Montreal, 1535-1914. Vol. 1. Under the French Régime, 1535-1760

A century-old portrait of Montreal's birth. William H. Atherton begins his monumental history with Jacques Cartier's 1535 arrival at Hochelaga, reconstructing the indigenous village that stood on the mountain's slopes and the warm reception the explorer received. From this electrifying opening, the narrative unfolds across two centuries of French rule: the fur trade that drew Europeans north, the Jesuit missions that reshaped the spiritual landscape, the Sulpician seigneurs who governed the island, and the slow emergence of North America's most storied city. Atherton documents it all with the thoroughness of a 1914 scholar, every governor, every treaty, every trading post. This is not modern revisionist history; it is a period document that captures how early twentieth-century Canadians understood their colonial past. For historians of Quebec, scholars of New France, and anyone fascinated by the origins of North American cities, this volume preserves details found nowhere else.