Law Commons^™

French Jurisdictional Complexity On The Fringe— Acadia 1667-1710, Jacques Vanderlinden

Journal of Civil Law Studies

During the second half of the 17th century of French formally institutionalized colonial power in Acadia, the province was in an interesting state of jurisdictional complexity insofar as French colonists were concerned. While native Amerindians, mostly Malecites and Micmawqs, carried their precolonial political order and jurisdictional organisation without almost any interference of the colonial power, imported normative systems derived from feudalism, the Catholic Church, French colonial order, French provincial customs and family organisation were juxtaposed and interacted, each of them were a well-known part of the Western legal tradition. Yet—and this is the most interesting—the state power, which was prevalent …