The name "Chantenay" derives from the Latin Cantenacum or Villa Canteni, from the patronymic Cantenos, the name of a wealthy Gallo-Roman landowner who owned a vast estate here, around which the village grew.

[6] In the 13th century, the monks served a parish church, Saint-Martin, whose jurisdiction was bounded by the Loire, the Misery rock (now the "Butte Sainte-Anne"), and the Chézine.

[9] To the northwest of the parish are the de Derval family estate, with a residence and later a château, les Dervallières; the Carcouet and du Tillay seigneuries.

In 1755, the English government decided to deport Acadians of French origin (the "Grand Dérangement"); many of them were detained in England during the Seven Years' War, then repatriated to France in 1763, notably to Poitou.

[11][12] Waiting to embark for Louisiana, still a French colony at the time, they spread out among various parishes but were particularly numerous in Chantenay.

[11] This event is commemorated by a plaque on Saint-Martin church, and, more recently, by the fresco of the Acadians, painted in 1993 by Louisiana artist Robert Dafford.

[15] During the Terror, when Nantes was under the direction of the representative Jean-Baptiste Carrier, the Misery quarry was a place of execution for prisoners of the routed Vendée army.

The town then suspended the operation, which was not resumed until 1796; the remaining 8 lots were then purchased by the company formed by Louis and Antoine Crucy, which Mathurin joined in the following years.

This was accompanied by an urban transformation, with the construction of the church of Sainte-Anne (architect: Joseph-Fleury Chenantais) and the development of the surrounding area by Nantes' architecte-voyer, Henri Driollet: esplanade, staircase to the Quai Marquis-d'Aiguillon, installation of the statue of the saint.

[19] Nevertheless, in 1896, voters in the Sainte-Anne district sent three Socialist councilors to the Nantes mayor's office for the five seats at their disposal, including Charles Brunellière.

However, in the 1900 elections, Chantenay's mayor was a much more left-wing municipality, led by the radical Paul Griveaud and allied with socialists.

[20] The prospect of annexing Chantenay was present throughout Paul-Émile Sarradin's term of office, while the Griveaud municipality was opposed to it.

On the Nantes city council, only Charles Brunellière and the Socialists tried to defend Chantenay, which went so far as to inaugurate a new town hall on Place de la Liberté on September 4, 1903, in the presence of Camille Pelletan, Minister of Marine in the Émile Combes government.

[20] Chantenay lies at the southern end of the Sillon de Bretagne, at the point where the bed of the Loire narrows at the level of the Butte Sainte-Anne.