French-Canadian Immigration

Chelsea Delcourt, W3, 10/05/09

Background Info To start my project, I talked to my mom and my dad, asking them what they knew about our

heritage. On both sides, they knew for certain that we are French- Canadian. My mother’s side is also English (her maiden name is Brown) and on my father’s side there is also Native American.

My mother once heard that we had an ancestor, known as John Brown, on the Mayflower when Columbus reached America. But, seeing as she’s unsure and no one in our family is positive, I didn’t want to choose the English immigration as my project topic. Native Americans have always been in the U.S., so they’re off the list. Seeing as how both of my parents are 100% sure that we are French and Canadian, I chose to use that as my topic.

I also talked to my Memere. She was a Rossignol before she married a Brown and she told me that as far as she knew, her grandfather’s wife had come from Canada, although she doesn’t know the exact hometown. Her grandfather was born in Frenchville, Maine, a small town settled by two French-Acadian settlers, Pierre Lizotte and Pierre Duperre in 1783 ("The Town of Frenchville, Maine”, 1). Frenchville is next to Madawaska and St. Agatha, on the border of the U.S. and Canada, or the New Brunswick region of Canada. In “1784-1785, Acadians settled in the vicinity of Frenchville in Aroostook County, Maine. (USAStatesDates, 1)”

The Bourgoin Family The first generation of the Bourgoin family, which is where my ancestors story started,

came from Fontenay-le-Compte, LaRochelle, Aunis, Anjou, France (birth date unknown). Mouth full, isn’t it? His name was Francois Bourgoin and he married Andree Batar (Bastard*), who was born in LaRochelle, Aunis, Anjou, France (Bourgoin, pg. 1). *I’m not sure why this is there, but it’s part of her name apparently.

Their son, Pierre Bourgoin, born in 1641, migrated to Canada (reasons of migration are unknown), specifically in Quebec, Canada. He became a weaver for Jean Gibaut in 1666 in Beaupart, Quebec (Bourgoin, pg. 1).

Ten generations later, we arrived in Frenchville, Quebec, with Joseph F. Bourgoin, my memere’s grandfather. Ever since the family stayed in the Northern Maine area (St. Agatha, Frenchville, and Madawaska) (Bourgoin, pg. 3).

(A HUGE thank you to Robert (Bob) Bourgoin who wrote out the Bourgoin family’s history into a binder-book!)

Map of Frenchville

http://www.aroostook.me.us/frenchville/frenchvillemap.jpg

Map of Acadia

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=64861&rendTypeId=4

Border of Canada and U.S.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fe/US-Canada-Border-States.svg/300px-US-Canada-Border-States.svg.png

Interview Since my Memere’s grandfather is no longer alive, I can’t

ask him about his life, or what he remembers about his own heritage and ancestors. As said earlier, my Memere has no memories of her ancestors, only up to the point of her grandfather. I acquired a “binder-book” of the Bourgoin family which has a lot of information about who immigrated from France and how my family came to be.

With the research I did, I will be answering the interview questions the best I can.

Q/A’s Q: Where was your ancestors home before they moved to the U.S.?

A: Their home was most likely in the New Brunswick region of Canada and/or possibly in Acadia.

Q: What did your ancestors do in their homeland before they moved here?

A: “Fishing, farming, forestry, mining (oil, nickel, copper, cobalt), manufacturing (mainly processing natural resources), service industries, tourism. ("The Canada Page" ,1)”

Q: When did your ancestors come to the U.S.?

A: The first people of Frenchville, Pierre Lizotte and Pierre Duperre, settled on the St. John in 1783. More people, mostly Acadians, arrived in 1784-1785.

Q: What was the primary reason your ancestors immigrated to the U.S.?

A: The major reasons were because of agricultural difficulties, disappointment in politics, to side with the American’s during the First World War (mostly by young men), “poverty, overpopulation, debt and infertile soils (Bélanger, 1).”

Q/A’s Q: What was the trip to the U.S. like? Was it over land, by boat, by plane, etc.? Was it

hard or easy? Were your ancestors ever afraid or frightened?A: Overseas. It’s unsure how the trip was like for Pierre Bourgoin, but if

anything, it wouldn’t have been very pleasant due to harsh conditions on the boats of that time.

Q: Where did your ancestors first settle when they came to this country?A: Frenchville, Madawaska, and St. Agatha (all in Aroostook County of Maine). Many of the French-Canadian/Acadian people stayed rather close to the

U.S./Canadian border. Q: Did they know English before coming here? What other languages did they speak?

A: New Brunswick was known as the bilingual province of Canada, so my ancestors most likely knew some of the English language, but never applied it to their own lives.

Q: What did they think of the U.S.? Was it what they thought it was going to be?A: Tough question. I think they thought America would have been a beautiful

place, with gold everywhere and many opportunities. But, sadly, it wasn’t that way when they arrived. No gold. Only great, successful opportunities were available for the English Americans. French people had to work very hard to make a living.

Q/A’s Q: How did the government support your ancestors?

A: My ancestors, or the French immigrants rather, were tolerated more than other immigrants from other places because they were more like the U.S. citizens, except for the language barrier. They were accepted as American citizens a lot faster and easier than immigrants from other places.

Q: What jobs did they get to support their families after they arrived in the U.S.?

A: My great-grandmother’s brother, Joseph Bourgoin, was a farmer, a small business man (he owned ran a shop with his wife Catherine.), and worked for construction.

Q: Did they experience racism or prejudiced when they moved here?

A: Being of a different culture, they must have experience great amounts of prejudice. Memere said that she heard that some families had to

learn English, and could only speak it at home. But, I don’t recall her saying that her family had to.

Q/A’s end. Q: How successful have French-Canadians immigrants been in this

country in terms of wealth, community, and political influences?

A: Honestly, as of now, my memere’s family, the survivors I mean, seem pretty well off wealth-wise. They live comfortably. I’ve seen

some of their houses, and some have toys they can afford, like four-wheelers, boats, etc. They live in a French community, where English and French are both spoken and people practice their own religions. You can definitely see French influences in the community, the politics. They’ve been pretty successful over the years since the migration from France to Canada, then the emigration to the U.S.

Research There have been acts passed by the U.S. government that affected all immigrants, but,

for my family, none of these had affected any of them because they were in the U.S. before immigrants became a problem. For French immigrants coming into the U.S. from 1790 on, rules were set that immigrants had to be naturalized citizens to live in the U.S. (The Naturalization Act of 1790) ("List of…” pg. 1). Later, there were three other Naturalization Acts (of 1795, 1798, 1870) that were extensions of the first act (1790).

The 1882 Immigration act was passed. It put a 50 cent tax on immigrants landing at U.S. ports. It also allowed officers to deny people passage if they were categorized as “lunatics”, stupid, and convicts.

There are about 4 to 5 percent French people/descendents, about 13-16 million people, in the U.S. today (“French people…”, 1). Over the years, there was a big fluctuation when the U.S. did not allow many immigrants to come into the U.S. and then allowed them in again. The majority of these people live in the Northern regions of the U.S., closer to the border with Canada, like Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, and even New Hampshire (25% of NH population are French descendents).

Research People in France have the same values and diverse religions like people in America.

The majority of people followed the Catholic/Christian religion. When they came to America, they were already accustomed to the different religions and celebrated the same type of holidays as do we here in the U.S. It was not a huge difference in celebration and beliefs when the French immigrants came to America.

They Celebrated: 1 January, New Year's Day (Jour de l'an) (same in the US) 1 May, Labor Day (Fête du premier mai) () 8 May, WWII Victory Day (Fête de la Victoire 1945; Fête du huitième mai) 14 July, Bastille Day (Fête nationale) 15 August, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Assomption) 1 November, All Saints Day (La Toussaint) 11 November, Armistice Day (Jour d'armistice) 25 December, Christmas Day (Noël)

("FRENCH HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS,“ 1)

Therese Brown is my Memere!

Works Cited Bélanger, Claude. "French Canadian Emigration to the United States, 1840-1930 - Readings - Quebec History."

Faculty.marianopolis.edu. 3 Oct. 2009 <http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/QuebecHistory/readings/leaving.htm>.

Bourgoin, Robert. The Ancient Arms of Bourgoin. Unknown city of publication: Robert Bourgoin, 2004.

Collier, Laurie. "French Americans - Overview, History, Patterns of french immigration, The first french americans." Countries and Their Cultures. 5 Oct. 2009 <http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Du-Ha/French-Americans.html>.

"FRENCH HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS." French National Holidays, Festials, Religious Celebrations. 5 Oct. 2009 <www.discoverfrance.net/France/DF_holidays.shtml#>.

"French people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 5 Oct. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_people#United_States>.

"List of United States immigration legislation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 5 Oct. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_immigration_legislation>.

"Maine History Timeline 1770-1870 - USAStatesDates." USAStatesDates. 3 Oct. 2009 <http://usastatesdates.com/maine.htm#>.

"The Canada Page." The Canada Page. 3 Oct. 2009 <http://www.thecanadapage.org/Regions.htm>.

"The Town of Frenchville, Maine." Aroostook County Government. 3 Oct. 2009 <http://www.aroostook.me.us/frenchville/history.html>.