The last decades of the seventeenth century were marked by persistent, bloody conflicts between the French and their Native allies on the one side and the Iroquois confederacy on the other. In the summer of 1701, 1,300 representatives of forty First Nations from the Maritimes to the Great Lakes and from James Bay to southern Illinois met with the French at Montreal. Elaborate, month-long ceremonies culminated in the signing of The Great Peace of Montreal, which effectively put an end to the Iroquois wars. In The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701 Gilles Havard brings to life the European and Native players who brought about this major feat of international diplomacy. He highlights the differing interests and strategies of the numerous First Nations involved while giving a dramatic account of the colourful conference. The treaty, Havard argues, was the culmination of the French colonial strategy of Native alliances and adaptation to Native political customs. It illustrates the extent of cultural interchange between the French and their Native allies and the crucial role the latter played in French conflicts with the Iroquois and the British. As we approach the 300th anniversary of the treaty's signing in August 1701, Gilles Havard emphasizes its contemporary significance: in signing a treaty with forty separate parties the French recognized the independent sovereignty of every First Nation. This translation is significantly revised and updated from the original French publication of 1992.

"Situated within the area stretching from Georgian Bay in the north to Lake Simcoe in the east (also known as Wendake), the Wendat Confederacy flourished for two hundred years. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, Wendat society was under attack. Disease and warfare plagued the community, culminating in a series of Iroquois assaults that led to the dispersal of the Wendat people in 1649. Yet the Wendat did not disappear, as many historians have maintained. In Dispersed but Not Destroyed, Kathryn Magee Labelle examines the creation of a Wendat diaspora in the wake of the Iroquois attacks. By focusing the historical lens on the dispersal and its aftermath, she extends the seventeenth-century Wendat narrative. In the latter half of the century, Wendat leaders continued to appear at councils, trade negotiations, and diplomatic ventures -- including the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 -- relying on established customs of accountability and consensus. Women also continued to assert their authority during this time, guiding their communities toward paths of cultural continuity and accommodation. Through tactics such as this, the power of the Wendat Confederacy and their unique identity was maintained. Turning the story of Wendat conquest on its head, this book demonstrates the resiliency of the Wendat people and writes a new chapter in North American history."--Publisher's website.

The Great Law, a living tradition among the conservative Iroquois, is sustained by celebrating the condolence ceremony when they mourn a dead chief and install his successor for life on good behavior. This ritual act, reaching back to the dawn of history, maintains the League of the Iroquois, the legendary form of government that gave way over time to the Iroquois Confederacy. Fenton verifies historical accounts from his own long experience of Iroquois society, so that his political ethnography extends into the twentieth century as he considers in detail the relationship between customs and events. His main argument is the remarkable continuity of Iroquois political tradition in the face of military defeat, depopulation, territorial loss, and acculturation to European technology.

A History of Law in Canada is an important three-volume project. Volume One begins at a time just prior to European contact and continues to the 1860s, Volume Two covers the half century after Confederation, and Volume Three covers the period from the beginning of the First World War to 1982, with a postscript taking the account to approximately 2000. The history of law includes substantive law, legal institutions, legal actors, and legal culture. The authors assume that since 1500 there have been three legal systems in Canada – the Indigenous, the French, and the English. At all times, these systems have co-existed and interacted, with the relative power and influence of each being more or less dominant in different periods. The history of law cannot be treated in isolation, and this book examines law as a dynamic process, shaped by and affecting other histories over the long term. The law guided and was guided by economic developments, was influenced and moulded by the nature and trajectory of political ideas and institutions, and variously exacerbated or mediated intercultural exchange and conflict. These themes are apparent in this examination, and through most areas of law including land settlement and tenure, and family, commercial, constitutional, and criminal law.

French-Indigenous families were a central force in shaping Detroit’s history. Detroit’s Hidden Channels: The Power of French-Indigenous Families in the Eighteenth Century examines the role of these kinship networks in Detroit’s development as a site of singular political and economic importance in the continental interior. Situated where Anishinaabe, Wendat, Myaamia, and later French communities were established and where the system of waterways linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico narrowed, Detroit’s location was its primary attribute. While the French state viewed Detroit as a decaying site of illegal activities, the influence of the French-Indigenous networks grew as members diverted imperial resources to bolster an alternative configuration of power relations that crossed Indigenous and Euro-American nations. Women furthered commerce by navigating a multitude of gender norms of their nations, allowing them to defy the state that sought to control them by holding them to European ideals of womanhood. By the mid-eighteenth century, French-Indigenous families had become so powerful, incoming British traders and imperial officials courted their favor. These families would maintain that power as the British imperial presence splintered on the eve of the American Revolution.

Surrounded by water and located at the heart of a fertile plain, the Island of Montreal has been a crossroads for Indigenous peoples, European settlers, and today's citizens, and an inland port city for the movement of people and goods into and out of North America. Commemorating the city's 375th anniversary, Montreal: The History of a North American City is the definitive, two-volume account of this fascinating metropolis and its storied hinterland. This comprehensive collection of essays, filled with hundreds of illustrations, photographs, and maps, draws on human geography and environmental history to show that while certain distinctive features remain unchanged – Mount Royal, the Lachine Rapids of the Saint Lawrence River – human intervention and urban evolution mean that over time Montrealers have had drastically different experiences and historical understandings. Significant issues such as religion, government, social conditions, the economy, labour, transportation, culture and entertainment, and scientific and technological innovation are treated thematically in innovative and diverse chapters to illuminate how people's lives changed along with the transformation of Montreal. This history of a city in motion presents an entire picture of the changes that have marked the region as it spread from the old city of Ville-Marie into parishes, autonomous towns, boroughs, and suburbs on and off the island. The first volume encompasses the city up to 1930, vividly depicting the lives of First Nations prior to the arrival of Europeans, colonization by the French, and the beginning of British Rule. The crucial roles of waterways, portaging, paths, and trails as the primary means of travelling and trade are first examined before delving into the construction of canals, railways, and the first major roads. Nineteenth-century industrialization created a period of near-total change in Montreal as it became Canada's leading city and witnessed staggering population growth from less than 20,000 people in 1800 to over one million by 1930. The second volume treats the history of Montreal since 1930, the year that the Jacques Cartier Bridge was opened and allowed for the outward expansion of a region, which before had been confined to the island. From the Great Depression and Montreal's role as a munitions manufacturing centre during the Second World War to major cultural events like Expo 67, the twentieth century saw Montreal grow into one of the continent's largest cities, requiring stringent management of infrastructure, public utilities, and transportation. This volume also extensively studies the kinds of political debate with which the region and country still grapple regarding language, nationalism, federalism, and self-determination. Contributors include Philippe Apparicio (INRS), Guy Bellavance (INRS), Laurence Bherer (University of Montreal), Stéphane Castonguay (UQTR), the late Jean-Pierre Collin (INRS), Magda Fahrni (UQAM), the late Jean-Marie Fecteau (UQAM), Dany Fougères (UQAM), Robert Gagnon (UQAM), Danielle Gauvreau (Concordia), Annick Germain (INRS), Janice Harvey (Dawson College), Annie-Claude Labrecque (independent scholar), Yvan Lamonde (McGill), Daniel Latouche (INRS), Roderick MacLeod (independent scholar), Paula Negron-Poblete (University of Montreal), Normand Perron (INRS), Martin Petitclerc (UQAM), Christian Poirier (INRS), Claire Poitras (INRS), Mario Polèse (INRS), Myriam Richard (unaffiliated), Damaris Rose (INRS), Anne-Marie Séguin (INRS), Gilles Sénécal (INRS), Valérie Shaffer (independent scholar), Richard Shearmur (McGill), Sylvie Taschereau (UQTR), Michel Trépanier (INRS), Laurent Turcot (UQTR), Nathalie Vachon (INRS), and Roland Viau (University of Montreal).