François-Xavier Garneau

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Francois-Xavier Garneau (15 June 1809 – 2 or 3 February 1866) was a French Canadian poet, civil servant and liberal who wrote a three volume history of the French Canadian nation entitled Histoire du Canada between 1845 and 1848.

He 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.