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DAULNAY
destroyed La Tour's fort at St. John and built a new one on the
opposite side of the harbor. His principal residence was at Port
Royal, but his trade at St. John was large and profitable and
enabled him to maintain a large force to defend Ids possessions.
D'Aulnay proved an exacting and disagreeable neighbour to the
English settlers of Massachusetts Ray. He was disposed to demand
satisfaction from them for the assistance they had given to La Tour,
but contented himself by accepting a small present and binding them
down to a solemn treaty to give no countenance to his enemy La Tour.
There were excellent reasons for this, for there were men in Boston
who were financially interested in La Tour and were likely to be
ruined if La Tour remained an exile from Acadia. He owed Sergeant
Major Gibbons of Boston upwards of £2,000, and, to secure this sum,
La Tour gave Gibbons a mortgage on
his fort at St. John. As the fort was then in possession of D'Aulnay
the security did not appear to be of much value, but the sum secured
was not payable until February 1652, and by that time La Tour was
again in possession of his fort and master of Acadia. This was
brought about by a series of events which have-all the flavor of a
romance.
D'Aulnay was not liked by the people of Boston,
and in Acadia, where he was still better known, he was liked still
less. Nicholas Denys, a contemporary, who published a book on Acadia
in 1072, describes him as arbitrary and tyrannical and opposed to
the settlement of the country. He removed all the, people from La
Have and compelled them to reside at Port Royal under the grins of
his fort, keeping them in the condition of slaves. It paid him to do
this, because they were able to provide him with food for his
garrison, which otherwise he would have been compelled to import
from France, but beyond this he did not go. His business was to
trade with the Indians and the establishment of settlements was
always a menace to this trade, for there was a disposition on the
part of the settlers to engage in it on their own account. D'Aulnay,
however, did not live long to enjoy his good fortune, for, during
the summer of 1650, he was drowned in the river at Port Royal by the
upsetting of a canoe. The Indians saw the accident and went to his
assistance, and the servant who was with him was actually saved. But
one of the Indians, remembering that D'Aulnay had beaten him a few
days before, took care to drown him before he pulled him ashore. His
affairs were in a state of great confusion. He owed an enormous sum
to one Emmanuel le Borgne, a resident of France, from whom he had
obtained supplies and money to enable him to carry on wars against
La Tour. This indebtedness made Le Borgne a claimant for the
possession of Acadia and introduced a new clement of strife into
that country. D'Auluay's influence in France 'lid not survive hi.s
death. Early in the year 1631 La Tour obtained a new commission as
governor of Acadia, which also confirmed him in his territorial
rights in that country. Two years later he married D'Auluay's widow,
who seems to have thought this the only certain way of protecting
her large interests in Acadia By this second marriage La Tour had
five children, some of the descendants of whom still reside in
Acadia. Prior to his marriage he had again taken up his residence at
St. John, and the fort there was, by the marriage settlement, given
to his wife for her life time. But La Tour was not destined to
remain long in undisturbed possession of this fort. D'Aulnav's
creditor, Le Borgne, in 1653 came to Acadia to take possession of
the deceased governor's property under judgments of the French
Courts. He seized Port Royal, and grown bold by his achievement, lie
seems to have thought that he might as well take possession of all
Acadia and drive La Tour and Denys out of the country. Benvs had
come to Acadia in 1632 with Isaac de Ilazilly, and was now the owner
of a fishery at La Have, and was engaged :n establishing a colony at
St. Peter's in. the island of Cape Breton. Le Borgne put a stop to
the oj>erations of Denys at St. Peters's and burnt his establishment
at La Have, taking the owner prisoner. La Tour was to have been the
next victim, but before his plans could be carried out an English
force appeared and seized both Port Royal and Fort La Tour. This was
a squadron of four warships that had been fitted out by Oliver
Cromwell against the Dutch of New-York. When it reached Boston peace
had been concluded with the Dutch, hut the Massachusetts people
thought the occasion a favorable one to drive the French out of
Acadia. Accordingly a land force of 500 men, under the command of
Major Robert Sedgewick, was raised in great haste and embarked on
board the warships. Neither Port Royal nor Fort La Tour was in a
position to resist such a force, and so the whole of Acadia passed
into the hands of the English and was not restored to France until
after the treaty of Breda in 1657.
This last stroke of fortune, which deprived La
Tour both of his fort and his territory, would have been ruinous to
a less resourceful man. So far from having that effect, it gave him
twelve years of peace and comparative prosperity prior to his death
in 1666, La Tour's father had been connected with Sir William
Alexander's scheme of colonization; both father and son had been
made baronets of Nova Scotia at his instance, and both had received
from him an extensive grant of territory in Acadia, embracing some
4,500 square miles. La Tour was therefore able to approach Cromwell
not only as a Scotch baronet, but as a land owner under a
title-derived from an English King. The result of his efforts was
that in July, 1656, he received, in conjunction with Sir Thomas
Temple and William Crowne, a grant of the greater part of Acadia,
extending from what is now Lunenburg in Nova Scotia to the River St.
George in Maine, including the whole coast of the Bay of Fundy on
both sides and an hundred leagues inland. Temple was. appointed
Governor of this vast domain, and La Tour soon afterwards sold him
his interests in Acadia and retired into private life.
Temple rebuilt the fort at the mouth of the St.
John and erected a fortified trading post at Jemseg. Unfortunately
for him Cromwell died and the restoration of Charles
II. followed soon afterwards. Temple's
title to Acadia was attacked, and for a time he was deprived of his
governorship. In the end he was successful in having his title to
Acadia confirmed and his governorship restored, but he did not enjoy
his possessions long, for by the Treaty of Breda, England agreed to
restore Acadia to France. This was finally done m July, 1670, the
Chevalier Grand Fontaine taking possession of the country on behalf
of the King of France.
The English occupation of Acadia between 1654
and 1670 did not extend to that portion of it which bordered on the
Gulf of St. Lawrence and Bay Chaleur. Denys, who had been driven
from St. Peter's by Le Borgne, obtained a commission from the King
of France as governor of that region and took up his abode at
Nepisiquit, on a point of land on the north side of Batlinrst
harbour. He had also an establishment on the Miramiclii and a
fishing station at Miscon, and employed a large number of men in the
fisheries. Denys returned to France in 1070, leaving his sou Richard
in possession of his property. The missions on the North Shore were
also continued during the English occupation.
Grand Fontaine, the new French Governor of
Acadia, established himself at Penobscot in 1070. The King was very
anxious that Acadia should have a population, and, in 1671, sent out
sixty persons from France, five of whom were females. During the
same year a census of Acadia was taken by the King's orders. The
result was not cheering, for the entire population of the colony
numbered only 342 persons, exclusive of soldiers. Of these 325 lived
at Port Royal, seven at Pulmico, seven at Cape Negro and three at
River A Rocheloes. There is no mention of any person residing in
that portion of Acadia which is now New Brunswick, but as the census
was taken by Laurent Rolin, a Grey friar, who also was performing
the duties of Cure at Port Royal, the omission of any settlers
residing on the Hirainiehi or at Nepisiquit may be accounted for.
There is little doubt that Richard Denys was residing either at
Miramichi or Nepisiquit when the census of 1671 was taken. Another
Frenchman, Philip Enaud, was living at Nepisiquit in 1686, but it is
probable that he was not there in 1671.
Grand Fontaine ceased to be governor of Acadia,
in Hay, 1673, but his period of administration was distinguished by
the formation of a settlement which was destined to grow to great
importance and wealth,, the first permanent settlement in northern
Acadia. This was the Chignecto colony which was established by Jacob
Bourgeois, a resident of Port Royal The extensive marsh lands of
Chignecto which now sustain a large and prosperous population had
been known for almost three-quarters of a century, but it was not
until the year 1672 that they attracted colonists. The Chignecto
colony grew rapidly, and in the course of years quite over-shadowed
the mother colony at Port Royal.
Chambly, who had been an officer in the Carignan
Salieres regiment, succeeded Grand Fontaine as Governor of Acadia,
but the force under his command was so small that in 1671 a Dutch
corsair, named Arensan, captured his fort at Penobscot and also the
fort at St. John which was under the command of his lieutenant, de
Marson. The people of Massachusetts had viewed the surrender of
Acadia to France with much indignation, but they were still less
pleased to see that country in the possession of the Dutch.
Accordingly they sent a force under Captain Hampton to dispossess
the latter. This was accomplished and the Dutch driven away, an act
which produced remonstrances from the Dutch government. The latter,
however, took nothing by their complaints and the French resumed
possession of their fort at St. John. That at Penobscot was
abandoned ami never again occupied by the French government. It soon
afterwards passed into the hands of the Baron de St. Castin, a
retired officer of the Carignan Salieres regiment, who married a
daughter of the Chief of the Penobscot Indians and became the
virtual ruler of that tribe. His presence at Penobscot had a much
greater effect in advancing the interests of France among the
Indians than the maintainance of a fort there by the government
would have had, and it had the additional advantage oi costing the
French King nothing.
De Marson, who was the commander of the French
fort at St. John, acted as governor in the absence of Chamblv and
was appointed governor of Acadia in 1078, but died the same year. He
was the father of Louise Elizabeth de Joibert, who became the wife
of the Marquis do Vaudreuil, who was governor of of Canada for
twenty years, and the mother of that Marquis de Vaudreuil who was
the last French governor of Canada. Tins lady was horn at Fort St.
John in Acadia.
The period beginning with the governorship of
Grand Fontaine was remarkable for the number of grants of territory
in Acadia that were given to men who desired to become seigniors.
The Seigneurial system was in operation in Canada and it was thought
that it was equally suited to Acadia. But, owing to many causes, it
never took root here and the most flourishing settlements were those
in which it did not exist. Between 1672 and 1090 a large part of the
territory bordering on the St. John River was granted to seigniors,
but the result was very disappointing. The census of 1080 showed
sixteen persons residing on the St. John River in that year; in 1693
the number was twenty, in 1695 it had risen to fifty-nine. The
census of three years later showed a decline. Even these
inhabitants, few as they were, did not live by agriculture but by
trading with the Indians. The difference between the seigneurial
settlements on the St. John and a purely agricultural settlement is
illustrated by the case of Chignecto, which in 1680 had 127
inhabitants although it had only been founded fourteen years before,
or eight times as many as all the seigniories on the St. John River.
The Chignecto settlement was impeded by the
claims of Michael LeNeuf, Sieur dela Valliere, who in 1076 obtained
a grant of a large territory at Chignecto which included the
settlement there. This man was for several years commandant in
Acadia and he turned his opportunities to his own advantage by
engaging in illicit trade. In 1680 he had quite an establishment at
Chignecto, keeping five servants and having sixty acres of land
Tinder cultivation. He had eight children, but his wife, who was a
•laughter of Nicholas Denys, did not live with him. Among La
Valliere's possessions were seventy muskets. We may infer from this
that the seignior of Chignecto was something more than a farmer and
trader. He was in fact a smuggler and, unless greatly belied,
something of a pirate. La Valliere obtained another large Seigniory
in 1700 at Shepody, which embraced lands that had been occupied by
settlers from Port Royal and Chignecto two years previously. He hail
disputes with these settlers whom he would have liked to make his
tenants, but an order of the Council of State forbade him to disturb
them.
De Marson obtained three seigneurial grants on
the St. John River, one at the mouth of the river on the east side,
one at Jemsegand the third at Nashwark. None of these seigniories
appears to have been improved and they were forfeited or regranted
to others after De Marson's death. His widow, in 1091, thirteen
years after his death, received a grant of some fifty square miles
of territory on the St. John River which included wdiat is now
Gagetown, but she made no effort to settle it and it passed into
other hands. In 1672 Martin D'Arpentiginy, Sieur de Martignon,
received a grant of territory oil the west side of the St. John
River at its mouth, of six leagues square. De Martignon was a
son-in-law of La Tour, having married his daughter Jeanne, who was
born in 1620, and was therefore probably the child of an Indian
wife. Dc Martignon was residing 011 his property at St. John in 1080
when the census was taken. He was then 70 years old and as no
mention is made of him in the census of 1093, he had probably died
before it was taken. Four sons of Mathieu D'Amour, a member of the
Governor's Council at Quebec, were living in Acadia at this time.
Rene D'Amour, who took the title of Chignacourt, in 1684 received a
large grant at Meductic. In the same year Mathieu, whose title was
Freneuse, received a grant of the territory on both sides of the St.
John River, from Jemseg to the Naslnvaak, while at the same time
Louis, whose title was de Chauffours, obtained a grant of the
Richibucto River and adjacent territory. In 1695 the fourth brother
Bernard, Sieur de Plenne, received a grant of the Kennebeccasis
River and territory. Rene d'Amour was wholly engaged in trade with
the Indians and did nothing to improve his seigniory. Mathieu in
1686 had a residence on his seigniory opposite the mouth of the
Oromocto River, and in 1095 there were three houses and twenty-four
persons in this seiguiorj. At this time Louis D'Amour was living at
Jemseg, engaged irj trade and cultivating the soil to some extent.
They had come into possession of the territory formerly granted to
De Marson. The population of the Jemseg seigniory in 1(595 was
eleven persons of whom eight were servants. According to the same
census fourteen persons were then living at Naslnvaak in addition to
the garrison at Fort St. Joseph.
La Vailiere held the command in Acadia and was
virtually its governor from the death ol De Marson in the summer of
1678 to the appointment of Perrot in 1684. His term of office was
mainly remarkable for the quarrels between him and Bergier, wdio was
at the head of a company which was carrying on the shore fisheries
on the St. John River and at other points in Acadia. La Vailiere not
oidv engaged in trade with the English of Boston but gave them
licenses to fish, thereby interfering with Bergier's. licenses.
Perrot, who succeeded hint, had been governor of Montreal and his
reputation was very bad. He looked upon Acadia as a field for the
exercise of his peculiar talents as a trader and smuggler and not
with any View to the i uterests of its people or of the King. In
16S7 he was replaced by De. Menneval, a soldier, one of the sons of
Charles le Moyne, Seigneur of Longueil. This officer established
himself at Port Royal and began the erection of a new fort there,
but in May, 1690, while it was still unfinished, an English
expedition from Boston, under the command of Sir Win. Phips,
appeared in the Basin and compelled him to surrender. De Menneval
and the seventy soldiers whom he commanded were sent to France and
Acadia once more passed into the hands of the English. Phips was too
intent on the capture of Quebec which he attempted that year to
trouble himself much about Acadia, so lie contented himself with
causing the inhabitants of Port Royal to take the oath of allegiance
to the King of England, and organized a sort of provisional
government of which Chevalier, a sergeant of the garrison, was made
president, with a council oi six inhabitants. At this time there was
no military force on the St. John, all the forts there having been
abandoned after the death of De Marson in 1678. Villebon, a brother
of Menneval, had been sent from France to Acadia with ten recruits,
1 a vessel that carried supplies to the colony, and he arrived at
Port Royal a few days after the English had left it. As Villebon had
no force with him sufficient to garrison Port Royal he decided to
take refuge in the St. John River, which could not be so easily
reached by an enemy. After a conference with the Indians at Jemseg
he went to Quebec and from thence to Prance, from which he returned
to Acadia in September, 1681, with a commission as governor of the
colony. He established himself in the fort at Jemseg with fifty men
and proceeded to organize the Indians into w ar parties to ravage
and destroy the English settlements. This cruel warfare continued
for many years, the leader in most of the Indian expeditions against
the new English settlements being an officer named Villieu, who was
a son-in-law of Ija Vailiere. The English were not slow to retaliate
and humanity blushes at the recital of the atrocities that were
committed. The moving cause of all these cruel deeds was the
governor at Quebec, who thus sought to check the progress of the
English settlements. But this policy proved to be most unwise in the
end, for it hardened the determination of the colonies to destroy
French power in North America.
During the summer of 1692 Villebon removed his.
garrison from Jemseg to Nashwaak and there on a point of land, at
the junction of that river with the St. John, began the erection of
Fort St. Joseph, a palisaded work of four bastions. This fort had a
great advantage over the fort at Jemseg in being much nearer the
principal Indian settlement which was at Meductic. The Indians were
brought still nearer by one of those periodical visitations of
disease, which have done so much to destroy the red men. In 1004 a
mysterious sickness broke out among the Indians on the St. John
River, which carried off upwards of one hundred and twenty persons,
including the chief and many of their best warriors, and its ravages
were so great that Meductic. was abandoned for several years. Many
of the Indians removed to Aucpaque, a place some seven miles above
Fort St. Joseph, while others took up their residence farther up the
liver. The Indians of the St. John were always in alliance with the
Micmacs, who lived on the other side of the Bay of Fundy and on the
Gulf of St. Laurence, and the Abenaquis tribes who dwelt in the
territory to the westward, and all three tribes were usually
represented in their war parties. Treachery and cruelty were the
leading features of the Indian character, yet there is little doubt
that they would have been willing to remain at peace with the
English if the French had not been bent on provoking war.
The only warlike deed in which the Indians at
that time took part which was worthy of commendation, was the
capture of Fort William Henry at Pemaquid. This was a stone fort
which had been built by the government of Massachusetts at a cost of
£20,000. It was attacked in the summer of 1690 by a force, of 100
French and 400 Indians, aided by two French warships, and captured
after a brief resistance. The fort was destroyed, but Yiliieu, who
took part in the siege, on his return, was captured by an English
warship. At this time also Oapt. Church, who had attained some
celebrity as an Indian fighter, was sent from Massachusetts with 500
men in sloops aud whale boats to attack the French in Acadia.
Church, instead of seeking Villebon in his stronghold at Naslnvaak,
made a raid on the peaceful settlement at Chignecto and destroyed
it, as far as he was able. He and his men remained there nine days,
during which they robbed the poor people of everything moveable,
killed most of their cattle and burnt down all their buildings,
including the chapel. Church then made his way to St. John where he
landed and attacked a small party of observation, which Villebon had
stationed at the mouth of the river. Chevalier, an ensign who
commanded this party, was killed and two of his men made prisoners.
Church was so well contented with what he had accomplished, that he
gave tip the idea of going up the St. John Liver. He was actually as
far as the St. Croix on his return when he met Col. Hawthorne with a
reinforcement of 200 men, who insisted on an attempt being made on
Villebon's fort. Col. Hawthorne took command and the expedition set
sail once more for St. John Fortunately for Villebon he had due
warning of his danger from his brother Neuvillette, who had been
sent to the mouth of the river to reconnoitre and Villebon wrote to
Father Simon, the Recollet who lived among the Indians, asking him
to bring the warriors of his mission to the assistance of the fort,
and, on the 14th of October, Father Simon arrived with thirty-six of
them from Auepaque. The French settlers on the river were also
called, including Clignacourt and Frenense, Baptiste and nine
others, who lived below Nasliwaak. On the morning of the 18th, the
English made their appearance and landed below the fort on the
opposite side of the Nasliwaak river. In a few hours they had
intrenched themselves and had established a battery of two field
guns, which began firing on the fort. This fire was vigorously
returned, and the besiegers were exposed to a heavy fire of musketry
from the fort and from the Indians who lined the bank of the river.
On the following day the cannon fire was continued and one of the
English guns dismounted and the other silenced. That evening after
lighting many fires to conceal their design the English decamped and
next morning the French found their camp deserted. The French had
one soldier killed and two wounded in this affair. Villebon states
the loss of the English to have been eight killed and seventeen
wounded, but there is no English authority for this statement. The
siege appears to have been very badly managed, for only a small part
of the English force was employed, and it was absurd to attempt to
take a fort maintaining so many guns as Fort St. Joseph, by firing
at it with two small field pieces from the opposite side of the
Nasliwaak River. The English on their way down the river burnt the
buildings of the Seigniory of Freneuse, opposite the Oromocto, but
those at Jemseg were not touched. Two inhabitants of Chignecto,
Germain Bourgeois and Pierre Arsenault, who had been taken prisoners
by Church, were left by the English near the mouth of that river.
Freneuse died from the exposure he was subjected to during the
siege, and this was perhaps the most important result of it, for his
widow, who was a sort of Acadian Cleopatra, shook the very
foundations of the state for some years by her amours, and is also
believed to have been the moving cause of the attack made on the
English at Annapolis and the heavy loss suffered by them at Bloody
Creek in 1711.
The manner in which the settlers on the lower
St. John were exposed to English attacks, no doubt was the means of
showing the unsuitableness of the fort at Nasliwaak as the
headquarters of Acadia. Accordingly measures were taken to restore
the old fort at the mouth of the river, and in the autumn of 1698 it
was occupied by Villebon and his garrison and the Nasliwaak fort
abandoned. Prior to that, a treaty of peace had been made at Ryswick
between France and England, and this also brought the Indian raids
on New England to an end for, being no longer openly assisted by the
French, they were forced to make peace in January. 1699. |
