Date Published:
July 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Gavazzi Riots

Gavazzi Riots. These were disturbances created in Quebec on June 6, 1853, and later in Montreal, on June 9, by mobs which attacked halls in which Father Alessandro Gavazzi (1809-1889) was lecturing. Gavazzi was a former Barnabite monk who had become the religious leader of the national crusade in Italy. Driven from Rome, he took refuge in England; and in the spring of 1853 he visited America. His lectures at Quebec and Montreal were strongly anti-Roman Catholic; and at both places the soldiers had to be called out to restore order. At Montreal several lives were lost. The riots caused important political repercussions. See Father Gavazzi., Six lectures with a biographical sketch of the author (Toronto, 1853), and J. C. Dent, The last forty years (2 vols., Toronto, 1881).

Return to the Gavazzi Index Page / Retour à la page d'index sur Gavazzi

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 13.

[See the entry under Gavazzi riots in the Canadian Encyclopedia; the ideological context is discussed in Franklin Arthur Walker's article entitled "Protestant Reaction in Upper Canada to the 'Popish Threat' ", in CCHA, Report (1951): 91-107.]