The original French commandants had exercised the power of granting to
every person who petitioned as much land as the petitioner chose to ask
for, subject to the condition that part of it should be cultivated
within a year, under penalty of its reversion to "the king's
demesnes."[15] The English followed the same custom. A large quantity of
land was reserved in the neighborhood of each village for the common
use, and a very small quantity for religious purposes. The common was
generally a large patch of enclosed prairie, part of it being
cultivated, and the remainder serving as a pasture for the cattle of the
inhabitants.[16] The portion of the common set aside for agriculture was
divided into strips of one arpent in front by forty in depth, and one or
more allotted to each inhabitant according to his skill and industry as
a cultivator.[17] The arpent, as used by the western French, was a
rather rough measure of surface, less in size than an acre.[18] The
farms held by private ownership likewise ran back in long strips from a
narrow front that usually lay along some stream.[19] Several of them
generally lay parallel to one another, each including something like a
hundred acres, but occasionally much exceeding this amount.

The French inhabitants were in very many cases not of pure blood. The
early settlements had been made by men only, by soldiers, traders, and
trappers, who took Indian wives. They were not trammelled by the queer
pride which makes a man of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinned
woman his wife, though anxious enough to make her his concubine. Their
children were baptized in the little parish churches by the black-robed
priests, and grew up holding the same position in the community as was
held by their fellows both of whose parents were white. But, in addition
to these free citizens, the richer inhabitants owned both red and black
slaves; negroes imported from Africa, or Indians overcome and taken in
battle.[20] There were many freedmen and freedwomen of both colors, and