1672-1683
TRADE AT MONTREAL UNDER FRONTENAC AND PERROT
WEST INDIA COMPANY SUPPRESSED--MONTREAL HEAD OF FUR
INDUSTRY--EXPEDITIONS--MARQUETTE--JOLIET--THE ANNUAL
FAIRS--LAVAL RETURNS--THE "CONGREGATION" CONFIRMED--THE
INDIAN MISSIONS--CATHERINE TEKAKWITHA--THE "FORT DES
MESSIEURS"--EXPLORATIONS--LA SALLE, DULUTH, HENNEPIN--LOUISIANA
NAMES--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL AND THE INTENDANT--FACTIONS AT
MONTREAL, "A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES!"--FRONTENAC AND
DUCHESNEAU RECALLED.
Trade at Montreal was prospering. In 1674 the West India Company,
which had fulfilled none of its obligations, was suppressed, being
succeeded by that of Oudiette and others, till 1707. Speaking of this
period, Garneau (I, 262) in his "Histoire du Canada" says: "The new
impulses which had been given to Canada by Colbert and Talon began
to bear fruits. Commerce revived, immigration increased and the
natives, dominated by the genius of civilization, feared and respected
everywhere the power of France."
Montreal was to share in this prosperity. It was the centre of the
fur trade and the starting place and base of expeditions such as the
one of Joliet and Marquette, who had set out in 1673 to discover the
Mississippi. La Salle frequently made Montreal his home at this period,
as well as Duluth. At the east corner of the present Royal Insurance
Building on the Place d'Armes, a tablet placed by the Antiquarian
Society records the dwelling of another explorer: "Here lived in 1675
Daniel de Greysolon, Sieur Duluth, one of the explorers of the Upper
Mississippi, after whom the city of Duluth was named."
Meanwhile, on May 18th, Father Marquette died on the west shores of
Michigan. In 1776 the "Place du Marché" was granted by the seigneurs
of the seminary to the people. It was situated where now stands the
Place Royale and faced the historic landing place of the first pioneers
arriving with de Maisonneuve. The growing trade needed a regular market
and on this site subsequently were held the annual fairs in June,
the first recorded being held in 1680. The picturesque description
of Francis Parkman in his "Old Régime in Canada," dealing with this
period, may be here introduced:
"To induce the Indians to come to the colonists, in order that the fur
trade might be controlled by the government, a great annual fair was
established, by order of the king, at Montreal. Thither every summer a
host of savages came down from the lakes in their bark canoes. A place
was assigned them a little distance from the town. They landed, and
drew up their canoes in a line up the bank, took out their packs of
beaver skins, set up their wigwams, slung their kettles and encamped
for the night.
"On the next day there was a grand council on the common, between St.
Paul street and the river. Speeches were made amid a solemn smoking of
pipes. The governor was usually present, seated in an armchair, while
the visitors formed a ring about him, ranged in the order of their
tribe. On the next day the trade began in the same place. Merchants
of high and low degree brought up their goods from Quebec, and every
inhabitant of Montreal of any substance, sought a share in the profits.
Their booths were set up along the palisades of the town and each had
an interpreter to whom he usually promised a certain portion of his
gains. The scene abounded in those contrasts, which mark the whole
course of French Canadian history. Here was a throng of Indians, armed
with bows and arrows, war clubs, and the cheap guns of the trade, some
of them, completely naked, except for the feathers on their heads and
the paint on their faces; French bush rangers, tricked out with savage
finery; merchants and _habitants_ in their coarse and plain attire, and
the grave priests of St. Sulpice robed in black."
In June, 1676, Monseigneur Laval, on his return from France as bishop
of Quebec, visited Montreal to receive postulants into the new
religious communicants of the "Congregation," which approved by him in
1669 and later confirmed by royal letters, was now confirmed by him
in an authentic act, shortly after his arrival at Quebec--but whose
rules were still to be examined and approved, which did not occur until
January 24, 1698. Historians date from the above epoch the adoption of
the religious habit, worn by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre
Dame to this day. In order to prepare her rules wisely Marguerite
Bourgeoys determined to go to France for advice and experience, having
been previously elected as the first superior. The opportunity was
offered her in November as a companion to the wife of the governor,
Madame Perrot, who had been advised to go to France for the good of
her health. On her return she was followed to Montreal by Louis Frins,
the servant of M. de Maisonneuve, who had died in Paris on September
9, 1676, as well as by several young girls, who were sent out to the
colony at the expense of the seminary.
In 1676 the Mountain Mission was commenced.[128] To encourage the Indians
to settle with the Europeans, various attempts had already been made.
This nomadic people could not be civilized as long as the trail, by the
lakes and rivers and through the forest, called them to the pursuit
of the chase or the lust of battle. Thus we have seen the Jesuits
had already formed their Christian Indian settlements at Madeleine
la Prairie on the south shore across the St. Lawrence. But now the
Sulpicians would do the same on the island, on the slope of Mount
Royal, and today the site of Montreal College, on Sherbrooke Street,
with its old-time Martello towers, marks the scene of the Mountain
Mission. Quarrels had arisen among the chiefs at La Prairie and thus
the dissentients joined the Christian band at the mountain, while the
La Prairie Mission was transferred to the Sault St. Louis, known as the
Caughnawaga Reservation. By 1681, it was determined to conduct schools
for the children of redskins, and M. François Vachon de Belmont,
who came as a deacon to Canada in this year, was named director of
the boys' school. That for the girls was to be under the care of
the Sisters of the Congregation. Marguerite Bourgeoys says that the
Mountain Mission was the first place on the island where the Indians
came for instruction. On arriving, M. de Belmont began to build a
little chapel, dedicated to Notre Dame des Neiges, and a straggling
village of a few irregularly built bark huts clustered round it. In
these lived the missionaries and the sisters, and round them were the
wigwams of their neophytes, Huron and Iroquois. Fearing attack from the
non-Christian tribes, M. de Belmont, a priest since September 14, 1681,
had built by 1685 a palisade surrounding his settlement which boasted
of four bastions. These fortifications were gradually strengthened.
The schools were soon in operation. "In the Mountain Mission and that
of the Sault de la Prairie de la Madeleine (Sault St. Louis); in those
of Sillery and Lorette, the only Indian villages we have, boys are now
being taught to read and write. In the Mountain Mission of Montreal
the Congregation nuns apply themselves to the instruction of the
little girls and make them do needle work," is the description of M.
Duchesneau in a letter to the minister of finance, dated November 13,
1681. Later on these children were taught to knit, spin and do lace
work, the government providing grants of money for women to instruct
them. In 1685 Monseigneur de St. Vallier, Laval's successor, visited
the Mountain Mission and gave this account of its success: "The
daughters of the Congregation, now spread over the different parts of
Canada, have in the Mountain Mission a school of about forty Indian
girls, whom they clothe and bring up 'à la Française.' They are also
taught the mysteries of faith, manual labour, the hymns and prayers of
the church, not only in their own tongue, but also in ours, that they
may be brought little by little to our manners and customs."
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE FORT OF THE LAKE OF TWO MOUNTAINS
A. Church.
B. Missionaries' dwelling.
C. The "Congregation Sisters."
D. Farm workers.
E. Entrance to fort.
F. Towers.
Part of the Lake of Two Mountains.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE MOUNTAIN FORT ERECTED IN 1677
A. Residence of the missionaries. B. Chapel. C. Village of Catholic
Indians. D. Vegetable garden. E. Towers and walls in stone. F. Bastions
and palisades in woods. G. Redoubts and palisades in woods.]
[Illustration: THE PRIEST'S FORT]
[Illustration: 1694
Two old watch towers built in 1694 by M. de Belmont, a Sulpician
Missionary at the "Mountain Fort." In the western tower Marguerite
Bourgeoys taught the Indian children. In the eastern tower, which was
used afterward as a chapel, an Indian brave and his grandchild are
buried. These towers still stand on Sherbrooke Street, West, in the
grounds of the Grand Seminary.]
Two of the Indian maidens of the Mountain Mission stand out, Marie
Barbe Attontinon and Marie Thérèse Gannensagouas. Both were received
into the congregation community. The latter was one of the first pupils
of the mission, receiving baptism on the 28th of June, 1681, at the age
of fourteen, and was a teacher in the mission until her saintly death
at the age of twenty-seven.
The chapel at Caughnawaga preserves the bones of the holy Mohawk
maiden, Catherine Tekakwitha, born in 1656 of an Iroquois father, a
pagan, and an Algonquin mother, a Christian, who both died in her
infancy. On Holy Wednesday, 1678, she died, leaving behind her the
reputation of sanctity. The anniversary of "La bonne Catherine" is kept
each year with great devotion by the Caughnawaga Indians. Charlevoix,
the historian, speaking of the appearance of the face of this holy
maiden, says: "Nothing could be more beautiful, but with that beauty,
which the love of virtue inspires. The people were never weary of
gazing at her." The latter's grandfather, the warrior, François
Thoronhiongo, who had been baptized by the Martyr Jesuit, Père de
Brébeuf, lived at the Mountain Mission. In 1824 the east Martello
tower, now standing on Sherbrooke Street, wherein the Sisters of the
Congregation had lived while teaching, was transferred into a chapel
and the bodies of the grandfather and grandchild, which had rested
there since 1796, were allowed to remain. The tower on the west was a
school for the Indian girls. These towers, still remaining, are all
that is left to mark the site of the Priests' Fort and Jacques Viger's
manuscripts tell us that this fort was so called to distinguish it from
the enclosure next to it and which, being surrounded by a palisade,
was known as "The Indian's Fort." Both structures formed part of the
same outwork and are mentioned under the common title of "The Mountain
Fort." The Priests' Fort was built in 1694 by the Sulpician, François
Vachon de Belmont, at his own expense. It was, first a square enclosed
by a stone wall with portholes and flanked by a tower at each angle;
secondly, the fort proper or manor, in the middle of the enclosure
where the missionaries lived; thirdly, the chapel which was opposite
the manor and between the two towers. In 1844 the erection of the vast
edifice now used as a college and as a seminary was begun on this very
site. The two towers still standing and the wall connecting them are
over two hundred years old and are after the Seminary of St. Sulpice
on Notre Dame Street the oldest building in Montreal. Long may the
towers stand as sentinels guarding the traditions of the past!... The
Sulpicians accompanied the Indians when the mission was transplanted to
Sault-au-Récollet and thence later to the Lake of the Two Mountains.
Leaving the Mountain Mission whose commencement we have placed in 1676
and traversing the streets down town, we notice the unpaved state
of the streets. In this year, 1676, an ordinance stipulated that
proprietors should pave to the middle of the roadway every street
passing in front of their dwellings. But it seems that up to the
cession, these regulations had fallen into desuetude.
The year of 1678 saw great preparations at Montreal for new ventures
on the part of La Salle and Duluth, in which the governor general was
reported by Intendant Duchesneau to be commercially interested. In
July, 1678, La Salle left France armed with a royal patent allowing
him "to build forts through which it would seem that a passage to
Mexico can be found." He had made good friends in France since his
previous visit in 1674 and found financial supporters, "bringing with
him about thirty artisans and labourers, with much of the gearing and
equipment necessary for rigging a vessel, including anchors, with the
usual assortment of the articles required for his intercourse with the
Indians." With him was Henri de Tonti, an Italian officer, who was to
prove a most devoted and loyal lieutenant to La Salle. At the siege of
Gaëta, de Tonti had had a hand blown off and it was now replaced with
a metal substitute, which, though covered with a glove, could deal a
heavy blow, as the surprised Indians afterwards learned. A third was
with them, the Sieur de la Motte. Arriving at Quebec on September
15th, La Salle was shortly afterwards joined by the Recollect Father,
Hennepin, eager to explore the Mississippi.
While at Quebec, La Salle was named one of the twenty commissioners,
then sitting to investigate the murders and other crimes reported to
have arisen during the past six years from the use of liquors. In
consequence, the old dispute was arising again as to the propriety of
preventing liquors being taken to the Indians, to encourage traffic
with the French instead of the Dutch. It was urged that the fur trade
would leave Montreal for Albany, as beaver skins, if they got there,
would fetch a higher price. For prohibition, were Laval and the
Intendant Duchesneau, whilst against it was Frontenac backed up by
Colbert, who supported Talon, one of whose last actions in Canada had
been to permit the use of spirits as an article of commerce. The report
of the commission to France was in favour of the traffic in spirits as
necessary for the support of the fur trade, which was the one source
of wealth for the country. M. Laval started for France with a counter
memorial. Finally a compromise was arranged to the effect that strong
liquors might not be taken to the woods openly, and if clandestinely,
punishment was to follow. But as liquor was permitted in the houses of
the French and those houses could be built anywhere, the law was easily
evaded, so that in reality liquor became to be recognized currency in
the trade for fur.
Shortly after the above event La Salle left Montreal, doubtless with
a good supply of "eau de vie," for his fief, Mount Cataracqui, and in
the second week of November he started thence to make his way to the
Mississippi, returning at intervals to Montreal for supplies. At last
after thrilling and hazardous adventures La Salle and his men reached
the mouth of the Mississippi, where he declared the basin of the river
to be the territory of Louis the Great and named it Louisiana. All
honour to Montreal, the fruitful home of discoverers!
David Greysolon du Luth left Montreal on the 1st of September, 1678,
with seven Frenchmen on a similar adventure. It was he who built the
fort at the entrance of the Kaministiquia, Lake Superior, known under
Hudson Bay rule as Fort William, and who strove persistently to foil
the rival English traders of this company. He was a man equally at
home in camp, in society, or in the Indian wigwams--a type of the many
roving adventurers, fighters, traders and explorers, whom Canada was
then alluring and who were little removed from the _coureurs de bois_,
at whom so many ordinances were leveled, but whose number was steadily
increasing.[129]
Meanwhile relations had become more and more strained between Frontenac
and Duchesneau. As early as 1676 the troubles began with the questions
of precedence and of the degrees of courtesy that should be paid to
the governor and the intendant. On May 1, 1677, Colbert wrote to the
intendant warning him not to take sides against the governor and on May
18th he wrote to the governor exhorting him to live amicably with the
intendant. On April 30, 1681, the king wrote to Frontenac complaining
of his arbitrary conduct and threatening to recall him unless he mended
his ways. He was accused of being too lenient with the _coureurs de
bois_ and in consequence the king ordered that whoever went to the
woods without a license should be branded and whipped for the first
offence, and sent to the galleys for life, for the second.
Every ship to France carried complaints from Duchesneau and Frontenac
against one another. The rivalry was intense. The last official act
of Frontenac in the _Registre du Conseil Supérieur_ is a formal
declaration that his rank in that body is superior to the intendant's.
Finally the untenable position was relieved by the king, who recalled
them by an act of May 1st. Before leaving and early in the August of
this year Frontenac was at Montreal to meet the Ottawas and the Hurons
on their yearly descent from the lakes and there he met the famous
Huron Iroquois chief, the Rat, and at a solemn council succeeded in
averting, for the time, the war then brewing about Michillimackinac,
when the Illinois and some of the tribes of the lakes were in likely
danger of speedy and complete destruction at the hands of the Iroquois.
This would have been fatal to the trade of Canada.
Shortly afterwards, Frontenac sailed for France, leaving Canada when
he was most needed. When he sailed, "it was a day of rejoicing to more
than half of the merchants of Canada" (who were not in his ring), says
Parkman ("Frontenac," p. 71), "and excepting the Recollects, to all the
priests; but he left behind him an impression, very general among the
people, that if danger threatened the colony, Count Frontenac was the
man for the hour."
Montreal was no little concerned with this division between the
disputants, for whereas the merchants, traders and _habitants_ over the
country took sides with either party, those of Montreal, such as Le
Moyne and his sons, Jacques LeBer, and left many more of the leading
men sided with Duchesneau, while Perrot, the local governor, seems
to have come to a mutual understanding with Frontenac and carried on
illicit trade as before. "Frontenac had," as the intendant wrote to
the minister on November 16, 1679, "gradually made himself master of
the trade of Montreal; as soon as the Indians arrived, he sets guard
in his camp, which would be very well, if these soldiers did their
duty and protected the savages from being annoyed and plundered by
the French, instead of being employed to discover how many furs they
have brought with a view to future operations. Monsieur, the governor,
then compels the Indians to pay his guards for protecting them; and he
has never allowed them to trade with the inhabitants till they have
first given him a certain number of packs of beaver skins, which he
calls his presents. His guards trade with them openly at the fair,
with their bandoliers on their shoulders." Moreover, Duchesneau in the
same communication accused Frontenac of sending up goods to Montreal
to be traded in his behalf, so that with the presents exacted and his
trading, only little ever reached the people of the colony of what the
Indians brought to market. It is only fair to add that Frontenac made
similar charges against the intendant for engaging in trade. Meanwhile
partisan spirit ran high and the streets of Quebec and Montreal
witnessed brawls such as those between the Capulets and Montagues
of Romeo and Juliet. "A plague on both your houses!" The Count de
Frontenac and the Intendant Duchesneau were respectively replaced on
May 1, 1680, by M. de La Barre and M. de Meulles, although they did not
enter upon their functions until Friday, October 9th, of the same year.
NOTE
A writer who visited Quebec in 1683 in his "Memoirs of North America"
tells us that the merchant who had carried on the greatest trade in
Canada was the Sieur Samuel Bernon of Rochel, who had great warehouses
at Quebec, from which the inhabitants of the other towns were supplied
with such commodities as they wanted.
"There is no difference," he says, "between the pirates that scour
the seas and the Canada merchants, unless it be this, that the former
sometimes enrich themselves all of a sudden by a good prize; and the
latter cannot make their fortune without trading for five or six
years, and that, without running the hazard of their lives. I have
known twenty little peddlers that had not above a thousand crowns stock
when I arrived at Quebec in the year 1683, and when I left that place,
had got to the tune of 12,000 crowns. It is an unquestioned truth that
they get 50 per cent upon all goods they deal in, whether they buy
them up, upon the arrival of the ships at Quebec, or have them from
France by way of commissions: but over and above that, there are some
gaudy trinkets, such as ribbands, laces, embroideries, tobacco-boxes,
watches, and an infinity of other baubles of iron ware, upon which they
get 150 per cent, all costs clear.
"As soon as the French ships arrive at Quebec the merchants of that
city, who have their factors in other towns, load their barks with
goods in order to transport them to these other towns. Such merchants
as act for themselves at Trois Rivières, or Montreal, come down in
person to Quebec to market for themselves, and then put their effects
on board of barks to be conveyed home. If they pay for their goods in
skins, they buy cheaper than if they made their payments in money or
letters of exchange; by reason that the seller gets considerably by the
skins, when he returns to France. Now you must take notice, that all
these skins are bought up from the inhabitants, or from the savages,
upon which the merchants are considerable gainers. To give you an
instance of this matter, a person that lives in the neighbourhood of
Quebec, carries a dozen of marten skins, five or six fox skins, and as
many skins of wild cats, to a merchant's house, in order to sell them
for woolen cloth, linen, arms, ammunition, etc. In the trade of those
skins, the merchant draws a double profit, one upon the score of his
paying no more for these skins than one-half of what he afterwards
sells them for, in the lump, to the factors, for the Rochel ships; and
the other, by the exorbitant rate he puts upon the goods which the poor
planter takes in exchange for his skins. If this be duly weighed, we
will not think it strange that these merchants have a more beneficial
trade than a great many tradesmen in the world."--Canadian Antiquarian
and Numismatic Journal, 1872, p. 130.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] Some authors have supposed that the Mountain Mission began as
early as 1657, but this appears impossible, when we recollect that for
twenty-seven years or more settlers scarcely dared to leave the town
for fear of the Iroquois, who tracked them to their very doorsteps!
Moreover, the first registrations of the Mountain Mission date from
1688, and, note, that all previous baptisms had been set down in the
Ville Marie registre. The latter before 1677 makes no mention of the
aforesaid mission. (Cf. Note by Mary Drummond in the "Life and Times of
Marguerite Bourgeoys.")
[129] In 1680 Duchesneau reported on November 13th the population
of Canada at 9,400; of this number there were five or six hundred
coureurs de bois. "There is not a family," wrote the Intendant, "of any
condition or quality soever, who have not children, brothers, uncles
and nephews among them."