to New England.

The enactment of An Act for the Abolition of Feudal Rights and Duties in Lower Canada on the eighteenth of December, 1854, dealt the final blow to the seigneurial system. "Abolition," writes Marcel Trudel, "was not brought about by the rural censitaire who could still profit by it, nor was it the result of a humanitarian or philosophical campaign for the liberation of the common man, even though this subject gave occasion to speculation on the natural equality of men. Abolition became imperative because the system could not subsist in the conditions created by economic progress."