Champlain constructed this farm at the natural meadows on Cap Tourmente in 1626. Artist Francis Back based this reconstruction on the work of Jacques Guimont and a team of archaeologists sponsored by Parcs Canada, 1992–93. Here again archaeology confirms the accuracy of Champlain’s texts, and deepens our historical knowledge.
The farm buildings at Cap Tourmente were not as strongly built as their Norman models: the walls were about eight inches thick, compared with fifteen or twenty inches in the north of France. The dwellings were low and dark, with small windows covered by translucent oiled paper. Archaeologists were puzzled by a lack of evidence of stone fireplaces; probably the interiors were heated with clay fireplaces. The buildings were grouped together to form a small village, to which the Récollets later added a chapel. By September of 1626, the farm was habitable.
To run the farm, Champlain sent farmer Nicolas Pivert with his wife, Marguerite Lesage, and their young niece, a “petite fille.” To help them he added five workers and entrusted them with cattle that had been brought from France. Champlain also sent provisions that had been shipped in graystone pottery crocks of Norman design. Archaeologists have found much evidence of what they ate. They raised Indian corn and enjoyed a mixed diet of fresh beef and pork, fish from the river and geese and ducks from the marshes, as well as beans and other dried provisions from France. It was a diverse diet, and a key to the survival of the colony. Champlain was always very mindful of food, which he recognized as essential to the morale of the habitants. The traces of food that archaeologists have found at the farm could have made a fine Norman cassoulet. One might imagine Champlain on his visits sitting down to such a dish, with good bread and a sturdy wine. In its regard for gastronomy, this was a very French colony.55
Champlain watched over the farm through the winter and was happy that the workers survived in good health. In the spring he sent more than half of the workers to finish the buildings at the cape and to help bring in hay for the following winter—which was essential to the survival of livestock in North America—and the farm began to flourish.56
Champlain also ordered the workers to fortify the farm and erect a strong palisade, “not only against the Indians, but principally against the enemies from Europe.” It was needed. Two drovers that he sent to help with the cattle were attacked and killed by a renegade Montagnais raiding party. This incident “distressed me greatly,” Champlain wrote. He went to the scene and found that the drovers had been murdered “as they lay asleep, about half a league from our habitation.” He was shocked by the gratuitous violence of the assault. “We went to get the bodies, which had been dragged into the river in order that they might be carried away by the tide…. Their skulls had been smashed by blows with axes, and there were many other wounds by swords and knives.”57
The French were angry and frightened. Some wanted to kill several Montagnais in retaliation. In Spanish, English, and Dutch settlements, a policy of retribution was adopted more frequently than any other. Champlain rejected it out of hand. He declared: “As to taking vengeance upon a number who were not guilty, there would be no sense [raison] in that. It would be a declaration of open war, and would ruin the country.”
Instead he invited all the Montagnais captains to a meeting. He showed them the bodies of the murdered Frenchmen, and told them that these acts were wrong and unacceptable. He asked them to join in a search for a solution that all could accept as just. Some of the Montagnais inspected the bodies and tried to blame the Iroquois. Champlain would have none of that, and he made clear that the murders were clearly the work of Montagnais. Much earnest discussion followed. Champlain persuaded the captains to agree that the killings were in truth the work of Montagnais men, but they insisted that they had no idea who the murderers might have been. Champlain also refused to accept that judgment and pointed out that it did not respond to the problem at hand. He reasoned with them: if peace were to prevail on the St. Lawrence River, justice had to be done in a way that all the people of the valley could accept as legitimate. More discussion followed, and at last a solution was found. The Montagnais captains agreed that they would deliver several of their own children to Champlain as hostages for the keeping of peace. This was done. The hostages were treated with humanity, the killing stopped, and Champlain slowly began to rebuild trust between the French and the Montagnais. It was an achievement much valued in both nations.58
Afterward, in the winter of 1627–28, a group of Montagnais came to Champlain and said that they wished “to join with us in a closer friendship than ever before, and to remove any distrust of them we could possibly have.” To cement that relationship they had decided to entrust the French with three young girls, aged eleven, twelve, and fifteen. Champlain wrote that he was “greatly astonished by the offer” and by the request of the Montagnais to “have them instructed and treated like those of our own nation, and to have them marry if that seemed right to us.”
After much reflection, Champlain agreed to take them in. Some writers have been suspicious, but the clergy watched carefully and testified that nothing was amiss. Champlain named the girls Faith, Hope, and Charity. The Récollet missionary Gabriel Sagard wrote that they were instructed for two years in religion and in “the small skills of young women.” Champlain added that they learned “needlework both plain and fancy, which they did very well, besides which they were very civilized.” Sagard reported that “these bonnes filles honored Champlain as their father and he treated them as his daughters.” Amity between the French and the Montagnais was much restored.59
At the same time Champlain also renewed his efforts to improve relations with the Iroquois. In August a canoe arrived from the “River of the Iroquois, with news that they had killed five Dutchmen, who had previously been their friends and allies.” The Iroquois had also gone to war against the Mohicans to the south, and small parties were skirmishing with the Algonquin, Montagnais, Huron, and the Neutral to the north and west. Champlain dealt indirectly with this problem by rescuing two Iroquois captives from torture and death. He kept one a prisoner and made sure he was treated humanely. The other was sent home as a gesture of good will. And in the spring of 1627, Champlain dispatched a French emissary to the Iroquois on a mission of peace. Slowly relations with the Iroquois did get better. Attacks diminished in the St. Lawrence Valley.60
Champlain also tried to maintain his policy of religious tolerance within the colony, a task that in some ways was more difficult than keeping the peace with his Indian neighbors. Jesuit priests and Récollet brothers demanded that Protestants be excluded from Quebec. In the summer of 1626, Jesuit father Philibert Noyrot was ordered to carry that request back to France, where he was very well connected at court. When Noyrot met with Cardinal Richelieu and the king, he tried to convince them that Henri IV’s Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed Protestants the freedom to practice their religion, should be revoked in New France, and that only Catholics should be allowed to settle there. But what, then, was to be done about the many Protestant seamen and traders in Quebec?61
Champlain, Ventadour, Richelieu, and Louis XIII were not of one mind on this contentious question. The king favored toleration. He strongly supported his father’s policy in the Edict of Nantes, prohibited general attacks on Protestants at court, and was very close to Protestants in his household, such as his valet de chambre Beringhen and his physician Héroard. He insisted that Protestants should be loyal to the Crown and required them to grant toleration to Catholics in Huguenot towns. In the same spirit, he protected the right of Protestants to worship freely throughout his realm, including New France.62
Ventadour did not support toleration. As viceroy he tried to forbid Protestant worship in New France, and issued orders to ship captains in 1626 that Protestant seamen could sing their Huguenot hymns and psalms on ships at sea, but not in the St. Lawrence River. Clearly he meant New France to be an entirely Catholic colony.63
Richelieu took a third position. He subordinated religious questions to the r
aison d’état. In 1627 he was largely responsible for letters patent to the Company of Canada, which required that it “populate the colony with native-born French Catholics.” But he insisted that the colonies in America would be governed by all the laws of France, which included the Edict of Nantes and protected Huguenot seamen and traders.64
Champlain’s views were complex. His own Catholicism was growing stronger, so much so that he began to refer to Protestantism as a “religion prétendue réformée; a religion that claims to be reformed.” With the sieur de Mons and Henri IV, he had always agreed that the Catholic Church should be fully established in the New France, and that all missionary work with the Indians would be done by Catholics, but he also believed that Huguenots should be allowed into the colony and fully protected in their right to worship privately in their own way. But Champlain also had to follow contradictory instructions from Louis XIII, Ventadour, and Richelieu.65
He solved the problem by quiet compromise. A test case arose in 1626 when the ship Catherine anchored in the St. Lawrence River with a mostly Protestant crew and Raymond de La Ralde, who was staunchly Catholic (and also strongly anti-Jesuit), as its captain. Ralde mustered his crew and told them that the viceroy “did not wish them to sing their psalms in the Great River, as they had done at sea.” Champlain was aboard at the time. He wrote that the men “began to murmur and say that they ought not to be deprived of that liberty.”66 After much conversation, he found a middle way. “Finally,” he wrote, “it was agreed that they should not sing their psalms, but they should assemble for prayer, since near two-thirds of them were Huguenots.”67 Champlain commented, “and so out of bad debt one gets what one can.” That was his policy: a compromise that kept the peace in the colony, and allowed Catholics and Huguenots to coexist. It preserved a spirit of toleration and humanity that was fundamental to his grand design.68
• • •
While Champlain was at work in Quebec, more reports from the Jesuits and Récollets reached Cardinal Richelieu and persuaded him that sweeping changes were necessary in the commerce of New France. In October, 1626, the cardinal decided to take personal control. He added to his many powers a new office as “grandmaster, chief, and general superintendent of the Navigation and Commerce of France.” By the spring of the following year, Ventadour was out as viceroy, and Richelieu replaced him as the man in charge of New France.69
The cardinal wasted no time. First, he dealt summarily with the persistent problem of the rival trading companies. In the spring of 1627, the Company de Caën lost its monopoly and trading privileges in New France. It was replaced by an entirely new company that Richelieu created. He named it the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France. It was also called the Compagnie du Canada but came to be more generally known as the Compagnie des Cent-Associés, the Hundred Associates, after the number of its stockholders.70
The Company of the Hundred Associates began with a capital of 300,000 livres. Richelieu required each investor to pay in 3,000 livres, and all profits would be reserved by the company for three years. On the list of the hundred stockholders dated January 14, 1628, Richelieu appeared as number 1. Samuel de Champlain was number 52. As he was in Quebec at the time, his wife, Hélène, paid his capital of 3,000 livres in full—another sign that she now strongly supported his endeavors. Many investors were Royal Councillors and holders of high office at court. Others were merchants and financiers—a few from Rouen and Bordeaux, and many from Paris. Several members were Champlain’s friends who came to New France: Charles Daniel, Isaac de Razilly, Charles Saint-Étienne de la Tour. The mercantile families who had dominated the earlier companies were excluded: there were no Boyers from Rouen and no de Caëns from Dieppe. Altogether the company was closely controlled by Richelieu, and could also be called the cardinal’s ring.71
The seal of Richelieu’s Company of New France (the Hundred Associates). The obverse shows a figure holding a crucifix and the lilies of France, with the motto “me donavit Ludovicus Decimus Tertius, 1627; Louis XIII gave me, 1627.” The reverse shows a ship and a seaman’s prayer: “ in mari viae tuae; in the sea your way [to salvation].”
The entire colony of New France was made a fief of the company. It claimed a vast territory in North America from Florida to the Arctic Circle. The company was required to support settlement on a larger scale than ever before. It was run by Richelieu himself with a board of twelve directors. Half were court officials; the rest were merchants, mostly from Paris. Champlain, Razilly, and Daniel did not sit on the board.72
In a few months, Richelieu had put New France on a stronger material base than ever before. At the same time, Champlain had invigorated the settlement of Quebec. He had repaired the buildings in the town, rebuilt the fort, and led the settlement toward self-sufficiency. He had improved relations among the clergy, traders, and habitants. He aligned his actions with the new policies of Cardinal Richelieu. Most important, he stopped a threatening decline in relations with the Indians and restored amity with the Huron, the Algonquin, and many of the Montagnais, while he also made peace with the Iroquois.
Champlain had made real progress on many fronts, but in other ways the tiny settlement remained fragile. Its population was very small and in most years grew scarcely at all. In the winter of 1627–28, Champlain wrote that “55 people, men, women and children depended on the habitation for subsistence, not including the native inhabitants.”73 Other European settlements, by comparison, were expanding rapidly. By 1628, the Dutch had 270 colonists in New Netherland. The English Pilgrims at Plymouth were 300 strong in 1629. A census of Virginia counted 1,275 English settlers and 22 Africans in 1624. Massachusetts had 506 English Puritans in 1630. New France had dangerous neighbors, and tensions were building.
19.
NEW FRANCE LOST
The British Conquest, 1628–29
The advice I give to all adventurers is this: seek a place where you can sleep in safety.
—Champlain, Voyages, 16321
IN 1625, France and England went to war. It had been a long time coming. Since the death of Henri IV, the monarchs of England, Spain, and France had been striving with one another in rivalries of high complexity. Each country was ruled by an ambitious king and an able minister: Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham, Philip IV and the Count-Duke Olivares, Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu.2
Their goals were similar: absolute authority at home, a strong hand in Europe, and an expanding empire in America. But ambitions exceeded resources, and they all were weary of incessant war, especially the French. In 1624, Louis XIII proposed an Anglo-French alliance, and he suggested that it be cemented by the marriage of his sister Henrietta Maria to England’s Charles I, with a dowry of 2,400,000 livres. Charles agreed, and the wedding followed in May, 1625. It brought a bright hope of lasting peace between England and France, but the marriage itself made the alliance more difficult. Henrietta Maria was devoted to her Catholic faith, and the English people were strongly Protestant in 1625. She was bitterly unhappy, and the marriage was riven by quarrels. At one point the queen was so overcome with fury at her exile in London that she rammed her arm through a glass window. All hope of harmony collapsed in the bloody aftermath. On top of that, half the dowry had not been paid, and Charles urgently needed the money.3
These troubles were reinforced by turmoil in France over the Huguenots of La Rochelle, who made their city into a fortress—a Protestant state within the state. Louis XIII regarded them as disobedient subjects and attacked. Charles I supported them, and two angry royal brothers-in-law went to war. A large British force came to the aid of the Huguenots and was defeated in heavy fighting at the Isle of Ré.
“Charles I as Garter Knight,” a portrait by Anthony Van Dyke, 1632. This English king aspired to absolutism on the French model. He tried to rule his restless people without a Parliament, and involved them in unsuccessful wars with France, Scotland, and Ireland. He also authorized British mercenaries to seize New France.
La Rochelle proved too strong fo
r the French to take by assault. Richelieu decided to starve it into submission and gave the war his own brutal touch. The town was besieged, and Rochelais who tried to escape were driven back inside the walls or summarily hanged, even women and children. The population of La Rochelle fell from 27,000 to 8,000 starving people. Finally, that small remnant surrendered, and Louis XIII entered the gates in triumph on November 1, 1628. He destroyed its fortifications, banished a few leaders, and pardoned the rest. The largest churches became Catholic, but Protestants were allowed to worship under the Edict of Nantes.4
Richelieu and Louis XIII had succeeded in defeating the “Huguenot state within a state,” but at heavy cost. The Anglo-French war spread to America. Charles I and his ministers resolved to destroy the settlements of New France and seize the Atlantic fisheries. But the English king lacked money for a proper military force. He attacked New France with mercenary bands of ill-disciplined freebooters who went to war on speculation and were paid by plunder.
Charles authorized two families of Scottish lairds, the Alexanders of Stirling and the Stewarts of Ochiltree, to seize Acadia. James Stewart attacked with two large ships and a pinnace. In a small cove he found a Basque fisherman named Michel Dihourse, of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, drying his cod. Stewart seized the ship and its catch, and plundered the Basque crew. Then he built a fort, using the guns he had taken from the Basques, and announced that no Frenchman could fish or trade on the coast without paying ten percent of his goods. Those who refused would lose their ships and their liberty.5
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