The heights of French-Canadian convicts, 1780s–1820s

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

“…However, when compared with New England colonists (the poorest of the American colonies), 3 they were poorer regardless of the basket used: in terms of bare-bones versus respectable living standards, Canadians were 72.8 percent and 65.8 percent as rich as New Englanders 4 . When a wider perspective that includes estimates for the rest of the Americas (Allen, Murphy, and Schneider 2012) is employed, Canada seems to be, at best, an average colony; it is richer than most of Latin America, but poorer than the United States— a hearty nod to recent research on Canada’s anthropometric history (Arsenault Morin, Geloso, and Kufenko 2017).…”

Can geography explain Quebec's historical poverty?

“…Quebec—home of the lion's share of Canada's French population and Canada's second most populous province—has been the largest source of these differences (Dean & Geloso, 2022; Gagnon et al, 2023; Geloso, 2017; Migué, 1998; Paquet, 1999; Raynauld, 1961). Quebec's relative poverty dates as far back as the nineteenth century (Arsenault‐Morin et al, 2017; Geloso, 2019b) when it appears that Quebec was between 34% and 42% poorer than Ontario (Canada's richest and most populous province) (Egnal, 1996; Geloso & Macera, 2020; McInnis, 1992). Given that Ontario was close to the average of free states in the United States (Egnal, 1996; Lewis & Urquhart, 1999), who were richer than slave states by somewhere between 20% and 40%, these proportions imply that Quebec was as poor as (or poorer than) the American slave states (Curtis & Geloso, 2022).…”

“…The use of Quebec and Ontario is instructive for several reasons. First, data uncovered by economic historians in recent years have shown that Quebec was the poorest place in North America as early as the seventeenth century and was roughly as poor as Latin America during the nineteenth century (Arsenault‐Morin et al, 2017; Curtis & Geloso, 2022; Geloso, 2019b; McInnis, 1992; Zegarra, 2020). In contrast, Ontario was as rich as the average of free states in the United States and was far richer than Quebec (Egnal, 1996; Geloso & Macera, 2020; Lewis & Urquhart, 1999; McInnis, 1992).…”