Seigneurs:
Seigneurs owned the seigneuries and were given the duty to populate them. The first seigneury owners were nobles and religious communities. Just over 200 people, Canadian nobility accounted for only 4% of the population. Nobles lived in luxury, owning furnished mansions and expensive clothing.
Middle Class Merchants and Traders:
Merchants dominated the fur trade, supplying and distributing most of the European goods. They were very wealthy and had great influence, being at the top of the commercial hierarchy. La bourse (the market) or le change (the exchange) were specific areas in each major city where traders and merchants met to do business.
Shopkeepers and Tradespeople:
Usually residing in Montreal, shopkeepers and tradespeople offered most of the goods and services that were essential to population. Artisans were in great demand and took up multiple trades such as being masons, stonecutters, and carpenters. There were also blacksmiths, locksmiths, gunsmiths and armourers. In the food trade, there were butchers, bakers, millers, and flour merchants.
Habitants:
Habitants were farmers or labourers, looking after livestock, cutting down trees to clear the land for cultivation, and chopping wood for fire. The farmer’s wife and children looked after the garden and other household and kitchen duties. They payed taxes and rent, and although they co-owned the land with the seigneur, a few days each year were devoted to work completely for the benefit of the seigneur.
Engagé and Servants:
Offering their services to employers in New France, engagés were immigrants who were handymen and skilled workers. Their contract usually lasted three years. For this reason, they were also known as trente-six mois (36 months). The population of engagés were 20% of the 25,000, who spent at least one winter in Canada before 1760. The servants were found in any household and were slightly less than 15% of the population in 1666. However, in 1681 they were a little more than 5%, which was about one servant for every twenty inhabitants.