Tag Archives: Pierre-Esprit Radisson

The Voyageurs & their Employers

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Canada, First Nations, Fur Trade, Voyageurs

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hbc-upper_savage_islands-hudson_strait2

Hudson’s Bay Company Ships
Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait, NWT. Watercolour by Robert Hood (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-40364) (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

The Hudson’s Bay Company ships Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait by Robert Hood (1819) (Hudson Strait, Wikipedia)

The French Régime

During the French régime, the voyageurs or canoemen who travelled to the heart of the continent to collect beaver pelts were hired by a “bourgeois” who used the selection criteria I listed in my last post:

  • short legs,
  • a powerful upper body, and
  • a good singing voice.

The Hudson’s Bay Company

Matters changed when Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636–1710) and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers (1618–1696), discovered the sea we now know as the Hudson’s Bay. They collected enough beaver pelts to fill a hundred canoes. Having done so, they travelled to Canada which, at that point in history, was the western part of Nouvelle-France. The eastern part was l’Acadie, comprising Maine, part of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Radisson and Groseilliers thought that officials in Canada would be interested in their discovery: one could harvest the coveted pelts travelling by boat, large boats. Officials confiscated the fur Radisson and Des Groseilliers had brought back. It was proof of their discovery. They were treated like coureurs des bois, mere adventurers, not to say criminals.

Rupert of the Rhine

Prince Rupert of the Rhine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Radisson being very shrewd, he and Des Groseilliers went to Boston to seek the help  they required to travel to England. The Bostonians agreed to take them to England where a member of the royal family, Prince Rupert of the Rhine (17 December 1619 – 29 November 1682), took an interest in the findings of the two explorers. He financed a trip to the Hudson’s Bay. The first ships to venture to what would be Rupert’s Land were the Eaglet and the Nonsuch that left England on June 3, 1668. The Company was chartered on 2 May 1670. That is how the Hudson’s Bay Company was established.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC)

is the oldest incorporated joint-stock merchandising company in the English-speaking world.[I]

Rupert's Land showing York Factory

Rupert’s Land showing York Factory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The British Régime

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed on February 10, 1763 by France, Britain and Spain, France relinquished its claim on its two provinces of New France. The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War, an international conflict.

The North West Company

After New France became a British Colony, a second Fur Company was founded, the North West Company, and it established its headquarters in Montreal. The most prominent figures in the newly-founded company were Benjamin Frobisher, his brother Joseph, and Simon McTavish.

The Fight at Seven Oaks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

The North West Company competed with the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1779 to 1821, when a merger was negotiated. The conflict between the two companies reached an apex on 19 June 1816 when Robert Semple, Governor-in-Chief of Rupert’s Land challenged a party of Métis at Seven Oaks. The Métis were allies of the North West Company. Semple and 20 of his men were killed.

The Merger

This event served as a catalyst in the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. After the merger, the man in charge, was the immensely capable and pleasant Sir George Simpson (1787 – September 7,  1860), a Scots-Quebecer. Sir George Simpson was Governor-in-Chief of Rupert’s Land and administrator over the Northwest Territories and in British North America (now Canada) from 1821 to 1860. He was knighted by Queen Victoria.

To sum up, let us simply say that we had voyageurs working for

  • a “bourgeois,”
  • The Hudson’s Bay Company (1670 – ),
  • The North West Company, revived in 1990, but not a fur-trading company,
  • a merger (1821-1860; end of the fur trade).

However, by 1821, only one company remained: the Hudson’s Bay Company.

York boats were used by the Hudson’s Bay Company to transport furs in the Northwest. The sails could be used in open water. (Canadian Encyclopedia)

______________________________

[i] written by ARTHUR J. RAY, reviewed by SASHA YUSUFALI , accessed on January 12, 2012.  <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/hudsons-bay-company>

[ii] written by CORNELIUS J. JAENEN, accessed on January 12, 2012.  <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/treaty-of-paris-1763>

—ooo—

Arne Dørumsgaard, arr.
Frederica von Stade (1945- ) sings early French songs (3), (Edinburgh, 1976)
 
 
 

© Micheline Walker
13 January 2012
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The “Conquest” of New France

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Canada, History

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Sketch for the Death of Montcalm, by Suzor-Coté, 1902

Sketch for the Death of Montcalm, by Suzor-Coté, 1902 (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec)

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (6 April 1869 – 29 January 1937)

I featured Suzor-Coté a few days ago.  So I am using his sketch of “The Death of Montcalm.”  Montcalm was defeated by James Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.  James Wolfe also died.  He was 32 and Montcalm, 47.

The Conquest

Yesterday, I had a conversation with an educated French Canadian.  It was an eye-opener.  This gentleman is convinced that the arrival in Quebec of immigrants with multicultural backgrounds will ultimately lead to the disappearance of the French milieu in Quebec.  Moreover, he is certain that Nouvelle-France was conquered, which negates the choice the French made in 1763, the year the Treaty of Paris was signed.

He emphasized that Britain had long wanted to add Nouvelle-France to its colonies, forgetting, for instance, that when Pierre-Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law, Médard des Groseillers, known as “Radishes and Gooseberries,” discovered the Hudson Bay and returned to Canada with a flotilla of a hundred canoes filled with pelts, they were treated as coureurs de bois rather than explorers.  Unlike coureurs de bois, voyageurs were hired and had a license to travel and fetch fur west of what is now Quebec.

Because the fur he had brought to Montreal was confiscated, Radisson went to England and obtained the support of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, KG, PC, FRS (17 December 1619 – 29 November 1682).  Prince Rupert financed an expedition to the current Hudson Bay.  In 1668-1669, the Nonsuch sailed across the Atlantic. Radisson was right.  Large boats could travel to the inner part of Canada, from the North.  This way fur traders would not need canoes as much as they had to previously.  Yet, let it be known that canoes manned by nimble voyageurs continued to do the better job of gathering precious pelts.

The fact remains, however, that when the Hudson’s Bay Company was founded, in 1670, Britain acquired Rupert’s Land.  It was a vast chunk of North America which the French had an opportunity of acquiring, except that Louis XIV was building a castle at Versailles, which French peasants would have to pay for.

Rupert's Land

Rupert’s Land

At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, France’s financial circumstances were strained.  In October 1776, Louis XVI appointed Swiss-born Jacques Necker director-general of the finances, but despite a degree of success, Necker could not prevent the French Revolution.  In other words, in 1673, not only had France lost battles, but it was poor.  Nouvelle-France being a financial burden, France chose to keep sugar rich Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Of course, Britain wanted to appropriate Nouvelle-France, i.e. Canada and Acadie, but France itself could not fight back.  It seems that, in the end, the more prosperous nation won.  At one point, France owned nearly two-thirds of North-America.  It lost New France in 1763 and, in 1803, it sold Louisiana.  Napoleon (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) needed money.

Battles do play an important role in history but, occasionally, there is a “bottom line.”  New France fell to Britain, but in this particular demise, only a richer France could have kept New France.  The puzzling element in the Treaty of Paris is Britain’s willingness not to take away from its new French-speaking subjects their farms, their seigneuries and their religion.  Moreover, at the time of the French Revolution, Britain made it possible for émigrés priests to move to Quebec where they would not be idle and that many became educators.

I will conclude by expressing doubts as to the possibility of teaching their true history to those Québécois who have chosen to think that New France was conquered, that there were no ‘patriots’ killed in Toronto (see Upper Canada Rebellion), and that Canada is not an officially bilingual country promoting the use of French.

I would also like to stress that if French-speaking Quebecers want to keep their language, they should make it their personal duty to do so.  Speaking French as well as possible begins at home.  As for the Quebec Government, it would be my opinion that, with respect to the survival and growth of French, it ought to make it its main mission to encourage Québécois to speak and write their language more correctly.  It would give itself a positive and attainable goal.  Québécois should feel motivated to perfect their French.

At any rate, there was no “conquest” of New France.  France had lost battles, but the truth remains that it chose to part with New France because it was not bringing in a profit.

With kind regards to all of you,

Micheline

—ooo—

Paul Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) sings Un Canadien errant (Antoine Gérin-Lajoie)

328px-1837_ProclamationProclamation posted on December 7, 1837 offering a reward of one thousand pounds for the capture of William Lyon Mackenzie.  (See Upper Canada Rebellion, Wikipedia.)

© Micheline Walker
June 5, 2013
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Sir Martin Frobisher as Privateer and Hero to his Queen

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in Canada, History

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The Spanish Armada, 1588

(please click on the map to enlarge it)

Martin Frobisher as Explorer

The map to the left helps us see where Martin Frobisher,[i] (b. 1539?; d. 1594) the men, now less than 400, and the thirteen ships, fifteen to begin with, spent the stormy summer of 1578.  To the right of the map, we see the Hudson Strait, a passage leading to the Hudson Bay.  Above is Baffin Island at the bottom of which we find a bay named after Martin Frobisher: Frobisher Bay.  During the third trip, in 1578, the men were on Kodlunarn Island, 500 miles (800 kilometers) off the northeastern shore of Frobisher Bay.

Martin Frobisher’s first trip to the Labrador Sea had been undertaken in 1576 when Frobisher was granted a licence at the request of Michael Lok of the Muscovy Company.  He was then in search of a northwest passage to India.  He lost the Michaell, the Gabriell‘s sister ship, but nevertheless discovered the inlet that bears his name.

During his first trip, Frobisher had found ore which he suspected was gold and, as promised, he gave to Michael Lok, his governor,  “the fyrst thinge that he founde in the new land.” (Alan Cooke, “Sir Martin Frobisher,” The Canadian Encyclopedia)  The ore was identified as marcasite by three assayers, but a fourth expert, Agnello, an Italian, found three tiny amounts of gold.

Consequently, Frobisher ceased to look for a northwest passage to India.  On 7 June 1577, the Ayde, the Gabrielle, and the Michaell  left Harwich with 120 men.  Ships and men went to the island from which the marcasite had been taken, a year earlier, but found little.  Frobisher moved to another island in his “strait” for mining.  Five miners and other members of the expedition loaded the Ayde with about 200 tons of ore.

The 1578 expedition was also launched for the purpose of finding gold.  Frobisher had fifteen ships.  But this sad story has been told.  (See Related Article below)  Martin Frobisher’s third trip had been a very expensive venture that brought a degree of shame on the leader of the expedition, except that Frobisher may well have traveled to the Hudson Strait which led to the Hudson Bay.

(please click on the map to enlarge it)

Martin Frobisher’s Three Trips

the Hudson Strait, an entrance to the Hudson Bay

The Hudson Strait, was not officially discovered until Henry Hudson’s ill-fated expedition of 1611.  A munitous crew “forced Hudson, his son and 7 others into a small shallot and cut it adrift[.]” (James Marsh, “Henry Hudson,” The Canadian Encyclopedia).[ii]   Martin Frobisher had discovered Frobisher Bay, a relatively large inlet of the Labrador Sea which he had explored all the way to its harbor.  However, although the Hudson Strait is named after Henry Hudson, it appears it was also explored, albeit inadvertently, by Martin Frobisher.

A quarter of a century elapsed before George Waymouth, in 1602, and Henry Hudson, in 1610, demonstrated that the “mistaken straytes” led not into the South or West Sea, as Frobisher believed, but into the inland sea now called Hudson Bay.[iii]

Radisson and Groseilliers

Consequently, about a century later, when Pierre-Esprit Radisson (b in France 1636; d at London, Eng June 1710) and his brother-in-law, Médart Chouard des Groseilliers (b in France 31 July 1618; d at New France 1696?) discovered the Hudson Bay by land, from the south, they knew there was a northern sea entrance, to “the sea to the north.”  Both Frobisher, unofficially, and Henry Hudson, officially, had chartered that territory.  Fur was North America’s gold.  Therefore, ironically, Sir Martin discovered gold.

The Nonsuch

The Hudson’s Bay Company, 1670

When Radisson and Groseilliers filled one hundred canoes with precious pelts and left for the shores of the St Lawrence River, New France, their pelts were confiscated and our two explorers were treated like coureurs des bois.  Voyageurs worked for a licensed bourgeois.  They were hommes engagés, hired men.  As for coureurs des bois, they did not have a licence to travel along waterways and exchange mostly trinkets and, all too often, alcohol with Amerindians who supplied them with pelts.

Having been treated like criminals, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouard des Groseilliers traveled to England and told their story.  Prince Rupert listened and, as a result, when the Nonsuch returned to England, proving that Radisson’s proposed venture was “practical and profitable,” (“Pierre-Esprit Radisson,” The Canadian Encyclopedia) the Hudson’s Bay Company was established.  It was incorporated by English royal chart on 2 May 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay.

Frobisher, the Privateer and the Hero: the Spanish Armada

Martin Frobisher, by Cornelis Ketel (1577)

Frobisher’s apparent demise, in 1578, put an end to his attempts to find a northwest passage to India. But he became one of Elizabeth’s trusted Sea Dogs or privateers: Sir John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Martin himself.  Unlike pirates, privateers pursued an enemy to the Crown and were therefore in possession of a licence, as were the voyageurs and their employers.

In 1585, Sir Francis Drake (1545- 1596), with Frobisher as vice-admiral, led a privateering expedition of 25 vessels to the West Indies. The bounty Sir Martin Frobisher made working alongside Sir Francis Drake allowed him to repay the money lost in the pursuit of ore that glittered but was not gold. Reports differ. Frobisher may have been knighted at this point, but I would suspect he was knighted because he was one of the seamen who repelled the Spanish Armada in 1588.

In 1591, Sir Martin Frobisher married Dorothy Wentworth (1543 – 3 January 1601), a daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth.  However, a year later, he was again at sea having taken charge of the fleet “fitted out” by Sir Walter Raleigh to the Spanish coast.  He returned with a generous bounty.  In 1594, Frobisher died, in England, of a gunshot wound inflicted at the Siege of Fort Crozon, in France.

Related Article:

Sir Martin Frobisher: the First Thanksgiving

_________________________

[i] Alan Cooke, “Sir Martin Frobisher,” The Canadian Dictionary of Biography online http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=34352

[ii] Three other men met a cruel end, but Robert Bylot piloted the Discovery back to England. James Marsh, “Henry Hudson,” The Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/henry-hudson

[iii] Alan Cooke, loc. cit.

[iv] Peter N. Moogk, “Pierre-Esprit Radisson,” The Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/pierreesprit-radisson

 
© Micheline Walker
November 26, 2012
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Madeleine Jarret de Verchères: a Canadian Heroine

15 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canada

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Madeleine de Verchères

Photo credit: Wikipedia

My next post is a continuation of the Noble Savage, but I will pause briefly and deal with not-so-noble Amerindians by telling the story of Madeleine de Verchères[i] (March 3, 1678 – August 8, 1747).  Given the discrepancies between versions of this story, it is somewhat difficult, but not impossible, to tell.

Madeleine de Verchères

In 1691, the Iroquois, the most ferocious among Amerindians and allies to the English, grew particularly aggressive.  On 22 October 1692, at eight o’clock in the morning, the Iroquois captured about twenty settlers who were working in the fields, as was Madeleine.  One caught up with Madeleine who was wearing a scarf around her neck.  Madeleine lost her kerchief but she got away.

Madeleine was the fourteen-year old daughter of a seigneur.  According to one account, she lived in a castle, but it appears she lived in a fort with other settlers, soldiers and cattle.  Her father, François Jarret de Verchères[ii] had been a soldier with the Régiment de Carignan-Salières and would have built a fort, not a castle.  On the day of the attack, 22 October 1692, only one soldier was at the fort.

Madeleine’s mother is described as a 33-year old widow in one account, but according to another account, she and her husband were not at the fort on the infamous day.  They had gone to purchase supplies.

Having entered the fort, Madeleine went to the bastions where there was a cannon.  Madeleine fired the cannon to warn others and to call for reinforcement.  (Madeleine de Verchères, Wikipedia)

She then asked the settlers and the soldier to make a huge noise so the Iroquois would be fooled into thinking the fort was well protected and she started firing.  She drove the Iroquois away, but they took with them the men they had captured.

According to Wikipedia, at one point, Madeleine noticed that settlers, the Fontaine family, were in a canoe returning to the fort.  The soldier was too afraid to run to the landing dock and lead the Fontaine inside the fort, so Madeleine ran out and took them in.

In the Wikipedia entry, it is also reported that, when evening came, the cattle returned.  Fearing that Iroquois were behind the cattle, Madeleine and her two brothers went out of the fort, under cover of darkness, to make sure there were no Iroquois dressed as cattle.  The cattle had returned on their own and walked into the fort.

As for the captured settlers, they were subjected to torture à la Iroquois, which means that they were burned.  It appears that these unfortunates were saved by a party of friendly Amerindians who found them in the region of Lake Champlain.  It was possible to survive torture, depending on the severity of the wounds, the length of time the victim was tortured and resistance on the part of the victim.  Pierre-Esprit Radisson was captured and tortured by Amerindians and survived.[iii] 

However, an alternate and merciful account has a different ending.  The day after the attack, reinforcement arrived and the settlers were released.  Madeleine reported that there were two deaths.

* * *

Despite differences, the accounts of Madeleine de Verchères tell of a young woman who saved a fort.  Madeleine Jarret de Verchères is a Canadian heroine. Madeleine’s story was recorded by historian Claude Charles Le Roy de la Potherie.[iv] 

_________________________
 
[i] André Vachon, “Jarret de Verchères, Madeleine,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=1418
 
[ii] Céline Dupré, “Jarret de Verchères, Pierre,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=858
 
[iii] Grace Lee Nute, “Pierre-Esprit Radisson,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=1052
 
[iv] Léon Pouliot, “Le Roy de la Potherie, Claude Charles,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=947  
 
 
© Micheline Walker
15 November 2012
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New France: Once Upon a Time…

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Canada, History

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LOUIS HÉBERT (c. 1575 – January 1627): the First Farmer
 

Before I write further on the subject of Nouvelle-France’s viability, we need to return to the blog I posted earlier this week: The Treaty of Paris (1763) and the Fate of the Canadiens. A few sentences disappeared as drafts were saved.

For instance, the section devoted to the Company of One Hundred Associates lost its last sentences.

Louis Hébert, Nouvelle-France first farmer

However, it would not be unreasonable to think that the Associates played one role only, which was to send settlers to New France or bring settlers to New France and that, as a consequence, farming may have been limited. The individuals who were granted a SEIGNEURIE were not necessarily persons who could run a farming community.

The official reason given by the Company of One Hundred Associates for abandoning its mission in New France was hostility on the part of Amerindians. Settlers were being killed. The Associates played one role only: sending or bringing in settlers. The colony was attacked several times by hostile Amerindians, which means that the company did not ensure the safety of the settlers.

Medical Care

Moreover, in this part of the North-American continent, life was harsh. There were epidemics of scurvy. It was therefore necessary to bring in not only a regiment, but also medical practitioners. Had arrangements been made to that effect?

Louis Hébert as Apothecary

Canada’s first settlers who actually farmed the land were Louis Hébert (c. 1575 – January 1627) and his wife Marie Rollet.  Louis Hébert was an apothecary in Paris. His arrival dates back to the earliest days of New France and it was a blessing. He first went to Port-Royal, the main settlement in Acadie. He accompanied a relative, a cousin-in-law, the Baron de Poutrincourt, in what was an attempt to settle in the colony. However, Hébert did not settle definitively until Champlain built the HABITATION in what is now Quebec City. The first farmer had arrived but he, Louis Hébert, and his wife were unprotected.

The Régiment de Carignan-Salières

In 1665, Louis XIV[i] of France did send the Régiment de Carignan-Salières, named after Thomas-François de Savoie, prince de Carignan. The regiment’s commander was the Marquis Henri de Chastelard de Salières, hence the name Carignan-Salières. At that rather late point, the colony was defended by 1 300 soldiers, 1,000 according to the Canadian Encyclopedia (French entry). The French settlers were attacked by Odinossonis called Iroquois or Agniers and also had to fight the citizens of Nieue Amsterdam, New Amsterdam (New York) where citizens were also attacked by Iroquois Amerindians. The Iroquois were defeated in 1666.

Entente with Iroquois Amerindians

The entente signed in 1667, may have brought a temporary thruce in the struggle to survive despite attacks. However, at the end of the seventeenth century Madeleine de Verchères (3 mars 1678 – 8 août 1747), the 14 year-old daughter of a SEIGNEUR, drove away the Iroquois Amerindians, but historian Marcel Trudel[ii] has suggested that this story was embellished by Madeleine de Verchères herself. It nevertheless belongs to a chronicle of hostility on the part of the Iroquois against New France. But the Dutch and other colonists were also targeted by Iroquois. The Amerindians were losing their land.

The Fur Trade

Moreover, when I studied the fur trade (blogs are listed below, please click), I read that when he arrived in New France, Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636–1710) was kidnapped by Amerindians and tortured.[iii]  And matters would not improve. When Pierre-Esprit and his brother-in-law, the older Médard Chouart des Groseillers (1618–1696), discovered the Hudson’s Bay, by land, colonial authorities did not, it seems, act in the best interest of the colony nor, for that matter, in the best interest of the motherland.

The Golden Goose: Radisson Goes to England

On the contrary, when Radisson and Groseillers brought back one hundred canoes of pelts to the shores of the St Lawrence, these were confiscated. Radisson therefore travelled to England, made a favorable impression, and in 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Company was created:

The company was incorporated by English royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay

As a result, we now know why, “[i]n 1701, no furs were collected but France was forced to still pay the colony to keep it running.” (from a website entitled The Economy of New France, in PDF). It would appear that colonial authorities did not think in the long term. I suspect that they pounced on the pelts, made money quickly, thereby killing the Golden Goose. Authorities acted as if there were no tomorrow.

Farming…

Morever, even though there were HABITANTS on SEIGNEURIES, little importance was given to agricultural skills. New France would grow into an agrarian society, but Louis Hébert introduced farming with very little help. He then fell on the treacherous ice, which killed him prematurely.

Related to this question is the matter of monopolies. I will tell a little more about the monopoly given Pierre du Gua de Mons by Henri IV of France. This will take us back to an earlier blog: Richelieu & Nouvelle-France.

However, I will pause at this point to avoid fatigue.  My next post is a continuation of this one. As mentioned above, I have made a list of my posts on the voyageurs, except the posts that deal specifically with their songs.

Voyageurs Posts: start with the bottom Post

 
 

Louis Hébert

In these fairy-like boats
The Voyageur Mythified
The Singing Voyageurs
The Voyageurs: from Sea to Sea
John Jacob Astor & the Voyageur as Settler and Explorer
The Voyageur and his Canoe
The Voageurs and their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés ←
 
 
 
© Micheline Walker
May 4, 2012
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Mozart: 9 Variations sur un menuet de Duport en Ré Majeur, K.273
(please click on the title to hear the music) 
________________________
[i] This date is consistent with the dissolution, in 1663, of the Company of One Hundred.
[ii] Marcel Trudel, Mythes et réalités dans l’histoire du Québec (Montréal: Bibliothèque Québécoise, Québec, 2006), 346 pages.
[iii] Grace Lee Nute, Caesars of the Wilderness: Médard Chouart, Sieur Des Groseilliers and Pierre-Esprit Radisson, 1618-1710. (not available) 

The Voyageurs & their Employers

13 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada, First Nations, Fur Trade, Voyageurs

≈ 86 Comments

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hbc-upper_savage_islands-hudson_strait2

Hudson’s Bay Company Ships
Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait, NWT. Watercolour by Robert Hood (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-40364) (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

The Hudson’s Bay Company ships Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait by Robert Hood (1819) (Hudson Strait, Wikipedia)

The French Régime

During the French régime, the voyageurs or canoemen who travelled to the heart of the continent to collect beaver pelts were hired by a “bourgeois” who used the selection criteria I listed in my last blog:

  • short legs,
  • a powerful upper body, and
  • a good singing voice.

The Hudson’s Bay Company

Matters changed when Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636–1710) and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers (1618–1696), discovered what we now know as the Hudson’s Bay. They collected enough beaver pelts to fill a hundred canoes. Having done so, they travelled to Canada which, at that point in history, was the western part of Nouvelle-France. The eastern part was l’Acadie, comprising Maine, part of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Radisson and Groseilliers thought that officials in Canada would be interested in their discovery: one could harvest the coveted pelts travelling by boat, large boats. Officials confiscated the fur Radisson and Des Groseilliers had brought back. It was proof of their discovery. They were treated like coureurs des bois, mere adventurers, not to say criminals.

Rupert of the Rhine

Prince Rupert of the Rhine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Radisson being very shrewd, he and Des Groseilliers went to Boston to seek the help they required to travel to England. The Bostonians agreed to take them to England where a member of the royal family, Prince Rupert of the Rhine (17 December 1619 – 29 November 1682), took an interest in the findings of the two explorers. He financed a trip to the Hudson’s Bay. The first ships to venture to what would be Rupert’s Land were the Eaglet and the Nonsuch that left England on June 3, 1668. The Company was chartered on May 2, 1670. That is how the Hudson’s Bay Company was established.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC)

is the oldest incorporated joint-stock merchandising company in the English-speaking world.[I]

Rupert's Land showing York Factory

Rupert’s Land showing York Factory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The British Régime

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed on February 10, 1763 by France, Britain and Spain, France relinquished its claim on its two provinces of New France. The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War, an international conflict.

The North West Company

After New France became a British Colony, a second Fur Company was founded, the North West Company, and it established its headquarters in Montreal. The most prominent figures in the newly-founded company were Benjamin Frobisher, his brother Joseph, and Simon McTavish.

The Fight at Seven Oaks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

The North West Company competed with the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1779 to 1821, when a merger was negotiated. The conflict between the two companies reached an apex on June 19, 1816 when Robert Semple, Governor-in-Chief of Rupert’s Land challenged a party of Métis at Seven Oaks. The Métis were allies of the North West Company. Semple and 20 of his men were killed.

The Merger

This event served as a catalyst in the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. After the merger, the man in charge, was the immensely capable and pleasant Sir George Simpson (1787 – September 7,  1860), a Scots-Quebecer. Sir George Simpson was Governor-in-Chief of Rupert’s Land and administrator over the Northwest Territories and in British North America (now Canada) from 1821 to 1860. He was knighted by Queen Victoria.

To sum up, let us simply say that we had voyageurs working for

  • a “bourgeois,”
  • The Hudson’s Bay Company (1670 – ),
  • The North West Company, revived in 1990, but not a fur-trading company,
  • a merger (1821-1860; end of the fur trade).

However, by 1821, only one company remained: the Hudson’s Bay Company.

York boats were used by the Hudson’s Bay Company to transport furs in the Northwest. The sails could be used in open water. (Canadian Encyclopedia)

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[i] written by ARTHUR J. RAY, reviewed by SASHA YUSUFALI , accessed on January 12, 2012.  <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/hudsons-bay-company>

[ii] written by CORNELIUS J. JAENEN, accessed on January 12, 2012. < http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/treaty-of-paris-1763>

—ooo—

Arne Dørumsgaard, arr.
Frederica von Stade (1945- ) sings early French songs (3), (Edinburgh, 1976)
 
 
 

© Micheline Walker
13 January 2012
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