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Tag Archives: John Jacob Astor

John Jacob Astor & the Voyageur as Settler and Explorer

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Explorers, Voyageurs

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

explorers, Gabriel Franchère, John Jacob Astor, Lewis Parker, Louisiana Purchase, settlers, the American Fur Trade Company, Treaty of Ghent

Signing of the Treaty of Ghent. Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier is shaking hands with United States Ambassador to Russia John Quincy Adams; British Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Henry Goulburn is carrying a red folder. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Treaty of Ghent, 1814

In my last post, I mentioned Dr Bigsby. The Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, put an end to the War of 1812, a war between the British and the Americans.  Under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, an official border had to be drawn between Canada (British) and the Union (American). Our Dr Bigsby was with the Commission whose members drew the border between Canada and the United States. Also engaged in drawing the border was Simon Fraser, an explorer. (See Treaty of 1818, Wikipedia)

Because many voyageurs worked with the Hudson’s Bay Company, it could be that our canotier was among the last persons to realize that Nouvelle-France had become a British colony.

However, the voyageur‘s world changed when the border was traced between Canada and the United States. Moreover, because of the Louisiana Purchase, the central part of the United States was no longer a French colony. Napoléon had sold a third of what constitutes the present-day United States.

UnitedStatesExpansion

The Purchase was one of several territorial additions to the U.S. (See Louisiana Purchase, Wikipedia)

Louisiana: the green area (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Consequences

Following the The Louisiana purchase, 1803 and the Treaty of Ghent, 1814, Grand-Portage ceased to be part of a territory that had been considered French or English territory. Settlers would soon begin arriving in both Manitoba, a British possession, and in Minnesota. As for our voyageur, he had to use other trading-posts and was still in the employ of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The American Fur Trade Company, 1808

At this point, the United States entered the fur-trade business. On 6 April 1808, John Jacob Astor (17 July 1763 – 29 March 1848), German (Waldesians)- born Johann Jakob Astor, established the American Fur Company and also established the Pacific Fur Company.  Ramsay Crooks, John Jacob’s employee and his successor, hired American canoemen, but his employer would never have become the richest man in the world had  Congress not allowed him to hire Canadiens.

The Americans recruited by Ramsay Crooks did not prove equal to the task. They could not work in unison. They carried guns, quarreled among themselves, and killed North-American Indians. So Ramsay Crooks decided that an exception had to be made to the Embargo Act of 1807.

Ramsay Crooks therefore wrote to Astor:

“It will still be good policy to admit freely & without the last restraint the Canadian Boatmen. these people are indispensable to the succesful prosecution of the trade, their places cannot be supplied by Americans, who are for the most part are [sic] are too independent to submit quiety to a proper controul, and who can gain any where a subsistence much superior to a man of the interior and although the body of the Yankee can resist as much hardshiip as any man, tis only in the Canadian we find that temper of mind, to render him patient docile and persevering. in short they are a people harmless in themselves whose habit of submission fit them peculiarly for our business and if guided as it is my wish they should be, will never give just cause of alarm to the Government of the Union it is of course your object to exclude foreigner except those for whom you obtaine licences.” [i]

As a result, during Thomas Jefferson‘s presidency, the American Fur Company was allowed to employ Canadian voyageurs, which it did, with considerable success, for twenty years. In fact, John Jacob Astor, whose great-grandson perished in the sinking of the Titanic, had a fine employee in Gabriel Franchère (1786-1863). Franchère and voyageurs sailed to the mouth of the Columbia River. They travelled on the Tonquin, under the command of Jonathan Thorn, an impatient and hard man. The Tonquin left New York on 8 September 1810 and arrived at the Columbia River on 12 April 1811 to establish the first American-owned (if Canadian-staffed) outpost on the Pacific Coast, Fort Astoria (present-day Astoria, Oregon).” [ii] 

You will note that I have used bold letters to write “if Canadian-staffed.” Nute writes that “John Jacob Astor, the prince of American fur-traders and the organizer of the largest American fur company, is said to have remarked that he would rather have one voyageur than three American canoemen.” [iii]

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Note on Gabriel Franchère

When the American Fur Company surrendered to the North West Company, in 1812, Gabriel Franchère found his way back to Montreal where, temporarily, he remained in the employ of John Jacob Astor. Franchère is the author of a book entitled Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13, et 14 (Narrative of a trip to the American North West in the Years 1810, 11, 12, 13, and 14). It would seem that the book is the possession of Marianopolis College, in Westmount, Montreal. 

What I would like to point out here is that Franchère did not stay in Montreal. He returned west and died in Minnesota, where Astor’s men settled when they retired from what we could call “active duty.” It shoud also be pointed out that this was a most articulate gentleman who nevertheless worked as a mere clerk not to say voyageurs and had so loved his work that home had become Minnesota. As for voyageurs in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), most of its employees retired in neighbouring Manitoba (Canada).

  • Gabriel Franchère. a Hero to Americans (20 June 2015)
  • Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (part two) 10 June 2015)
  • Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (part one) (6 June 2015)

The Explorers 

Beaver pelts had been very precious because they were used, among other things, to make hats. Remember the high hats. But as John Jacob Astor realized, the beaver had nearly become extinct, which for him meant abandoning the fur trade. As I have noted, a large proportion of his men settled in Minnesota when they could no longer carry two bales, or when steam boats replaced the canoe. They had opened up a very large number of forts and “[t]hey, with their traders, were thus the first white settlers of most of these areas.” [iv]

—ooo—

But what of the intrepid hommes du Nord, the North men, or young voyageurs?  As it happens, “[i]t was they, too, who did the actual exploring of the interior, for the greater explorer, like Alexander Henry, Jonathan Carver, and Alexander Mackenzie [who] relied on their canoemen for knowledge of navigable streams, portages, wintering grounds and other topographical features.” [v] 

A new canoe was used, mentioned in The Voyageur & his Canoe “The Kootenay-Salish canoe was built for the rapid rivers of southern BC [British Columbia], with both ends extending out under the water (art work by Lewis Parker).” [vi]

The Kootenay-Salish Canoe by Lewis Parker (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

In short, we have just learned about a third employer. As well, we saw that most voyageurs remained where they had worked, thereby becoming settlers, and that the more intrepid worked for explorers. I am sure that Simon Fraser had voyageurs in his employ when he chartered British Columbia. The Kootenay-Salish canoe was their canoe.

northernt-david-morris1

Canoemen by David Morris

RELATED ARTICLES

  • the Voyageurs Posts (a page)
  • Aboriginals in North America (a page)

Love to everyone ♥
_________________________

[i] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageurs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1987[1931]), pp. 203-204.

[ii] Wikipedia, “Pacific Fur Company”           <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Fur_Company>

[iii] The Voyageurs, p. 6.

[iv] Nute, op. cit., p. 10.

[v]  Ibid.

[vi] James Marsch, “The Birchbark Canoe,” in the Canadian Encyclopedia <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/birchbark-canoe-1>

Un Canadien errant, 1842, La Bonne Chanson

Lake_Superior_(Ontario;_1864_)_(16359604754)

Frances Anne Hopkins

© Micheline Walker
28 March 2018
[14 January 2012]
WordPress

 

 

 

 

Translation by Leonard Cohen

Un Canadien errant (A wandering Canadian, )
Banni de ses foyers, (banned from his hearths, )
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays étrangers. (in foreign lands.)
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays étrangers. (in foreign lands.)
Un jour, triste et pensif, (One day, sad and pensive, )
Assis au bord des flots, (sitting by the flowing waters, )
Au courant fugitif (to the fleeing current)
Il adressa ces mots: (he addressed these words:)
Au courant fugitif (to the fleeing current)
Il adressa ces mots: (he addressed these words:)
“Si tu vois mon pays, (If you see my country, )
Mon pays malheureux, (my unhappy country, )
Va dire à mes amis (go tell my friends)
Que je me souviens d’eux. (that I remember them.)
Va dire…
Leonard Cohen translates Un Canadian errant
 

michelinewalker.com

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Gabriel Franchère, a Hero to Americans

20 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Diaries, Fur Trade, Voyageurs

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

a Clerk, a Gentleman of Montreal, Eyewitness to Astoria, Gabriel Franchère, J. V. Huntington, John Jacob Astor, Pacific Fur Company, Ramsay Crooks on Canadiens, Rex Ziak, Treaty of 1818, War of 1812

Fort_George

Fort George (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

On Gabriel Franchère

In 1846, Gabriel Franchère (1786 – 1863), a humble and probably “submissive” Canadien from Montreal was praised by American Senator Thomas H. Benton and spoken of as a “gentleman of Montreal,” with whom Senator Benton had “the pleasure to be personally acquainted.”

“In 1846, when the boundary question (that of the Oregon Territory in particular) was at its height, the Hon. THOMAS H. BENTON delivered in the United States Senate a decisive speech, of which the following is an extract:

‘Now for the proof∗ of all I have said. I happen to have in my possession the book of all others, which gives the fullest and most authentic details on all the points I have mentioned—a book written at a time, and under circumstances, when the author, himself a British subject and familiar on the Columbia) had no more idea that the British would lay claim to that river, than Mr. Harmon, the American writer whom I quoted, ever thought of our claiming New Caledonia [British Columbia]. It is the work of Mr. FRANCHERE, a gentleman of Montreal, with whom I have the pleasure to be personally acquainted, and one of those employed by Mr. ASTOR in founding his colony. He was at the founding of ASTORIA, at its sale to the Northwest Company, saw the place seized as a British conquest, and continued there after its seizure. He wrote in French: his work has not been done into English, though it well deserves it; and I read from the French text. He gives a brief and true account of the discovery of the Columbia.’” [EBook #15911][1]

∗ I have underlined certain portions of my quotations. The authors I am quoting did not. They, however, used capital letters.

Moreover, J. V. Huntington, the translator and editor of Franchère’s account of his sea voyage from New York to the short-lived Fort Astoria, preferred Franchère’s Relation, published in French in 1820, to Washington Irving’s Astoria, based on Franchère’s French-language Relation. Astoria was published in 1836 and it is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #1371]. J. V. Huntington writes that:

“[w]ithout disparagement to Mr. IRVING’S literary, fame, I may venture to say that I found in his work inaccuracies, misstatements (unintentional of course), and a want of chronological order, which struck forcibly one so familiar with the events themselves. I thought I could show—or rather that my simple narration, of itself, plainly discovered—that some of the young men embarked in that expedition (which founded our Pacific empire), did not merit the ridicule and contempt which Captain THORN attempted to throw upon them, and which perhaps, through the genius of Mr. IRVING, might otherwise remain as a lasting stigma on their characters.”[EBook #15911][2]

Franchère’s Claim to Fame: his Book

Had Franchère not written an accurate narrative of the Tonquin‘s journey to the northwest coast of the current United States, and of events related to this sea expedition, such as the incident at the Falkland Islands and the demise of the Tonquin, I doubt that future generations would remember Gabriel Franchère. He was a simple clerk but a witness and his book, the proof. He told Astoria.[3]

In many footnotes, the editor of a reprint of Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London, 1849) refers his readers to Gabriel Franchère’s 1820 Relation.

Moreover, although Franchère seems to have emerged from the annals of history recently, he is a familiar figure to readers of Grace Lee Nute’s The Voyageur, published in 1931.

The Many Stories

War of 1812
American Expansionism
Ethnography
Fur trade
Etc.

Given its many links: the War of 1812, American Expansionism, ethnography, Gabriel Franchère’s Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13 et 14 is a book that is difficult to overlook. It is moreover a fine narrative and could be considered both a récit de voyage (a traveler’s tale) and, to a certain extent, a coming-of-age story.[4] Gabriel Franchère was not in his teens, but he was young, 24, and he had never left home or met so evil a man as Captain Jonathan Thorn.

Franchère’s récit is linked to many events, but let us situate his narrative in its immediate context: the fur trade and, specifically, John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. Franchère (Internet Archives) wrote about:

  1. the Tonquin sailing from New York to the Columbia River (Chapters I to VI);
  2. the incident at the Falkland Islands (pp. 47-49);
  3. the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) (beginning p. 54);
  4. the Sandwich Islanders taken aboard (p. 84);
  5. the deadly Columbia Bar (beginning p. 88)
  6. the naming of Mount St. Helens (p. 109);
  7. the arrival of David Thomson (p. 120);
  8. rumours of the demise of the Tonquin (p. 124);
  9. the arrival of the overland Astorians (p. 144);
  10. the account of Captain Black claiming Fort Astoria for Britain (beginning p. 166); (12 December 1813)
  11. the departure from Fort George (p. 263); (4 April 1814)
  12. an account of the Astorians’ trip north.
Gabriel Franchère

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Main Story

Yet the main story could be the story of Gabriel Franchère himself who, in the eyes of Senator Thomas H. Benton, was a “gentleman of Montreal” and a hero to Americans.

On 12 December 1813, the Canadien clerk (un commis) did see Captain Black of the Racoon (or Raccoon) claim Fort Astoria for Britain and rename it Fort George, in honour of George III, the reigning British monarch. Yet, Gabriel Franchère is an unlikely hero to Americans and, truth be told, an unlikely hero. He was a clerk, not a partner and, as a Canadien, he was a British subject. However, he was a witness to history and told the tale.

In a post about voyageurs, I quoted Ramsay Crooks, John Jacob Astor’s successor. In his opinion, Congress “had to make an exception in the case of voyageurs when passing a law excluding all foreigners from the American fur trade,” which is how, i.e. almost accidentally, Gabriel Franchère became an American. According to Ramsay Crooks:

“tis only in the Canadian we find that temper of mind, to render him patient docile and preserving. in [sic] short they are a people harmless in themselves whose habits of submission fit them peculiarly for our business and if guided as it is my wish they should be, will never give just cause of alarm to the Government of the Union[.][5]

Be that as it may, J. V. Huntington, Gabriel Franchère’s translator and editor, tried “[t]o preserve in the translation the Defoe-like [Robinson Crusoe] simplicity of the original narrative of the young French Canadian.”

Gabriel Franchère’s Relation was published in his life time, in 1820, but it was not republished in Quebec until 2002. Gabriel Franchère may have been an unlikely American, but he retired in Minnesota, USA, because of the Treaty of 1818, or accidentally (again).

It so happens that under the terms of the Treaty of 1818, the 49th parallel would be the boundary between Canada and the United States, which meant that territory that was American became Canadian, and territory that was Canadian ended up “south of the border.” (See Treaty of Ghent and Treaty of 1818, Wikipedia.)

The map below can be enlarged by clicking on the image.

UnitedStatesExpansion

Treaty of 1818: the Boundary between Canada and the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grace Lee Nute writes that:

“[t]he Astorians have been famous in American history for over a century. Ramsay Crooks, W. P. Hunt, Robert McLellan, Gabriel Franchere, and the two Stuarts, Robert and David—who does not know of their heroic adventures in crossing the great West and navigating around the Horn to found near the mouth of the Columbia an American trading post named in honor of the master spirit of the enterprise, John Jacob Astor?”[6]

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part Two) (10 June 2015)
  • Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part One) (6 June 2015)
  • John Jacob Astor & the Voyager as Settler and Explorer (14 January 2012)
  • They had Witnesses To Prove It (tkmorin.com)

Sources and Ressources

  • Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814; or, the First American Settlement on the Pacific, Project Gutenberg [EBook #15911] EN
  • Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814; or, the First American  Settlement on the Pacific (Internet Archives) EN
  • Gabriel Franchère, Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13 et 14 (Montréal : C. B. Pasteur, 1820) (Internet Archives) FR
  • Washington Irving’s Astoria, Project Gutenberg [EBook #1371] EN
  • Ross’s Adventures of the First Setters on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London, 1849) (Internet Archives) EN

With my kindest regards. ♥
____________________

[1] Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, translator and editor, Preface to the second edition of a Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1810, 1811, 1813 and 1814, or the First American Settlement on the Pacific (New York, 1854).

[2] Ibid.

[3] See They had Witnesses To Prove It (tkmorin.com)

[4] This may also be the case with Alexander Ross‘ narrative. Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London, 1849). (Reprint, Carlisle, Massachusetts: Applewood Books).

[5] See John Jacob Astor & the Voyager as Settler and Explorer (michelinewalker.com)

[6] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur (St. Paul: Reprint Edition Minnesota Historical Society, 1955), p. 173. 

Gabriel Franchère (en français)

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/radio/profondeur/RemarquablesOublies/franchere.htm

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/de_remarquables_oublies/serie/document.asp?idDoc=149919

Eyewitness to Astoria by Rex Ziak

David Thomson

David Thompson

© Micheline Walker
20 June 2015
WordPress

45.403816 -71.938314

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Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part One)

06 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Aboriginals, Sharing, Travel Literature, Voyageurs

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alexander Ross, Chief Wickaninnish, Emily Carr, Gabriel Franchère, J. V. Huntington, John Jacob Astor, Paul Kane, The Haida People, The Tonquin, Voyage from New York to Fort Astoria

Paul Kane, 1846
Paul Kane, 1846

Buffalo Bulls Fighting by Paul Kane

Paul Kane, 1846, watercolour on paper. Kane visited the West when the bison were still numerous (courtesy Stark Foundation, Orange, Texas)

(Photo and caption credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Progress Report

We are now at the mouth of the Columbia River, aboard the Tonquin, when the War of 1812 broke out, ending John Jacob Astor‘s dream of a monopoly on the fur trade in North America.  John Jacob Astor (17 July 1763 – 29 March 1848), had just founded the Pacific Fur Company (PFC). The demise of the Tonquin, a bark, at the Clayoquot Sound, was a factor in the collapse of the Pacific Fur Company. Chief Wickaninnish and members of his tribe, murdered most of the Tonquin’s crew.

At Fort Astoria, in the Oregon country, nearly everyone was British. Fort Astoria quickly became Fort George. The Montreal-based North West Company, rivals to the Hudson’s Bay Company, bought the Pacific Fur Company‘s assets.

Gabriel Franchère

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

I am reading online publications of Gabriel Franchère‘s narrative of the journey that took him from New York to short-lived Fort Astoria, as well as my own copies of such works as Alexander Ross’s account of his adventures in the Oregon country.

Gabriel Franchère, a clerk, was one of John Jacob Astor’s most trusted employees who, as it turns out, would become an author. Franchère wrote a detailed Relation, a narrative, of the trip that took him and all men aboard the Tonquin, from partners in the Company to the lowliest employees, from New York to Fort Astoria, around Cape Horn.

In 1836, John Jacob would commission famed author Washington Irving (3 April 1783 – 28 November 1859; Rip van Winkle) to write Astoria. Consequently, Franchère’s narrative was requisitioned. Gabriel Franchère was a mere clerk.

In Franchère’s Narrative, translated and edited by J. V. Huntington, Aboriginals are often referred to as “barbarians” and “savages,” but Franchère observed that it was best to treat them as equals and thereby avoid hostility. I don’t know what led Chief Wickaninnish to murder most of the crew of the Tonquin.

A Honeymoon 

Coincidentally, my husband and I spent our honeymoon at Wickaninnish Inn, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in the area where the Tonquin was destroyed. The food was extraordinary and we were in the company of celebrities who flew to the Inn regularly to “get away from it all.” At the time, there was no road to Wickaninnish Inn. We had Long Beach all to ourselves. Emily Carr had lived in that area. So we visited and worshipped.

Haida Totems by Emily Carr

Haida Totems by Emily Carr (Photo Credit: Google Images)

When we returned to Vancouver, I took a course on textile and was taught the Haida people‘s techniques for spinning, dyeing, and weaving wool. I still have wool I spun decades ago, but I gave my artwork. I believe it was destroyed, which could be what it deserved. 

The years I spent on the west coast were my happiest.

Sources and Resources

  • Ali Alizadeh Interviews Paul Kane, Cordite Poetry Review
  • pen.org/Paul Kane
  • Irving, Washington, Astoria, Gutenberg [EBook #1371]
  • Franchère, Gabriel and J. V. Huntington: Narrative of a voyage to the northwest coast, Gutenberg [EBook #15911] EN
  • Franchère, Gabriel and J. V. Huntington: Narrative of a voyage to the northwest coast (Internet Archives) EN
  • Franchère, Gabriel: Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale (Internet Archives) FR
  • Ross, Alexander: Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (Internet Archives) EN
  • Ross, Alexander: Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (Internet Archives) FR

With kindest regards ♥
_________________________

I am  inserting a brief video on Emily Carr (The Canadian Encyclopedia). Simply click on the link below and use the arrows to see the video:

Emily Carr (click)

I am also inserting, once again, Canada’s National Film Board‘s documentary on Paul Kane. It is a 1972 production by Gerard Budner (1972: 14 min 28 s.). It cannot be embedded, but one is a mere click away, below:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/paul_kane_goes_west (click)

untitled

Boat Encampment, Sketch made by Paul Kane on the Columbia River, BC, c. 1846, watercolour. (Courtesy Stark Foundation, Orange, Texas). (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

© Micheline Walker
6 June 2015
WordPress

michelinewalker.com

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French Canadians in the United States

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, United States, Voyageurs

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Cajuns, Canada, French Canadian, Gabriel Franchère, John Jacob Astor, Migration to USA, New France, Quebec, United States, voyageurs

Jolliet, Louis: Mississippi River exploration with Jacques Marquette, S. J.

 Photo credit: The Encyclopædia Britannica[i]

Yesterday, I went to my Gmail account and read posts written by people who are following my blog. It was an education and I am not finished. At least two of my readers are investigating their French-Canadian and French ancestry.

The story of the French in North America is a lengthy tale and although Quebec is home to the largest concentration of French-speaking North Americans, French Canadians are everywhere in North America and a large number are in the United States. Let us raise that curtain.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

The first to leave New France and find a home in the United States are the Huguenots (Reformed Church of France or Calvinist Protestants). There were many Huguenots in New France. They left when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, in October 1685.[ii] For instance, whenever the Bourbeau family, my mother’s family, has a reunion, most “relatives” comes from the United States. The Bourbeau family was a Huguenot family. Three Bourbeau families found refuge in Canada, but two left for the United States in 1685 so they could remain Huguenots. One Bourbeau family converted to Catholicism. They stayed in New France and are my ancestors.

In an early edition of his Histoire du Canada, written between 1845 and 1848,  François-Xavier Garneau expressed the view that New France was weakened when the Huguenots left. However, he had to delete these comments to avoid condemnation on the part of the Church. His Histoire would have been à l’Index, or on the List of Prohibited Books.

The Voyageurs

The Tonquin in 1811 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many Canadiens who worked as voyageurs were employed by German- and Waldensian– born John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848).[iii] Upon retirement, they settled in Minnesota, but many moved to other parts of the United States.

Gabriel Franchère

In fact, John Jacob Astor so trusted one of his voyageurs, Gabriel Franchère (3 Nov. 1786 in Montreal – 12 April 1863 in St Paul, Minn), that he asked him to take voyageurs from New York to Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River, in the Oregon Country. These voyageurs, some of whom were employees of the North West Company, based in Montreal, traveled on the Tonquin around Cape Horn. The Tonquin was purchased by American John Jacob Astor on August 23, 1810, the day John Jacob founded the Pacific Fur Company. It left New York on September 8, 1810 and reached its destination on March 22, 1811.

Gabriel Franchère returned to Montreal, married and wrote his memoirs for his family and friends. However his manuscript was edited and published by Michel Bibaud in 1820. After spending several years in Montreal, Franchère went back to the United States and died in St Paul, Minnesota.

It is possible to follow the path of Canadiens voyageurs who worked for John Jacob Astor. They gave French names to rivers, forts and other locations. For example, it has been suggested that Ozark comes from aux arcs, at the arches, because of bends in a river. I heard this on A&E.

Acadians of the Great Expulsion (1755-1763)

Other inhabitants of New France who became Americans are Acadians deported in 1755. Some boats did not sail down the Thirteen Colonies, but some did. The deportees stayed aboard until one of the colonies, Georgia, allowed them to leave their ships. A few of these Acadians found their way back to Canada’s current Atlantic provinces, but many traveled from Georgia to Louisiana, another province of New France, and are known as Cajuns.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) immortalized the Great Expulsion (le grand dérangement [the great disturbance]) by creating a fictional Évangéline whom Acadians transformed into their héroïne. The mythic Évangéline is alive in the mind of Acadians.

French Canadians and Acadians: US Migration

Moreover, close to a million French Canadians and Acadians left Quebec or Acadie because they could not find employment in Canada. This period of Canadian history, the USA Migration FR (1840-1930), is often referred to as l’Exode. I have an American grandfather. He could not find work in Canada. My grandmother stayed in Canada, but my grandfather rebuilt his life in Massachusetts. I would never have met him had my mother not decided that her children would have at least one grandfather. Her father had died.

In fact, many of the voyageurs were French Canadians or Canadiens who could not find employment on the shores of the St Lawrence. The thirty acres of land they had rented from a seigneur since the seventeenth century could no longer be divided. Some retired near the Red River in Manitoba, but the voyageurs who had been in the employ of John Jacob Astor became Americans. These could be considered exode French-Canadians.

Conclusion

The above seem the main groups of Canadiens who became Americans. But there may be others. For instance, the people of Louisiana, other than the Cajuns, were also French, but traditionally Canada and Acadie have been considered the provinces of New France. Until recently, Louisiana was not looked upon as a province of New France.

Therefore, the French-speaking inhabitants of Louisiana are the descendants of the French who settled in Louisiana and did not return to France after the Louisiana Purchase (1803). They are not descendants of French-Canadians. Acadiens, called Cajuns, are the descendants of Acadiens who were deported and settled in or near Baton Rouge when Louisiana was still a French colony. Other French-Canadians are descendants of voyageurs, or French-speaking Canadians who left New France to avoid religious persecutions or migrated south because they could no longer earn a living in Canada.

I will conclude by saying that French Canada and the United States are inextricably linked because of migrations from New France and Canada to the United States. Many, if not most, Americans of French-Canadian descent do not speak French, but we share cultural affinities and a collective memory. Historical events have linked Americans and French-Canadians. There is a brotherhood among us, a brotherhood I celebrate.

_________________________

[i] Jolliet, Louis: Mississippi River exploration with Marquette. Photograph.
Britannica Online for Kids. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.  <http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-101193>.

[ii] The Edict of Nantes, an edict of tolerance, was issued on 13 April 1598, by Henri IV, king of France and Navarre.  Henri IV had been a Huguenot.  He is famous for have said that “Paris (being King) was well worth a mass” (Paris vaut bien une messe). The first expeditions to Canada, Acadie to be precise, were undertaken during his reign by Pierre Du Gua de Monts (c. 1558 – 1628) a Huguenot, and Champlain, also a Huguenot but less visibly.

[iii]John Jacob Astor founded the American Fur Company (1808) and the Pacific Fur Company (June 23, 1810).

Pierre Du Gua de Monts
 © Micheline Walker
 November 13, 2012
 WordPress

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The Voyageur Posts

09 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Group of Seven, Hudson Bay Company, John Jacob Astor, voyageur, WordPress

The Old Willow*
A. J. Casson
c. 1919-1920

*linocut on japan paper
The National Gallery of Canada
A. J. Casson (May 17, 1898 – February 20, 1992)
Group of Seven
 

This list has been compiled for persons interested in the voyageurs who transported fur, in birch bark canoes, for a bourgeois, the Hudson Bay Company (incorporated in 1670), the North West Company, headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821 (the two merged), John Jacob Astor‘s American Fur Company, established on April 6, 1810, in New York and Astor’s Pacific Fur Company, founded on June 23, 1810, in New York. Its headquarter was Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River.

The voyageurs were French Canadians who retired near Winnipeg (the Red River settlement) and in Minnesota. Very few returned to Quebec.

When they no longer transported fur, the voyageurs, many of whom were métis, and Amerindians took explorers all the way to the Pacific Coast. Many spoke Amerindian languages and those hired to transport fur were good singers. It was a requirement.

They opened up the a large part of Western North America, but mostly, Northwestern America, on both sides of the 49th parallel. They named several rivers and forts that became cities: Fort Edmonton, Fort Vancouver…

The voyageurs have been immortalized by Grace Lee Nute, the author of The Voyageur, published in 1931 by D. Appleton and Company and reprinted in 1955 by the Minnesota Historical Society. Grace Lee Nute’s The Voyageur has been available in paperback, since 1987.  

THE VOYAGEURS

In these fairylike boats… 
The Singing Voyageurs
The Voyageur Mythified
The Voyageur from Sea to Sea 
John Jacob Astor & the Voyageur as Settler and Explorer         
The Voyageur & his Canoe
The Voyageurs & their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés ← (start)
 

These posts are my intellectual property. Persons quoting or otherwise using this material may not do so without naming their source.

© Micheline Walker
8 August 2012
WordPress
 
 
 
 

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John Jacob Astor & the Voyageur as Settler and Explorer

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Explorers, Voyageurs

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

explorers, Gabriel Franchère, John Jacob Astor, Lewis Parker, Louisiana Purchase, settlers, the American Fur Trade Company, Treaty of Ghent

Signing of the Treaty of Ghent. Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier is shaking hands with United States Ambassador to Russia John Quincy Adams; British Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Henry Goulburn is carrying a red folder. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Treaty of Ghent, 1814

In my last post, I mentioned Dr Bigsby. The Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, put an end to the War of 1812, a war between the British and the Americans.  Under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, an official border had to be drawn between Canada (British) and the Union (American). Our Dr Bigsby was with the Commission whose members drew the border between Canada and the United States. Also engaged in drawing the border was Simon Fraser, an explorer. (See Treaty of 1818, Wikipedia.)

Because many voyageurs worked with the Hudson’s Bay Company, it could be that our canotier was among the last persons to realize that Nouvelle-France had become a British colony.

However the voyageur‘s world changed when the border was traced between Canada and the United States. Moreover, because of the Louisiana Purchase, the central part of the United States was no longer a French colony. Napoléon had sold nearly a third of what constitutes the present-day United States.

UnitedStatesExpansion

Louisiana: the green area (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Consequences

Following the The Louisiana purchase, 1803 and the Treaty of Ghent, 1814, Grand-Portage ceased to be part of a territory that had been considered French or English territory. Settlers would soon begin arriving in both Manitoba, a British possession, and in Minnesota. As for our voyageur, he had to use other trading-posts and was still in the employ of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The American Fur Trade Company, 1808

At this point, the United States entered the fur trade business. On 6 April 1808, John Jacob Astor (17 July 1763 – 29 March 1848), German (Waldesians)- born Johann Jakob Astor, established the American Fur Company and also established the Pacific Fur Company.

Ramsay Crooks, John Jacob’s employee and, later, his successor, hired American canoemen, but his employer would never have become the richest man in the world had  Congress not allowed him to hire Canadiens.

The Americans recruited by Ramsay Crooks did not prove equal to the task. They could  not work in unison. They carried guns, quarreled among themselves, and they killed Amerindians. Therefore, Ramsay Crooks decided that an exception had to be made to the Embargo Act of 1807.

Ramsay Crooks therefore wrote to Astor:

“It will still be good policy to admit freely & without the last restraint the Canadian Boatmen. these people are indispensable to the succesful prosecution of the trade, their places cannot be supplied by Americans, who are for the most part are [sic] are too independent to submit quiety to a proper controul, and who can gain any where a subsistence much superior to a man of the interior and although the body of the Yankee can resist as much hardshiip as any man, tis only in the Canadian we find that temper of mind, to render him patient docile and perserving. in short they are a people harmless in themselves whose habit of submission fit them peculiarly for our business and if guided as it is my wish they should be, will never give just cause of alarm to the Government of the Union it is of course your object to exclude foreigner except those for whom you obtaine licences.”[i]

As a result, during Thomas Jefferson‘s presidency, the American Fur Company was allowed to employ Canadian voyageurs, which it did, with considerable success, for twenty years. In fact, John Jacob Astor, whose great-grandson perished in the sinking of the Titanic, had a fine employee in Gabriel Franchère (1786-1863). Franchère and voyageurs sailed to the mouth of the Columbia River. They travelled on the Tonquin, under the command of Jonathan Thorn, an impatient and hard man. The Tonquin left New York on 8 September 1810 and arrived at the Columbia River on 12 April 1811 to establish the first American-owned (if Canadian-staffed) outpost on the Pacific Coast, Fort Astoria (present-day Astoria, Oregon).”[ii] 

You will note that I have used bold letters to write “if Canadian-staffed.” Nute writes that “John Jacob Astor, the prince of American fur-traders and the organizer of the largest American fur company, is said to have remarked that he would rather have one voyageur than three American canoemen.”[iii]

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Note on Gabriel Franchère

When the American Fur Company surrendered to the North West Company, in 1812, Gabriel Franchère found his way back to Montreal where, temporarily, he remained in the employ of John Jacob Astor. Franchère is the author of a book entitled Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13, et 14 (Narrative of a trip to the American North West in the Years 1810, 11, 12, 13, and 14). It would seem that the book is the possession of Marianopolis College (where I was a student for one year), in Westmount (Montreal). 

What I would like to point outis that Franchère did not stay in Montreal. He returned west and died in Minnesota, where Astor’s men settled when they retired from what we could call “active duty.” It shoud also be pointed out that this was a most articulate gentleman who nevertheless worked as a mere clerk not to say voyageurs and had so loved his work that home had become Minnesota. As for voyageurs in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), most of its employees retired in neighbouring Manitoba (Canada).

The Explorers 

Beaver pelts had been very precious because they were used, among other things, to make hats. Remember the high hats. But as John Jacob Astor realized, the beaver had nearly become extinct, which for him meant abandoning the fur trade. As I have noted, a large proportion of his men settled in Minnesota when they could no longer carry two bales, or when steam boats replaced the canoe. They had opened up a very large number of forts and “[t]hey, with their traders, were thus the first white settlers of most of these areas.”[iv]

—ooo—

But what of the intrepid hommes du Nord, the North men, or young voyageurs?  As it happens, “[i]t was they, too, who did the actual exploring of the interior, for the greater explorer, like Alexander Henry, Jonathan Carver, and Alexander Mackenzie [who] relied on their canoemen for knowledge of navigable streams, portages, wintering grounds and other topographical features.”[v] 

A new canoe was used, mentioned in The Voyageur & his Canoe “The Kootenay-Salish canoe was built for the rapid rivers of southern BC [British Columbia], with both ends extending out under the water (art work by Lewis Parker).”[vi]

The Kootenay-Salish Canoe by Lewis Parker (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

In short, we have just learned about a third employer. As well, we saw that most voyageurs remained where they had worked, thereby becoming settlers, and that the more intrepid worked for explorers. I am sure that Simon Fraser had voyageurs in his employ when he chartered British Columbia. The Kootenay-Salish canoe was their canoe.

_________________________

[i] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageurs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1987[1931]), pp. 203-204.

[ii] Wikipedia, “Pacific Fur Company”           <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Fur_Company>

[iii] The Voyageurs, p. 6.

[iv] Nute, op. cit., p. 10.

[v]  Ibid.

[vi] James Marsch, “The Birchbark Canoe,” in the Canadian Encyclopedia <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/birchbark-canoe-1>

northernt-david-morris1

Canoemen by David Morris


Un Canadien errant, 1842


The Lost Canadian

Leonard Cohen

Un Canadien errant (A wandering Canadian, )
Banni de ses foyers, (banned from his hearths, )
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays étrangers. (in foreign lands.)
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays étrangers. (in foreign lands.)
Un jour, triste et pensif, (One day, sad and pensive, )
Assis au bord des flots, (sitting by the flowing waters, )
Au courant fugitif (to the fleeing current)
Il adressa ces mots: (he addressed these words:)
Au courant fugitif (to the fleeing current)
Il adressa ces mots: (he addressed these words:)
“Si tu vois mon pays, (If you see my country, )
Mon pays malheureux, (my unhappy country, )
Va dire à mes amis (go tell my friends)
Que je me souviens d’eux. (that I remember them.)
Va dire…
0.000000 0.000000

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Katrina, Irene, Rita and Katia & the Titanic

04 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Election, The United States

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Benjamin Guggenheim, Bonheur d'occasion, Gabrielle Roy, God and disasters, hurricanes, John Jacob Astor, Lt Gen Russel L Honoré, The Tin Flute, the Titanic, WordPress

Der Untergang der Titanic

Engraving by Willy Stöwer: Der Untergang der Titanic

I’ve just reread one of my favorite short stories. It’s about the Titanic and was published in 1955 by Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) in a collection of short stories entitled Rue Deschambault, the name of Gabrielle Roy’s street in Saint-Boniface, a French-language part of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The story’s narrator, young  Christine, is huddled with her parents and two visitors, monsieur Élie and his wife, in the family kitchen, next to a large stove. Outdoors, a bitter winter storm rages, but despite the storm, uncle Majorique, a raconteur or story teller, comes knocking at the door. Consequently, Le Titanic has a child narrator, as well as a story teller: innocence and experience!

Uncle Majorique has credibility and loves progress. He owns every volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica and looks forward to the day man will land on Mars and the Moon. So he speaks of the Titanic in a somewhat detached manner, but, as his name suggests, Majorique, he embellishes the prairie storm by telling the story of the Titanic, making the Titanic a rather oversized metaphor.

—ooo—

The story of the Titanic differs substantially from accounts of natural disasters. The sinking of the Titanic is a man-made tragedy and the chief sin is vanity: hubris.  The Captain did not decrease the speed at which the ship was travelling. Yet, he knew there were icebergs in the vicinity. Icebergs are mountains of ice only the top of which is visible. They are therefore an invisible danger. Moreover, given the presumed invincibility of the ship; given also that its owners, The White Star Line, had not put the required number of lifeboats on deck, humans had played God.  About 1,500 people died during that fateful night, 15 April 1912.

There are very few links between the sinking of the Titanic and the prairie storm except that both are images of humankind’s vulnerability.  However, in both cases, we see the hand of a punitive God.  Indeed “the poor people were rich.” It was very  “wrong”, says Majorique, for them (an all-inclusive “them”) “to believe they were sheltered from God’s anger.”

Earlier in the story Christine mentions that above her mother’s sewing machine there hangs a picture of a severe God hovering above the Holy Family:  Mary, Joseph and Jesus, who resemble ordinary people.

In 1955, a French-Canadian family might indeed have seen the hand of a punitive God in the sinking of the Titanic and it might also have seen the hand of God in  natural disasters, such as Katrina and Irene. I remember being warned by a priest that if I wore shorts during the summer, I would go to Hell and my thighs would be burnt by Satan. As a result, God was terrifying to me.

—ooo—

However, the reason I am writing this blog is encapsulated in one sentence. When Christine hears that there were rich people on the Titanic, she says, as quoted above: “So the poor people were rich! (Ainsi les pauvres gens étaient riches!).” Sincere compassion for those who suffer is expressed in most of Gabrielle Roy’s works and, in Le Titanic, the compassionate character is the child narrator.

“Hammerstein!…  Vanderbilt!…”  says one of the friends of the family, monsieur Élie, trivializing the sinking of the Titanic. These names do not appear on the Titanic’s passenger list. However, among the lives reaped by the sinking of the Titanic are those of Benjamin Guggenheim and Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, both of whom were in their mid-forties, 46 and  47. Astor put his pregnant eighteen-year old wife in a lifeboat and Benjamin Guggenheim acted likewise. He made sure his mistress was ensconced in a lifeboat.

Some men may have jumped into the few lifeboats, but, theoretically, only women and children were permitted the relative security of lifeboats.  So Benjamin Guggenheim and John Jacob Astor IV both died in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic and their death was as painful, cruel and useless as the death of the poorer passengers, including servants and members of the liner’s staff.

In other words, rich or poor, we are all alike and, if anything is wrong, it is as Majorique put it. It was wrong (mal) of them “to the think they were sheltered from the wrath of God (de se croire à l’abri de la colère de Dieu).”

—000—

We are nearing the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Flying airplanes into the towers of the World Trade Centre was a man-made disaster that killed indiscriminately. The terrorists were human beings who debased themselves. But what of the United States’ reaction: two wars, torture and near-bankruptcy.

In the end, Bin Laden was found and killed by commandos, the élite Navy Seals. All that was needed were highly–trained commandos and a dog named Cairo.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden

And now, just after the debt-ceiling crisis has been temporally resolved, the hurricane season is proving deadly and repairs will be expensive. But, please do not deplete social programs to finance the repairs. It is time for the US to make the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and to promote a sense of “common purpose” (US Army Retired Lt General Russel L Honoré’s wording).

—ooo—

All are at risk.  It’s the human condition. However, nothing prevents the US from fixing its problems without prompting anxiety attacks among grandmothers, the disabled, the veterans, the children, and destabilizing an increasingly global economy.

I have empathy for President Obama, and I agree with Lt General Russel L Honoré, (ret). It may not be a bad idea to send to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, those politicians who do not have a sense of responsibility, no more than a sense of nationhood. If Camp Shelby doesn’t suffice, have them roll up their sleeves and help Irene’s, Katrina’s, Rita’s and Katia’s victims.

Make the Titanic unsinkable.

P. S.  Gabrielle Roy is the author of the internationally-acclaimed 1945 novel Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute)

Céline Dion
“My heart will go on”
from The Titanic

 

 

 

©  Micheline Walker
4 September 2011
WordPress

 

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