Biography

François-Xavier Garneau was a nineteenth century French Canadian notary, poet, civil servant and liberal who wrote a three-volume history of the French Canadian nation entitled Histoire du Canada between 1845 and 1848.

Born in Quebec City, Garneau argued that Conquest was a tragedy, the consequence of which was a perpetual struggle against the forces of English Canada for the French Canadian nation; this struggle would continue into the future as long as French Canadians were under the oppressive reign of the British. The book was originally written as a response to the Durham report, which claimed that French Canadian culture was stagnant and that it would be best served through Anglophone assimilation. Garneau died on February 2 or February 3, 1866.Canadian actor Donald Sutherland narrated the following quote from one of his poems at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

François-Xavier Garneau Medal

The François-Xavier Garneau Medal is the highest award given by the Canadian Historical Association and is given once every five years for an outstanding Canadian contribution to historical research. Recipients were: Louise Dechêne (1980), Michael Bliss (1985), John M. Beattie (1990), Joy Parr (1995), Gérard Bouchard (2000), Timothy Brook (2005), John C. Weaver (2010)

This text is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License