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."

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.