French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.
Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario and the bodies of water James Bay and Hudson Bay; to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay; to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and to the south by the province of New Brunswick and the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is historically and politically considered to be part of Central Canada.
An archipelago, sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Also known as Grosse Isle and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site, the island was the site of an immigration depot which predominantly housed Irish immigrants coming to Canada to escape the Great Famine, 1845-1849.[1] In 1832, the Lower Canadian Government had previously set up this depot to contain an earlier choleraepidemic that was believed to be caused by the large influx of European immigrants, and the station was reopened in the mid-Nineteenth Century to accommodate Irish migrants who had contracted typhus during their voyages. Thousands of Irish were quarantined on Grosse Isle from 1832 to 1848.
The Great Famine, or the Great Hunger, was a period in Ireland between 1845 and 1849 of mass starvation, disease, and emigration. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was primarily spoken, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as An Drochshaol, loosely translated as the "hard times". The worst year of the period, that of "Black 47", is known in Irish as Bliain an Drochshaoil. During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.
The Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current-day Province of Quebec, Canada, and the Labrador region of the modern-day Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and muscle cramps may also occur. Diarrhea can be so severe that it leads within hours to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. This may result in sunken eyes, cold skin, decreased skin elasticity, and wrinkling of the hands and feet. Dehydration can cause the skin to turn bluish. Symptoms start two hours to five days after exposure.
It is believed that over 3000[2] Irish died on the island and over 5000[2] are currently buried in the cemetery there; many died en route. Most who died on the island were infected with typhus, which sprang up from the conditions there in 1847. Grosse Isle is the largest burial ground for refugees of the Great Famine outside Ireland. After Canadian Confederation in 1867, the buildings and equipment were modernized to meet the standards of the new Canadian government's immigration policies.[3] The island is sometimes called Canada's Ellis Island (1892-1954), an association it shares with Pier 21 immigration facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[4]
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
Canadian Confederation was the process by which the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into one Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. Upon confederation, the old province of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec; along with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the new federation thus comprised four provinces. Over the years since Confederation, Canada has seen numerous territorial changes and expansions, resulting in the current union of ten provinces and three territories.
Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. as the United States' busiest immigrant inspection station for over 60 years from 1892 until 1954. Ellis Island was opened January 1, 1892. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965 and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990 through 1995.
Steamer Lake Champlain arriving at port, Québec, Oct. 1911
It is estimated that in total, from when it was set up in 1832 to the closing in 1932, almost 500,000 Irish immigrants passed through Grosse Isle on their way to Canada.[5]
Arrival
On arrival at Grosse Isle, emigrant ships were not permitted to sail onwards unless they had assured the authorities that they were free of disease. Those with fever cases on board were required to fly a blue flag.[6] Dr. George Douglas, Grosse Isle's chief medical officer, recorded that by mid-summer the quarantine regulations in force were 'physically impossible' to carry out, making it necessary for the emigrants to stay on board their ships for many days. Douglas believed that washing and airing out the ships would be enough to stop the contagion spreading between infected passengers.[7]
Robert Whyte, pseudonymous author of the 1847 Famine Ship Diary: The Journey of a Coffin Ship,[8] described how on arrival at Grosse Isle the Irish emigrant passengers on the Ajax dressed in their best clothes and helped the crew to clean the ship, expecting to be sent either to hospital or on to Quebec after their long voyage. In fact, the doctor inspected them only briefly and did not return for several days. By mid-summer doctors were examining their charges very perfunctorily, allowing them to walk past and examining the tongues of any who looked feverish. In this way, many people with latent fever were allowed to pass as healthy, only to succumb to their sickness once they had left Grosse Isle.[7]
The term coffin ship is used to refer to the ships that carried Irish immigrants escaping the Great Irish Famine as well as Highlanders displaced by the Highland Clearances. A coffin ship was also a ship in poor condition that was overloaded and overinsured so it was more valuable to its owners if it sunk. Overloaded, overinsured ships frequently carried Irish emigrants over the Atlantic and were coffin ships of both types.
On 28 July 1847, Whyte recorded the neglect of his fellow passengers, who 'within reach of help' 'were to be left enveloped in reeking pestilence, the sick without medicine, medical skill, nourishment, or so much as a drop of pure water'. However, conditions on other Irish emigrant ships were still worse. Two Canadian priests who visited the Ajax described the holds of other vessels where they had been 'up to their ankles in filth. The wretched emigrants crowded together like cattle and corpses remain[ed] long unburied'. Whyte contrasted this with the condition of German immigrants arriving at Grosse Isle. These were all free of sickness, 'comfortably and neatly clad, clean and happy'. The Times also commented on the 'healthy, robust and cheerful' Germans.[8]
The exact numbers of those who died at sea is unknown, although Whyte himself estimated it at 5293. During the crossing itself, bodies were thrown into the sea, but once the ships had reached Grosse Isle they were kept in the hold until a burial on land became possible. The dead were dragged out of the holds with hooks and 'stacked like cordwood' on the shore.[9] On July 29, 1847 Whyte described 'a continuous line of boats, each carrying its freight of dead to the burial ground... Some had several corpses so tied up in canvas that the stiff, sharp outline of death was easily traceable'.[8]
Even those passengers who escaped typhus and other diseases were weakened by the journey. The Senate Committee of the United States on Sickness and Mortality in Emigrant Ships described the newly disembarked emigrants as 'cadaverous' and 'feeble'. Most had been misled by passage-brokers into believing that they would be provided with food on the ship.[7]
Accommodation
Before the 1847 crisis, invalids were placed in hospitals while the healthy carried out their quarantine periods in sheds. However, in 1847 the island was quickly overwhelmed. Tents were set up to house the influx of people, but many new arrivals were left lying on the ground without shelter. Robert Whyte records seeing 'hundreds... literally flung on the beach, left amid the mud and stones to crawl on the dry land as they could'.[8] The Anglican Bishop of Montreal, Bishop Mountain, recalled seeing people lying opposite the church screaming for water, while others lay inside the tents without bedding. One child he saw was covered in vermin; another who had 'been walking with some others, sat down for a moment, and died'.[7] Many children were orphaned.
Accommodation was found in the sheds, which were filthy and crowded, with patients lying in double tiers of bunks which allowed dirt from the top bunk to fall onto the lower. According to the Senate Committee's report, two or three invalids would be placed together in one berth, irrespective of age or sex. There was no bread: meals consisted of tea, gruel or broth served three times a day.[10] As drinking water was carted, there was never enough for the fever patients. One Catholic priest, Father Moylan, reported giving water to invalids in a tent who had not been able to drink for 18 hours.[11] The sheds were not originally intended to house fever patients and had no ventilation; new sheds were built without privies. The Senate Committee stated that because of the lack of personnel and space, the invalids lay in their own excrement for days and there were insufficient staff to take away those who died during the night.[9] The hospitals themselves had very little equipment and planks for bedding were not always available, meaning that it was spread on the ground and became soaked.
At Quebec, the French and English speaking Catholic clergy ministered to the discharged emigrants and convalescents brought from the island. Father McMahon, founder of St. Patrick's Church (Quebec City), took a leading part in organizing relief to the sufferers and orphans of that awful period.[12]
Personnel
As well as a shortage of accommodation, there was a serious lack of medical personnel to care for the sick. Dr. Douglas attempted to enlist nurses from among the healthy female passengers with the promise of high wages, but fear of disease meant none accepted. Nurses were expected to sleep alongside the sick and share their food; they had no privacy, often caught the fever themselves and were not helped when they fell ill. Prisoners from the local jail were released to carry out the nursing, but many stole from the dead and the dying.[13] All of the medical officers involved became ill at some stage, with four doctors dying of typhus. Under the Passenger Act of 1842, ships were not obliged to carry a doctor, and only two doctors arrived as passengers. One of these was a Dr. Benson from Dublin, a man with experience working in fever hospitals in Ireland. He arrived on May 21, volunteered to help the sick, contracted typhus himself and was dead within six days.
More than forty Irish and French Canadian priests and Anglican clergymen were active on Grosse Isle, many becoming ill themselves. The Chief Pastor, Bishop Power, contracted fever and died after delivering the last sacraments to a dying woman in September. The Mayor of Montreal, John Easton Mills, also died in the course of caring for the sick.[14]
Many immigrants who passed the perfunctory quarantine checks at Grosse Isle fell sick soon afterwards. Some died in the camp for the 'healthy', tents on the eastern side of Grosse Isle. When a priest, Father O'Reilly, visited this area in August, he gave the last rites to fifty people. In the week leading up to August 18 alone, 88 deaths occurred among the 'healthy'.[7]
On June 8, Dr. Douglas warned the authorities of Quebec and Montreal that an epidemic was about to strike. On the previous Sunday between 4,000 and 5,000 'healthy' had left Grosse Isle, of whom Dr. Douglas estimated two thousand would develop fever within three weeks. Thousands were being discharged into Montreal, weak and helpless, some crawling because they could not walk, others 'lying on the wharves, dying'. Immigrants in Quebec were described as 'emaciated objects' huddled 'in the doors of churches, the wharves and the streets, apparently in the last stages of disease and famine'.[7]
From 1847 to 1848, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 Irish died from ship fever in fever sheds set up at Windmill Point in Montreal. Their remains were discovered in 1859 by workers building the Victoria Bridge, who erected the Black Rock memorial in their honour.[1] Its inscription reads:
"To preserve from desecration the remains of 6000 immigrants who died of ship fever A.D.1847-8 this stone is erected by the workmen of Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts employed in the construction of the Victoria Bridge A.D.1859."
Other cities, including Kingston and Toronto, were anxious to push immigrants on. Whyte recorded seeing one family sheltering under boards by the side of the road and commented that 'there is no means of learning how many of the survivors of so many ordeals were cut off by the inclemency of a Canadian winter'.[8]
A national memorial, the Celtic Cross, was unveiled on site on August 15, 1909. Designed by Jeremiah O'Gallagher, Country President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians at the time, the monument is the largest of its kind in North America. In 1974, the government of Canada declared the island a National Historic Site.[16] A memorial was erected on the island in 1997.
This timeline has been derived from Cecil Woodham-Smith's work The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849, first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1962.[7]
February
On February 19, the medical officer in charge of the quarantine station at Grosse Isle, Dr George M. Douglas, requested £3,000 to assist with an expected influx of Irish immigrants. He was granted £300, a small steamer and permission to hire a sailing vessel for not more than £50.
March
Quebec citizens petitioned Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to take action in the face of the expected rise in immigration.
April
The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners published their seventh report without any mention of the approaching crisis.
May
Chief Emigration Officer Alexander Carlisle Buchanan failed to report concerns to the Canadian government because it was "not within the control of [his] department".
Dr. Douglas, believing 10,600 emigrants had left Britain for Quebec since April 10, requested £150 for a new fever shed. The authorities promised him £135. Preparations were made for 200 invalids.
On May 17 the first vessel, the Syria, arrived with 430 fever cases. This was followed by eight more ships a few days later. Dr Douglas wrote that he had 'not a bed to lay [the invalids] on... I never contemplated the possibility of every vessel arriving with fever as they do now'. One week later seventeen more vessels had appeared at Grosse Isle. By this time, 695 people were already in hospital. Only two days afterwards the number of vessels reached thirty, with 10,000 immigrants now waiting to be processed. By May 29, a total of 36 vessels had arrived. The end of May saw forty ships forming a line two miles (3km) long down the St. Lawrence River. According to Dr Douglas, each one was affected by fever and dysentery. 1100 invalids were accommodated in sheds and tents, or laid out in rows in the church.
Due to the lack of space on Grosse Isle, Dr. Douglas required healthy passengers to stay on ship for fifteen days once the sick had been removed, by way of quarantine. Infection flourished on board the ships. One ship, the Agnes, reached Grosse Isle with 427 passengers of whom only 150 survived the quarantine period.
June
On June 1, the Catholic archbishop of Quebec contacted all Catholic bishops and archbishops in Ireland, asking them to discourage their diocesans from emigrating. Despite this, of the 109,000 emigrants who had left for British North America, almost all were Irish.
On June 5, 25,000 Irish immigrants were quarantined on Grosse Isle itself or waiting in the ships anchored nearby.[9]
July
By mid-summer 2500 invalids were quarantined on Grosse Isle, and the line of waiting ships stretched several miles. At the end of the month, Dr. Douglas abandoned the quarantine regulations because they were 'impossible' to enforce. His new instructions were that the healthy would be released after a cursory check by the doctor.
October
Ice blocks the St. Lawrence and immigration ceases.
1848 to the present
This information was taken from Île of Irish Tears, an article appearing in the Toronto Star on 2 May 1992.
1862: A total of 59 casualties die on the island, 34 from typhus. Medical improvements, the abandonment of slow-sailing ships in favour of steam ships and tougher quarantine regulations helped slow the spread of disease.
1870 - 1880: Only 42 deaths are reported on Grosse Isle during this decade.
1909:The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America set up a Celtic cross with inscriptions in Irish, English and French, in memory of those who died during 1847 and 1848.
1932: Grosse Isle ceases to be a quarantine station. By this time, immigrants are arriving at many different ports and the city hospitals are capable of dealing with them.
1974: Declared a National Historic Site by the Canadian government.
1993: Grosse Isle becomes a national historic park operated by Parks Canada.
1997: A memorial is erected in memory of those who died on the island.[17]
Irish Memorial National Historic Site
Visitors can tour many of the buildings used for the immigrants and by the islanders. The disinfection building features the original showers, waiting rooms and steam disinfection apparatus, as well as a multimedia exhibit about the island's history. A walking trail or trolley are available for visits of the village and hospital sector, including the 1847 lazaretto (quarantine station), Catholic chapel, Anglican chapel, the superintendent’s gardens, the eastern wharf and a transport museum. In season, costumed interpreters portray various islanders, such as the quarantine station's staff, the nurse, Catholic priest, carter and school teacher.
The lazaretto features an exhibit about the tragic experiences of the immigrants in 1847.
A walking trail leads to the Celtic cross and the Irish Memorial, which honours the memory of the immigrants, the employees of the quarantine station, the sailors, the doctors and the priests who perished on this island.
Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site were twinned on May 25, 1998, with the Famine Museum in Strokestown, Ireland.[18]
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters. The causative organism is Rickettsia prowazekii, transmitted by the human body louse.
Events from the year 1847 in Canada.
Irish Canadians are Canadian citizens who have full or partial Irish heritage including descendants who trace their ancestry to immigrants who originated in Ireland. 1.2 million Irish immigrants arrived from 1825 to 1970, and at least half of those in the period from 1831–1850. By 1867, they were the second largest ethnic group, and comprised 24% of Canada's population. The 1931 national census counted 1,230,000 Canadians of Irish descent, half of whom lived in Ontario. About one-third were Catholic in 1931 and two-thirds Protestant.
Irish Quebecers are residents of the Canadian province of Quebec who have Irish ancestry. In 2006, there were 406,085 Quebecers who identified themselves as having partial or exclusive Irish descent in Quebec, representing 5.5% of the population.
Grosse Ile or Grosse Isle may refer to:
A pest house, plague house, pesthouse or fever shed was a type of building used for persons afflicted with communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox or typhus. Often used for forcible quarantine, many towns and cities had one or more pesthouses accompanied by a cemetery or a waste pond nearby for disposal of the dead.
Partridge Island is a Canadian island located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Saint John, New Brunswick, within the city's Inner Harbour.
Ticonderoga was a 169-foot (52 m), 4-masted clipper sail ship displacing 1,089 tons, launched in 1849 and wrecked in 1872.
Goose Village was a neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its official but less commonly used name was Victoriatown, after the adjacent Victoria Bridge. The neighbourhood was built on an area formerly known as Windmill Point, where thousands of Irish immigrants died from disease in 1847 and 1848.
Death or Canada is a two-part Canadian–Irish docudrama which was broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One in November/December 2008. In the UK on The History Channel UK in January and February 2009 as Fleeing The Famine. The film was also featured as part of the celebrations for Toronto's 175th anniversary.
Marianna O'Gallagher, was an Irish Quebecer historian from Quebec City. A former member of the Sisters of Charity of Halifax, she wrote extensively on the history of the Irish in Quebec City, was involved in the creation of Grosse Isle National Historic Site and the revival of the Quebec City Saint Patrick's Day celebrations.
The Irish Commemorative Stone is a monument in Montreal, Quebec commemorating the deaths of 6,000 Irish immigrants to Canada during the famine immigration.
Hannah was a brig, launched at Norton, New Brunswick, Canada in 1826. She transported emigrants to Canada during the Irish Famine. She is known for the terrible circumstances of her 1849 shipwreck, in which the captain and two officers left the sinking ship aboard the only lifeboat, leaving passengers and the rest of the crew to fend for themselves.
The Looshtauk was an Irish emigrant ship, captained by John M. Thain, sailing from the Port of Liverpool to the Port of Quebec on April 17, 1847. 462 passengers boarded at Liverpool. Typhus was caught by two male passengers in Liverpool and broke out during the crossing. Scarlet fever also erupted.
The typhus epidemic of 1847 was an outbreak of epidemic typhus caused by a massive Irish emigration in 1847, during the Great Famine, aboard crowded and disease-ridden "coffin ships".
Dunwich Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery at Bingle Road, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island in the City of Redland, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1847 to 1952. It is also known as One Mile Cemetery. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
Lady MacNaghten was an English barque of 553 tons, founded in 1825, which made numerous voyages to Australia, but remembered as the "Fever ship" for her 1837 voyage when one in six passengers died of illness either en route or shortly after arrival.
Cecil Woodham-Smith (1991). The Great Hunger - Ireland 1845-1849, Penguin Books
MacKay, Donald (1990). Flight from famine: The Coming of the Irish to Canada, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 368 p.ISBN0-7710-5443-2
Vekeman Masson, Jeannette (1989). A Grandmother remembers Grosse Île, Ste-Foy: Carraig Books, 183 p.ISBN0-9690805-6-5 [translated from the French by Johanne L. Massé]
Jordan, John A (1909). The Grosse-Isle Tragedy and the Monument to the Irish Fever Victims 1847 [...], Quebec: Telegraph Printing Company, 136 p. (online)
Historical publications
Mariages de St-Luc, Grosse-Île - 1834-1937 (Montmagny), compiled by abbé Armand Proulx, Éditions Bergeron & Fils enr, 1976, 10 pages.(in French)
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