When
the first Cicottes in New France were settling the frontier, the French Empire
was trying unsuccessfully to build a feudal society there modeled after the one
in the Old World. The attempt failed for
a number of reasons, but at least two have to do with land ownership: First, the colonization of America had an inflationary impact on the value of land, the primary asset of the
wealthy and powerful in Europe.
Furthermore, any aristocrat can plant
a flag in the mouth of a river and claim it for God and King, but
ownership takes on a different meaning when you have to fight bears and
natives, wolverines and Redcoats for the right to stay there. Consequently, the value of land in Quebec
took on a different meaning depending on its safety, distance from urban areas
and technologies, access to water, etc.
In short, despite the efforts of the French crown to create a size-matters-most system of land ownership, the value of land in
New France more closely resembled the free markets of their English neighbors
than native France.
Thus Jean Baptiste Sicot, son of Jean
Chicot, has the distinction of receiving the smallest land grant in the history
of New France. From a doctoral dissertation on land grants in New France (yes, there is someone even nerdier about this than me):
“The smallest fiefdoms are found in the lordship of Boucherville. The declarations and enumerations reveal the existence, in 1725, of three fiefdoms only one acre in size. Daneau de Muy, like Jean Sicot, possessed such a one a half acre wide and two acres deep… Even so these fiefdoms are a bit peculiar. Their exact designation stands apart as ‘localized fiefdoms’. These are urban fiefdoms: all are situated in downtown Boucherville and tie into gardens. Undeniably, the importance conferred on fiefdoms does not lie in their size.” (Laurent, 37-38, translated by this author).
In other words, Jean was willing to accept a smaller land grant than his neighbors in exchange for its being in a much better location.
“The smallest fiefdoms are found in the lordship of Boucherville. The declarations and enumerations reveal the existence, in 1725, of three fiefdoms only one acre in size. Daneau de Muy, like Jean Sicot, possessed such a one a half acre wide and two acres deep… Even so these fiefdoms are a bit peculiar. Their exact designation stands apart as ‘localized fiefdoms’. These are urban fiefdoms: all are situated in downtown Boucherville and tie into gardens. Undeniably, the importance conferred on fiefdoms does not lie in their size.” (Laurent, 37-38, translated by this author).
In other words, Jean was willing to accept a smaller land grant than his neighbors in exchange for its being in a much better location.
La Seigneurie de Boucherville
Graphisme Benoit Martel.
© Société historique et culturelle du Marigot.
This
map is almost definitely not to scale, but you can see Jean Sicot’s plot just
south of the bourg, or town center. I
went looking for Jean Sicot’s land grant before I found this map and others
that corroborate its delineations, so I felt disappointed to find out that Rue
Cicot (Cicot Street) in Boucherville does not run along Jean Cicot’s land grant[i],
though I cannot guarantee that some part of the family did not live there at a later time[ii]. Nevertheless, here are our pictures from our last
trip to Montreal.
Clem
and I standing at the end of Rue Cicot Nord (the northern and southern legs of
the street are completely split by the railroad and the highway.
C.C. “skipping
rocks” where Rue Cicot meets the St. Lawrence River. You can see the Montreal skyline on the distant horizon.
Rue
Cicot sits only a little more than a mile from downtown Boucherville and the
original Sicot plot and, as it happens, lies only three miles from the
Montréal, Quebec LDS temple where I was sealed to my lovely wife Ada. That means I was married less than five miles
from where Jean Baptiste Sicot was married to Madeleine Lamoureux at the
Sainte-Famille de Boucherville. Had I
known I might have suggested the town center park for our wedding photos rather
than the Montreal botanical gardens, though I doubt very much that Ada would
have accepted. She understands the moral
of this story as well as anyone: the value of real estate (as well as wedding
photos) is all about location, location, location.
[i] One can easily
match up the map of land grants pictured here with a modern-day map of
Boucherville by focusing on the bourg.
The bourg still serves as the town center today, with the church
Sainte-Famille de Boucherville still standing where the original colonial
chapel stood. The two rivers, Sabrevoix
and aux Pins, have been severely reduced in size and moved but are still identifiable
on a modern map. While the original
Sicot plot bordered the bourg on its southern side, the modern Rue Cicot lies a
little over a mile west of the bourg.
[ii] Jean Baptiste
Sicot married Madeleine Lamoureux. As
this map indicates, the Lamoureux plot lies much further west, closer to Rue
Cicot. Had Jean Sicot or one of his descendants moved to this land
when he and Madeleine married then Rue Cicot may very well run along their
farm. Without a more accurate map,
however, it’s impossible to say definitively.
Sources:
Marien Laurent, "Les Arrière-fiefs au
Canada de 1632 à 1760", Histoire et Sociétés Rurales 1/2003 (Vol. 19), p 159-191
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