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New France was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris.
Alexander Henry 'The Elder' was a fur trader, following the British Conquest of New France; a partner in the North West Company; and a founding member and vice-chairman of the Beaver Club. In 1763–64, he lived and hunted with Wawatam of the Ojibwa, who had adopted him as a brother.
A coureur des bois or coureur de bois was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian trader who traveled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with First Nations peoples by exchanging various European items for furs. Some learned the trades and practices of the Indigenous peoples.
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader and explorer. In the 1730s, he and his four sons explored the area west of Lake Superior and established trading posts there. They were part of a process that added Western Canada to the original New France territory that was centred along the Saint Lawrence basin.
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge.
Fort William was a city in Ontario, Canada, located on the Kaministiquia River, at its entrance to Lake Superior. It amalgamated with Port Arthur and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Since then it has been the largest city in Northwestern Ontario. The city's Latin motto was A posse ad esse, featured on its coat of arms designed in 1900 by town officials, "On one side of the shield stands an Indian dressed in the paint and feathers of the early days; on the other side is a French voyageur; the center contains an [grain] elevator, a steamship and a locomotive, while the beaver surmounts the whole."
The history of the area around what is now known as Montreal, Montreal itself was established in 1642, located in what is now known as the province of Quebec, Canada, spans about 8,000 years. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, a discrete and distinct group of Iroquoian-speaking indigenous people. They spoke Laurentian. Jacques Cartier became the first European to reach the area now known as Montreal in 1535 when he entered the village of Hochelaga on the Island of Montreal while in search of a passage to Asia during the Age of Exploration. Seventy years later, Samuel de Champlain unsuccessfully tried to create a fur trading post but the Mohawk of the Iroquois defended what they had been using as their hunting grounds.
Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye was a French Canadian fur trader and explorer. He, his three brothers, and his father Pierre La Vérendrye pushed trade and exploration west from the Great Lakes. He, his brother, and two colleagues are thought to be the first Europeans to have crossed the northern Great Plains and seen the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming.
Nicolas-Joseph de Noyelles originally resided in Rochefort, France but came to New France in 1710 to begin his military career as an ensign in the regular colonial troops. He married in 1718 and, because of a strong family friendship with Governor Charles de Beauharnois, he received favorable postings and promotions. His two main postings were Detroit and (near) Fort Wayne. At Fort Wayne, he became heavily involved in the fur trade. He was also involved in trying to settle wars and allegiances amongst various Indian tribes. It would seem that much of his activity in this area pointed to a high level of ineptness. However, the Beauharnois connection stood him in good stead. In 1744, when Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye lost the western commanders position of directing the fur trade while exploring a route to the western sea, the position was granted to Noyelles. However, this was a demanding job and he resigned in 1746.
Luc de la Corne, also known as Saint Luc, was the son of Jean-Louis de La Corne de Chaptes (1666-1732), King's Lieutenant at Montreal, and Marie Pécaudy de Contrecœur. Saint-Luc was an officer in the Compagnies Franches de la Marine; his brother Louis de la Corne, Chevalier de la Corne, later became a very successful merchant at Montreal. Though relatively unknown, he played a major role in American and Canadian history. He is most famous for returning from the shipwreck of the Auguste off the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, at the age of fifty, during the dead of winter, to Quebec City - a trek of 700 miles. He had a varied and courageous military career which earned him the cross of Saint Louis in 1759. He fought at both the Battle of Fort William Henry during the French and Indian War and at the Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolution.
James McGill was a Scottish Canadian businessman and philanthropist best known for being the founder of McGill University, Montreal. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada for Montreal West in 1792 and was appointed to the Executive Council of Lower Canada in 1793. He was the honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Battalion, Montreal Militia, a predecessor unit of The Canadian Grenadier Guards. He was also a prominent member of the Château Clique and one of the original founding members of the Beaver Club. His summer home stood within the Golden Square Mile.
The Hon. Joseph Frobisher M.P., J.P., was one of Montreal's most important fur traders. He was elected to the 1st Parliament of Lower Canada and was a seigneur with estates totalling 57,000 acres. He was a founding member of the North West Company and the Beaver Club, of which he was chairman. From 1792, his country seat, Beaver Hall, became a centre of Montreal society.
Madeline La Framboise (1780–1846), born Marguerite-Magdelaine Marcot, was one of the most successful fur traders in the Northwest Territory of the United States, in the area of present-day western Michigan. Of mixed Odawa and French descent, she was fluent in the Odawa, French, English and Ojibwe languages of the region, and partnered with her husband. After he was murdered in 1806, she successfully managed her fur trade business for more than a decade, even against the competition of John Jacob Astor. After retiring from the trade, she built a fine home on Mackinac Island.
François-Marie Picoté, sieur de Belestre II was a colonial soldier for both New France and Great Britain.
John Strettell (1721–1786) of London, England, was one of the most important merchants providing trade goods to the Canadian fur trade in the period between the Conquest of Canada and his death in 1786.
The Beaver Club was a gentleman's dining club founded in 1785 by the predominantly English-speaking men who had gained control of the fur trade of Montreal. According to the club's rules, the object of their meeting was "to bring together, at stated periods during the winter season, a set of men highly respectable in society, who had passed their best days in a savage country and had encountered the difficulties and dangers incident to a pursuit of the fur trade of Canada". Only fragmentary records remain of their meetings, but from these it is clear that the Beaver Club was "an animated expression of the esprit de corps of the North West Company". The men of the Beaver Club were the predecessors of Montreal's Square Milers.
Pedlar is a term used in Canadian history to refer to English-speaking independent fur traders from Montreal who competed with the Hudson's Bay Company in western Canada from about 1770 to 1803. After 1779 they were mostly absorbed by the North West Company. The name was first used by the Hudson's Bay Company to refer to French coureurs des bois, who travelled inland to trade with the Indians in their villages and camps. This was in contrast to the HBC policy of building posts on Hudson Bay, to where the Indians would bring furs to trade with them.
Charles-Jean-Baptiste Chaboillez, of Montreal, was one of the most influential French Canadian fur traders after the British Conquest of New France and a founding member of the Beaver Club. Chaboillez Square in Montreal was named for his nephew, The Hon. Louis Chaboillez, in 1813.
Asleep by the frozen sea is a phrase coined by Joseph Robson to describe the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from its foundation in 1670 until the establishment of its first inland post in 1774. Unlike the French who sent Coureurs des bois inland to trade, the HBC built posts on Hudson Bay and waited for the Indians to bring furs to them. The decision to abandon this policy and move inland gradually turned the HBC into an informal government for western Canada and led ultimately to the confederation of western and eastern Canada.
Paul-Joseph Le Moyne de Longueuil was a seigneur and colonial army officer in New France and governor of Trois-Rivières from 1757 to 1760.
References
- ↑ Richardson, A. J. H. (1979). "Howard, Joseph". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography . IV (1771–1800) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
- ↑ Dunn, Walter Scott (2001). The New Imperial Economy: The British Army and the American Frontier, 1764-1768. Greenwood. p. 146. ISBN 9780275971809.
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