By the time the rain had washed away the blood, Quebec had surrendered to the British. Four years later, the Treaty of Paris gave England sole dominion over most of the land that Quebec City had governed, from Cape Breton Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Mississippi River. The battle that changed the political boundaries of North America has left faint physical traces on today's Quebec City, but the city's French heritage is everywhere evident. Signs are predominately French, and nearly 95 percent of the population speaks that language. In 1995 voters barely defeated a referendum calling for the Province of Quebec to separate itself from Canada.
Separatist sentiment is strong, and the emotional scars of that long-ago battle run deep.
The fighting took place on the Plains of Abraham, named in the 1600s for ship pilot and farmer Abraham Martin, although his land actually lay a bit to the northeast. The park was created in 1908, after houses and factories had begun to encroach on the battlefield, and to this day people argue over where, exactly, the events of 1759 took place. Officially, the site is called National Battlefields Park. With its gardens and statues, cyclists and lovers, it looks more like Central Park than Gettysburg. Apparently no one wants to make too much of a battle that planted the seeds of lingering French-Canadian discontent.