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662.More information
Despite the absence of paper production in New France in the seventeenth century, several sources reveal the large number of documents produced there. Our doctoral research has highlighted the origin of the writing paper used at that time as coming mainly from the French provinces of Angoumois and Auvergne. Our research has also highlighted three interrelated aspects of writing paper, namely the uses for which it is intended, the users who consume it and the various categories of documents that arise from its use.The writing paper in question was used in the transcription of a whole series of activities specific to the fledgling colony. Multiple users – companies, administrations or individuals – supported by their personal ambition or the “good of others”, were engaged in various activities for the construction of a new colony. Of all the activities that underlie the close links between the French Atlantic world and paper in the seventeenth century, seven have our attention: the administrative management of the metropolis and its North American colony, the underlying use of paper as a support for missionary efforts, the methods used by the merchant class to conduct business, the supplies that accompanied explorers, travelers and military personnel traveling and / or stationed in the colony, the administration of religious communities, notarial acts that punctuate daily life and correspondence between individuals.The article illustrates the professional characteristics of the people engaged in these activities, their relationships with the uses of writing paper and the categories of documents thus produced. Our examples are chosen from the body of handwritten archival documents from public and private archives, and handwritten documents from the Baby Collection at the Université de Montréal.
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