Under the
seigneurial system of land holdings in force in
New France, a local lord, or "seigneur" had overall control of a large area of land. Individuals who held plots of land within the seigneury had to pay seigneurial duties to the local seigneur. Post-
conquest, the British colonial government instituted the township system of land-holding. It was based on
English land law, using the tenure of "
free and common socage", which did not require seigneurial levies. Following the arrival of
Loyalists fleeing the
American Revolution, the British Parliament enacted the
Constitutional Act, 1791, which introduced this form of land tenure in both Lower Canada and Upper Canada. After the passage of the Act, the British government instructed the Governor to grant land in townships, which was subsequently set out by a proclamation of Lieutenant Governor Clarke in 1792. The
township of Dunham was the first township established in Quebec, on February 2, 1796, in the region which came to be known as the "Eastern Townships of Lower Canada" (''cantons de l'Est du Bas-Canada''), as opposed to the "Western Townships of Upper Canada". The
Eastern Townships also form a historic region. Collectively, they constituted the bloc of the first townships created in what is now Quebec, before the final replacement of the seigneurial regime in 1854. The Eastern Townships include the whole of the
Estrie administrative region, and parts of the administrative regions of
Centre-du-Québec,
Chaudière-Appalaches and
Montérégie. ==Abolition of seigneurial tenure==