Seigneurial System of New France - After The British Conquest

After The British Conquest

After the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the conquest of Quebec by the British during the Seven Years' War, the system became an obstacle to colonization by British settlers. The Quebec Act of 1774 retained French civil law and therefore the seigneurial system.

It remained relatively intact for almost a century. This was the prime land; also many Englishmen and Scotsmen purchased seigneuries; others were divided equally between male and female offspring; some were run by the widows of seigneurs as their children grew to adulthood. Over time land became subdivided among the owners' offspring and descendants, resulting in increasingly narrow plots of land.

When Quebec was divided in December 1791 between Lower Canada (today's Quebec) and Upper Canada (today's Ontario), a 45.7 km (28.4 mi) segment of the colonial boundary was drawn at the west edge of the westernmost contiguous seigneuries along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, accounting for the small triangle of land at Vaudreuil-Soulanges that belongs to Quebec rather than Ontario. Only two outlying seigneuries were ever established in the area that became Upper Canada, being located at L'Orignal on the Ottawa River and Frontenac at the eastern end of Lake Ontario at what is now Kingston and Wolfe Island.