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The People's Court of New France
Jun. 15th, 2007 12:26 pmI updated my history/political blog. This historical entry's mostly filler -- it's an introduction to other entries that I've been researching quite heavily, and which won't be ready for a couple of days.
Towards that end, I've been poring over the complete judgements rendered by New France's highest court -- its court of appeal and high criminal court, the Conseil Souvrein. I'm looking for cases involving homosexuality, and also trying to get a sense of New France's legal culture -- what it punished and how, which is almost always a different thing from what the law says.
I found it tedious, at first, but I've developed an odd fascination with some of the cases. The same names crop up again and again as the cases wind their way through all the formalities over a course of months, and it's become a little like a historical soap opera:
Towards that end, I've been poring over the complete judgements rendered by New France's highest court -- its court of appeal and high criminal court, the Conseil Souvrein. I'm looking for cases involving homosexuality, and also trying to get a sense of New France's legal culture -- what it punished and how, which is almost always a different thing from what the law says.
I found it tedious, at first, but I've developed an odd fascination with some of the cases. The same names crop up again and again as the cases wind their way through all the formalities over a course of months, and it's become a little like a historical soap opera:
- On Mar 5, 1691, Guillaume Hébert was commanded to give back François Poissot de la Couche's beavers. No explanation was given as to why Hébert had de la Couche's beavers, or whether beaver-theft was a common crime in New France, but the affair was considered so important that an assessor was assigned to watch over the beaver-transfer and make sure it happened honestly.
- On January 11, 1694, a woman asked the court to annul her son's marriage to a Native woman. According to her, her son didn't know he was getting married -- he didn't know the language. The boy's wife only spoke Cree, while he only spoke French.
- In March, 1694, a Father Foucault of the church of Batiscan felt so insulted by accusations a certain Captain François Dejordi had made against him -- unnamed accusations involving a young woman -- that he not only banned Dejordi from his church, but preached from the pulpit that he would have Dejordi tied to a post in a cabin in the woods, and whipped by little boys who Father Foucault had bribed into the act with plums and candies. So I'm guessing the Catholic Church hasn't changed much since then.
