Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 23
Gaspé, 1760-1867
by David Lee
Preface
For the purposes of this study, the term "Gaspé" will be considered
to include all the land from Matane on the St. Lawrence River to the
point where the Restigouche River enters Chaleur Bay. This is the
habitat of the Gaspé codfish and this study will continue the
examination of the history of the people whose lives depended on that
fish.1
The political division called the "Inferior District of Gaspé" did
not extend as far up the St. Lawrence River as the codfish. The district
originally included all the land between Cap Chat and the Restigouche
River.2 (Although the lieutenant governor of the district was
sometimes given duties and authorities in the Magdalen Islands and on
the Labrador coast, these will not be included in this study.) In 1852
a small portion of the shore of the St. Lawrence River, from Cap Chat to
Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, was detached from the District of Gaspé and added
to the District of Kamouraska.3 The western boundary of
Gaspé, in effect the boundary between the provinces of Canada and New
Brunswick, was finally fixed in 1857 when the government chose the
Patapedia River (the middle of the three forks of the Restigouche River)
rather than the Mistouche (Upsalquitch) or Matapedia
rivers.4
References to the "government" in this study allude to the government
headed by the British governor of the old Province of Quebec
(1763-91), Lower Canada (1791-1841) and the United Province of
Canada (1841-67), with their legislative councils and
assemblies.
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