The People of New France

Olaf Uwe Janzen is an associate professor of history at Memorial
University and reviews editor of The Northern Mariner.

This study of everyday life in New France from 1660 (when “a fully
formed colonial society first emerged”) until the end of the French
regime in 1760, is aimed at the junior undergraduate market. The author
has succeeded admirably in making a complex subject accessible to his
readers.

The historiography of New France is broadly delineated in the
introduction, while the opening chapter on the origins and growth of its
population provides an explanation of how the remarkably complete parish
records of New France are used in data analysis. Successive chapters
consider the agricultural landscape and economy, urban society, women,
and aboriginal society. The merchant, seigneurial, and military
components of New France are examined through the use of historical
composites; contemporary observations; and comparisons and contrasts
with Old World France, the British colonies to the south, and the Native
people with whom the French worked, traded, and warred. Throughout,
Greer is careful to explain the limitations of his evidence, such as the
class and cultural biases of 18th-century chroniclers.

Although he concentrates on the St. Lawrence heartland of New France,
Greer also discusses the western interior, Acadia, Louisbourg, and
Louisiana. Curiously, he ignores Plaisance in Newfoundland, with the
result that he overlooks the degree to which Оle Royale was founded as
both a successor to and improvement over

the earlier fishing colony. Quibbling aside, The People of New France is
a remarkably balanced and comprehensible explication of the evolution
and nature of a colonial society. Highly recommended.