Quebec diaspora

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The Quebec diaspora is the community of Quebecers and their descendants living far from Quebec across North America, especially in New England, Ontario, and the Canadian Prairies.

Between 1840 and the 1930s, about 900,000 French-Canadian Quebec residents moved to the United States. They left because rural towns couldn’t support everyone under the old land system, and because English rule blocked new land in Quebec. New England attracted them because of its growing industry. About half later returned to Canada, while those who stayed often formed tight communities known as Little Canadas. Many Americans with French roots trace their ancestry to Quebec, though others came from Acadia (the Cajuns) or France.

Until 1849, Catholics couldn’t buy land or set up parishes in the Eastern Townships due to English laws. Father Bernard O'Reilley helped start the Association des Townships in 1848 to promote settlement there. In the 1850s, the association bought land and gave it to young farming families to stop them from leaving for the United States.

In the United States, French-Canadian communities grew in places like Lewiston, Maine; Fall River, Holyoke, Fitchburg, and Lowell in Massachusetts; Woonsocket, Rhode Island; Manchester, New Hampshire; and nearby Vermont. In Illinois, the Kankakee area (with towns like Bourbonnais and St. Anne) also drew many settlers. Quebec migrants also helped establish roots in Michigan and Minnesota.

Today, the Woonsocket museum highlights New England’s Quebec diaspora, and many well-known people have Quebec roots, such as Jack Kerouac, Nap Lajoie, Mike Gravel, Rudy Vallée, Robert Goulet, and Will Durant.

Ontario, once part of New France, was a major destination because mining and forestry jobs drew Quebec workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most Franco-Ontarians live in the northeastern and eastern parts of the province near the Quebec border, with smaller pockets in Windsor, Welland, and Penetanguishene. Across Western Canada, many francophones have Quebec roots and identify as Franco-Manitobans, Fransaskois, Franco-Albertans, or Franco-Columbians.