Corvée Labor and the Politics of Popular Insurrection in Trois-Rivières, 1760–76

Following the conquest of Canada and the Treaty of Paris (1763), British officials targeted the pre-existing contractual obligation between Canadian seigneurs and peasants, appropriating the French system of mandatory labor, corvée, as a subsidized work force for the military. In New France, Canadian peasants, referred to as habitants, did agricultural corvée labor in direct relation to the season, such as planting, harvesting or storing crops. British officials put laws in place that redirected traditional, agricultural corvée for the collection of natural resources and work in the military. Habitants voiced discontent both publically and privately in the wake of British labor policies. The American invasion of Quebec (1775) caused considerable hardship when the British mobilized the agrarian labor force for corvée for the defense of the province. The burden of corvée labor disrupted the self-sufficient farming so essential in the countryside and caused widespread challenges to British colonial rule. Crossing imperial boundaries, this study sheds light on strategies of state and subject-making from the perspective of Canadian peasants in Trois-Rivières.