Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal

Louise Dechene uses the island of Montreal in the seventeenth century as a case study for an analysis of the establishment of colonial society, placing her findings in a broad historiographical context that also takes account of developments in Europe and America. Dechene investigates the emergence of urban and rural communities shaped both by their French cultural background and by the new environment. Her work provides a wealth of information on immigration, trade and agriculture, social hierarchy, religion, and family life.

Louise Dechêne (1928-2000) was a professor in the Department of History at McGill University and author of Power and Subsistence: The Political Economy of Grain in New France.

"There is no doubt about the quality of this book. It is fastidiously researched, constructed with great sensitivity and intelligence, and beautifully written. It is a Canadian classic, one of the outstanding achievements of our scholarship ... it will open up early French Canada to English Canada as no other book has." Cole Harris, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia "The most important contribution to scholarship concerning New France to appear in twenty years ... Like all really good historical studies, it poses as many questions as it answers and presents new evidence and interpretations ... It will reach an audience with much wider interests than those pertaining strictly to the history of New France." James Pritchard, Department of History, Queen's University