Guide to Documents Relating to French and British North America in ...

press, not even volume one (his dissertation) was ever published. 67 Furthermore, Morin also proposed
a multi-volume work that would contain "ces textes integralement, avec traduction et notes,"68entitled
"Les sources de 1'Eglise canadienne aux Archives du Vatican et de la Propagande." This was never
published either. The magnitude of Morin's unfortunate project is evident from the list of archival
volumes he had apparently consulted, as it appears at the beginning of his dissertation. 69
Unfortunately, circumstances prevented Morin from even starting what looked like a very
promising project. Almost nothing was published. We are, however, left with his thesis, which, to date,
is still the most important study dealing with the early relationship between Canada and the Holy See
based on Propaganda and Vatican documents. The documents that are published at the end of this
the.sis are well annotated and scrupulously transcribed. 70
The Jesuit historian Lucien Campeau knows Morin's works well. He covered the same years
studied by Morin in an essay contained in Metzler's Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide
Memoria Rerum 71 and in a book occasioned by the 300th anniversary of the erection of the bishopric
of Quebec. on The central theme of both essays is the creation and development of the Roman
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Canada. 73 This is probably why Campeau emphasizes out of all
proportion the early period (until 1674), to which he devotes 66 pages, as opposed to only two pages
for the subsequent period (from 1674 to 1763). Although they were written on different occasions, both
the essay and the book use the same documentary material from Propaganda, and must be consulted
together.74
Laval, and in particular his relationship with the Seminaire de Quebec, is also the subject of
Marcel Gerin's unpublished 1939 thesis. 7s He used some Propaganda documents of the SOCG and
Congressi, America Settentrionale series.
The relationship between Propaganda and the British colonies of America is the focus of two
articles. by the Jesuit historian Charles Edwards O'Neill,76 who is also the author of a study on
Louisiana that will be discussed later. 77 O'Neill dealt only with those territories that are now part of
the United States, and clearly separated the history of the British colonies as such and of Louisiana
because of the latter's particular history. Following closely the Acta series of Propaganda, O'Neill
devoted the first of the two essays to Maryland (to c. 1760) and Louisiana (to the end of the
seventeenth century), and the second to the British colonies in general (from 1750 to 1808) and again
to Louisiana (from the beginning of the eighteenth century to 1815).
As far as Canada is concerned, the last period of relations with Propaganda is described by
Lucien Lemieux in a volume devoted to the first ecclesiastical province of Canada (1783-1844),78and
in an article that appeared in the collection Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide Memoria
Rerum. 79 This volume is a work that, particularly with regard to the nineteenth century, appears to be
solid and well documented. However, as far as the eighteenth century is concerned, it is limited by an
as yet incomplete knowledge of the archives of Propaganda. For example, Lemieux stated that the
letters received by Propaganda are kept in the Congressi series, but he neglects the much more
important SOCG series, which is never cited or even mentioned in the bibliography.so On the other
hand, Acta, Lettere and Congressi, America Settentrionale seem to have been used to their fullest
extent. The article covers the years 1760-1840. 81 Following the model proposed by Campeau, who had
looked at the preceeding period, Lemieux enlarged certain themes within the framework of a detailed
account of the relations between Propaganda and the Canadian authorities (holidays, indulgences, loans
with interest, etc.), which they discussed during those years.
If we pass from the area of general studies to that of studies devoted to particular times or
themes, we must first mention the historiography of the Capuchins. They had a remarkable influence
in the first half of the seventeenth century in Acadia, and later in Louisiana. This is a particularly rich
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