Chapter Six: French Colonial Development Around 1600
Chapter Six: French Colonial Development Around 1600
The 1580 and 1590s into the early 1600s marked yet another milestone for French colonialism in North America. In the North of the continent of North America was New France. In 1524, after exploring the Carolina coast and sailing up the Atlantic shoreline, Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano eventually reached the Maritime Provinces of Canada and ultimately gave the names Francesca and Nova Gallia to the land between New Spain and English Newfoundland. Verrazzano's voyage convinced King Francis I to seek to establish a colony in the newly discovered land. Ten years later, French explorer Jacques Cartier planted a cross in the Gaspé Peninsula and claimed the land for the King, naming the area Canada. Aiming to colonize and expand its influence in North America, the first settlement of 400 people, Fort Charlesbourg-Royal, was attempted in 1541 but lasted only two years. Still, French fishing fleets continued to sail to the Atlantic coast and into the St. Lawrence River Valley, making alliances with Canadian First Nations. French merchants soon realized the St. Lawrence region was full of valuable fur-bearing animals like the beaver which were increasingly scarce in Europe. With the success of the English Colony in Virginia, the French crown focused on a more determined effort in colonizing its North American claims and vowed to be much more prepared than the first time around.
In 1596, 55 years after initially arriving at Fort Charlesbourg-Royal, it was decided that there would be another attempt at settling the area. This second group of 400 settlers would arrive two summers later under the leadership of merchant François Gravé Du Pont and Calvinist naval captain Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit who acquired a ten-year fur trade monopoly from King Henry IV. Prior to this expedition, Pierre de Chauvin served as the captain of the important Huguenot garrison at Honfleur in 1589. By 1596, he had an interest in commerce and maritime enterprise, owning four vessels with which he regularly engaged in the respective fur trade and cod-fishery of Canada and Newfoundland. Regarding the second settlement attempt at Charlesbourg-Royal, 35 people survived the winter, with most deaths from disease. What saved them from extinction was alliances made with indigenous tribes, including the Iroquis, that were not present 55 years earlier, and commerce and fishing knowledge from de Chauvin, so starvation was not as major. Later that year, he sailed to France to get supplies for Charlesbourg-Royal and settlers for a second settlement about 200 kilometers down the St. Lawrence River. In 1605, a fort named Baie Rouge was set up at the site of an old Basque whaling station on the north bank of the Strait of Belle Isle, and a settlement was set up at the Gaspe Peninsula in Newfoundland just a few kilometers from the planted cross, but none would be as important as the foundation of Quebec City in 1608.
After this monopoly expired in 1606, the captain relocated his efforts over to La Floride. The Huguenots were undergoing a great period of settler expansion at the time, beginning in 1587. With the exception of the Riviere de Mai to the South or Wineau to the North, most of the settlement was between the Riviere Grande and Charlesfort. While there were some French settlements between the Rivieres Grande and Mai, most were not permanent but rather seasonal. This would change beginning in 1587 with the second permanent settlement south of the Riviere Grande at a river on the west side of the Isle de Seme, followed by a third five miles east of Fort Caroline at the mouth of the Riviere de Mai. Further up the river, what became Montreal was scouted in 1588 before being settled for the first time in 1595. The time between the years 1595 and 1597 marked an exploration of what would later be named the Iles de la Mar. These islands were a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic coast from the Riviere de Mai in the South to Charlesfort and the Riviere Basse in the north. While there were already seasonal settlements and trading posts here, there were essentially no permanent settlements due to it being a warm, subtropical marshland. The seasonal settlers typically moved to Fort Caroline or Charlesfort after it ended. The assessment for the viability of permanent colonies here was concluded in 1597.
Before a proper conclusion could be made back at Charlesfort as to whether or not to move ahead, there was some news from overseas back in France. Signed in April 1598, the Edict of Nantes was signed by King Henry IV, granting the French Huguenots substantial rights and aiming to promote unity and end the French Wars of Religion. Given that he was Protestant before taking the throne in 1589 and remained sympathetic to the Protestant cause even after his conversion to Catholicism in 1593, it was expected that he would favor such an edict. The edict allowed for Protestants to be treated as more than just schismatics and heretics, offering general freedom of conscience to individuals, amnesty, the right to work anywhere they pleased, and to bring grievances to the king. While it didn’t fully please either party (Catholics wanted religious uniformity and Protestants aspired for full parity), it was a major step in the right direction towards tolerance and secularism. This had the effect of slowing down long-term Huguenot migration to La Floride, but not stopping it as parity had not been fully achieved in France and many wanted to exist in a Protestant society that La Floride allowed. Thus the new logistics delayed the execution of plans for new colonial settlements until 1602 and would not be fully complete until 1604. Two of the first settlements founded would soon develop into the ports of Loire and Ville Magnum. Despite this success, more competition would be on the horizon for the Huguenots.
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