Hat Lore

The Bonnet Rouge

Tuque, Quebec, ca. 1905
Gift of Mrs. R.H. Bourne
CMC A-6010

 During the 1837 rebellion in Lower Canada, the garments of the habitant, including the tuque, became symbols of French-Canadian nationalist spirit. Perhaps the rebels were the inheritors of the bonnet rouge, a variation of the cap given to freed Roman slaves and worn by radicals as a symbol of liberty during the French Revolution.


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