Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal

Front Cover
McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1992 - History - 428 pages
Dechêne's work, when first published, constituted a major milestone in the development of methodology and use of sources. Her systematic examination of difficult and massive documentary collections blazed a number of new trails for other researchers. Her judicious blending of numerical data and "qualitative" findings makes this book one of the rare examples of "new history" that avoids the extremes of statistical abstraction and anecdotal antiquarianism. Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal won the Governor-General's Award and the Garneau Medal from the Canadian Historical Association when it first appeared in French.
 

Contents

PART ONE THE POPULATION
1
The French Population
16
Demographic Profile
47
The Basic Features of the Trade
65
Trade Relations
90
The Physical Setting
129
The Pattern of Settlement
144
Occupying the Land
152
PART FOUR THE SOCIETY
197
Social Groups
211
The Family
237
Religious Life
260
Conclusion
279
Weights and Measures
289
Graphs
297
Notes
323

Running the Farm
169
The Agrarian Economy
184
Note on Manuscript Sources
427
Copyright

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About the author (1992)

Louise Dechêne (1928-2000) was professor in the Department of History at McGill University and author of Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal and Power and Subsistence: The Political Economy of Grain in New France. She is a recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award and twice winner of the Lionel-Groulx Prize.