In the long history of conflict between French and English Canadians, one incident-the controversy over the Jesuits' Estates Act of 1888-has largely been ignored. Yet the agitation occasioned by the Quebec statute compensating the Society of Jesus for the loss of its land after the British Conquest is a significant reflection of political and social developments in Canada in the late nineteenth century. The emotions which the Act produced and which in turn led to assaults upon Roman Catholic education and the French language in Ontario arose from a profound sense of dissatisfaction in parts of the young Dominion. The measure provoked those English Canadians loyal to a particular vision of a British Canadian commonweal and increasingly uneasy about ultra-montane Catholicism, assertive French-Canadian nationalism, political immorality, and adverse social developments in an age of industrialization and urbanization. The organization these English-Canadian assimilationists formed, the Equal Rights Association, had a short life, but the emotions it articulated and amplified increased strains on national unity.
Based upon a wide range of manuscript sources and contemporary printed materials, Equal Rights provides the broad context necessary to make sense of the controversy. Its conclusions offer an exciting new insight into Canadian society and politics.