New France

Indigenous Peoples

When considering the French as pioneers in North America, we must recognize that the First Nations, or indigenous peoples were present with well-established civilizations and cultures for some 8,000-10,000 years before Jacques Cartier first stepped on the continent in 1534 or Samuel de Champlain was part of settlements in Acadia in 1605 or in Quebec in 1608. The Mi’kmaq, Malecite and Beothuk peoples were original occupants of the Eastern coastal regions, while the Algonquin (Anishnabee), Huron (Wendat) and Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenasaunee) were well established in the region now known as Quebec and Ontario, along with the Cree, Montagnais, Naskapi, Ojibway, Odawa, and other First Nations, along with the Inuit to the far north.

Thus, the French were not the first settlers in the part of North America now known as Canada. In 1608 Champlain established a French settlement with 28 men in what had been known as Stadacona, an Iroquois settlement, when Jacques Cartier had been there in 1634 (Cartier established a short-lived fort there in 1641). Champlain’s settlement lasted until David Kirke’s invasion in 1628 (when the French population was 100, including a dozen women). English troops then occupied Quebec until the French retook possession in 1632, and Champlain returned with settlers in 1633. Well-known among the few settler-families during the initial French occupation until 1627 were Louis Hébert and Marie Rollet.

La Compagnie des Cents Associés

From 1632 to 1662, the French colony was run by a private company, La Compagnie des Cents Associés (Company of One Hundred Associates), whose primary interest was the fur trade and profit, and which invested little in the settlement of the colony. However, notable efforts in French colonization of this territory during this period included the Sieur de Maisonneuve’s settlement of Hochelaga, also an Iroquois settlement, renaming it Ville-Marie (later Montréal), the work of Marie de l’Incarnation, Jeanne Mance and Marguerite Bourgeoys in establishing educational and health facilities, and the limited filles à marier program which brought some 240 marriageable women to New France between 1632-1662.

Cardinal Richelieu set up the seigneurial system of land ownership, along with religious and educational institutions. French explorers and trappers (coureurs de bois) and French Catholic missionaries travelled the unsettled territory, claiming lands, furs and souls.

King Louis XIV

King Louis XIV assumed the throne of France in 1662 and through his Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, took control of New France, and its fur trade, instituting many changes.  In 1664 the Custom of Paris provided the civil law for the colony. Two royal programs in particular had a significant impact on the French colony: the arrival of 770 marriageable women, the Filles du roi, from 1663-1673, and of 1200 soldiers and officers of the first French infantry regiment in North America, the Carignan-Salières Regiment, in 1665. At the conclusion of the deployment of the bulk of the Regiment in 1668, the King’s Minister directed officers to establish and train a formal militia in the colony, and encouraged both soldiers and officers to settle in the colony (some 440 did so).

As a result, King Louis XIV aggressively addressed two problems; the repeated pleas of the colonists since the 1650s for the Crown to intervene militarily and stop the deadly Mohawk raids on the settlements; and the failure of growth in the settlement’s population and economy, exacerbated by the lack of marriageable women and the negative impact of the Mohawk raids on French participation in the fur trade. Our ancestor Jean Poisson was a victim of one of the Iroquois raids in 1652.

Flourishing Colony

The years of peace in the colony following the Regiment’s arrival provided a sense of security that drew new settlers to the colony and permitted the fur trade to thrive and areas outside of the town of Quebec to develop. Montréal became a business center, hastened by the participation of former officers and soldiers in the fur trade. These changes provided an opportunity for immigration and marriage between immigrants that doubled the population (3200 in 1663) from 1665 to 1668 to well over 6000. Troops from the Compagnie de la Marine were brought to New France starting in 1669 to further secure the colony for the French.

The population continued to grow, until it reached 10,000 by the time of the next series of Iroquois attacks in 1683 (and up to 60,000 by the Conquest in 1760). There were a total of 4459 births to the newly settled Filles du roi from 1664-1702. Over 100 births per year occurred during 1669-1687 alone. Also, the militia established following the Regiment’s disengagement improved the defenses of the colony by the time of the next onslaught of the Mohawk. The peace further allowed Canada to consolidate its presence along the St-Lawrence River, while former forts along the Richelieu River matured into villages and towns.

Fur traders and explorers ventured further west, establishing French trading posts along the Great Lakes and then down rivers southwards. Our ancestor Nicolas Perrot was a trapper, explorer, interpreter and negotiator of treaties on behalf of the King with indigenous peoples west of Montreal. His wife was fille du roi Madeleine Raclos. As a literate person, Perrot wrote a report to the Intendant Bégon regarding the state of affairs with and among the indigenous peoples he dealt with, both allies and enemies of France, later being published in the mid-19th century as the now very dated (but interesting) “Mémoire sur les moeurs, coustumes et relligion des savauges de l’Amérique septentrionale.”

End of New France

Over the next 90 years, many additional events occurred in New France (Canada), which remained in French hands despite the loss of Acadia (initially in 1713, then finally in 1755). The French retained the colony initially through the beginning of the French-Indian War (the Six Years War), but finally lost Louisbourg to the English in 1658, Quebec in 1759 at the battle of The Plains of Abraham, and then Montreal in 1760, resulting in the Treaty of Paris signed February 1763 and the surrender of the colony to England. Known as “the Conquest”, this war not only ended the colony of New France but left an indelible mark on the psyche of French-Canadians, commemorated in the phrase “Je Me Souviens” (I will remember).

Researched & Written by David Toupin, great-grandson of Felix Toupin.

References

Wikipedia, History of Quebec City, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Quebec_City

Wikipedia, History of New France, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France

Wikipedia, History of Montreal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Montreal

500 Nations: First Nations, https://www.500nations.com/Canada_Tribes.asp

René Jetté, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec des origines à 1730, 1983, PRDH

Raymond Douville and Jacques Casanova, La vie quotidienne en Nouvelle France, 1964; translated by Carola Congreve as Daily Life in Early Canada, 1967, The MacMillan Co., New York

Jack Verney, The Good Regiment: The Carignan-Salières Regiment in Canada, 1665-1668,  1991, McGill-Queens University Press

Yves Landry, Les filles du roi au xvii’ème siècle: Orphélines en France, pionnières au Canada, 1992, Leméac Editions Inc., Montréal

Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à marier, 1634-1662, 2017, Reprinted edition, American-French Genealogical Society

Nicolas Perrot, Mémoire sur les moeurs, coustumes et relligion des savauges de l’Amérique septentrionale, 199 (1864, Edition établis par Jules Tailhan), Comeau & Nadeau W.J. Eccles, France in America, 1972 (1990), Fitzhenry &