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Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume XI: Quebec and the Canadas

2013

edited by G. Blaine Baker, Emeritus Professor of Law, McGill University, and Donald Fyson, Professor of History, Laval University. Published with the University of Toronto Press, 2013.

This latest volume in the Essays in the History of Canadian Law series, with which we launched our publishing programme in 1981, is the first devoted to central Canada – what is now Ontario and Quebec before Confederation. Anchored by a comprehensive introduction exploring the main themes of the legal history of the region, a group of distinguished historians from have contributed 11 substantive essays (three in French), on subjects as varied as women in court, grand juries, western law and aboriginal peoples, gun use and control, Quebec legal literature, married women’s property, and imprisonment for debt.

Reviews of Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume XI: Quebec and the Canadas

[These] essays demonstrate the dynamism of Canadian legal history. They shed light on the preferred topics and approaches of legal historians… Baker and Fyson have brought together twelve interesting and well-researched, stand alone essays… Through its eclectic approach , the collection has the advantage of shedding light on many potentially fruitful avenues of research. Michel Ducharme, Canadian Historical Review, Vol 95, 2014, pp. 631-632.

G. Blaine Baker

G. Blaine Baker was a Professor Emeritus at McGill University before his untimely death in 2018. Prior to joining McGill in 1981 he was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. During his time at McGill he served as Associate Dean (Academic) from 1999 to 2001 and Associate Dean (Graduate Studies) from… Read more »

Donald Fyson

Donald Fyson is Professor of History in the Département d’histoire of Université Laval. He has published extensively in eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth- century Quebec history, with a focus on the relationship between state, law and society, especially as seen through the criminal and civil justice system, the police and local administration. These themes are explored… Read more »

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Contents:

Contents

FOREWORD vii
PREFACE ix

Introduction: Quebec and the Canadas, 1760 to 1867: A Legal Historigraphy 3
G. BLAINE BAKER

1 Les débuts de la littérature juridique québécoise, 1767-1840 96
SLYVIO NORMAND

2 Les revendications des nouveaux sujets, francophones et catholiques, de la Province de Québec, 1764-1840 131
MICHEL MORIN

3 “A just and obvious distinction”: The Meaning of Imprisonment for Debt and the Criminal Law in Upper Canada’s Age of Reform 187
JEFFREY L. MCNAIRN

4 The Law of Nations in the Borderlands: Sovereignty and Self-Defence in the Rebellion Period, 1837-1842 235
BRADLEY MILLER

5 Minority Groups and the Law in Quebec, 1760-1867 278
DONALD FYSON

6 Être «demanderesse» en Justice: Permanences civilistes dans la Province de Québec, de la Juridictions royale de Montréal (1740-1760) à la Cour des plaids communs de Montréal (1760-1791) 330
DAVID GILLES

7 “To shudder at the bare recital of those acts”: Child Abuse, Family, and Montreal Courts in the Early Nineteenth Century 370
IAN C. PILARCZYK

8 Married Women’s Property Law Reform, Couples, and Fraud in Canada West / Ontario, 1859-1900 427
LORI CHAMBERS

9 From Shaved Horses to Aggressive Churchwardens: Social and Legal Aspects of Moral Injury in Lower Canada 460
ERIC H. REITER

10 “Possession of arms among these men … might lead to serious consequences”: Regulating Firearms in the Canadas, 1760-1867 503
R. BLAKE BROWN

11 Grand Juries and “Proper Authorities”: Low Law, Soft Law, and Local Governance in Canada West / Ontario, 1850-1880 538
MARY STOKES

CONTRIBUTORs 571
INDEX 575