Champlain and Pont-Gravé began to make gardens outside the fort. They encouraged all the colonists to till individual plots for their own gain. Champlain himself loved gardening and worked with his servants to prepare the ground. His purpose was to experiment with various crops, as he did wherever he went in New France. At Port-Royal, he tells us, he “sowed there some seeds which throve well; and … took therein particular pleasure, although beforehand it had entailed a great deal of labor.”
Champlain surrounded his garden with “channels full of water, wherein I placed some very fine trout; and through it flowed three brooks of very clear running water, from which the greater part of the settlement was supplied. I constructed near the seashore a little sluiceway, to draw off the water whenever I desired.” His servants added “a small reservoir to hold salt-water fish, which we took out as we required them.”15
He made a particular effort to attract birds into his garden, and they swarmed around him. He wrote happily, “The little birds thereabouts received pleasure from this; for they gathered in great numbers, and warbled and chirped so pleasantly that I do not think I ever heard the like.” Near his garden, stream, and fishpond, Champlain constructed a small “cabinet” or gazebo where he could work at his maps and papers or talk with Pont-Gravé and his friends. “We often resorted there to pass the time,” he recalled.16
One day Champlain and Pont-Gravé were discussing the king’s interest in minerals. A Breton seaman named Prévert had earlier reported a deposit of copper at the Port of Mines. Champlain and the sieur de Mons had made a quick search the year before, without success. In the fall of 1605, Pont-Gravé agreed that Champlain might have a look, with maître Jacques, one of the miners from Slavonia.17
They took a barque across the Baie Française to the Saint John River, in search of the Etchemin sagamore Secoudon, Champlain’s friend and Prévert’s guide. “Having found him,” Champlain wrote, “I begged him to come with us. He willingly agreed, and showed us the way.” Together they went to the Port of Mines and found “several small pieces of copper as thick as a sou, embedded in grayish and red rocks.” Maître Jacques also discovered veins of “rose copper.” Its exceptional purity was a sign of large deposits, but the tide covered the site twice a day. While the miner was chipping away with his hammer, Champlain went out of his way to meet Indian leaders, and cultivated relationships by working with them. That constant effort was important to his success.18
When Champlain returned to Port-Royal, where forty-five settlers were preparing for the winter, he was shocked to discover that some of them were already showing symptoms of scurvy. Everyone remembered the horror of the past year and looked ahead with deep foreboding. Fortunately, the first snow did not fall until December 20, two months later than at Sainte-Croix. Small floes of ice came down the river past the Port-Royal settlement, but to their relief, “the winter was not so severe as it had been the year before, nor was the snow as deep, or of as long duration.”19
The settlement had a sufficiency of grain and dried provisions, and this time Champlain got fresh game from the Indians. But as the winter wore on, scurvy began to spread again. The toll was not as terrible as at Sainte-Croix, but still very cruel. Of forty-five colonists, twelve died from this dread disease. Five more fell very ill, and recovered only in the spring.20
Still, something had diminished the mortality rate from the year before. It might have been a late winter and an early spring. The Indians had good hunting and brought an abundance of fresh meat to Port-Royal. They helped in another way too. Lescarbot later wrote that they “took in one of our men, who lived with them for some six weeks in their fashion, without salt, bread, or wine, sleeping on the ground in skins, and that too in time of snow. Moreover they took greater care of him, as also of others who often went with them, than of themselves, saying that if any of these died, his death would be laid at their door.” Probably they also had antiscorbutic plants and herbal remedies.21
When spring arrived in 1606, supply ships were expected from France. They did not appear, and the settlers at Port-Royal began to run short of provisions. The wine gave out first, and other stocks fell short. The first month of summer came and went without any news from home. By mid-July Pont-Gravé and Champlain feared that they had barely enough food to reach the fishing coast where they could find a passage home. The settlement had two barques. The colonists crowded aboard these small vessels, all except two intrepid Frenchmen who agreed to stay behind as caretakers of the fort.
On July 17, 1606, the settlers departed for Canso on the Atlantic coast, where they hoped to find fishermen who could help them. The first night they anchored for some reason in Long Island Strait, an entry into Baie Sainte-Marie, south of Port-Royal. It was not a wise decision. When the tide began to run, an anchor cable parted on one shallop, and they were lucky to survive. They got clear of the shore and ran into a sharp squall. High seas smashed their rudder irons. Only one man could put it right—the shipwright Champdoré, who “cleverly mended the rudder.”
They sailed on, still far from Canso and very near starvation. They were on the edge of despair, when suddenly a sail appeared. She was French, and they were hailed by the familiar voice of Jean Ralluau, Mons’ secretary. He reported that a supply ship had at last reached Canso with abundant provisions, fifty colonists, and a new governor with instructions to “remain in the country.”
The sieur de Mons was still their leader, but he had decided to remain in France to rally support at court and work with his investors. He ordered Pont-Gravé to run commercial operations on the fishing coast, and sent out Poutrincourt as governor of Port-Royal. We have met him as commander of an ill-fated exploring mission on the coast of Norumbega.
Poutrincourt was an interesting man. He was the fourth son of an ancient noble family from Picardy in the north of France, with close connections to the Catholic House of Guise, and a record of long service to the Valois kings through the better part of three centuries.22 His family had suffered severely in the wars of religion. Poutrincourt’s two older brothers were killed in 1562 and 1569. His sister Jeanne became lady-in-waiting to Mary Queen of Scots, and was caught up in that tragedy. Poutrincourt himself fought against Henri IV, but when the new king converted to Catholicism, Poutrincourt broke with the Catholic League, and was rewarded with many offices.
In 1605 Poutrincourt was forty-eight years old. He had inherited the seigneury of Marcilly-sur-Seine, and the barony of Saint-Just on the River Marne in Champagne, but had trouble managing his property. He was also a man of broad interests and large spirit, a man of the Renaissance, a humanist with an interest in literature and the arts. Music was his passion; he was an active composer of secular and sacred works.23
Traveling with Poutrincourt was another extraordinary character—Marc Lescarbot, his lawyer, literary companion, and family friend. Lescarbot tells us that he had suffered a wrong at the hands of corrupt judges in Paris and decided to “flee” to Acadia as a place of refuge for those who “love justice, and hate iniquity.” He was another Renaissance man—a living example of its ideal of the uomo universale, the universal man. Lescarbot was a poet, playwright, historian, and man of learning, steeped in humanistic values and widely read in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and his native French. His first love was classical literature, and his dream was to emulate its glories in the modern era.24
Poutrincourt and Lescarbot joined the circle of humanists who had founded New France. They had much in common with de Mons and Champlain—a passion for knowledge, a curiosity about the new world, an interest in the Indians, a vision of enlightened enterprise, a dream of humanity, a hunger for peace, a loyalty to the large spirit of Henri IV, and an abiding hope for a greater France in North America. They also enlarged this circle by contributing their own purposes, which were not the same as those of de Mons and Champlain. Like others in New France, they were dreamers too, but they dreamed of other things.
Lescarbot was drawn to Acadia as a field for liter
ature. With much encouragement from Poutrincourt and the sieur de Mons, he hoped to be the Virgil of this colonizing venture, and sought to compose an Acadian Aeneid in modern poetry and prose. When he went to join his ship, he withdrew from the others, “keeping at times a little apart from the company,” and wrote a long poem called “Adieu à la France.” It cleverly combined deep nostalgia for the old world with high anticipation for the new—the mood of many immigrants to American shores. Lescarbot had it printed in La Rochelle and remembered with pride that it was received with “much applause.”25
Poutrincourt had yet another vision of Acadia. He hoped to found a feudal utopia in the new world, which he and his family could rule in a benevolent way, for the good of the whole. Poutrincourt asked the sieur de Mons for a grant of land at Port-Royal, proposing “to live there, and to establish his family and his fortune, and the name of God above all.” De Mons agreed, and on February 25, 1606, Henri IV granted Poutrincourt “the seigneury of Port-Royal and adjacent lands.” In return, he was required to plant a colony within two years.26
Poutrincourt recruited about fifty colonists. Half of them can be identified by name or occupation. Once again they were highly stratified by social rank, as in France itself. At the top were a tight circle of family and friends: Poutrincourt himself, his son Charles de Poutrincourt de Biencourt, and their cousins from the barony of Saint-Just in Champagne; Claude Turgis de Sainte-Étienne et de la Tour, and his son Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, who would become leading figures in the history of Acadia. Also in that circle was Poutrin-court’s cousin-german from Paris, Louis Hébert, a master of pharmacy who came from a family of prosperous merchant-apothecaries and spice dealers.27
Other gentlemen and officers included Jean Ralluau, secretary to sieur de Mons. Also welcomed to the expedition was Robert Gravé, son of Champlain’s friend Pont-Gravé. This young man was “favoured with a splendid physique, good looks, and an alert, practical intelligence.” He was a free spirit who went his own way and quarreled with Poutrincourt, but in the end they got along.28 Three officers chose to remain from the year before: Samuel Champlain, the shipwright Pierre Angibault called Champdoré, and the sieur de Boullay, a captain in Poutrincourt’s regiment.29
These men of rank had a large number of servants who were rarely mentioned by name. Poutrincourt had a valet named Estienne. Champlain had several “lackeys.” He scarcely ever referred to them by name—a common attitude among gentlemen-humanists in the early modern era.
Below the gentlemen were skilled artisans who worked with their hands, such as the surgeon Estienne and the locksmith Jean Duval. Poutrincourt also enlisted many young journeymen. At least three journeyman carpenters received contracts and three journeyman woodcutters signed on for one year and were paid 100 livres.30 At the bottom were the unskilled laborers. Lescarbot regarded them as a wild bunch. “I do not wish to rank all of them in this category,” he wrote, “for some among them were quiet and respectful.” But many were turbulent characters. At La Rochelle before they sailed, Lescarbot remembered, “Our workmen, who received twenty sous per day, played marvelous pranks in the Saint Nicolas Quarter where they lodged … some were made prisoners and kept in the town hall until departure.”31
Even in a small ship or a close-built colony, a great distance separated the gentlemen from other men. Marc Lescarbot’s classical humanism embraced the Indians, but not these lowest orders of Frenchmen. “The common people is a queer beast,” he wrote in a casual way that denied their humanity and individuality in a single phrase. “In this connection,” he added, “I remember the so-called Peasants’ War, in the midst of which I once found myself when I was in Quercy. It was the most bizarre thing in the world to see this clutter of folk all wearing wooden shoes, whence they had got the name of Clackers, because their shoes, hobnailed behind and before, went clack at every step. This motley mob would hear of neither rhyme nor reason. Everybody was master.”
The gentlemen of New France had no sympathy for “clackers,” and none at all for democracy or equality. They were quicker to recognize the humanity of the Indians than that of their own servants and laborers—an attitude that Champlain shared.32
This hierarchy of orders and estates was transplanted to Acadia, but not without change. Some men of humble rank rose rapidly in the new world. Daniel Hay, a carpenter, won honor through repeated acts of valor. Lescarbot celebrated him as a man “whose pleasure it is to display his courage among the dangers of the deep.” Champlain praised his bravery and presence of mind. He appears to have been a natural leader, and began to be treated with respect by gentlemen who might not have deigned to notice him in Europe. Another example was François Addenin, “servant to sieur de Mons,” a soldier who was sent as his bodyguard. He won a reputation as the most skilled hunter in the settlement, and was welcomed to the tables of gentlemen. We shall meet him again.33 The experience of these men brought out a paradox in New France, which was at once highly stratified and highly mobile. Clear lines were drawn between social orders, but men such as Daniel Hay and François Addenin were able to cross the lines more easily than in the old country.34
There were no European women in Acadia from 1604 through 1607. Their absence was much regretted. Lescarbot told a story about an attempt that had been made to settle Cape Breton. The managers had “sent some cows two years and a half ago, but for want of some village housewife who understood taking care of them, they let the greater part die in giving birth to their calves. Which shows how necessary is a woman in a house.”
Lescarbot missed the company of women, as did many of his companions. Others were of a contrary mind and didn’t miss them at all. These early settlements attracted more than a few misogynists. Lescarbot was not among them: “I cannot understand why so many men slight them, even though they cannot get on without them. As for myself, I shall always believe that in any settlement whatsoever, nothing can be accomplished without the company of women. Without them, life is sad, sickness comes, and we die without their aid and comfort. This is why I despise those woman-haters (mysogames) who wish them all sorts of harm, which I hope will overtake that lunatic … who said that woman is a necessary evil, since there is no blessing in the world to be compared to her.”35
On July 27, 1606, Poutrincourt brought his fifty male colonists ashore at Port-Royal. He met with those who had stayed the winter, and spoke of his purposes. He explained his vision of Acadia as a self-sustaining agricultural colony, and he began to work toward that end. Large grain fields were cleared along the river on rich alluvial soil. On a small stream near a waterfall he built a water-powered grain mill with a proper grindstone that must have been brought from France. It was thought to be the first water mill in this country. An old grindstone in the park at Fort Anne today is said to be the original wheel.36
He also planted orchards, “perhaps the first fruit trees in a region that was to become famous for its apples.” Poutrincourt brought over so many animals that his ship Jonas became a veritable ark. He introduced a small herd of cattle, but, as Lescarbot lamented, they did not flourish, perhaps indeed for the want of skilled dairywomen. Poutrincourt also brought swine, which increased and multiplied, as did pigeons and poultry. A solitary sheep was allowed to live in the courtyard of the fort, and was sheared for its wool. Other unintended animals in this menagerie were the rats that traveled in the hold of Poutrincourt’s ship and found their way ashore. The result was a plague of rats, a problem in many early colonies. The worst sufferers were the Mi’kmaq, when the rats moved into Indian villages and consumed their small stock of supplies.37
Poutrincourt gave Port-Royal a different tone from other feudal utopias in America, which were strongly collectivist. He was persuaded to follow the example of Champlain and Pont-Gravé, and encouraged his colonists to work both for the colony and for themselves. The result was a system of mixed enterprise. The men were asked to work at collective tasks for a small part of each day. Together they dug ditches and moats around the f
ort to strengthen its defenses and to improve its cleanliness. A well was also dug in the middle of the courtyard and lined with bricks burned of “Port-Royal clay.”38
This collective labor was limited to two or three hours. The rest of the day, the leaders urged the men to work at their own gardens. Lescarbot set them an example by tilling his own plot, as Champlain had done the year before. Lescarbot wrote, “I can say without lying that never before had I worked so hard as the days of summer were very short. I had often in the spring continued by moonlight.”39
The settlement at Port-Royal had a dual character. Poutrincourt and Lescarbot made it a feudal seigneury, subject to the king of France. One of their first acts was to mount the arms of France and the king above the gate, along with the heraldry of the sieur de Mons and the sieur de Poutrincourt. At the same time, these French leaders were quick to discover that settlers were more productive when they worked for their own gain. These two ideals, feudal and entrepreneurial, coexisted at Port-Royal.
French artisans and workmen brought many skills to Port-Royal, as Lescarbot records. “We had numerous joiners, carpenters, masons, stone-cutters, locksmiths, ironworkers, tailors, woodsawyers, sailors, etc., who worked at their trades.” The pace of work was relaxed, and food was abundant. Lescarbot recalled that the men spent much of their time “gathering mussels … found in great numbers at low tide in front of the fort, or a species of lobster, or crab, which abound beneath the rocks of Port-Royal, or clams [he called them cockles] which grow beneath the mud in all parts of the beach of the harbor. All these were gathered without either boat or net.”40
Fish was available in quantity. Lescarbot remembered that “when the Indians camped near us had made a catch of any sturgeon, salmon, or smaller fish, or of any beaver, moose, caribou, or other animals … they gave us the half thereof, and frequently put up the remainder to public sale, and anyone who wished bartered bread for it.”41 A barter economy developed rapidly, and a spirit of improvisation was encouraged. “Some of the masons and stonecutters tried their hand at baking, and made us as good bread as that of Paris…. No one lacked bread, and each had three half-pints of wine a day.” In 1606, they ran low on wine and Poutrincourt was forced to reduce the daily ration to one pint of wine a day. “Yet even so an extra supply was frequently served out.”42
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