In The Chevalier de Montmagny, Jean-Claude Dube documents the extraordinary career of Charles Huault de Montmagny, first governor of the colony of New France. Born in Paris in 1601, and educated by the Jesuits, Montmagny studied law at the Universite d'Orleans, joined the Order of Malta, and enjoyed a colourful career as a Hospitalier privateer in the Mediterranean, before arriving in New France in the spring of 1636.

While Montmagny wasted little time in applying the experience he gained fighting the Ottoman Turks to New France's disputes with the Iroquois, he has also been...

In The Chevalier de Montmagny, Jean-Claude Dube documents the extraordinary career of Charles Huault de Montmagny, first governor of the colony of New France. Born in Paris in 1601, and educated by the Jesuits, Montmagny studied law at the Universite d'Orleans, joined the Order of Malta, and enjoyed a colourful career as a Hospitalier privateer in the Mediterranean, before arriving in New France in the spring of 1636.

While Montmagny wasted little time in applying the experience he gained fighting the Ottoman Turks to New France's disputes with the Iroquois, he has also been...

Between 1690 and 1760, close to two thousand New Englanders were taken captive by French Canadians and their Native American allies during five intercolonial wars. Puritan propagandists reacted by evoking the vulnerability of New England's homes and Protestant faith with images of captive women in sexual peril, a titillating vision only amplified in popular Victorian and modern portrayals of female captives as stock literary figures. In The Captors' Narrative, William Henry Foster demonstrates that the majority of Anglo-American captives taken along the New England frontier were, in fact,...

Many people assume that a French-English cleavage has always existed and historians have been uncertain as to just how it unfolded. This book provides the answer. Greenwood re-creates a Quebec in which trust between French and English Canadians was an early casualty of the execution of Louis XVI and the descent of the French Revolution through terror into war. Fearing invasion, the English community, through the law officers of the crown, drafted draconian legislation and established an efficient counter-intelligence service. Lower Canada in these years was a hotbed of spies and...

Who has the more legitimate claim to land, settlers who occupy and improve it with their labour, or landlords who claim ownership on the basis of imperial grants? This question of property rights, and their construction, was at the heart of rural protest on Prince Edward Island for a century. Tenants resisted landlord claims by squatting and refusing to pay rent. They fought for their vision of a just rural order through petitions, meetings, rallies, electoral campaigns, and direct action. Landlords responded with their own collective action to protect their interests. In Rural Protest...

Saint John, New Brunswick, was a small, stagnant mercantile town in 1800. Its character was set by its British garrison, a few prominent Loyalist officials, and a small merchant elite. But that character changed quickly and dramatically in the first half of the nineteenth century. T.W. Acheson traces the events that lead to the change and analyses their impact on the community.

The conquest of Port-Royal by British forces in 1710 is an intensely revealing episode in the history of northeastern North America. Bringing together multi-layered perspectives, including the conquest's effects on aboriginal inhabitants, Acadians, and New Englanders, and using a variety of methodologies to contextualise the incident in local, regional, and imperial terms, six prominent scholars form new conclusions regarding the events of 1710. The authors show that the processes by which European states sought to legitimate their claims, and the terms on which mutual toleration would be...

In 1860, Queen Victoria sent her eighteen-year-old son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, on a goodwill mission to Canada and the United States. The young heir-apparent (later King Edward VII) had not yet gained his reputation as a fashion setter and rake, but he nevertheless attracted enormous crowds both in Canada, where it was the first royal visit, and in the United States. Civic leaders hosted the visitor in princely style, decorating their towns with triumphal arches and organizing royal entries, public processions, openings, and grand balls.

In Royal Spectacle, Ian...

In 1791 when the Constitutional Act created a legislative assembly for Upper Canada, the colonists and their British rulers decreed that the operating criminal justice system in the area be adopted from England, to avoid any undue influence from the nearby United States. In this new study of early Canadian law, David Murray has delved into the court records of the Niagara District, one of the richest sets of criminal court records surviving from Upper Canada, to analyze the criminal justice system in the district during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Murray explores how...

In early 1812, as the British and the Americans were on the brink of war in North America, Fort St. Joseph was not thought to be of much importance to the British cause. It was disregarded as a useless, poorly located post. But when war was delcared, the garrison at Fort St. Joseph pulled off a miracle: it captured the American Fort Mackinac, and for the remainder of the War of 1812 the British never relinquished control of the Upper Great Lakes.

Built in the aftermath of the American Revolution, Fort St. joseph played an important role in the defence of Canada. And yet, when the...

Dixie & the Dominion is a compelling look at how the U.S. Civil War was a shared experience that shaped the futures of both Canada and the United States. The book focuses on the last year of the war, between April of 1864 and 1865. During that 12-month period, the Confederate States sent spies and saboteurs to Canada on a secret mission. These agents struck fear along the frontier and threatened to draw Canada and Great Britain into the war.

During that same time, Canadians were making their own important decisions. Chief among them was the partnership between Liberal...

This is the first fully documented and detailed account, produced in recent times, of one of the greatest early migrations of Scots to North America. The arrival of the Hector in 1773, with nearly 200 Scottish passengers, sparked a huge influx of Scots to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. Thousands of Scots, mainly from the Highlands and Islands, streamed into the province during the late 1700s and the first half of the nineteenth century.

Lucille Campey traces the process of emigration and explains why Scots chose their different settlement locations in Nova Scotia and Cape...

A fascinating profile of two generals who shaped history.

In 1759, after the battle on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City, the English general James Wolfe and the French general, Louis-Joseph Montcalm lay mortally wounded, each hit by a sniper's bullet. Neither could know that the outcome on the Plains of Abraham would shape the history of both the United States and Canada.

After researching letters and journals and reading dozens of books, Joy Carroll has written a compelling account of the lives and times of the two generals which is both intimate and...