Plains of Abraham controversy over terror group

AP ^ | Sep 11, 2009 | AMY LUFT

[TopQuark]

MONTREAL – Politicians in Quebec are refusing to attend an event marking the 250th anniversary of a battle between the French and British that paved the way for Canada's creation because of plans for the reading of a terror group's manifesto at the celebration.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Quebec City Cabinet Minister Sam Hamad and Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume said this week they would not take part in a commemoration that is to include a reading of a Front de Liberation du Quebec text. The reading is scheduled to take place this weekend on the Plains of Abraham, the site where the British conquered the French in 1759 on a plateau just outside the walls of Quebec City.

The FLQ fought in the 1960s and 1970s for Quebec's separation from Canada. The organization was responsible for a series of bombings in the 1960s, including an attack that killed Wilfred O'Neill, who had been a watchman at a Canadian Army recruiting center. FLQ members also kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Cabinet Minister Pierre Laporte in 1970. Cross was released, but Laporte was murdered.

[ZULU]

Stinking Frogs really hold a grudge.

The Brits should have sent ALL their sorry butts back to France in 1763.

[muawiyah]

Front de Liberation du Quebec is unable to win an election because they want to drag the Bretons along with them into their tiny little frozen mini-state.

If the French really want to leave Canada, the way to do it is to LIMIT the franchise to classical Quebec, not to portions of New France yielded up to the Anglais.

Although the Bretons speak French, they really aren't French.

I wouldn't hang around a celebration of anything where the FLQ was out of fear of being bombed by one of their "not so well wrapped" followers.

At the same time FLQ could get a lot of support from the USA simply by demanding that property once held by families now resident in the United States BE RETURED TO THEM!

That would include returning Royal (state) and Royal (personal) claims.

[muawiyah]

BTW, there weren't enough Anglais in the entire Western Hemisphere to even think about beginning to send the French colonists to France ~ and many families had been in America since 1599.

The Anglais did attempt to deport the so-called Acadian settlers (America's first Northern European colony was Acadia) to other parts ~ Louisiana was one such place. It amounted to genocide and I think eventually we ought to think about getting even with the UK on their behalf. Recalling history, Acadia wasn't exactly a French colony ~ it was a British colony full of Bretons and other French speaking non-French people. It was a joint settlement of Scotland (then an independent nation) and France. Should be possible to figure out what belongs to what, and what UK compensation ought to be to present day Americans ~ the genealogical records that have been built up over the last 4 centuries are phenomenal.

[BenLurkin]

a battle between the French and British that paved the way for Canada's creation

Odd way to describe the English decisive victory over the French.

[Verginius Rufus]

The anniversary of the battle is tomorrow (Sept. 12).

[ZULU]

If I recall correctly,the Acadians were deported because a significant number of them were aiding and abetting the Frnech in one of the later French and Indian Wars.

I think your estimate of the number of Anglos and Angloids in the Colonies is way off.

One of the reasons the French lost the French and Indian Wars was the population dynamics.

When the Brits were encouraging and even deporting people of nearly every religion from Britain here, and openly welcoming French Protestants, Palatinate Germans, etc, the French were actually restricting immigration here to only Orthodox Catholic Frenchmen, which kept their numbers down.

In fact, the number of Anglo-Americans and Angloid-Americans here in the colonies FAR exceeded the number of French colonists in New France.

You don't have to take my word for it - check it out in any book on the French and Indian Wars.

They could EASILY have removed the French from Canada by requiring them to leave under the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

There is a recent book out on the Acadians and the removal. I can;t remember the name, but it should be available via Amazon. I think you are right about the Bretons, but I believe they settled there under the French.

There is ANOTHER great new book out on the biography of Champlain “Champlain's Dream” by David Hackett Fischer. Its AWESOME. It goes into great detail on life in France at the time, the religious wars, and their incredible King, Henry IV - who was indeed a renaissance genius. His court was a court of mathematicians, artists, cartographers,explorers and assorted other polymaths.

If you can find it - buy it.

[muawiyah]

You can argue 'til the cows come home about the relative numbers in the populations, but all I said is there weren't enough Anglais to DEPORT all the French back to France.

And, it turned out, there weren't. In fact, the Anglais could barely deport the Acadians to New England, New York, Carolana (as it was still being called way back when), and Lawziann!

And in that one case, the transport of the Acadians, they failed miserably and murdered at least 1/3 of their charges ~ mostly women and children.

Regarding who or what the French would allow into New France, the standard was you had to be Catholic to go to the core area around Quebec City. If you weren't they had priests standing by day and night to turn you into one.

With respect to the rest of New France, all the way to the Ohio, and even into the Green River valley in Kentucky, that area was remarkably Protestant, and even the White Coats brought in to defend Quebec were remarkably Protestant AND Jewish (the government was really loosening up in those days and by 1791 everything loosened up). We know of White Coats who departed from the Plains of Abraham and made it to Vincinnes where they held out until George Rogers Clark came along and then they formed an American militia in support of the Revolution.

One last item, the transport of the Acadians out of Acadia was justified by the lie that they refused to swear allegiance to the Crown. Since they'd already sworn such allegiance, and had, in fact, begun their colonization efforts UNDER the flag of Scotland (and were loyal to the Alexanders), the fact they were even asked to swear allegiance again was a libel that should have resulted in the defenestration and disembowelment of the Royal commander who thought up the idea.