Ursuline Monastery Quarter
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Transcript
The Ursulines arrived in 1639 to educate girls in New France. Their work included French colonists and Indigenous students and formed part of the broader missionary project through which Europeans sought not only conversion but cultural transformation.
Marie de l'Incarnation, one of the community's founders, learned Indigenous languages and wrote extensively about colonial life. Her writings are valuable sources, but they also reflect a missionary society convinced that Indigenous cultures should be remade through Christianity.
The monastery survived the British conquest and remained an institution of education for centuries.
Empire did not operate only through soldiers and governors. Schools, convents and hospitals could be equally powerful because they shaped language, gender roles and social expectations over generations.