The seigneurial system

Big grants called seigneuries

The seigneurial system was the way land was handed out in New France. It was set up in 1627, when the Compagnie des Cent-Associés (the Company of One Hundred Associates) held the colony's land rights; after 1663 grants came from the Crown through the colony's governor and intendant. Between 1624 and 1760 about 250 seigneuries were granted, about 200 of them along the St. Lawrence and the rivers that flow into it. A seigneur could be a military officer, a noble, a merchant, a religious order such as the Jesuits or the Ursulines, and even, a few times, a woman.

Farms, dues and work days

A seigneur's job was to bring settlers and get the land farmed. He divided the seigneury into farm lots and granted them to settler families. In return, they paid yearly dues in money and produce (the cens et rentes), paid a share of their grain to use the seigneur's mill, and usually owed a few days of unpaid work a year (the corvée). The exact terms were written in each family's contract, so they varied from place to place. The seigneur often kept a lot of his own with a manor house and the mill.

Why long, thin strips?

In the early colony there were almost no roads. The St. Lawrence River was the highway: people travelled by canoe and boat in summer and over the ice in winter. So lots were laid out with a narrow front on the river and a deep back running inland, often about ten times deeper than wide (for example about 3 by 30 arpents, an old French unit). That way every family had water, a way to travel and fish, and the houses sat close together along the shore, so neighbours could help each other. When the first row of lots was full, a second row (a rang) was laid out behind it, with its own road.

The end of the system, and what remains

The seigneurial system was formally abolished in 1854. Some leftover rents were only bought out much later, in the 20th century. But the land kept its shape: from the air you can still see long, thin fields lining the St. Lawrence, and the rang roads still organize much of rural Quebec.

Good to know

• The Canadian Encyclopedia dates the system from 1627 and its formal end to 1854; Parks Canada also gives 1854 for the official abolition.
• "Officers, nobles and the Church" is a sample; seigneurs also included merchants, religious orders and a few women.
• Dues and work days varied by contract; "some days of work" is the safe wording.
• Lots were often about ten times deeper than wide; later, dividing land among heirs made some even thinner.
• Historians such as Allan Greer question whether it was one tidy "system"; this lesson treats it as a simple land arrangement.
• These grants were made on Indigenous lands, the homelands of peoples including the Wendat, Innu, Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) and Abenaki.

For Grade 7 History learners (Ontario)

This fits Ontario Grade 7 History, Strand A (New France and British North America, 1713-1800): know how the seigneurial system organized land and daily life in New France, and why the St. Lawrence shaped where and how people farmed.

Answer to the comment question

What were the settlers who farmed these strips called? They were called habitants. The word comes from French and means "inhabitants"; in New France it was the name for the settler families who farmed the seigneurs' land and paid the dues.