a FRENCH EXPLORATION article

Cultures of Acadiana
a look at the French, Cajun, Creole, and Native American cultures of south Louisiana
(a project of Carencro High School - 721 West Butcher Switch Road, Lafayette, LA  70507)

Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 26, 1999

Furs become the 'gold' that lures settlers to New France

by Jim Bradshaw

Even though the French were having a tough time putting down a regular colony in North America, fishermen were continuing to sail regularly to Newfoundland to exploit the huge schools of cod there. Going ashore to dry their fish, they soon founded another lucrative business.

All kinds of furs, especially marten and beaver ,were in great demand in Europe in the middle 1500s, and the fishermen were soon carrying beads and hatchets and knives to the New World to trade with the Indians for pelts. As the 1500s drew to an end, French merchants, realizing that the fishermen had stumbled upon a major source of new wealth, began to organize trading companies to set up posts in Canada that would send regular shipments of furs to them.

One of the first attempts at such a post was organized by a nobleman from Brittany, Troilus de Mesgouez, marquis de la Roche. He tried twice, in 1578 and again in 1584, to set up a post on Sable Island, a strip of sand off Nova Scotia. Both of those attempts failed. But, in 1598, armed with a commission from French King Henry IV, who had succeeded Francis I, he tried again with a band of 60 "colonists" that he took from the prisons of France.

After setting up a post on Sable Island, La Roche returned to France for supplies. He was immediately arrested by his creditors and thrown into prison, leaving his settlement to its own devices for five years. Finally, the last 11 men there were found by fishermen and returned to France.

To satisfy his debts, La Roche sold his fur-trading rights to a Protestant merchant and ship owner from Dieppe named Pierre Chauvin, who, in 1600, founded the fur trading post of Tadoussac. Chauvin died in 1603, and his successor, Pierre du Gua, Sieur de Monts, formed the company that would found Saint-Croix, Port Royal, and Québec. One of his partners was the man who was a driving force in the exploration and settlement of New France, Samuel de Champlain.

Port Royal would become the center of Acadie, and an important trading point. By 1616, Acadians had established trading posts also at Cape Sable, Penobscot Maine, and on the St. John's River. That year alone, they sent 25,000 pelts back to France. The trade assured that the French would stay on the Acadian peninsula. By 1636, the first families were established there. Many of these would choose an agricultural life, rather than that of a fur trader.

Québec served as the first base from which fur traders began to spread south and hear tales about a river that would take them to the place that would become Louisiana.

This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission.  This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g).