Intergroup Relations

The Channel Island entrepreneurs’ relations with local populations were largely conditioned by the commercial system based on the dependency of the client fishers. But an old song sung by the Acadians of Chéticamp in Cape Breton, an isolated community where conditions were favourable to control by the Robin company, makes it clear that the fishers were not dupes: “Quand vous prenez du poisson, ils sont doux comme des moutons. Quand vous allez à leur boutique, ils sont rudes comme des lions ...” (“When you bring them fish, they’re as gentle as sheep. When you go to their store, they’re as rough as lions ...”) Sometimes mockery could give way to resistance. Catholic fishers refused to fish during major religious holidays. One year in Blanc-Sablon on the lower North Shore, fishers from the Gaspé Peninsula recruited by the DeQuetteville company insisted on being sent home three weeks earlier than anticipated.

Local rebellions against the Jersey companies broke out on at least two occasions. In 1879 the forcible evacuation of a few families of squatters who had settled on lands belonging to the Robin company in Chéticamp provoked a riot; the manager from Jersey had to leave. Thirty years later a grassroots revolt shook the little village of Rivière-au-Renard in the Gaspé. The local fishers, dissatisfied with the price being offered by the Jersey companies, found another buyer, who sent a schooner. After behind-the-scenes dealings with the Jersey companies, the schooner left without a single cod on board. Some fifty fishers showed up at the Fruing store and violence broke out. The federal government sent a frigate and two detachments at the companies’ request. Twenty-two fishers were brought before the courts and imprisoned.

Relations between immigrants from the Channel Islands and other elements of the population were generally marked by tolerance, and episodes of violence were rare. In places where there were a number of ethnic groups and not enough Channel Islanders to constitute a community, a sense of neighbourliness developed. People shared a common occupation, fishing. They shopped at the same store and danced at the same weddings. Indeed, Channel Islanders in such places generally married out of the group, because there were few women from the Channel Islands in Atlantic Canada and marrying a relative was to be avoided.