An analysis of the French colonies in North America that is central to the historical study of the United States. By the time French colonists sought a portion of the New World’s riches, much of those resources had already been claimed by Spain and Portugal. Once settled in North America,...

"Between 1717 and 1731, the French Company of the Indies (Compagnie des Indes) held a virtual monopoly over Louisiana culture and trade. Among numerous controls, its administrators oversaw the slave trade, the immigration of free and indentured whites, negotiations with Native American peoples,...

List of illustrations and maps -- List of tables and graphs -- Preface -- Introduction -- The coastal trade in French wines and brandy -- Case studies: Nantes and Rotterdam -- Periodization and historiography -- Structure of the book -- Chapter One The Dutch Community in Nantes -- Settlement...

Explores the cultural economies of two "non-traditional" commodity trades between Africa and Europe - one anglophone, the other francophone - in order to show not only why they differ but also how both have felt the fall-out of the wealthy world's food scares

This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive account of the juridiction consulaire, or Merchant Court, of eighteenth-century Paris. Drawing on extensive archival research, Amalia D. Kessler reconstructs the workings of the court and the commercial law that it applied and uses these...