Les relations diplomatiques franco-autochtones à Montréal, 1701-1713

The Great Peace of Montreal (1701) is a manifestation of the success of French-Amerindian diplomacy, highlighting the many cultural adjustments that allowed for a global alliance and peace between New France and the nations of the Pays d’en Haut. This study looks at the following decade, and the ways in which diplomatic relations between French and Natives developed in Montreal at the beginning of the 18th century. Examining the colonial correspondence that was sent back and forth from Versailles to Montreal, it analyses colonial discourses to better understand how diplomatic practices evolved, and how Montreal played a key role as the urban setting for these pluricultural negotiations. Although these letters present a Eurocentric point of view, a particular consideration was given to Native speeches given during peace negotiations that are transcribed in the correspondence, but also to everything left unsaid by the official correspondents. This study analyses first how diplomacy took place in Montreal, taking an interest in the actors, the urban setting and the practices that surround it. Then it observes the development brought to diplomatic practices by new political stakes in the early 18th century. Ending the analysis at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (Utrecht, 1713), the thesis concludes that this decade contributed to the continuous strengthening of a pluricultural diplomatic tradition that was ingrained in the urban setting of Montreal.