La Prairie Voyageurs and the Fur Trade
Presentation for the French-Canadian Heritage Society of California
October 27, 2019
II. — LA PRAIRIE DE LA MAGDELEINE
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Savages settle in La Prairie with the French
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La Prairie de la Magdeleine was a large prairie, surrounded by woods, at the confluence of the Saint-Jacques River and the Saint Lawrence River.
It’s located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River — directly opposite Montreal and its Lachine fur trade depots.
It had been the ancient hunting and fishing grounds and camping site of the Iroquois and Abenaki.
It’s also located at one end of the portage between the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu Rivers, giving it a water route via the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and the Hudson River directly to Albany, the principal place for the prohibited trade with the English.
In 1647, the land had been given to Jesuit missionaries by the Company of One Hundred Associates for the purpose of building a mission, and converting Indians to Christianity.
Settlement was delayed for the first 20 years because of almost continuous Iroquois attacks.
In 1667, La Prairie was finally settled when the Jesuit Father Pierre Raffeix brought his Iroquois parishioners back from the south — an area west of Albany, New York today.
The Jesuit mission, at that time was known as, St. François-Xavier-des-Près.
The majority of the first French settlers came from Montreal. A few were from the Carignan-Salieres Regiment, including Charles Diel dit Le Petit Breton, my 8th great-grandfather.
The earliest settlers — Jesuits, Iroquois and French alike — shared one "cabane" or makeshift shelter — a longhouse! They worshipped together in one church.
A rapidly growing native population of Oneidas, Mohawks, Onondagas. Abenakis, and Hurons soon began to govern themselves, appointing leaders for religious affairs and leaders for warfare.
The Iroquois Mission Moved Upstream in 1676
For a variety of reasons, including depletion of soil, depletion of firewood, and the sale of liquor to natives by the French settlers, the mission site moved upstream in 1676.
In 1680, a seigniory, called "The Sault" — adjacent to that of La Prairie-de-la-Madeleine — was conceded by the King of France to the Jesuits to establish the Iroquois mission. It was enlarged by Governor Frontenac on October 31, 1680, who named it "Sault-Saint-Louis".
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1680, View of the French mission to the Iroquois at Sault-Saint-Louis
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Over the next few years the Mission moved several times, the last being in 1716, to the present site of Kahnawake (English: Caughnawaga), about fifteen kilometers upstream from La Prairie.
La Prairie’s French Settlers
By 1673, La Prairie had an estimated population of 99.
In 1687, a flour mill was built there, and a wooden palisade was erected.
In 1690, the palisade was used to repel an attack by English-Iroquois mercenaries led by Peter Schuyler from New England.
A few years later, a small wooden church was erected and little by little a village was born.
By 1692, the population of La Prairie was 181 inhabitants.
After 1694, as Iroquois hostilities diminished, the village grew and by 1697 the population had tripled to 321.
La Prairie and Kahnawake became arenas of contact between cultures, contact facilitated by a shared interest in trade and survival.
Some of La Prairie’s young men made trips to the Iroquois or Ottawa, either as an assistant to the Jesuits, or as helpers for older coureurs de bois.
From the soldiers, the Iroquois and the coureurs de bois they learned about the best routes used to conduct fur trade with the English in New York.
By 1698, there are 790 Indians at the mission Sault St Louis.
In 1763, British troops occupied New France — the Anglo-French struggle for supremacy in North America was over, and the Treaty of Paris ended the war and ceded New France to Britain.
La Prairie had several advantages for those involved in the fur trade…
• Being on the south shore of the St Lawrence, it had a water route directly to Albany where they could get higher prices for their furs, and could purchase better trade goods at a lower price.
• The Iroquois from the mission at Sault St Louis already traded with the English and gladly worked with the French in this illegal trade.
• Many of La Prairie’s sons had grown up around the Indians, the Indian way of life and freedom had an attraction that held many of them to the end of their lives.
• With their dislike for authority, La Prairie also offered a distance from the rigidity of the clergy and the authorities of the colony.
• Most of the French youth did not like the hard work and limited income from farming, and many recognized a better chance for financial gain as beaver pelts paid the bills.
The economy of La Prairie depended more on the fur trade than on agriculture, although some of the habitants tried to do both.
Fur Trade Routes
Two good canoe routes from the La Prairie area reached directly to the best beaver pelts on the continent.
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This 1691 map shows the canoe route LaPrairie's voyageurs would take from Lachine to Michilimackinac. They would spend seven to eight weeks paddling heavily-laden freight canoes — “canots de maître” — up the St. Lawrence, along the Ottawa & Mattawa rivers, across Lake Nipissing, down the French River to Lake Huron, then west to Fort Michilimackinac.
A trip by the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers was fairly safe from Iroquois and English attacks but required much portaging.
The other route through the upper St. Lawrence and the lakes to Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac and Green Bay passed through a long stretch where voyageurs were threatened by Iroquois interference.
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I wonder how many times different times we are related?
ReplyDeletecousin
Seems to be plenty. :-)
ReplyDelete