ABSTRACT
A stock figure in Quebec historiography has been the exploited peasant who, historians have argued, was precluded from participating in the commercial expansion of the colony by an unchanging seigneurial system, inefficient agriculture and an allegiance to traditional social relations. Using evidence from the Court of Common Pleas and a number of small circuit courts established throughout the colony at the request of local merchants and credits, this chapter shows how peasants used the courts and systems of credit in strategic ways which enabled them to fully enter the commercial marketplace both as active producers and consumers.
