"I
believe that it is time to
introduce these French women
pioneers. As a young lady once asked
me, 'Were there ever any?'"
-Corinne Rocheleau
The immigration of the French to the
North American
continent, for the most part, does not take
place with immigrants
passing through Ellis Island. The entry
point for the French
immigrants, beginning in the early 1600s up
until the conquest by the
English in 1765 for Quebec and the
deportation in 1755 in Acadia, was
into Canada, also known as New France, and
then immigrating via a
border crossing into the United States.The
French came to North America, New France,
via the St. Lawrence River
and settled the many towns along the river.Québec,
Ville-Marie as Montréal was first
known, Isle d'Orleans and many more towns
were the first homes to the
French.The
French, and how they came to
be in the state of Maine and the Northeast
via a land bridge, border
crossing, makes them a unique cultural
immigration group.
They came for many reasons, some to stay in
the
U.S. and some who returned to their
homelands in Canada. Most of them
came to live and work and have been here for
several generations.All
levels of society immigrated to the U.S.:professional,
clergy, religious, laborer,
merchant and more.
The
long history of
immigration to the North American
continent by the French culture,
since the 1600s, brings to
mind the question:Who
were the
Franco-American heroines? The following
is an introduction to a play written by
Corinne Rocheleau, an early
Franco-American women writer,
which
was commissioned by the Cercle
Jeanne-Mance in the early 1900s, and it
brings to mind the idea that there were
heroines who made important
contributions to the settlement and
development of the North American
continent.The
legacy of these women
lives today in the Franco-American women
of Maine.
HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
HISTORICAL SKETCHES
& EXCERPTS FROM THE
LIVES OF THE PRINCIPAL HEROINES OF NEW
FRANCE
As performed in
Worcester, Massachusetts on
February 10, 1915
PREFACE
Some
say that a happy people have no history.If
this saying applies to individuals, we
must believe that the first
French women in America were happy for we
seldom hear about them.
We
have often discussed the major feats and
accomplishments of the
French colonists, but we have left their
"better halves" in
semi-darkness.I believe that it is
time to introduce these French women
pioneers. As a young lady once
asked me, "Were there ever any?"
It
is truly sad that so few details survive
concerning these courageous
women who confronted the dangers of long
and stormy ocean crossings to
establish themselves in a strange and
foreign country.The centuries have
practically erased all traces of
their footsteps on American soil.
To
find the names of these heroines, we must
consultthe oldrecordsof
Québec, of Montreal, of Detroit or
of New Orleans.If this proves to
be too much, we need only to look in the
monumentalwork"Dictionnaire
Généalogique de Tanguay"
which
would prove to us that so many thousands
of these pioneer women lived
and
died.A
genealogical dictionary, however,
does not tell their stories.
But,
by studying the Canadian and American
archives, these women appear
- almost like magic -from
theirpages.Taken aback by their
beauty, their charm and dare I say
it,
their Frenchmentality,
I
have retrieved them - one by one - from
the cloudy depths of history
where
they have been hidden - first of all for
the sheer pleasure of admiring
them like cameos from the past and finally
for the greater pleasure of
seeing
them reborn as interpreted by the members
of the "Cercle Jeanne-Mance."
No
one asked me why I did not interpret Marie
de L'Incarnation,
Marguerite Bourgeois and the "Soeurs
Hospitalieres".It is because these
have been interpreted by
others more capable than I.It is
also because I thought it best to leave
these religious sisters hidden
beneath their veils, in their cloisters,
relegating to those who worked
alongside them - women such as Madame de
la Peltrie and Jeanne Mance - the
task of revealing the arduous life of
these wonderful women.
Corinne
Rocheleau
Worcester,
Massachusetts - August 1915
As well as those
women
mentioned above, the play is about heroines
(which can all be
researched on the internet) such as:
Huron
Women
Mrs. Louis
Hébert
Guillemette,
her daughter, first female settlers in
Québec
Mrs.
Samuel de Champlain
Mrs. de la
Peltrie
Mrs. de la
Tour,
baronne de St. Estienne
Lady in
Waiting
Jeanne
Mance
Mrs.
Jacques de Lalande
Mrs. Louis
Jolliet
Madeleine
de Vercheres
Jeanne le
Ber
Jeanne le
Ber's cousin
Mrs. de la
Mothe-Cadillac
and in theEPILOGUE
AFranco-American
mother and her daughters
Marie and Françoise.
(Roy, 1999)
(Editor's
Note: To the above list, I would add Les
Filles du Roi, the King's
Daughters)
Now
almost a century has passed and we are to
investigate the lives of the
Franco-American women and we too believe
that it is time to introduce these
French women pioneers and to learn
more about their descendants.
Where would a
learner begin to look for the
Franco-American women in the history of
Maine?Where
would their presence be felt
and seen?Who
are they and where have
they left their imprint?What was the
primary language for many of these women?Were
they French speakers exclusively, and when
or where is the English
language introduced? What are the issues
of becoming a citizen of the United States
when one is of the French
language and cultural heritage group?What
happens in the process of assimilation, or
if not,
what does that mean for a women?
To begin with,
Franco-American women are not all the
same.
Some are of Québéc heritage,
some are Acadian,
Métis, Mixed Blood, French
Canadian, 'Cajun, Creole and Huguenot.
FRANCO-AMERICAN
United States
residents of
French heritage and culture (more than 10
million) having full or
partial expression of the North American
French language and culture
reflecting at least two distinct
historical experiences as well as
other distinctions.
Québec:
Québec roots: History,
folklore, culture and language marked by
the Québec rural farm depopulation
of the latter part of the
19th
century and first half of the 20th
century and their
"overnight"
settling in urban textile manufacturing
areas of the Northeast with
smaller
numbers in the wood cutting and farming
economy.
Acadian:
Acadian roots: History,
folklore, culture and language marked by
the maritime--Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and Prince Edward
Island--historical home of their forebears
and the Acadian dispersion of 1755 and
1785. In the North East
they are found mostly in Maine's St John
Valley with smaller
settlements elsewhere in Maine, in
Massachusetts, Connecticut
Métis:A
person of mixed racial/cultural
heritage--generally applied
to Native American and French American
"métissage" of race and
culture.
People of mixed French Canadian and Indian
heritage.
Mixed Blood:A
person of French and other cultural
heritage(s).
French Canadian:An
older version defining the French
population of the Northeast.
Comparable to Franco-American.
I include the next
three
definitions because
of the possibility of comparison/contrast
history being done with the
cultural
connection to the Maine
Franco-American/Acadian heritage group:
'Cajun:
Cajun is a person who descends
from Acadian exiles banished from Nova
Scotia in the eighteenth century
and -- importantly -- all the ethnic
groups with
whom those exiles and their offspring
intermarried on the south
Louisiana frontier (for example, French,
German, and Spanish settlers).
Creole: A
Creole, however, is a native
south Louisianan whose ancestry is black,
white, or mixed-race
(black-white, black-Indian,
black-white-Indian), usually of
French-speaking heritage.
Huguenot:
The Huguenots were French
Protestants who were members of the
Reformed Church established in
France by John Calvin in about 1555, and
who, due to religious
persecution, were forced to flee France to
other countries in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Considerable numbers of Huguenots
migrated to British North America,
especially to the Carolinas,
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York.
Their character and talents in
the arts, sciences, and industry were such
that they are generally felt
to have been a substantial loss to the
French society from which they
had been forced to withdraw, and a
corresponding gain to the
communities and nations into which they
settled.
The question
remains why this particular heritage group
is of importance to address
in the Maine classroom.Sheer numbers of
immigrants coming from Québec and
Acadian lands would warrant a
serious look at this cultural group.
Between 1840
and 1930 roughly 900 000 French Canadians
left Canada to emigrate to
the United States, mostly to the
Northeast. This important migration,
which has now been largely forgotten in
Quebec's collective memory, is
certainly one of the major events in
Canadian demographic history.
According to the 1980 American
census, 13.6 million Americans claimed to
have French ancestors. While
a
certain number of these people may be of
French, Belgian, Swiss, Cajun
or Huguenot ancestry, it is certain that a
large proportion would have
ancestors who emigrated from French Canada
or Acadia during the 19th
and 20th centuries. Indeed, it has been
estimated that, in the absence
of emigration, there would be 4 to 5
million more francophones living
in Canada today. Around 1900,
there would scarcely have been a
French-Canadian or Acadian family that
did
not have some of its members living in the
United States. (Belanger,
1999)
[On-line]. Available:
http://www2.marianopolis.edu/quebechistory/readings/leaving.htm.
Accessed
August 12, 2001.
The 4 to 5
million residents are now in the United
States and 40% of the
population of the state of Maine is of
French heritage.
Of these, many are women.
Where are the
women and how
to study their contributions?
Geographically, the
state of
Maine can be divided into Northern,
Central, and Southern sections when
looking at the geographical gathering
points for the Franco-Americans.Each section
would reveal a history of rural,
urban, mill worker, professional, farmer,
farmer's wife, life of the
religious, and more.There can be
templates of the inherent culture of each
geographical section, but the
danger would be to allow stereotypes to
define these women and their
lives.Under
each category of cultural
geography there would be many subsets of
history defining the lives of
the Franco-American women.
Each section would
have a
cultural geography which is unique and
similar to the larger cultural
definition of Franco-American historical
perspectives.Franco-American women
have played a very important role
in the settlement and development of the
entire state.The challenge would be to
learn the known contributors
and to further investigate the women of
the various communities.
Starting in one's
own family,
or community, conducting interviews of
the local women will reveal much about the
history of their lives.Some women might tell the
student
interviewing them that they have nothing
of interest to say, but if
prompted, they have a wealth of
information to share.The women have not always
understood the value of
their lives and their contributions.First
person accounts such as interviews would
begin to
build a data base of the life stories of
the women, their mamans, their
mémères, ma tantes, nieces
and cousines.
Some of the
suggestions, while
not exhaustive, for finding these women
and their histories are to be
found in the following:
Farming
Wood Harvesting
Operations
Small Town Residents
Cross-border
citizenships
Nursing Home
Assisted Living
Residences
Teacher
Nurse
Co-operatives
Religious Life
Mill Work
Retail
Homemaker
Motherhood
Single Woman Status
Married Woman Status
Divorced
Separated
Politics
Sports
Medicine
Midwife/Sage Femme
Writer
Journalist
Singer
Entertainer
Waitress
Public Monuments to
women
Each section of the
state
would also have women who have
accomplished
exemplary achievements.Short
biographical histories have been recorded
about some of these women and
much remains to be done.Some
of the women, such as Marguerite "Tante
Blanche" Thibodeau of northern
Maine
is an example of one of the unsung
heroines of the
Franco-American/Acadian
culture (see Resource List for web site).
Another example
would be
Senator Margaret Chase Smith who was also
of
Franco-American heritage--a little known
fact that her mother was of
French
ancestry.Tracing
the history
of such an influential woman as Chase
Smith would reveal the size of
the
contributions that Franco-American women
have made worldwide.The Margaret Chase Smith
Library has yet to recognize
her
Franco-American ancestry.
The first president
of the
Maine Press and Radio Women was a
Franco-American woman from Lewiston,
Maine. Her
name was Charlotte Michaud.
That organization is still in operation
today known as the Maine Media
Women. The
history of this organization
is due in part to the dedication of the
founding women, one of which
was a Franco-American.
These are only a few
of the
examples of the women who are prominent
and not always included in the
history books.Many,
many more can be
discovered and recorded.
Another source of
information
would be in primary documents within the
family or community such as
letters, prayer books, recipe books, baby
books, knitting or crochet
patterns, baptismal, First Communion,
Confirmation records, cemetery
headstones, old newspapers, magazines as
well as any other type of
record keeping that would help define
these women and their often
silent, but dedicated existence.Family
and community folklore, stories, songs,
plays, and other means of
recording the culture of a group who
immigrated to the state of Maine.Histories of
the many orders of nuns is also
a little known piece of the general
history of Maine.Each
geographical area of Maine would have had
their
own order of nuns, or even several orders
doing work in the community.There are also
Franco-Americans who have been
members of Protestant religions, both in
the past and in the present.An example would be the
French Baptist Church
in Waterville.Local
town histories would
be a source of this kind of event.
What follows is a
list, again
not exhaustive, of resources.Some will
have information on the Franco-American
women, and some will not.This is a
caution to a student doing research.
Simply because an organization or
individual offers Franco-American
cultural information, it may not be
specific to the women of the
culture.In
order to arrive at the
women's lives and their contributions, a
student doing research must
focus specifically on the women and not on
the general culture.General
Franco-American cultural study does not go
deep enough into the inquiry
to
reveal the women's lives.
Staying on topic, both in the interview
and inquiry process, should be
a
criteria for the workbeing done on
Franco-American women's history.
There is no better
time in
history to embark upon such a learning
experience because of the
resurgence of the local communities and
the Franco-American culture to
re-learn their histories.The field of
study is varied and rich in possibilities!
Roy, Jeannine Bacon,
Trans, French
Women of North America ,
Translation, 1999. Françaises
d'Amérique
, 1915.
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pages 1 Ed edition (April 20, 1999),
Doubleday; ISBN: 038549128X
Dancing
at the Harvest Moon, pen name, by K.
C. McKinnon, Mass
Market Paperback - 248 pages 1 ballanti
edition (April 1999), Fawcett
Books; ISBN: 0449005275
Pelletier,
Raymond JandFreeman,
Stanley L., Manuel du professeur pour
introduire les études
franco-americaines : Initiating
Franco-American studies : a handbook
for teachers, Orono, Me. : a
publication of the
Canadian/Franco-American Studies Project,
University of Maine at Orono,
1981, 284 p. : map. ; 23 cm English and
French, "Funds for the writing
of this Handbook were provided by the
National Endowment for the
Humanities through Grant Number
ES-3109-78-1272." Bibliography: p.
233-268.
Perreault,
Gene. Memories Grow On Trees/L'Arbre
des Mémoires
, National Materials Development Center,
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Perreault,
Robert B., One piece in the great
American mosaic : the
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N.H. :Association
Canado-américaine,
1976.
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Susan., Alternative ethnographies :
genre and cultural encounter in
early modern French texts, viii, 161
leaves, Dissertation: Thesis
(Ph. D., French)--University of
California, Irvine, 1999.
Proulx,
E. Annie:
Postcards (Scribner
Classics)
Annie
Proulx, E. Annie Proulx / Hardcover /
Published 1996
The
Best American Short Stories 1997 :
Selected from U.S. and
Canadian
Magazines (Issn 0067-6233)
Annie
Proulx (Editor), et al / Hardcover /
Published 1997
Francophonies
d'Amérique, Par/by Les
Presses du
l'Université d'Ottawa No. 7, in
which articles by Claire Quintal
and Elizabeth Aubé appear on
Franco-American Women: Aube, Mary
Elizabeth, "Canuck", nomade
franco-americaine: Persistance et
transformation de l'imaginaire
canadien-francais" in Francophonies
d'Amérique, no 7, 1997 (Issue on
"Le(s) discours feminin(s) de
la francophonie nord-americaine", Estelle
Dansereau, editor) p.
163-176.
Quintal,
Claire, "La federation franco-americaine
ou comment les
Franco-Americaines sont entrees de
plain-pied dans le mouvement de la
survivance" p. 177-191 in Francophonies
d'Amérique, no
7, 1997 p. 177-191.
Quintal
Claire, Steeples and smokestacks : a
collection of essays
on the Franco-American experience in New
England.Worcester, Mass.
:Assumption College, Institut
français, 1996.
River
Revue/Review Rivière
, University of Maine at Fort Kent, Fort
Kent, Maine, ongoing.
Roby,
Yves. Franco-Américains de la
Nouvelle-Angleterre:
Rêves et réalités.
Éditeur
: Septentrion, Sillery (Québec),
Canada, Genre:
Population / Généalogie. 534
pages, ISBN 2-89448-164-0,
2000
Robbins,
Rhea Côté, The River
Review/La Revue rivière,
"Franco-American Women's Literary
Tradition: A Central Piece in the
Region's
Literary Mosaic," University of Maine at
Fort Kent, Fort Kent, Me. 1999.
Robbins,
Rhea Côté, L'Ouest
Français et la
Francophonie Nord-Américaine,
"De l'Ile à la Tortue,
à laNouvelle France, à
la Nouvelle-Angleterre : lutte
pour
une identité vivable," Chapter 5
Something That Will Cure,
Presses
de L'Université d'Angers, Angers,
France, 1996.
Robbins,
Rhea Côté, Petrie, Lanette
Landry, Langellier,
Kristin , Slott, Kathryn , Je suis
franco-américaine et
fière de l'être/I am
Franco-American and proud of it : an
anthology of writings of Franco-American
women, Women in the
Curriculum, University of Maine, Orono,
Maine,1995.
"Canuck and Other Stories [Paperback]." Amazon.com:
Canuck and Other Stories (9780966853629):
Rhea Cote Robbins: Books. Ed. Rhea J.
Cote Robbins. Rheta Press, 28 Sept. 2006. Web.
04 Mar. 2013.
Shideler,
Janet L., Camille Lessard-Bissonnette:
The Quiet Evolution of
French-Canadian Immigrants in New
England, Peter Lang Publishing
Group, New York, Vol. 14ISBN,
0-8204-2833-7, hardback, 1998.
Sur
bois : Franco-American woodcarvers of
northern New England.
Manchester, N.H. : Franco-American Centre
Franco-Américain, 1996.
Terrio,
David S., A summer internship : some
observations on the
Franco-American situation in Maine.
[Augusta, Me. : Human Rights
Commission, 1978].
Toth,
Emily. Inside Peyton Place : the life
of Grace Metalious,
Jackson : University Press of Mississippi,
Year: 2000 1981: Standard No:ISBN:
1578062683 (pbk.); LCCN: 00-24660.
Toth,
Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin,
Jackson : University Press
of Mississippi, 1999.
Turbin,
Carole Working Women of Collar City:
Gender, Class, and
Community in Troy, New York, 1845-86
(U of Illinois Press, 1992).
White
niggers of America.
Vallières, Pierre. Publisher
Toronto, McClelland and Stewart [c1971]
Translation of Nègres
blancs d'Amérique: autobiographie
précoce d'un terroriste
québécoisSubject:
French-Canadians, Québec (Province)
-- History -- Autonomy and
independence movements. Québec
(Province) -- Social conditions.Alt titles
Nègres blancs
d'Amérìque. White niggers
of America : the precocious autobiography
of a Quebec "terrorist"
"The
Chinese of the East" was used in a
government report: Carroll
Wright, Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics
of Labor Annual Report for
1881.computer [Bangor, Me.] : Maine Public
Broadcasting, [1993?].
Rhea
Côté
Robbins was brought up bilingually in a
Franco-American
neighborhood in Waterville, Maine known as
'down the Plains.'Her maman came from
Wallagrass, a town in the
northern part of the state and her
father was from Waterville. She has
spent many years researching
the
origins and visiting the hometowns
of her ancestors in Canada and
France.
Côté
Robbins was the winner of the Maine Chapbook
Award for her work of
creative nonfiction entitled, Wednesday's
Child.She
is
a founder and Executive Director of
the Franco-American
Women's Institute.She has written
a sequel titled 'down the Plains.'
She lives in
Brewer with her
husband, David. They have three grown
children. Page last updated: 12-3-2021