Economic History of Montréal

Economic History of Montréal

Montreal along with Quebec City was on the first settlements (which later became cities) of Lower Canada. Montreal’s name was changed from Villa-Marie in 1705 (Easterbrook, and Aitkhen Pg.15). Now a Metropolitan city of more than 3,588,520 people, it had modest start as a farming community, which got into fur trade then timber, transportation etc. This diversity in different areas of the economy laid the foundation for Montreal in becoming one of Canada’s first major economic success stories, making it an economic hub.

Montreal was first established by the French in 1642 and was part of the French empire. Naturally at first the city had mainly francophone population but the American revolution of the 1775-1776 changed that (Norrie, Owram, and Emery Page 75). While the revolution was going on and periods after it, lots of ‘Loyalist Refuges’ made their way into Canada mainly going to place in Upper Canada such as Nova Scotia but some decided to settle in Lower Canada. This brought lot of diversity in the population and in the start of the 19th century Montreal and Quebec City had an Anglophonic community of 33 percent (Montréal) and 40 percent (Quebec City) of its total population. However this influx started to decrease by 1815 and the cities and towns were still very small in population and this is because the road systems got better which allowed people to move around which ended the “one continuous village system” (Norrie, Owram, and Emery Pg. 77) and lots of new towns and village started to rise therefore taking people away from the cities. This started to get so bad that the rural population increased in the 19th century from what it was in the 18th Century. The decline of fur trade gave rise to more diversified style of farming.

3 major industries before 1830’s were fur trade, agriculture and timber (Easterbrook, and Aitkhen). For the last 200 years fur trade was the dominant industry in Lower Canada and Montreal....