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4. The Royal Colony
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Royal Government
By mid-seventeenth century, New France appeared to be near the point of collapse. In 1649, the Iroquois decided to launch a major assault on their dreaded foe, the Huron. A brutal and bloody attack on Sainte-Marie among the Hurons resulted in an Iroquois victory and their subsequent burning of the settlement to the ground. Dozens of other Huron communities suffered a similar fate as the Iroquois aimed to make permanent their victory.
After vanquishing the Huron, the Iroquois turned their attention to New France in the hopes of pushing the French out of the continent. After first cutting off fur trade routes, the Iroquois attacked Montreal and Quebec.
The climax occurred at Long Sault where Adam Dollard, along with only seventeen compatriots and a few Algonquin, held back a much larger invading force of Iroquois for seven days. Although he died in the siege, Dollard prevented a full-scale attack on Montreal. Nevertheless, many colonists decided to abandon the struggle and return to France.
That only worsened an already dire situation. New France simply could not afford to lose settlers. There were so few to begin with. In 1660, the population, after half a century of existence, was a mere 3 000. That compared very poorly to the over 100 000 in the British Thirteen Colonies to the south. The fur trading companies had simply ignored their requirement to bring over settlers. As a result, the population had stagnated almost to the point of extinction. The economy was too dependent on the fur trade without any significant diversification. Aboriginal raids were a constant threat to security. Clearly, something had to be done; and done quickly.
Twenty-two year old Louis XIV, beginning his reign as France's absolutist Sun King, recognized the gravity of the situation. He made a fateful decision that changed the course of the history of New France. He decided to abandon the system of handing over the administration of the colony to the fur trade companies. Instead, he established Royal Government whereby New France was to be run directly under the French Crown.
The new structure was radically different and marked an important improvement in New France's fortunes. No longer was the colony to be used as a source of profit by the fur trade companies. Obstacles and problems would be addressed rather than being ignored. The government would be changed from a haphazard, disorganized mess. Instead, France would directly administer and determine the future direction of New France. A clear hierarchical bureaucracy would provide efficiency and rational direction. Both day-to-day details as well as larger decisions would be decided in the royal court in France and implemented in New France.
One of the major decisions was to continue - and improve - the economic foundation of New France. It had been established as a major cog in the mercantilist system. Mercantilism, also known as bullionism, argued that colonies were held, aside from any military or strategic advantage, for the commercial benefits they provided. Not only did colonies ensure a guaranteed supply of resources - a major concern for European countries that were constantly at war - but that as well they allowed the mother country to build up gold reserves. This came about through the maintenance of a favourable balance of trade whereby the mother country bought raw materials from its colonies at low prices and then sold back manufactured products at high prices. Such a system called for a strict system of regulation.
Royal Government was an extension of the absolutism system that was practiced by most European monarchs who believed that they ruled through divine right. At the top of the administrative structure of the new system was Louis XIV. His word could not be challenged, although distance, time, and the frontier did combine to take off the edge of his brand of absolutism. Below the King was the minister of marine and colonies, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
It was Colbert whose advice became policy, his decisions that became law, and his choices that sat on the all-important Sovereign Council. This body became the foundation of Royal Government, consisting of six to twelve advisors and three critical officers. The Governor-General was Louis's direct representative charged with running the colony. He looked after defence, military matters, and aboriginal relations. The Bishop controlled churches, missions, hospitals, schools, and charity. Finally, the Intendant, initially seen as the third-ranking member of the Council, became increasingly more powerful. The Intendant looked after the fur trade, justice, finance, industry, and day-to-day matters.
The Work of Jean Talon the Intendant
Jean Talon, the Great Intendant, or manager of the royal colony, played a critical role in the development of New France. Arriving in 1665, he immediately set about converting the colony from a small, fragile, and fur trade-dependent enclave into one of the most thriving, vibrant, and diversified properties of his King's Empire. Logically, he assessed the situation. He immediately improved the state of the colony's defenses by welcoming 1100 officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment. Also, Talon set about further improving relations with all the aboriginal tribes thereby making the colonists feel more secure.
However, arguably his most significant contribution was in conducting the first census in Canadian history and then actively responding to its results. In 1665, Talon discovered that there were only 3 215 people living in New France. He also astutely noted that there was a gross imbalance of men to women. (With over 700 bachelors, there were fewer than 50 single females.) If he was to institute his vision of a self-sufficient colony with a diversified economy, more people were desperately needed, and the majority of those people optimally should be women.
In the decade following the establishment of Royal Government, more than 800 "filles du roi" (daughters of the King) arrived in New France. The Crown paid for their transportation and many were provided with a dowry. Most were married almost immediately upon arrival. Talon, being a decisive man of action, left little to chance. He provided financial rewards for marrying early and for having many - more than ten - children. There were also penalties for anyone who remained unmarried at age twenty and for parents with unmarried daughters of sixteen. Not surprisingly, the population more than doubled to over 7 600 by 1673.
Now agriculture could be expanded as more lands were brought under cultivation. He brought over substantial numbers of livestock as well as testing hardier strains of wheat. The increasing population also allowed Talon to realize another of his goals. Important among those was to reduce New France's reliance on the fur trade. With the creation of a small but viable domestic market, he was able to develop industries such as textile, shoes, and lumber. Talon built the colony's first shipyard as well as establishing its first commercial brewery. In short, in his two brief tenures as Intendant, from 1665 to 1668 and from 1670 to 1672, Talon transformed New France into a thriving colony.
The Carignan-Salières Regiment
The year 1665, two years after the formation of Royal Government, was a crucial one for New France. Not only did it witness the arrival of the Great Intendant, but it also saw the arrival of the Carignan-Salières Regiment. The seasoned company, 1 100 strong, was to put an end to the threat posed by the Iroquois. For years, they had conducted violent raids that threatened the security, if not the very survival, of the colony. Masters of guerrilla warfare, the Iroquois were unrelenting. By 1663, they had killed ten percent of the population and a much greater percentage of their livestock. The situation was virtually out of hand as the colonists lived in constant fear.
The presence of the highly visible Regiment acted as a forceful deterrent, resulting in a twenty-year peace that in turn allowed New France to grow and prosper. They built forts along the Richelieu River, which was the favoured invasion route of the Iroquois.
Their initial military excursion met with disaster as four hundred men froze to death in the forest without even finding the Iroquois village they sought. The next one was much more successful. Although they encountered no Iroquois in their villages around Lake Champlain, they burned whatever they saw. That was enough to convince the Iroquois to sign a peace treaty. With the threat of attack removed, construction in the colony continued, factories were built, land was cleared, and normal social functions took place. All that was possible because now there was peace, order, and stability.
After the Iroquois signed a peace treaty in 1667, the Carignan-Salières Regiment was recalled to France. However, King Louis XIV, recognizing the benefits that members of the Regiment provided for New France, encouraged them to remain as settlers. More than one-third of the officers and soldiers took the King up on his offer. He granted the officers enormous tracts of land, called seigneuries.
Soldiers were given sufficient land and money to ensure their successful start as farmers. Most married, some local girls, some les filles de roi. They settled down, raised families, and added to the growth and development - and military security - of New France.
He had numerous churches built, attended to the educational needs of his flock, and in the process founded Canada's first college, the theological Séminaire de Québec, and worked tirelessly, albeit unsuccessfully, to end the use of brandy in the fur trade. From his pulpit and from his pen, he exhorted his parishioners to heed the ways of the Roman Catholic Church. His influence on the moral tone of the colony was without match.
The Legacy of Frontenac
Although not the first governor - that honour went to Rémy de Courcelle, the one that left the greatest legacy was Louis de Baude, the Comte de Frontenac. Serving two terms, the first from 1672 to 1682 and the second from 1689 until his death in 1697, he exerted a dominant influence on the life and evolution of New France. He continued Talon's policies of populating the colony, diversifying the economy, lessening the influence of the Jesuits, expanding agriculture, and western expansion. To further that last aim, in 1672 he ordered LaSalle to build a stone fort at Cataraqui (later renamed Fort Frontenac) at the eastern end of Lake Ontario.
Another important consideration that received Frontenac's attention was commercial development. The newly built fort, for which Frontenac received a reprimand from King Louis XIV, was a major part of his plan. Realizing that any such growth was largely dependent on maintaining peace with the Iroquois, he exchanged gifts with the Iroquois and convinced them to trade their furs at Cataraqui rather than rather than traveling to the British at Fort Albany, all the way on the west side of James Bay. Recognizing that his success and New France's expansion required good relations with the Iroquois, he convinced them to meet annually at the Fort to renew their mutual vows of eternal friendship.
However, the colony's relations with the Iroquois, tenuous at the best of times, broke down and a new round of hostilities developed. In 1689, learning that yet another war had broken out in Europe between England and France, the Iroquois saw the chance to attack full force. They launched a devastating raid on Lachine in August and destroyed the entire settlement.
Hearing the news, Frontenac, now an old man, asked the King if he could be reappointed Governor of New France and settle the 'Iroquois Question.' Louis agreed and Frontenac returned.
Upon arrival, he found that the tranquil relationship that he had enjoyed during his first tenure was probably the furthest thing from the Iroquois' minds. Rather than agreeing to discuss terms of peace, Frontenac found that their attacks increased in frequency. Something had to be done. He recognized that the root of the problem lay in the fact that English settlers in the northern Thirteen Colonies were arming and encouraging the Iroquois raids on New France.
Therefore, he decided to dispatch a force of militia, soldiers, and aboriginal allies to ferret out the source of the problem. In the winter of 1689, the French force journeyed as far as the village of Schenectady in upper New York where they brutally killed sixty, including women and children. Other French bands massacred dozens of inhabitants in other settlements, often even after they had surrendered. However, rather than resulting in the submission of the English settlers, the French raids heightened the English settlers' resolve.
Frontenac Repels American Attack on Québec
In the year 1690, a group of Bostonian merchants planned an attack on New France. Their goal was nothing less than to drive the French out of North America.
They had asked for help from England, but none arrived, so the Governor of New England and Sir William Phips determined to to do the job themselves. Hearing that New France Governor Count Frontenac had been recalled to France, they gathered a formidable force of 2,300 colonial militia and a fleet of over thirty ships, and sailed north.
Their first target was Port Royal in Acadia. After a seige of a few days, Governor of Acadia Louis de Ménéval surrendered Port Royal on May 21, 1690; he was taken back to Boston, Massachusetts as a prisoner, and the fort and storehouses were pillaged.
Phips then rounded Cape Breton and headed into the St. Lawrence to set up a blockade of Québec hoping to force a surrender before the onset of winter. But Phips made the mistake of waiting for further supplies while trying to capture a pilot, and in early October, Count Frontenac and some supply ships with 3,000 fresh soldiers slipped through the blockade and reached Quebec on October 14, 1690. Phips chased them and arrived at Beauport two days later, on October 16, 1690.
Phips immediately sent an emissary to Count Frontenac demanding the surrender of the fortress of Québec within the hour. Frontenac was furious, and stormed about the palace. He was so insulted he told Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier and Intendant Champigny that he had a good mind to simply hang the emissary in view of the enemy fleet, whom he considered "a collection of bandits, privateers and vagabonds."
When Frontenac cooled down he sent for the emissary and told him to tell Sir William Phips that: "The only response I have for your general is through the muzzles of my cannons, and by gunfire, so that he [Phips] might learn that a man like me is not summoned in this way."
The English ships started bombarding the city on October 18, 1690, but they little effect, and the French returned a heavy fire. Québec's upper town was protected by a thick wall studded with batteries, with more defensive works up near the Chateau Saint-Louis near Cape Diamond. In the lower town, the English faced two strong French shore batteries armed with heavy 18 and 24-pounder naval cannons protecting the city’s harbour. To the west, a line of earthworks punctuated with 11 redoubts enclosed the city.
Cooler weather was starting to have an effect on the Americans, and Phips determined to try a land attack from the east of the city. On October 21, 1690, the Massachusetts battalions landed on the Beauport Flats, where Montcalm had troops of sharpshooters waiting in ambush. According to observers on both sides, they were an impressive sight, marching in a line with their drums beating and their flags flying in the wind. Then the defenders waiting in ambush opened fire, and the militias turned and ran. In their haste to get back on their ships, the Americans left five of their six artillery pieces on the field.
The two sides returned to bombarding each other, but it was clear the Americans were losing heart. On October 23, 1690, Phips's flagship was damaged, losing its colours to the French. The following day, October 24, 1690, Phips ordered the fleet to weigh anchor, and with great regret the Americans sailed away downstream.
During the retreat to Boston, storms sunk three of the ships with all hands lost. Smallpox flared up among the rest. Although only 30 Massachusetts militia died fighting the French, disease and the St. Lawrence River gales claimed about 1,000 more.
Their troubles were not over. When the Phips expedition returned to Boston empty handed, without the expected booty, they faced an enormous £50,000 debt.
To "calm the clamour of the soldiers and sailors" demanding back pay, the Massachusetts Governor, fearing an armed rebellion, turned to inflation, raising taxes and printing bills of credit for the veterans. Of course the bills were soon worth less than half their face value.
So ended the first American attempt to invade Canada.
Back in Québec, a new church in Lower Town is named the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, to celebrate Count Frontenac's victory over the Bostonians; it is Canada's oldest full-sized church.
Frontenac's Last Campaign
Nevertheless, the French campaign against the Iroquois saw no such quick end. Guerrilla campaigns, conducted on both sides, continued for several years. Finally, in 1696, Frontenac organized what he hoped would be a final campaign. With a force of over 2 000 soldiers, militia, and aboriginal allies, he attacked into the heart of Iroquois territory. However, he found mostly abandoned villages, which he proceeded to burn to the ground.
That still was not enough to force the Iroquois to give up. The intermittent campaign continued for another five years. Finally, in 1701, greatly weakened by ten years of war as well as ravaged by disease, the Iroquois sued for peace.
See: The Great Peace of Montreal
Footnotes
- ↑ Inscription: Inscribed in the plate. u.r.; La Lettre 20. Page 209. explique cette attaque. u.l.; Tome 1er Pag14 / PROFIL DE LA VILLE DE QUEBEC et de ses / environs attaquee par les Anglois en lannee 1691. b.; l'Hôpital gene / ral / Riviere de St. Charle / les Francois et les / Sauvages accou / rent aux bois en chasser / les ennemis / Hermi / tage des / Recoles / troupes Angloise / Brulots Francois / lieuë / Echelle d'une lieuë heure de chemin / Flueve de St. Laurern. letter A to Z keyed to image, b.: A / Chateu du Fort / B. Citadelle faite depuis l'attaq. / C. Magazine aux poudres / D Recollets / E Urselines / F Eglise de la basse Ville / G. Gathedralle / H Seminaire / I. les Jesuittes / L. L'Eveché / K lHôtel Dieu / M. Platteforme ou / batterie de Canons / N Cul de Sacq / O Isle dOrleans / P Point de Lévi / Q Marquisat ou / Seigneurie de Beauport / R. Village dépendant / de Beauport / S Mouillage de la / Flotte Angloise / T Chaloupe Angloise qui attand le / retour de mon major / V Vaisseaux Anglois / canonant La Ville / Chaloupe Angloise / portent les troupes à terre. Y Lieu de la des / cente des troupes Angloise / Z Bois taillis ou / les troupes Angloise furent repoussees par les Françôis Note: All inscriptions are transcribed as they appear, including arcane spellings and lack of accents and apostrophes.
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