Our ancestor Denis Laplante (b. 1798), his son Denis (b. 1821) and his son Julien (b. 1850) were all born into the seigneurial system, an institutional form of land distribution established in New France in 1627 and officially abolished in 1854. Under the French regime, 80 per cent of the population in New France lived in rural areas governed by this system of land distribution and occupation. In principle, the seigneur granted a piece of land to a family under a royalty system. The family would engage in subsistence farming to meet most of their food, heating, and shelter needs.
The seigneurial system was based on the feudal system, which involved the personal dependency of censitaires or habitants (tenants) on the seigneur (lord). In New France the similarities ended with occupation of land and payment of certain dues. The tenant was normally referred to as a habitant. The Compagnie des Cent-Associés, which was granted ownership and legal and seigneurial rights over New France, from the Arctic to Florida, also obtained the right to allocate the land to its best advantage. The land was therefore granted as fiefs and seigneuries to the most influential colonists who, in turn, granted tenancies.
The seigneur had both onerous and honorary rights. He could establish a court of law, operate a mill and organize a commune. He received from the habitants various forms of rent: the cens, a small tithe dating from the feudal period, which reaffirmed the tenant's theoretical subjection to the seigneur; the rente in cash or kind; and the banalités, taxes levied on grain, which the tenant had to grind at his seigneur's mill. He also usually granted hunting, fishing and woodcutting licences. In the early 18th century, seigneurs began to insist that their tenants work for them a certain number of days annually (the Corvée).
As an institution, the seigneurial system played a leading role in building and maintaining social relations in New France. According to some historians, it represents [translation] “the essence of the social hierarchy and inequality that characterized pre-revolutionary France.” Whether they were of noble or common descent, the seigneurs were a privileged class, and their relationships with the censitaires were affected by the perception of the cens. However, this is not to suggest that the seigneuroppressed the censitaire. The availability of land in the 17th and 18th centuries allowed habitantsto choose where to settle. Furthermore, seigneurs who were too demanding, who were absentee landowners, or who neglected to develop their lands were less likely to attract settlers.
The seigneurial system was central to France's colonization policy and came to play a major role in traditional Québec society. Despite the attractions of city life and the fur trade, 75 to 80 per cent of the population lived on seigneurial land until the mid-19th century. Roughly 220 seigneuries were granted during the French regime. They covered virtually all the inhabited areas (36,500 km²) on both banks of the St. Lawrence River between Montréal and Québec City and the Chaudière and Richelieu Valleys and extended to the Gaspé Peninsula. Seigneuries were granted to the nobility, to religious institutions (in return for education and hospital services), to military officers and to civil administrators. Other institutional organizations such as parishes, municipalities and the militia held land bordering on these seigneuries.
This method of land settlement left its mark on both the countryside and the Québec mentality. The land of the habitant was a kind of economic unit essential for survival. Everyone hoped to be the sole tenant, producing most of what he required in order to live. The system of land tenure, which placed rural inhabitants close to one another, and in the early 19th century the village, were the foundation upon which the family, neighbour relations and community spirit developed. The closeness of this agricultural society to the soil led naturally to a feeling that land was included in one's patrimony, to be passed from generation to generation.
After Canada was ceded to Britain in 1763, new British laws respected the private agreements and the property rights of francophone society, and the seigneurial system was maintained. But as new land was opened for colonization, the township system developed. As time went on, the seigneurial system increasingly appeared to favour the privileged and to hinder economic development. After much political agitation, it was abolished in 1854 by a law that permitted tenants to claim rights to their land. The last vestiges of this institution, which many historians believe profoundly influenced traditional Québec society, did not disappear until a century later.
Here is what the actual page from the census recording the elder Denis Laplante looks like:
The transcription of the page is as follows:
