Note on the Economic Burden of the Seigniorial System in New France, 1688-1739

In a previous article in this journal I argued, from a reconstruction and analysis of the census material for New France, that the seigniorial system of land tenure imposed an economic burden upon the average farm family in the colony. I also argued that this economic burden (shifting income from the farmer to the seignior) diminished from 1688 to 1739 and never represented an overwhelming proportion of the economic surplus produced by the...