Interracial mixing was possibly uncommon in Montreal in the 17th, 18th centuries: study

DNA analysis of 45 individuals who had been buried at the former Notre-Dame cemetery between 1683 and 1796 revealed that they were all of European origin – and more specifically French, with one exception. Pictured: Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, photographed in 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Interracial mixing between European settlers and Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations was possibly uncommon in Montreal in the 17th and 18th centuries, according to a study published by a researcher at the Université de Montréal.

Analysis of ancient DNA from 45 individuals buried at Notre-Dame Cemetery between 1683 and 1796 revealed that they were all of European origin – and more specifically French, with one exception.

“The Notre-Dame cemetery has been ... excavated over several years in Quebec, which is quite rare in archaeology,” explained Diane Martin-Moya, a visiting researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the university.

“This has given us a fairly significant insight into the era of the first French Canadians to arrive in Montreal, who helped build the colony.”

The study’s authors compared the samples from Notre-Dame with a reference panel comprising ancient and modern genomes, including 900 genomes from Europe, 751 from West Africa and 673 from Indigenous groups in the Americas, as detailed in a press release.

The analysis revealed exclusively French ancestry for the 45 individuals analyzed. The sole exception was one individual who was apparently of Italian origin.

This finding suggests that Indigenous and African-descended populations were marginalized within Montreal’s urban colonial context, which contrasts with accounts of cooperation and intermingling between the French and Indigenous peoples.

“Previous bioarchaeological studies have led to conflicting interpretations regarding the presence of non-European or mixed-race individuals (in Montreal),” write the authors.

“Our results show exclusively French European ancestry ... These results challenge the narrative of a ‘mixed-race founding population,’ aligning with historical evidence of the marginalization of Indigenous and African-descended populations whilst highlighting the social inequalities that shaped this colonial urban cemetery.”

Martin-Moya points out, however, that it is impossible to generalise these conclusions to the entire Montreal population of the time, as the analysis focused solely on a handful of individuals amongst the thousands who had been buried there over the years.

“It’s interesting because it shows how, as a researcher, one can be influenced by variables that suggest a certain conclusion; one tends to latch onto history and say, ‘Ah well, that must be it’,” said Martin-Moya. “So it also shows that science is not a dogma; you really must always dig deeper.”

After all, she points out, various measures had been put in place to encourage Indigenous women to marry French settlers, in addition to policies of assimilation and acculturation.

Analysis of genetic links has also identified “several multigenerational lineages spanning various areas and phases of burial within the cemetery, suggesting that the graves were not spatially organized into family plots,” the researchers explained.

The authors believe that the genetic diversity within the cemetery likely reflects the arrival of settlers from many different regions. Furthermore, “the successive overlapping of graves and the disturbances caused by urban development bear witness (according to them) to the colony’s rapid population growth.”

According to the authors, this analysis highlights the colonial inequalities of early Montreal.

“The wealthier occupied the best plots in the cemetery,” said Martin-Moya. “They may have been moved elsewhere when the cemetery posed hygiene problems. The others were left where they were ... and for 300 years they fell victim to modernization and urbanization, which meant that they were sometimes found completely destroyed by the construction of an aqueduct (or) a wall. Sometimes it was not even possible to recover the bodies in their entirety.”

The findings of this study were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 16, 2026.

Jean-Benoit Legault, The Canadian Press