Though the definitive study of la petite guerre remains to be written, several works by W.J. Eccles are invaluable: France in America (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, c1972,1973); The Canadian Frontier, 1534-1760 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969; Histories of the American Frontier Series); Canada Under Louis XIV, 1663-1701 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart,1964; Canadian Centenary Series, 3); and Frontenac, the Courtier Governor (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, c1959, 1972; The Carleton Library no. 24). A short chapter in Richard A. Preston, S.F. Wise and Herman O. Werner, Men in Arms; a History of Warfare and Its Interrelationships with Western Society, rev ed. (New York: Praeger, 1962) provides a useful background to conditions of warfare in northern North America.
The circumstances which eventually contributed to the decline in importance of la petite guerre are described in George F. G. Stanley, New France, the Last Phase, 1744-1760 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968; Canadian Centenary Series, 5). The most striking application of this decline of the traditional tactics is imaginatively portrayed in C.P. Stacey, Quebec 1759; the Siege and the Battle (Toronto; Macmillan, 1959).
In terms of primary sources, vivid eyewitness accounts of the Iroquois "terror" which inspired la petite guerre are found in Word from New France; the Selected Letters of Marie de l'Incarnation, translated and edited by Joyce Marshall (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967) and The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents; a Selection, edited and with an introduction by S.R Mealing (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, c1963; The Carleton Library, no 7). The exciting day-to-day details of the gruelling overland expedition to James Bay in 1686 are recorded in de Troyes' journal edited by W.A Kenyon and J R. Turnbull, The Battle for James Bay 1686 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, c1971).
There is one full length biography of a petite guerre leader, N.M. Crouse's Le Moyne d'Iberville: Soldier of New France (Toronto: Ryerson Press,1954). Shorter biographical essays of all of the Canadian guerilla leaders will be found in the first four volumes of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966- ): Dollard des Ormeaux, Le Moyne de Sainte-HÄlÅne and Troyes in volume I; Ailleboust de Manthet, Hertel de la FresniÅre the elder, Hertel de Rouville, Le Moyne d'lberville, Le Moyne de Maricourt, Le Moyne de Martigny, Le Moyne de Serigny. Leneuf de la ValliÅre de Beaubassin, Maisonnat dit Baptiste, Robinau de Portneuf and Villieu in Volume II; CÄloron de Blainville, the three Coulon de Villiers, Hertel de la FresniÅre the younger, Hertel de Saint-Franìois, La Corne, Le Marchand de Lignery, Le Moyne de Bienville, LiÄnard de Beaujeu, Marin de la Malgue, Morpair and PÄcaudy de Contrecoeur in volume III. Volume IV will provide additional biographical information when it is published.
The first two volumes of The Canadian History Series, Thomas B. Costain, editor, while essentially romantic in tone, are good readable accounts of New France: Thomas B. Costain, The White and the Gold; The French Regime in Canada (Toronto: Doubleday Canada,1954), and J.L. Rutledge, Century of Conflict; the Struggle between the French and British in Colonial America (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1956), in which the principle incidents of la petite guerre are imaginatively if not always exhaustively or wholly accurately chronicled. An American interpretation of the events and personalities of la petite guerre can be found in Francis Russell. The French and Indian Wars (New York: American Heritage, 1962).
1993 UPDATE
DEFENDING NEW FRANCE: LA PETITE GUERRE, 1660-1760
Bernard Pothier
In the years since this title was published, the biographies of several other New France military leaders have been added to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Deschamps de BoishÄbert, Dumas, Hertel de Saint-Franìois, La Corne, Marin de La Malgue and Ramezay figure in volume four, and Boucher de Niverville, in volume five.
B.G. Trigger's Natives and Newcomers: Canada's "Heroic Age" Reconsidered (Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1985) offers new insight into the "heroic age" in New France as a whole.
