Votre recherche

This article takes the Company of New France or CNF (1627-1663) as a case study to consider the legal dimensions of early modern chartered companies – how they established themselves, how they dealt with disputes, and how they exercised the regal powers delegated to them. Drawing on recent literature that challenges the entrenched notion of companies as exclusively economic entities, it considers the Company of New France as an experimentation with new tools of capital formation and governance. The article puts the CNF in comparison with other corporations and commercial associations in France as well as contemporary chartered companies in the Atlantic. While the company shared certain characteristics with other French corporations, notably a separate legal personality, responsibility for internal governance, and a contractual relationship with the king, as an overseas commercial and colonizing enterprise, the nature of its privileges, functions, and obligations were distinct. The paper’s final section considers challenges faced by the CNF in the execution of its mandate, particularly with the establishment of a new, ostensibly subordinate corporation, the Communauté des Habitants in 1645. The frictions between these two bodies underscore the inextricable ties between trade and effective governance in the colony.

This article explores the ways in which historians of New France are engaging with Atlantic, imperial, and comparative frameworks, as well as theoretical literature to better understand big historical processes such as state and empire formation and sovereignty. It also shows how traditional categories separating political, economic, social, and religious phenomena are breaking down, allowing for a deeper understanding of the ways in which their interactions shaped French imperial expansion. Empire formation depended on both agents and institutions. Going beyond the traditionally narrow conceptions of each, the article examines the widening range of actors who are now considered agents of empire as well as the recent move beyond Church and state to consider other institutions, notably the understudied chartered company. The latter is particularly fruitful for rethinking the relationship among traditionally separate groups of actors and institutions. Resituating the Company of New France in Atlantic, imperial, and comparative frameworks highlights the complex intertwining of religious, political, economic, and social phenomena that was at the heart of French imperialism. The article closes with a brief discussion of the parallels to nineteenth-century railroad corporations and their relationship with the state to highlight the evolving dynamic between states and corporations in a broader chronology. Finally, a number of avenues are proposed for future research into that relationship, for which New France and the French empire are particularly rich sites of inquiry.

The historiography on the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France (CNF) focuses primarily on its role in the colonization of New France. By examining its form, I resituate the CNF in the larger history of European experimentations with the joint-stock company. The liquidation of the company’s debts in the 1630s and 1640s forced associates, directors, and jurists to articulate their understanding of who was liable for the enterprise’s financial health. Evaluating the legal and moral arguments of the parties concerned, I argue that the complexity of the liability of associates and directors resulted from the intersection of corporate, monarchical and commercial worlds.

The historiography on the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France (CNF) focuses primarily on its role in the colonization of New France. By examining its form, this article resituates the CNF in the larger history of European experimentations with the joint-stock company. The liquidation of the company’s debts in the 1630s and 1640s forced associates, directors, and jurists to articulate their understanding of who was liable for the enterprise’s financial health. Evaluating the legal and moral arguments of the parties concerned, this article argues that the complexity of the liability of associates and directors resulted from the intersection of the corporate, monarchical and commercial worlds.

Privateering was at its all-time high in the eighteenth century, specifically during the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1713). The increase in this activity had particular consequences in the colonies and, in fact, precipitated the foundation of the first admiralty in French North America, at Plaisance. Colonial admiralties were to follow the instructions of the Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681, just like their French counterparts. While there are a few studies of the judgement of prizes in metropolitan admiralties, there are no studies that examine in detail how this procedure unfolded in colonial admiralties. This thesis asks, therefore, the following question: how did the colonial admiralties judge prizes in the eighteenth century, specifically from 1690 to 1760, in the ports of Plaisance, Québec and Louisbourg? To answer this question, the responses of the Admiral of France in the subseries G5 were used to make a preliminary statistical portrait to illuminate the main characteristics of captured prizes and their adjudication in the colonies (chapter 1). Then, records of proceedings of the Admiralty of Plaisance from the subseries G5 were used to reconstitute the judgement of prizes in detail and to identify the similarities and differences between colonial and metropolitan adjudication. Finally, in order to better understand the place of privateering in the admiralty’s overall activity, we examined how the volume of these cases compared to that of other types before the same institution. To do so, we consulted the fonds de l’amirauté de Québec and the fonds de l’amirauté de Louisbourg, with the notarized records of Plaisance. This analysis allowed us to see the particular role played by the admiralty in each port, a role shaped by the latter’s socioeconomic and geographic character (chapter 3). Main findings of the study include the similarity in procedures in metropolitan and colonial admiralties as well as the specific adaptations that were made to the colonial context.

Since the 1960s, the history of slavery and that of the Atlantic Revolutions have carved out a significant place in the historiography. These developments have had a beneficial effect on the representation of populations of African origin in the historical literature, contributing in particular to putting the Haitian Revolution back on the map in the 1990s and 2000s. The purpose of this thesis is to examine a few works on the various revolutions of the Americas, namely the American, the Haitian and the South American, in order to study the changing importance that historians attribute to the agency of black people, and principally to slaves. The first chapter follows the evolution of this historiography by submitting to serial analysis the bibliography assembled by Aline Helg in Slaves No More!, before examining the pioneering works of Anna Julia Cooper and C.L.R. James and a sort of prehistory of the notion of the Atlantic revolution. The second chapter focuses on a selection of work individually targeting the different revolutions of the Americas, in order to observe the treatment of slaves’ roles. The last deals with the treatment of the agency of slaves in four surveys published between 1988 and 2016 covering summarily or in detail the various American revolutions.

This thesis studies the ways in which infanticide was handled by communities and by the judicial system in New France. It draws on multiple textual and demographic sources, most notably the ten criminal trials for infanticide that occurred in the colony during the Old Regime. The dynamics between the accused, the members of their community and the magistrates during the trials reveal the existence of relations of power and solidarities that characterized collectivities in the early modern period. I therefore examine the roles played by the community in the prosecution of women suspected of infanticide. How did the women and men of New France conceptualize the act? What factors led the community to judicialize infanticide? I also examine the magistrates’ motivations. What goals did they have? What severity did they demonstrate toward accused women? Further, the thesis addresses the resistance that women could exert against these forces. What influence did the accused have on the course of the trials and the sentences pronounced against them? What strategies could they devise and execute in their own defence? Analyzing the role that witnesses played throughout the process illustrates the fundamental participation of the community in the treatment of infanticide as well as the gender and class norms imposed on the accused by their contemporaries (chapter 2). The study of the accused’s strategies and the sentences handed down against them reveals both the weight of the social and marital order reinforced by the judicial institution and the agency shown by the women of New France (chapter 3).

This study compares methods of information gathering in two territories that became part of the British Empire after the Seven Years’ War. We bring these two extremely different regions into the same frame by asking: how did the British gather information about the populations of Canada and Bengal? Our study is part of several historiographical currents that offer a rereading of the history of Great Britain and its colonies, which is the subject of our first chapter. In the next chapter, we explore the post-conquest era in Canada. After the conquest of this territory (1759-1760), British authorities faced the task of administering the Canadian population. At first, they tried to implement a new governmental regime deemed suitable for the Canadian context. However, since the majority of the population they governed was of different religious denomination (Catholics) and of French origin, they had to modify the regime ten years later. In the third chapter, we look at the British presence in Bengal after the battle of Plassey in 1757. The British, through the East India Company, acquired a certain influence over local authorities, which allowed them to govern indirectly via the Mogul Empire’s governors, the nabobs. Nevertheless, cultural differences were much more significant than with the Canadian population of European origin: the Mogul Empire was a Muslim polity, with a Persian administration, and much of the population was Hindu. From our reading of the official correspondence, between the colonial administrators and the metropolitan government in the first case, and between the agents of the company and its directors in the second, we affirm that in both situations the British tried to gather more information. However, important institutional and cultural differences distinguish the types of information sought as well as the approaches to collecting information. The results of our research ultimately converge on one point: the search for information passed through a whole range of local intermediaries. In the last chapter, after having explored the “information order” implemented or adapted by the British in each colonial context, the study considers how colonial information was received and shaped by the metropolitan authorities. To this end, the efforts of officials and parliamentarians to learn about colonial conditions during the drafting of two laws, the Quebec Act (1774) and the Regulating Act (1773) are highlighted through a reading of the Parliamentary debates. Here also, many differences are visible. To become informed about Canada, British authorities relied heavily on the help of the colonial administrators who stayed in Canada after the regime change. However, in the Indian case, they depended mostly on documentary sources, namely the books of the EIC.