Abstract

This thesis discusses key problems that historical public monuments in Québec raise for the historical and present-day politics of representation of Indigenous peoples through the discussion of two monuments in the Province of Québec --the 1893 Jacques Cartier Fountain in Montréal by Joseph-Arthur Vincent, and the 1890 sculpture La halte dans la forêt in Québec City designed by Louis-Philippe Hébert. It begins by examining the ways in which Indigenous peoples were represented in the period of Cartiermania (1820-1920) in relation to the Jacques Cartier Fountain which was the first monument erected in the likeness of Cartier. It then considers representations of the stereotype of the “noble savage” in Québec during Cartiermania, and two other historical moments: early French-Canadian nationalism (1763-1920) and present-day. I argue that both the Jacques Cartier fountain and La halte dans la forêt, fall into the tradition of representing Indigenous figures as allegory for French Canadian nationalism during the late nineteenth-century. The thesis concludes with a discussion of Onondaga/Iroquois artist Jeff Thomas’ views on the notion of the “living monument.” As a potential site for voicing contemporary Indigenous perspectives on such representations, the living monument offers a helpful strategy to negotiate historical and contemporary discourses on representation of Indigenous peoples in Québec.