Quand et comment les Canadiens cessèrent-ils d’être Français ?

Abstract

The cession of a territory is a complex operation whose effects have varied over time and according to the actors’ conceptions of the relationship between the transferee state and the ceded territory and its population. In the case of France’s cession of Canada in 1763, the transfer of land itself should be distinguished from the process of “defrenchification” of peoples under French law. This article establishes the chronology and modalities of defrenchification as undergone by the former French of Canada over a period which, beginning in 1763, ended up spanning the entire following century.