• • •
Acadians also adopted a distinctive building style for their small settlements. Here again we find evidence that this unique culture began to take form in the time of Razilly and Champlain. As in many colonies, the earliest buildings were rough impermanent poteaux-en-terre (post-in-ground) structures, with one or two rooms, clay chimneys, and thatched roofs. These houses were adapted in various ways to the cold northern climate. One account describes beds that were boarded all round, for warmth and privacy.
Permanent buildings evolved from these crude structures. In a timber-rich environment, a common design was the maison de charpente, a rectangular, single-pitched, post-and-beam house, with a heavy frame, carefully mortised, pegged, or dove-tailed together. It could have as many as three or four rooms, with a cellar below, and an attic above called a garconnière, where the boys slept. Walls and roofs were made of horizontal boards, insulated with birchbark, and covered with weather-tight wooden shingles.42 Other Acadian house-types varied in the construction of walls. A maison pièce-sur-pièce (piece-on-piece house) was made of large square timbers laid one above another and mortised into vertical posts. The maison de madrier, or plank house, had walls of vertical planks pegged tightly together. The very common maison de torchis was a post-and-beam house with the spaces between walls filled with various mixtures of clay, oat-straw, chopped hay, moss, or hair, stiffened with horizontal wood poles called palots or palissons. As late as 1687–88, most Port-Royal houses were small maisons de torchis. Even the governor lived in a plank house.43
The Acadians also developed a unique political tradition. Unlike the habitants of Quebec, the people of Acadia adopted a customary practice of local self-government. Historian Peter Moogk writes, “Only in Acadia was there a form of village self-government provided by elders.” He thinks that this exception was “due to the French government’s indifference to what happened in Acadia.”44
That “attitude of indifference” might explain how this practice could persist, but not why it emerged in the first place. Clearly it came from the interplay of a cultural heritage with a new environment. The people of some provinces in southwestern France during the early seventeenth century still maintained parliamentary bodies that preserved traditional legislative powers of self-government, long after the parlements of northern France had become administrative and judicial bodies. The Acadians brought something of that heritage to North America. And in a new environment they found opportunities for economic development that required collective effort in the construction of dykes and aboiteaux. These complex hydraulic systems required constant maintenance and regulation. The people of Acadia responded by developing political systems of self-government and maintaining them for many generations. The land system of Acadia reinforced a heritage of local self-government.45
The buildings in Acadia followed house plans in west-central France, with many major changes in materials that were abundant in the American environment. This drawing by Bernard and Ronnie Gilles LeBlanc analyzes four house types that were expressions of a unique French culture that took root in Acadia ca. 1632–35.
The collective building of dykes to reclaim tidal marshes for cultivation and maintenance of the embankments also encouraged interfamilial cooperation among the Acadians. Spontaneous self-organized economic cooperation with other families was less common in the St. Lawrence Valley. In French-speaking settlements throughout Quebec, “the priest provided social leadership and the parish provided the framework for community life. It was not a framework that people created for themselves, and it was always subject to external authority.”46
The aboiteaux, or earth and timber dykes of Acadia, were another important adaptation of coastal and river marsh cultures in Saintonge and Touraine to the American environment. They became a major part of the material base of Acadian culture, society, and politics. Their structure and function are analyzed in this excellent drawing by Bernard and Ronnie Gilles LeBlanc.
Acadians rapidly acquired a reputation for self-government and community building. One governor of New France complained that Acadians were “demi-républicains,” and very different from the stereotypical moutons (sheep) of Quebec and the loups (wolves) of Montreal. For their stubborn determination to keep their own ways, the Acadians were called “les entêtés,” hardheads—stubborn, obstinate, difficult, and very strong—a race of survivors. Acadians took that name to themselves as a badge of honor. They also gained a reputation in New France as a distinct people, deeply attached to their land, and strong in their determination to endure.47
The distinct culture that began to develop among the Acadians from a very early date was not a unitary thing. On the coast of Acadia there were a multiplicity of small settlements, which tended to be diverse in ecology, ethnicity, religion, culture, and language. Here again we find variations in speechways. A distinctive dialect is spoken around St. Mary’s Bay, with its flourishing institutions and its own college. In the late twentieth century, a popular song in Canada by the band nostalgically called Grand Dérangement (“Great Displacement”) was titled “L’homme à point d’accent” (“The man with no accent”). It is sung in the dialect of St. Mary’s Bay French. Across the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick and Maine, there are other speechways.
The later history of these diverse cultures is a complex subject. Control of Acadia changed many times. It was French until 1629, British from 1629 to 1632, French from 1632 to 1654, British from 1654 to 1670, French from 1670 to 1710, British from 1710 to 1740; and in the 1740s and 1750s a battleground where the French and Abenaki were pitted against the British and other Indian nations. In 1755 a British governor in Nova Scotia, Colonel Charles Lawrence, proclaimed that all families who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown would be required to leave Acadia. About 6,000 Acadians were expelled, mostly to colonies in the British empire. Others found their way to France, Louisiana, and other nations. Many lost their lives. But many Acadians did not leave. They disappeared into the woods and remained there. Others later came back in large numbers. Altogether, perhaps as many as one-third to one-half returned to Acadia. Even to this day French continues to be spoken along the southwest coast of Nova Scotia.
After that great dispersion, Acadian families continued to multiply remarkably throughout the world. In the United States alone, the census of 1990 reported that 668,000 people identified themselves as wholly or partly of “Acadian” or “Cajun” origin. Comparable estimates for Canada and other countries would certainly bring the numbers above a million. Most of these self-identified Acadians or Cajuns in the Acadian diaspora are descended from Razilly’s colonists who migrated to La Hève and Port-Royal.48
That process of population growth began in the years 1632–35, when Champlain was acting governor in Quebec and Isaac de Razilly was governor of Acadia, and it was largely due to their leadership. They worked in harmony together, and brought a period of order and stability to these colonies. After their deaths the next generation of leaders were not of the same character, and in Acadia they started another French civil war. But Champlain and Razilly kept the peace in New France during a critical period.
They also got along with the Indians. A leading scholar of Acadia, Andrew Hill Clark, wrote of a “harmonious modus vivendi” between French Acadians and Mi’kmaq that began in the early seventeenth century and continued for many generations. Clark observed that “an almost symbiotic relationship of mutual tolerance and support grew up between the two cultures.” It went back to the founding of Port-Royal in 1605 and was sustained by French humanists who included Champlain, de Mons, Poutrincourt, and Razilly. The French of Acadia differed in many ways from their cousins in Quebec, but they shared a common spirit in the way that they cooperated with the native populations. Here again the visions of Champlain and Razilly became a living reality.49
24.
TROIS-RIVIÈRES
New Ways in the West, 1634–35
Our young men will marry your daughters
, and henceforth we shall be one people.
—Champlain’s prophecy to the Montagnais, 16331
They cherish freedom as they cherish life.
—an account of the Métis People, 18562
IN THE SUMMER OF 1634 Champlain launched another project in the St. Lawrence Valley. He planned to establish a chain of fortified posts to the west, strong enough to control the flow of traffic on the river. They were also to be trading posts, missionary stations, and permanent homes for adventurous young Frenchmen who would explore the country and live among the Indians.
He began by building a fort seventy-three miles upstream from Quebec at the mouth of the Rivière Saint-Maurice, which flowed into the St. Lawrence through three channels and was called Trois-Rivières. It was a strategic spot. The Saint-Maurice entered the St. Lawrence from the north; twelve miles away the Rivière des Iroquois joined the St. Lawrence from the south. Three major arteries came together in this part of the valley. One purpose of the settlement at Trois-Rivières was to control movement from the Iroquois country. Another was to provide a trading center for Indian nations to the north and west.3
On July 1, Champlain sent a barque under the command of the sieur de La Violette with orders to build a fort and trading post there. Little is known of La Violette, not even his full name. He is thought to have been an employee of the Hundred Associates. From the job that Champlain gave him, one might guess that he had a military background. La Violette brought a detachment of soldiers and a party of artisans and laborers to construct the fort. A fictional statue of La Violette with the face of historian Benjamin Sulte marks the approximate spot.4
Later in the summer of 1634, Champlain himself visited the site and appears to have supervised the building of a log fort with barracks, a magazine, a storehouse, and homes for French habitants. The settlement was protected by a strong palisade. Cannon were emplaced to control the approaches to the fort and movement on the rivers. La Violette remained as commandant from July 4, 1634, to August 15, 1636.5
Trois-Rivières rapidly became an important place for trade with Indians of many nations, who exchanged furs and pelts for European goods. Two interpreters, Jacques Hertel and Jean Godefroy, settled there, and many others soon made it their home. So also did Jesuit father Jacques Buteux, who built a mission and a chapel. Houses multiplied within the palisade and soon spread beyond it. By 1666, almost as many French families would be living at Trois-Rivières as in the town of Quebec.6
This small settlement quickly acquired another importance. A new culture began to form there, on what was then the western frontier of New France. Its creators were young men and women, French and Indian together, who improvised new ways of life from the meeting of their cultures. Once again Champlain played the seminal role. He had already set this cultural process in motion when he sent French youths to live among the Indians and learn their customs. At the same time, he and Indian leaders sent their youths to France on similar errands.
He called these young people “truchements,” or interpreters. It was an exotic word in French, borrowed from the Turkish tergiman and Arabic targuman on another cultural frontier, where Christians, Turks, and Arabs had met during the crusades. Champlain used the word in its literal meaning, but he thought of his truchements as more than merely translators. The interpreters were instructed to explore the country, live among Indian nations, master native languages, promote trade, build alliances, observe carefully, and report on what they saw.7
Champlain was not the first French leader to follow this practice. In 1602, Pont-Gravé recruited two Montagnais “princes,” took them to France, and brought them back to play a central role as interpreters in the great tabagie of 1603. Champlain followed this example, but on a much larger scale and with a broader purpose. He recruited an entire corps of truchements. Dozens of these young people can be identified by name, and many more appear anonymously in the records. They were vitally important to his grand design.8
Each of Champlain’s interpreters had a story to tell. Some lived briefly among the Indians and returned to European ways. Others liked the life of the Indians, took Indian women as consorts, and formed close ties to Indian communities. Most went back and forth. In many different ways they all contributed to the growth of hybrid cultures that were part-European, part-Indian, and entirely American. This was the new world that found its first home at Trois-Rivières.
Even as Champlain set this process in motion, he was not entirely happy with its results. Some of these young people troubled him. In his words, more than a few of them began to “live licentiously and freely, after the English fashion,” in what he called la vie angloise. Others acquired complex loyalties, and Champlain believed that some had no loyalties at all. Indian leaders shared his mixed feelings about several of these young people.9
He was concerned about two men in particular, Étienne Brûlé and Nicolas Marsolet. Their story began in June, 1610, with an understanding between Champlain and a young French lad who has appeared several times in our story. Brûlé (or Bruslé) was born around 1592, perhaps in Champignysur-Marne, southeast of Paris, where his brother was a wine producer. Probably he came to Quebec with Champlain in 1608, at the age of sixteen. He must have been an engaging youth—bright and lively, with extraordinary initiative. He spent some time among the Montagnais and in 1610 asked if he could also “go with the Algonquins and learn their language.” Champlain made the arrangements. He later recalled: “I went to see chief Iroquet, who was very friendly to me, and asked him if he would take this lad home with him to spend the winter in his country, and to bring him back in the spring. He promised to do so, and to treat him like his own son, saying he was much pleased.”10
It was an elaborate three-cornered arrangement between the French and two Indian nations. Iroquet was an Algonquin leader of the Petite nation, who wintered with his people near Huronia. He had close ties to the Huron leader Ochasteguin and his Arendahuronon people. Iroquet and Ochasteguin agreed to take in Brûlé, and made one request in turn. They asked Champlain to take a young Huron to France, teach him the ways of the French, and bring him home again. Champlain wrote that this young Indian, named Savignon, “was of the nation of Ochasteguin and it was done.” Brûlé departed in the care of two Indian leaders, with elaborate instructions from Champlain to learn the Huron language, explore the country, establish good relations with all Indian nations, and report in one year’s time. Amazingly he did it all, and learned Algonquian to boot.11
Exactly one year later, on June 13, 1611, Champlain returned. We might imagine the scene: French leaders with their burnished helmets, gleaming cuirasses, arquebuses, flags, and feathers; the Huron and Algonquin in vivid face paint, buckskins, bows, arrows, beadwork, and more feathers. Champlain was astonished to see his young Parisian lad looking very comfortable in a deerskin shirt, and chatting with the Huron and Algonquin in their own languages. Champlain urged him to continue among the Indians so that he could fully master their “mode of life.”12
After that meeting, Champlain appears to have lost contact with Brûlé for several years. They met again at Huronia in 1615. Brûlé told Champlain that he had traveled widely through North America. With another French interpreter named Grenolle, he followed the north shore of what they called the “mer douce,” the sweetwater sea—today’s Lake Huron—as far as the great rapids of Sault Ste. Marie, where the waters of another grand lac (Lake Superior) entered Lake Huron. Brûlé saw at least four of the Great Lakes on his travels, possibly all five. In 1615 Brûlé went on yet another long mission with twelve Huron warriors. Their orders were to travel around the western side of the Seneca country and make contact with the Susquehanna Indians. Brûlé set off as Champlain requested, and vanished into the vast American forest. The French thought he had died in the wilderness. Three years later he suddenly reappeared in the St. Lawrence Valley. The year was 1618, and Brûlé seemed in no hurry to meet Champlain. The French leader had to demand a meeting. Brûlé said that he and his Hur
on companions had covered an immense territory. They probably explored the Ohio Valley, the Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay, and the Susquehanna country. On their way back, they ran into a Seneca war party, and Brûlé was taken prisoner. Some of the Seneca began to torture him but others intervened. He was released with a promise that he would try to establish relations with the French, which some of the Iroquois very much desired.13
Even after the experience of capture and torture, Brûlé wanted to return to Indian country. Champlain wrote: “He took leave of me to go back to the Indians, whose acquaintance and affinity he had acquired in his voyages and discoveries…. I encouraged him to keep to this good intention.”14 Brûlé remained among the Huron for several years and became active in the fur trade. Some time during that period, things started to go wrong for him. In 1621, Champlain heard reports from missionaries about “the bad life that most of the Frenchmen had led in the country of the Hurons.” In particular, he was told that “the interpreter Brûlé” was “very vicious and addicted to women,” and that he took bribes from traders. Champlain’s attitude toward his protégé began to change.15
In 1621 Brûlé appeared in Quebec again with four hundred beaver pelts, which he sold at a profit. He sailed back to France in 1622, returned to Canada in 1623, traded actively between Huronia and Quebec, and in 1626 returned again to Paris, where he married a French woman. His skills as an interpreter and his knowledge of North America were much in demand. The company of the Hundred Associates employed him on generous terms, but on his way back to New France with a Huron companion he was captured by the British and taken to London. There Brûlé agreed to join the Kirkes in 1628 against his own compatriots.16
Champlain's Dream Page 58
