Before the conquest the procureur du roi gave sentence by his own personal decision in civil cases; if the matters were important it was the custom for each party to name two arbitrators, and the procureur du roi a fifth; while an appeal might be made to the council superieur at New Orleans.

The British commandant assumed the place of the procureur du roi, although there were one or two half-hearted efforts made to introduce the Common Law.
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.