Tadoussac, a high place of conquest
Tadoussac! The name flaps like a banner in the wind.
Yet that name that the Montagnais have given to this confluence of the Saguenay with the great river has a much more feminine and maternal meaning; they call it "totoushak" plural of "totoush" which means udder ( in "Voyage au pays de Tadoussac" by J Edmond Roy, 1889 ). The udders are the two high capes which frame the mouth.
Another reference: "History and general description of New France, with the Historical Journal made by order of the King in North America" by Father de Charlevoix, Jesuit, from 1733. Charlevoix is recognized as the first true historian of the New World and of Quebec in particular .
Before were the Native Americans
Because a world of course exists before the arrival of the French and the English.
There, in Tadoussac in the summer are the Montagnais , these Amerindians so named by the French because they live in the mountains to the north of the river, but which call themselves the Innu (and not the Inuit of the Arctic regions).
In the immense forests of the North-East of Quebec which cover the short mountains of the Canadian shield live in fact several nomadic nations.
They subsist through hunting, fishing and harvest in summer, move in small scattered tribes that follow their prey, and regularly migrate from spring to the shores of lakes and the great river.
From the arrival of French whale-hunting sailors in the 15th century, they who butchered the animals killed to clothe them in winter learned the advantage they could draw from the barter of skins accumulated after their hunts. They are also said to be in a happy and ironic mood, little attached to wealth.
These include the great Algonquin nation made up of several tribes such as the Abenaki, the Cree, the Maliseet, the Mi'kmaq, the Algonquins themselves, the Innu (the Montagnais) ... The Montagnais were spread over the entire north shore of the river, but their big based is none other than Tadoussac, a great place of concentration during the summer.
An example of the contents of a barter is reported during the arrival of 2 ships in Tadoussac in June 1626, in a period of monopoly, (the trade has been well established for a long time). The relation is made in the Bergeron's "Treaty of Navigations" from 1629 . The illustration below does not correspond to the event but represents Champlain negotiating with the Indians. Each cargo can reach 15,000 to 20,000 skins. The impatient Indians wait on the heights of Tadoussac to see the arrival of the boats as soon as the snow melts. When the vessels have dropped anchor at Tadoussac, boats are leaving for Trois-Rivières and Quebec to collect other skins and bring them back here "to the main counter".
"... the savages brought skins of moose, cervier wolf, fox, otter, marten, badger, muskrat, but mainly of beaver which was the most sought after. "
The boats brought : "hoods, blankets, nightcaps, hats, shirts, sheets, axes, arrowheads, breaths (sic: awls), spears, slices to break the ice in winter, knives, boilers, prunes, grapes, du corn, peas, biscuit or pancake and petun (tobacco) " .
In the great plains of the south and west , there are other considerable Amerindian nations that the fertility of the soil has established as sedentary tribes, farmers, herders; they are organized in villages of wooden huts protected behind log palisades, governed in a fairly structured way, powerful in number. They are said to be "thieves" and sensitive to wealth and the accumulation of heritage. They are the Iroquois , divided between Hurons in the region west of Quebec and the Mohawks further southwest around the river.
The English will make the Iroquois in particular their allies, while the French will join the Montagnais, the Algonquins.
Tadoussac, trading platform,
exploration relay
In the history of the conquest of the New World, three main stages chronologically mark that Canada, and Quebec in particular, which is naturally on the path of explorers from the east from which they come.
They are each marked by a particular personality of the kingdom of France whose name has been remembered in history. :
- Jacques Cartier le malouin (1491-1557) explores the region, in the wake of Basque and Breton fishermen who came from the end of the 15th century until the St. Lawrence estuary.
1534-1535
He discovered and named the St. Lawrence River in 1534, commissioned by François 1er for " discover certain islands and countries where it is said that one must find great quantity of gold and other rich things ", and so also to find the way of India.
Without having discovered gold, but only stones that will prove to have no value, the scale of the country he describes nevertheless seduces the Court, where he brings back two children of the Montagnais chief Donnaconna whom he met. .
He set out again in 1535. There he went up the river to the island of Hochelaga (Montreal) after having recognized the mythical Saguenay river, the site of Tadoussac where his three ships anchored on September 1, 1535, and made alliances with the Iroquois , who will mistrust him afterwards. Placed a little later under the authority of the Huguenot Roberval (curious alliances between François 1st Catholic king, placing his friendship for the Reformed before any other consideration), he "kicks in on the stretchers", disobeys him and ends up withdrawing, drowning his disappointments, it is said, in the chouchen.
- Samuel de Champlain (1574-1635) the founder; he organizes the colony, after his first trip where he tackles Tadoussac for the first time in 1603.
Navigator and cartographer (see his map of the port of Tadoussac below), he explored the Caribbean Sea to the Isthmus of Panama, of which he explicitly states the interest that there would be in piercing a canal there: " If four leagues of land were cut off […] the path would be shortened by more than 1500 leagues. " Sacred precursor of F. de Lesseps, even if he underestimated the distances !!
1600
But a little earlier, a Huguenot researched and obtained in 1599 by decision (letter patent) from King Henry IV the exclusive privilege of the fur trade along the river to Tadoussac.
It was Pierre Chauvin de Tonnetuit who built there in 1600, at the same place where is today "the Grand Hotel" the first milking establishment, reconstructed identically closer to the shore.
In return for the monopoly, he had to found a colony and establish the Catholic religion, him the reformed (of course the Edict of Nantes passed through there in 1598 but all the same ...). He won't.
This first monopoly does not fail to arouse the reaction of Basque and Breton sailors ... and French merchants who until then negotiated freely with the Montagnais. Opposition which went as far as the gunning of the royal vessels by the free sailors and at least to a well established contraband and difficult to fight.
1603
Chauvin died the same year Champlain arrived in 1603.
The latter, still little known, acts under the mandate of Chauvin's successor, Aymar de Chastes, and comes here with an expedition led by a merchant, explorer, but above all an experienced sailor who has already sailed by boat every summer for perhaps 20 years to Trois Rivières along the St-Laurent, François Gravé, (or Pont-Gravé).
Then Champlain and Gravé explore the St-Laurent upstream as far as Sault St-Louis, where they stumble, and in July return to discover the entire mouth downstream, meet the Micmacs, seek information on a passage to the west.
They returned to their Tadoussac base on August 3. There, new smoking with the chef Begourat this time, another sagamo recommended by Anadabijou. With his warriors he prepare a new war against the Iroquois.
From 1604 to 1607, Champlain and Gravé then set out with great difficulty to establish small colonies and explore the Atlantic coast in detail.
1608
Finally, it was in 1608 that, from Tadoussac, Champlain undertook to establish " l'Abitation de Quebecq ", made up of a small fortress, a trading post and a house.
There really begins the history of New France.
Arrived on May 24, 1603 in Tadoussac, three days later, on May 27, Champlain crosses the mouth of the Saguenay and goes to Pointe-aux-Alouettes to meet the Montagnais chief ("sagamo") Anadabijou (pretty name of chief) accompanied by a hundred of his warriors, for a party in their own way, a "tobacco shop "where we smoke petun. They celebrate a great victory over their then enemies the Iroquois.
A remarkable coincidence or a well-organized interview, this celebration will in any case permanently seal the alliance between French and Montagnais.
In "Samuel de Champlain, Second Voyage, from Honfleur to Montreal", by Le Jeune in 1931 , " Tadoussac, at the time, was the terminus of transatlantic navigation, the home port and rallying point for European vessels. : because upstream of the river navigation seems perilous. Having anchored, Dupont-Gravé saw himself reduced, by virtue of his royal privilege, to engage in the fight against the Basque captain Darache, who preceded him to the traffic with the natives. But Champlain, occurring on June 3, make a prompt accommodation. He immediately prepared two boats to transport part of the installation material to Quebec. In the meantime of this trip, he goes up the Saguenay again and collects vague information from the Indians relating to the interior regions. : Lac Saint-Jean and its tributaries, northern rivers and lakes, Baie du Nord. "
- Montcalm (1712-1759), reluctantly, since he leaves his life there, opens the way to the abandonment of the French presence, and closes the episode.
About the evolution of the city of Tadoussac
from http://www.tadoussac.com/fr/tadoussac/h historique
Until around 1632, Tadoussac remained the most important home port of New France, a point of convergence and rallying for hundreds of European ships ...
For more than a century, the trading post will be considered the largest counter throughout the royal territory.
Tadoussac is also during the same periods the first center of missionary activities in the Kingdom of Saguenay and the starting point of many religious invested with the mandate to evangelize the Amerindians of the Saguenay and Lac Saint-Jean regions.
The old chapel (above) built by the Jesuits in 1747 remains today an eloquent witness to the passage of these missionaries in Tadoussac.
Yet, probably due to the seasonal nature of its fur activity and the nomadic bivouacs of the Montagnais, the village is not expanding.
It was not until the middle of the 19th century century for Tadoussac to take on the allure we know it today. Thanks in large part to William Price , the forestry industrialist from Saguenay, from Chicoutimi and Lac St-Jean.
In total in the first period of discovery and exploration, at perhaps Henri IV leaves (who nevertheless opposes Sully there and confuses the context a little by not hesitating to designate explorers or Huguenot lieutenant-generals for their skills), these adventurers, conquerors, colonizers, merchant navigators, did not could not convince their successive rulers for the benefit of their discoveries. Other major events in Europe divert the latter.
These explorers did not find the arguments to persuade them to invest massively in men and capital, as the English will know how to do on their side, who will gain decisive advantage. Or sometimes they have never ceased to enrich themselves greedily, far from noble designs of the State.
For the seafaring peoples who came from across the Atlantic from the east probably even before Columbus discovered the New World, Tadoussac, is the first place after crossing the large estuary where it seems to them good to settle down before going further west.
Because the confluence and the bay make it a practical port, accessible by long-distance boats; but also because there comes in the summer, this large concentration of Amerindians and their precious skins, bartered and sold at a high price over there, on the other side of the ocean. Even if this lucrative business, free and without rules at the beginning, then becomes in episodes the exclusive privilege of a representative of the king. To later prove too narrow.
They also believe, quite in vain, that the roads to Cathay, the mythical Asia of Columbus, go through the St.Lawrence to the west, but also perhaps through the North-west.