French Canada and the American Civil War

Recent celebrations have defined the War of 1812 as foundational to the Canadian experience, but another 19th-century conflict, the American Civil War, had a far more profound impact on Canada, leading most notably to the Confederation in 1867. 

This lecture will focus on the Civil War’s effect on French Canada and on the French-speaking communities of the American Northeast. It will examine how the conflict was perceived in French Canada, its impact on Québec’s political and economic destiny, and the factors that motivated several thousand French Canadians to serve in the Union forces.

D.C. Bélanger is Assistant Professor of Canadian history at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of Mens, Quebec’s journal of intellectual and cultural history. The University of Toronto Press recently published his first monograph, Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891-1945.

Hosted by the Quebec Government Office, in collaboration with the British Library Eccles Centre

There will be a reception after the lecture.