Kin, Commerce, Community

Merchants who traded from the port of Quebec between 1717 and 1745 are the subject of this study. As shippers and suppliers of fur, fish, forest and agricultural products in exchange for metropolitan merchandise, they played an important role in the import-export trade of the French colonial empire. The book examines the seventy-six men and women of Lower Town, their kin relations, and the commerce that took place. It is sketched in by an analysis of material culture and collective biography. Several detailed case studies reveal these merchants to be more than itinerant traders to Quebec. Rather, their attachment to the colony suggests that they were the beginning of a Canadian commercial society.