Your Family History:
We live by stories, we also live in them. One way or
another we are living stories planted
in us early or along the way or we are living the stories we planted knowingly or unknowingly in
ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate its meaningless. If we change the stories
we live by, quite possibly we
change our lives”- from the Anishnabai First Nations website (Bear Island,Ontario – www.ndakimenan.ca
To be ignorant of what
happened before you were born is to be ever a child - Cicero.
The 21st century has seen an explosion
of ancestral and genealogical information available on the internet, in various
societies and libraries. This has
happened most particularly in the last few decades; perhaps this is one of the
results of living in a world so chaotic, hectic, and transient that it seems
almost necessary to look for things that keep one grounded, to look for one’s
roots.
The double edged sword of this fast
paced-never-sit-still-existence derives from new technology that keeps
everything humming along without respite from phones, text messages, emails, ‘blackberries’
and iphones. And who knows what more is
yet to come. It is ironic that the technological
advances that hurry us forward into the future also allow for easier access to
records from the past.
One of the most interesting aspects of your family tree is that it is a
complex merging of cultures. Among your ancestors can be counted a peasant soldier
who came to New France (Québec) in the 1600s, and
an orphaned Algonquin woman from the area around Ville Marie (Montréal) who would become his wife. The
history of their offspring includes voyageurs, coureur des bois and
interpreters along the St. Lawrence and in Pays d’en Haut, the area around the Great Lakes and beyond.
You are also descended from an Irish immigrant who arrived later in Upper Canada (Ontario)
in the early 1800s. Almost universally, the records indicate that those ancestors
who arrived on this ‘new’ continent from elsewhere were escaping poverty and
despair and this land offered hope and the chance for a better life.
You can follow the histories of some of your
ancestors by using the colour codes attached to the Family Tree Chart and correlating
them to the stories that follow. There
is also indexed information that includes copies of records relating to births,
deaths, marriages and any other tidbits that I thought might be of interest. Please do not take offence at the use of the
word ‘savage’, ‘Indian’ or ‘native’ as they are used in the context of the
times; as is correct in today’s lexicon, we understand those words to mean
people of the ‘First Nations’.
I hope you enjoy getting to know from whence you
came. Be proud of this heritage of
struggle, love, hope and survival. The
genes of these people live on in you.
Willi Johnston
May 2009
Prologue
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, explorers such
as Jacques Cartier, John Cabot, Samuel de Champlain, to name but a few, had reached
the east coast of what they initially called the ‘New Found Land’.
Where the previous visitors, such as the Vikings, had been fishermen,
not adventurers, these gentlemen had loftier goals. They began mapping the coastline and its
terrain but also reported to their royal superiors that the inland waterways
were teaming with fish and that the land was rich in fur bearing animals.
Cartier had been hired by King Francois I of France to find gold and mineral wealth and to
look for a western trade route to China. It has been written that he was not much more
than a pirate and had limited investment in, or care for, this new land, which
he misunderstood from the natives to be called Kanada. Under
the continued support of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, Samuel de Champlain would have a much greater vision. In 1608 he founded a trading post at Québec (the Indian word
was Kebec) as a depot for funneling fur from trade with the natives in the west
and as a base for further exploration.
Almost immediately the Indians flocked to trade or simply to beg for
food. Champlain was eager to barter as Europe had shown a keen interest in the superior beaver
peltries for their hats and other fashion items, but he could not dismiss the
hunger and misery of the natives and conceived the desire to improve their
condition as well. His natural human
sympathies were aroused, along with an active religious faith to which the idea
of converting the heathens appealed.
The
Algonquins, as his guides, porters and interpreters, soon sought his military
alliance. This tribe and its friends the
Hurons controlled the trade routes via the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes to the West, therefore, in 1609 Champlain
sealed his alliance forever in blood. To
do this he joined his new friends in a war party that went up the St. Lawrence
by canoe and turned up the present Richelieu
River to what is now called Lake Champlain. On
its shores he helped them defeat (temporarily) their bitter enemies, the
Iroquois.
The French knew, of course, that once trade had
begun, it was essential that ensure the growth and safety of this new empire
and so, along with their supply ships, they began sending regular soldiers,
missionaries, colonists (habitants), merchants, filles du mariage who would
later become the Filles du Roi (young women of marriageable age known as the
King’s Daughters).
The first priests to arrive to save the souls of
the ‘savages’ were Recollet Priests,
however, they were unable to sustain themselves, either physically or
financially. Their numbers were
augmented by the Jesuits in 1625, beginning with six eager men. Among them was Father Jean de Brebeuf
(1553-1646), the sturdiest prop of the Jesuit mission in New
France. The Indians,
principally the Algonquin and Huron of the area, received the Fathers cordially
enough as they saw that in the early process of Christianization (baptism) there
was no ulterior threat to their lands or power.
Consequently the priests enjoyed a high prestige among the Indians which
the latter (somewhat unreasonably) transferred to all other Frenchmen. But there were squabbles even in those early
days between French factions, such as the Huguenot (non-Catholic traders), and
the disorder it created did not go unnoticed.
In order to bring this under control, Cardinal
Richelieu, the King’s right-hand-man in France, assumed complete control of
Canadian affairs. On April 29, 1627, for
New France, he created a commercial monopoly
for the territory and vested the monopoly in the Company of New France
also known as The Hundred Associates1; Champlain himself was
a member.
[…] so badly maintained have they been…and so neglected has
been the development of agriculture that if yearly provisions had delayed...the
small group of inhabitants would have starved to death, having but one month’s
supplies in store…
The disorders have reached such a point that…to assist in
the conversion of the indigenous inhabitants and to establish a prosperous
colony…New France should be, once and for all, made part of the King’s domain…
1-
The
Hundred Associates promise to transport two or three hundred settles of all
trades by 1628…[..]
2-
It
will not be permitted, however, to transport aliens…but rather the colony must
be settled by French Catholic citizen...[…]
3-
In
each settlement established by the Associates there are to be at least three
clerics in order to…convert the Indians and bring spiritual comfort to the
French citizens…[..]
4-
His
Majesty will grant, in perpetuity, to …the One Hundred Associates…plenary
property, justice, and seigniorial rights to Québec…all
of New France…from the coast of Florida…to the
Artic (sic)…and from the Island of Newfoundland…west
to the great lake…
7-
Further,
his Majesty grants…forever all traffic in pelts and furs
8-
French
inhabitants and their families settled in the country and not maintained by the
…Company…may engage in the fur trade…as long as the pelts are sold to the
Company…
17-
The
descendants of Frenchmen, as well as any converted natives…will be considered…as…French citizens and as
such may live in France…without
any further declaration of naturalization….
(Note: After capitulation to the English in
1628 and after the British under the leadership of the Kirke brothers took
Tadoussac and halted the supply lines down river, and following the treaty of
1632, the French had to start all over again.
At this time the Company of Hundreds was reorganized and Champlain
returned with ships and supplies.)
Much of the history of this time has come to us
from letters and reports written by men like Champlain and also from a large repository
of work, called Jesuit Relations, written by the Jesuit priests. The latter were like field reports from the missionaries to
their superiors in Québec and in France
as a means of raising, not only enthusiasm for their work, but for potential financial
aid as well. Father Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664) penned this impression of the natives:
[they] ‘feel
no jealousy toward others, they help one another; they share the wealth and
food. […]The women and the men each know
what is expected of them and never interfere in the other’s work. 2
On the
other hand, the reports could be brutally honest as in the following missive by
Jesuit Missionary Francois de Crepieul (Jesuit
Relations 63, 1696-1697) in regard to living with the Montagnais tribe (in
the area around Tadousac). Many of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus
longed to show their diligence to God through martyrdom and therefore they were
not afraid to go amongst the natives in order to learn their language,
the better then to make their conversion:
The life of a Montagnaix missionary is
a long and slow martyrdom- is an almost continual exercise of patience and
mortification - is a life truly penitential and humiliating, especially in the
cabins and on the journeys with the savages…the missionary almost all day sits
or is on his knees exposed to an almost continual smoke during the winter…His
usual drink is water from a stream or some pond, sometimes melted snow or
broth, pure or mixed with snow in a dish usually quite greasy….He always sleeps
with his clothes on…to protect himself from vermin…He is sometimes made ill by
the stink…of those who have scrofula.
As a
further example of the adjustments that the Jesuits would have had to make, one
of the staple foods of the tribes of the St. Lawrence valley and the Great Lakes region was sagamite, an unappetizing gruel into which the Indians threw hunks
of read meat, small animals, birds, fish, and frogs, usually tossing them in
whole without bothering to skin, pluck, or gut them.
Regardless of the hardships, the Jesuit Relations,
combined with the oral stories told in the villages and ports along
France’s Atlantic coast by returning sailors, had undoubtedly piqued the
interest of many; it must have sounded exciting and adventurous, and given the
climate of poverty, hopelessness and civil strife in France, we can understand
why a young man, such as Pierre Couc and others like him, might choose to leave
home and all that was familiar.
Pierre Couc dit Lafleur
Pierre Couc dit Lafleur was
born circa 1627. The term ‘dit’
was a word used to further identify a person from a particular branch of a
family or region or perhaps to differentiate the individual from someone else
with the same name. He was the son of a
peasant farmer Nicolas Couc and his wife Elizabeth Templair and he began his
life in the village and arrondissement of Cogniac, in the diocese of Xaintonge/Saintonge
(Charente, a coastal province), France.
Life for the general populace was a daily ordeal in
those early days in France.
“The poor man’s fate was sealed at
birth, and there was not much he could do to change it. His was a life of little joy, less freedom,
and no choice. Whether peasant or city
dweller, he was constrained by church and state, and by the habits and
mentalities of his milieu, to lead a life of servitude in a society where
inequality was the unchallenged rule.
All the country’s
natural resources - lands, forests and waterways - and all the sources of
wealth, knowledge, and power were passed down from generation to generation by
an aristocracy who, though they represented less than 2 per cent of the
population were all powerful and serviley (sic) respected.
Happiness lay in their hands.
1
It would have been almost pre-ordained that Pierre’s life would be a
monotonous peasant drudgery – taxed by state, church and seigniorial lords. But as we know, in the previous century Portugal, Spain,
France and England had been sending
exploratory ships west looking for a passage to the Orient and had revealed a
continent ready for exploration and settlement.
It is noted that Pierre Couc dit Lafleur arrived as
a twenty-six year old soldier in the
summer of 1651 under the initiative of
the Company of One Hundred Associates2 and was situated at Trois
Rivières, an important location because it served as a bridge head for the west. As a soldier of the King, he
would he would be expected to enforce the laws, clear land, build
fortifications and fight the hostile Five Nations Indians (Iroquois) in
Nouvelle France. As a newly arrived
immigrant, on August 27th, he signed the baptismal papers for a
small Indian orphan named Perrine. However, he would have other worries that
day: his duty as s solider must have
pre-empted much of his thinking as the Hurons had just been virtually
annihilated and it was clear the Iroquois had the same intentions for their
allies and protectors, the inhabitants of New France.
During this time, along with the movement of
natives to the east in advance of the Iroquois, Sachem* Pachirini had settled
his clan near the fort at Trois Rivières and it seems that Pierre made contact
with the people of his tribe. By all
accounts Pierre
was a good and affable man, learning their language and visiting when he could. Because he understood their words, he would
occasionally work as an interpreter and perhaps it was then that he met Marie
Mite8ameg8ke* (Index __ has a
romanticized version written by Normand Leveillee).
It is generally thought that Marie was an Algonquin
orphan. Native children often became
orphans when the warring Iroquois killed or carried off members of their tribes.
(Please note that there have been errors made by Fathers Rene Jette and Cyprien
Tanguay, priests who compiled and translated records but also made some
unconfirmed assumptions. They suggest
that she was the daughter of Sachem Pachirini and Barthelemi Anara8i –
Barthelemi, at any rate, being later identified as a male and Sachem Pachirini
was the chief of the clan and there is no indication that he was her parent. In fact, there is no documentation to support
their assumption in part or in whole.) It
is known, however, that she was of Sachem Pachirini’s peaceful family-oriented
Weskarini Band. As a result of Iroquois
attacks on the Hurons and Algonquins, her clan semi-nomadically moved in the
area between the Ottawa and St. Maurice Rivers
but eventually came to Ville Marie (Montréal)
because of the protection the fort there offered. She was born sometime between 1631 and 1633
and was later baptized on November 6, 1650, in Montréal and was given, at that time, the
Christian name of Marie, as well as Kakesik8k8e. Assabinach, who would become her husband, was
born circa 1620. They became ‘husband
and wife’, within the rights of their customs, sometime around 1647. Because of Sachem Pachirini’s willing alliance
with the French he was granted a fiefdom
near the fort at Trois Rivières
and so the clan moved there as this gave their village a modicum protection
from the Iroquois. A daughter,
Catherine, would be born to Marie and Assabinach during their travels there and
later a son, Pierre, was born in 1650.
Sadly on a spring day in 1652, a band of Iroquois
attacked their village and Assabinach and her two children, Catherine and
Pierre, were taken. As was noted previously, the Iroquois often took children
as hostages or adopted them to replace their lost tribal members but men or
warriors would suffer extremely cruel torture and death. The Weskarini Band fought valiantly alongside
the French colonists. Remarkably, many of the soldiers survived,
among them was Pierre Couc dit Lafleur.
His luck continued as it is recorded (in Our French
Canadian Ancestors, Vol. VI, page 94) that on May 21st across the
river from Trois Rivières, Pierre and an Algonquin friend were fishing
along the shore when shots rang out.
Both were struck but while the native’s wound was mortal, Pierre was only slightly
hurt.
Misery and fear did not abate as Iroquois attacks continued
throughout the summer and into the next year.
Mite8ameg8k8e and the remaining members of her clan suffered
another terrible year (1653). The
harvest had been burned, the livestock massacred, trading had been reduced to
zero, and there was no food. The
Iroquois had returned on a rampage again (the colony was in tatters; Montréal was at bay and Québec was ready to give up).
However, it was the small trading post at Trois-Rivieres
that saved the situation. Pierre Boucher4,an intelligent and brave
commander-in-chief, trained in Indian warfare, and his forty-six men, by sheer
courage,(resisted six hundred Iroquois when they launched
an attack and) forced the Iroquois to surrender and a peace treaty was
signed. Pierre Couc was one of the
soldiers who fought brilliantly during this battle. As a result of the peace treaty the Jesuits
were invited to Iroquois (Five Nations)
country something they had been hoping for so that they could continue their
quests for the conversion of heathen souls (and the Five Nations were free
to trade with Montréal). New France
had a short respite. 4
How could love have blossomed in such tumultuous
times? And yet it did. After Pierre
completed his years of service he decided to stay in a land that offered hope,
rather than to return to France
where his options would have been limited.
He would have been offered a small land grant and since he came from
peasant farming stock, he was used to clearing land, and hunting and fishing
for survival. It is easy to think kindly of this young man, Pierre, who despite
the constant dangers and tenuous nature of their lives, dutifully and patiently
waited for Marie’s mourning period to end.
In the romanticized version of Pierre and Marie, Normand Leveillee, (see
his resume at ____) has written:
Marie
caught the eye of the solider-farmer, Pierre Couc, who had purchased land and had established a farm in
Trois-Rivieres. He was quiet but very
brave in the face of danger. He respected all people. Pierre
had learned the Algonquin language and frequently
served as an interpreter between the colonists and the Native Americans. Mite8ameg8k8e
had taken an interest and enjoyed his frequent visits to her village. She had
frequently prepared food for his meetings with Sachem Pachirini and other
elders of her tribe. Her smile had sent Pierre a message.
She helped him perfect his
Algonquian; he taught her French. He
suggested that they begin a life
together; with her heart beating in joyful song, she accepted his
proposal. Pierre
was thirty years old; Marie was an orphan and a widow who had lost two
children. The love between Pierre and Marie was to find fruition in a
marriage that was to take place
five winters (16 April 1657) after her family had been taken from her by the Mohawks [Iroquois].
The setting was to be the little chapel of this trading post
on the Saint Lawrence River. Many relatives and friends of the fort and
village attended the marriage. The
Jesuit priest, Father Paul Ragueneau, officiated at this Christian-Algonquin
marriage (See record of marriage, tab _______). Sachem Charles Pachirini and Barthelemy
Anara8i, of Marie’s clan, as well as Mister Pere and Severin Ameau, friends of Pierre,
witnessed the joining of French and Algonquin cultures in the presence of two
people in love. There was dancing,
laughter and joyful feasting in both traditions: the French and the Algonquin.
Regardless of whether the romantic version written
by Mr. Leveillee is credible, the union of Pierre and Marie benefited from
favourable circumstances; the tragic times at Trois-Rivieres brought the French
and the Indians closer together since the thirty remaining families were
grouped into the fort. It would not have
necessarily led to marriage in other circumstances, but under the firm hand of
the Jesuits, it was very difficult for anyone in the village to have an illicit
union; in addition, Marie was pregnant.
And the government encouraged the establishment of soldiers and mixed
marriages by giving subsidies and compensation to settlers. And so, as was stated, after waiting for her
mourning period to end, Pierre Couc married Marie Mite8ameg8ke (French spelling
- Mitewamegoukwe). In a map of Trois Rivières for 1663 (find map
___), it indicates 50 lots or so. One of
these belong to Pierre Couc and was located on the south west corner of what is
now rue St. Pierre
and rue St. Michel (two blocks from the St. Lawrence River).
Life for Pierre and Marie would have tended to be
quiet and work-filled. Men hunted and
fished for food and shelter; women harvested corn, beans, squash, berries and
nuts and they prepared the meals and made clothing from tanned hides. They also cared for the shelter, making it
comfortable for their family. The Algonquin
and French colonists co-existed in a peaceful way, despite the hardships that
befell them - enemy attacks, harsh winters, poor crops and disease. The Algonquin people being family oriented,
adapted very easily to the way of life of the colonists and the colonists in
turn accepted the way of the First Nations people. This union was realized in the areas
surrounding the villages of Trois-Rivieres and later in St-Francois-du-Lac
where Pierre and Marie would reside.
As described by Normand Leveillee:
Thus
began the married life of Marie Mite8ameg8k8e Couc. Their first child, Jeanne, was born and baptized that year (1657). Without too much difficulty, Marie and her
husband Pierre were able to establish a home. There was a small circle of faithful
friends: Pachirini, Anara8i, Anne 8machtik8e8 and her husband
8echipapaiat, Ketimakisk8esen 8abanakik8e
and her husband 8atakonia on Marie’s side; Severin Ameau, notary of Trois-Rivieres, Jean Pere, merchant,
Jacques Menard, wheelwright, Francois Fafard, Christophe
Crevier and his wife Jeanne Evart and their son Jean Crevier, Nicolas Hertel
and his wife Jeanne Mirot, and
their son Jacques Hertel and his wife Marie Marguerite. Pierre
had purchased land from the Trottier brothers, enough to build a house and a small garden.
He hired himself out as a laborer for Barthelemy Bertaux, ironsmith/locksmith. Pierre and Marie had problems during those
first years. Loans were reclaimed.
Pierre
injured himself and had enormous medical costs.
He lost his employment as
ironsmith/locksmith.
Note 1: Christophe and Jean Crevier as mentioned
above do not constitute any part of lineage relevant to Creviers in your family
tree but Jean Crevier, their son, does figure in the story of Marie and Pierre
as you will see later on;
Note
2: In Genealogie, Tome 3, Portraits
de familles pionnieres by Robert Prevost, Christophe
Crevier and his wife Jeanne Evart/Evard are noted to be one of the first pioneer familes of Trois Rivières as are many of the other
people mentioned above.
Note 3: Jacques Menard is the father of Maurice
Menard who will marry Madeleine Couc, daughter of Marie and Pierre
To further lend credence to the fact that Pierre must have been an honourable man, on 15 Oct 1659 two
years after their marriage, Pierre
commissioned his friend Notary Severin Ameau to draw up a Marriage Contract to
insure that designates his wife as co-owner of all his property. This was not always the case when French
coureurs, voyageurs or colonists married native women - and since the women and
children of these unions would have no legal rights upon the death of their
husbands/fathers, it was a very noble thing to do.
By 1660 Pierre
had left the military. Pierre
had purchased land from the Trottier brothers near the centre of the village*
and hired himself out to work for the ironsmith Barthelemy Bertaux. But a debt he owed to Jeanne Crevier, wife
of his friend Pierre Boucher, for 248 pounds which she lent him and that he
disputed by alleging that she sold him wine that was too expensive was
reclaimed as well as a debt of thirty pounds he owed to Sebastien Pronnevot for
porcelain. To add insult to injury, Pierre hurt himself in
his work and had to be cared for by surgeon Francois Bellerman for two months
and ran up a sixty pound medical bill. The amounts appear small to us in this
day and age, but at that time it can be imagined that they would be almost
insurmountable. Pierre decided not to
bow down under the pressure so he started proceedings against his employer to
recoup his expenses and after a year’s long battle, the case was decided in his
favour, although it is doubtful he kept his employment! True Trifluvians (residents of Trois Rivières) it has
been said, were accustomed to displaying strong emotions, were bored without
the danger of the danger of the Iroquois and to break the monotony of building,
clearing land and cultivating, went to the Court of Justice at the least
reason.
Normand Leveillee writes:
[…]
troubles began anew. The Iroquois began
their attacks once more. Pierre decided two years
later (1661) to move his family to Cap-d-la Madeleine where he had bought four
arpent of land on the west bank of the
river. There was an agricultural
community where crops grew well and family life was better than at a trading
post like Trois-Rivieres. Pierre built his house near
the windmill and erected a palisade around it.
The house was covered with boards and cedar posts. It was built to ward off the cold: stone and layer of straw and earth protected
the cellar; the walls were covered with wooden laths.
Simone
Vincens states: […]On January 7,
1661, he bought a few arpents of land and a house, all for the sum of 750
pounds. He went into debt again, but one
can only approve of his choix (sic); after all, he made ennemis (sic) in the
town, and the Cap offered serious advantages; it was seignory (sic) of the
Jesuits, thereby one can count on their help in the demands and corrupt
practices of the other exploiting lords.
And it is an agricultural community where wheat grows well and which
lends itself better to a family life than a trading post like Trois Rivières.[..]
in the sale contract, Pierre agreed to seed his land in the spring, but
being prudent and with justifiable reason, he put in a reserve clause: “unless
war is so violent that one is not able to work.
In the intervening years Marie gave birth to Marie,
Angelique and Marguerite. As if the
colonists didn’t have it hard enough, it should also be noted that the Québec
region (St. Maurice and the St. Lawrence) had one of its largest earthquakes in
February of 1663, sending after shocks for as long as seven months but life
would improve somewhat.
Normand
Leveillee:
The
quiet peace was again disturbed by Iroquois raids. However, over the next five years the governor convinced France to send
soldiers, the Carignan Regiment, to finally quell
the Iroquois attacks. Finally, a peace
treaty was signed in the summer (1667).
For the next sixteen
years, it was an era of calm and prosperity for everyone.
Elizabeth, the fifth child, was born
and baptized that summer of the peace treaty, when the Iroquois finally renounced their domination of the Saint
Lawrence valley. Mite8ameg8k8e continued instructing her brood in the Algonquin
language and culture; Pierre taught his
children French and his heritage; and the Jesuits taught their children to read and write.
As the family continued to grow, colonization in New France flourished; exploration and conquest of the
West had begun.
Leveillee:
Over the next six years, two more children were born to the
Couc family; Marie Madeleine and a son Jean.
During this time, the atmosphere in Cap-de-la Madeleine had begun to
change dramatically. With the departure
of the Jesuits in 1666, the Cap became contaminated by the illegal traffic of
alcohol. Then on 10 Nov 1668, the Sovereign
Council granted permission for the legal sale of alcohol, even to the Natives. Pierre’s friend Pierre Boucher moved south,
closer to Montréal. The change in atmosphere undoubtedly prompted
Pierre and Marie to move their family to the seignory (sic) of
Jean Crevier in the Ile-de-fort, which would eventually become known as
St-Francois-du-Lac. Jean Crevier had
begun to distribute land grants in the fall of 1673. Marie must have been very proud of her
husband, as one of the first five signers of a contract. Crevier had begun to clear the land, had
built a village mill and had established justice of this seignory (sic). There was a poll tax system where a person
paid for a right to farm and obtained three to five arpents* in frontage by
thirty to forty in depth. The only
change was to leave the fourteenth milling as grinding costs. There was no doubt that these favourable
conditions prompted Pierre and Marie to decide to move their home to the other
side of the river. Because of his
revenues from land at Trois-Rivieres and Cap-de-la-Madeleine, the former
soldier-peasant became a well-to-do land owner in St-Francois-du-Lac. By the work of his hands during fifteen
years, Pierre Couc had the right to show justifiable pride in his home and
sacred land.
Life in St-Francois-du-Lac was very
different than that of Trois-Rivieres and the Cap. The
first three children had learned to read and write because the Jesuits took
charge of teaching the
basics. In St-Francois, there was total
isolation. There were no priests, only traveling missionaries who came
sporadically to administer the sacraments.
The last four children
had a happy and worry-free childhood of Indian children. They were neither more ignorant nor more uneducated because of the carefree
life; they received their education
from the adults.
But on the night of October 23, 1679 there was
tragedy in St-Francois. Jeanne Couc,
twenty year old daughter of Pierre and Marie, was assaulted and mortally
wounded and her father, who had come to her rescue, beaten. Jean Rattier dit Dubuisson was accused of the
murder and detained in prison pending his trial. On the 31st of October he was
found guilty by the Tribunal of Trois- Rivieres and sentenced to be
hanged. He appealed to the Sovereign Council
and was transferred to prison in that city.
Among the many witnesses testifying were Jean Crevier, Pierre Gilbert
dit Lachasse (his servant), Jacques Dupuis dit La Garenne and Jacques
Julien. These four men also were accused
of complicity in the affair in varying degrees. Pierre Couc accused Crevier, who was the
afore-mentioned Seignieur of Trois-Rivieres, of slander. Did that mean he spoke in a defamatory way
about Jeanne, his daughter? One can only
speculate. The trial lasted more than a
year. The judgment was rendered on
December 31, 1680 and Rattier was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged in Québec City. However, the executioner’s post was vacant
and Rattier’s life was spared on condition that he accept the reviled position,
and accept he did. However, he and his family would be ridiculed within the
community, for in Canada
the executioner was a target of ridicule.
Rattier and his family would live out their years in contempt and
ostracism.
Couc would not allow Jean Crevier to get away without punishment and so
he continued to badger the Council for a decision. On March 24, 1681 they fined Crevier 490
‘livres’ in civil interest to
Pierre Couc, ten ‘livres’ to the King and court costs. By the same decree, the court forbade Pierre to reproach
Crevier further on the murder of his daughter.
Is this where familial tenacity was born?
Normand Leveillee:
Marie kept these tragic memories to
her heart. Frequently she prayed to her
Algonquin Creater and her Christian
God to give her strength to forgive the wrongdoers and to continue her life with her family. However, her young daughters, Marguerite,
Elizabeth and Madeleine were shocked
by the tragedy of their sister. This
left a mark on the, a certain
mistrust in the government who protected the lords at the expense of the
humble. They soon realized that this
European culture had little value for women.
Mite8ameg8k8e continued to
instruct her children in the ways of her Indian culture: with the
Algonquins, young girls were respected; there was never an instance of rape in
their Indian society before the
arrival of the white man and his introduction to alcohol. Even though
Marie tried to convince her daughters of the value of both cultures, the comparison did not favor the French. Elizabeth
especially would not forget this.
Even though Marie’s children had
learned to read and write, she had never learned to do so. When she severed as a
witness to her daughter Isabelle’s (also known as Elizabeth) wedding, Marie had to simply
affix her mark - her totem of a bird:
raven, hawk or eagle either
perched or soaring - to the marriage contract (See tab_____).
During the winter of 1687, the French invaded the Seneca
territory (one of the Iroquois’ Five Nations).
A mediocre victory by the French troops only incited the summer raids of
vengeance ravaging the banks of the Saint Lawrence. […]There
were not many massacres, but the raids were enough to put fear in the
inhabitants. New contracts for trappers
were written up; work in the fields and commerce in the Saint Lawrence valley
were interrupted. The year 1688 and the
succeeding years brought more sadness and grief to Marie Mite8ameg8k8e.
Mite8ameg8k8e must have felt a sharp pain of loneliness in
her heart when she learned that her son Louis had hired himself out to become a
beaver hunter (this was likely because being a coureur des bois
was an illegal occupation for the most part and took them into far away and
unfamiliar territory). He joined his
two brothers-in-law, Joachim Germanau/Germano (husband of Elizabeth who was also known as Isabelle)
and Jean Fafard (husband of Margeurite), who were experts in this
field. The three were on their return
home during the following summer of 1689 when the massacre of Lachine,
near Montréal,
spread its terror among the families. In
November, St-Francois was attacked; the Iroquois did not attack the fort, but
they killed two inhabitants and with flaming arrows burned the newly
constructed chapel. From then on, anguish
and fear filled the hearts of the villagers […]
Over the thirty-three years that Pierre and Marie were
together they had nine children. Their marriage was one of the rare events
which had realized the dream of Champlain:
“our sons will marry with your daughters and we will be a single
people”. They had nine children
together: Jeanne, 1657, who was murdered
in 1679; Louis, 1659, who in his adult life assumed the surname Montour, became
a famous voyageur and interpreter and was killed in a treacherous stabbing;
Angelique, 1661; Marie, 1663; Marguerite, 1664, who married Jean Lafart/Fafard,
a famous coureur des bois who finally settled at Detroit; Pierre, 1665;
Elizabeth, also known variously as Catherine and Isabelle, 1667, who led an adventurous and interesting life;
Madeleine, 1669, who married Maurice Menard dit Lafontaine; and, Jean-Baptiste,
1673. (See some interesting related
stories, i.e. Elizabeth/Isabelle at tab ___.)
[…] 1690 was the death of Marie’s life-long love, her
husband. Pierre and Marie loved, lived
and faced tragedies through thirty-seven (incorrect, it was thirty-three)
years of marriage, combining two cultures into one unique way of life. Pierre
Couc, one of the hard-working settlers of French Canada (note: emphasis
is mine), in the presence of his family and a large friendly crowd was
buried at the age of sixty-three years, beneath the ruins of the chapel of
Saint-Francois where he would stay when his family took refuge in the Trois
Rivieres fort. That grave would be a reminder of the heroic simplicity of
Mite8ameg8k8e’s husband, Pierre Couc dit Lafleur.
Little is known about the next nine
years of Mite8ameg8k8e’s life. Did she
live with one of her children in
Trois-Rivieres? Did she return to her
original village in Fiefdom Pachirini? Did she return to the home and land that she
and Pierre had built and farmed in
St-Francois-du-Lac to live a life of happy and sad memories? […]
Madeleine
Couc and Maurice Menard (occasionally
recorded as Mesnard) dit Lafontaine Madeleine was the eighth child of Pierre Couc
and Marie Couc Mite8ameg8k8e. (Note:
Madeleine is also recorded in one instance as Marie Couc Lefebre, undoubtedly
a transcription error of Lafleur made by a transcribing priest). Madeleine was born circa 1669 in
Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Québec
but no record has been found. As was
noted in the story of her parents, Madeleine was not raised and educated under
the influence of the Jesuits as her older siblings had been which did not mean
that she didn’t receive an education. Her
mother would have schooled her and the other young ones, in the ways of the
Algonquin people. Subsequent to her older
sister Jeanne’s murder, Madeleine and Elizabeth/Isabelle both turned more to
Indian ways something that would lead them to become ideal voyageurs’ wives.
Maurice Menard dit Lafontaine, the man Madeleine
would marry, was born in Trois
Rivieres on June 7th, 1664 (see record at
tab __). He was the son of Jacques
Menard dit Lafontaine, a wheelwright, and Catherine Forestier, both of whom
were born in France and were
among the early pioneers to come to New France. The family line for Jacques Menard dit
Lafonaine can be traced further to Jacque’s grandfather Pierre, and his
grandmother Madeleine
Forest circa 1559 (see
family tree, tab __).
Maurice and Madeleine began their lives as
habitants in Trois-Rivieres. It is known
that both their parents were in the same circle of acquaintances as their names
are found on documents for each other as witnesses. As ‘habitants’ they would likely have gravitated
toward each other, particularly given the size of those early day settlements.
As an example: By the year 1665,[…] Québec
had only about 70 houses with a wooden Chateau.
Trois-Rivieres had a small stockade trading post and Montréal had only
about forty houses, a fort and a palisade stone windmill.7
It states in census records that by 1681 (see tab______)the entire Menard family was living
on a seigneury in Boucherville, Monteregie, Québec. Nevertheless, it is about this time that
Madeliene and Maurice married, although there is conflict about the dates. The dates are variously listed as 1681 at Cap de Madeleine or the Mission St. Ignace, Fort Michilimackinac, Michigan; before 31 December 1684 in St.
Ignace (Michilimackinac) while elsewhere it states ‘around 1692’. Since their first child was born in 1684 at Fort Michilimackinac,
and the Jesuits were stringent in their registration of births and the sanctity
that included, it is a fair assumption that their marriage occurred sometime
around 1684.
Michilimackinac, which means Great Turtle in
Algonquin, referred to the entire area where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan met,
including Mackinaw
Island. But originally it meant, in particular,
present-day St. Ignace, Michigan,
in the Upper Peninsula across the straight from Mackinaw City. (Note:
The original French fort and a Jesuit mission were there from about
1671. By 1696, the fur market had been
saturated so the French authorities recalled all the coureurs des bois, closing
the western trading posts one after the other. Detroit
would be the new geopolitical and diplomatic centre of fur country. Michilimackinac, however, continued as a
major junction for fur trading routes. Although
there was no French commandant after Lamothe Cadillac left in 1697, the Jesuits
and several coureurs des bois remained at the fort until the Jesuits burned
their residence and church in 1705 so that the enemy could not use it as a
vantage point or profane any of their holy places. The Jesuits returned, however, in 1706 to
build a smaller fort/residence. We know
that at that time, Maurice Menard was their interpreter.
To serve as an interpreter and intermediary between the
Indians and the Europeans, one had to be very young, brave, ambitious, and
perhaps unaware of what one was getting into.
The task required living alone with the Indians in order to learn their
languages and customs. Young adventurers
who took on this role were the first Europeans to enter the heart of the
American continent, learn its true nature, and acquire a respect for the
Indians, sometimes to the point of becoming totally and whole-heartedly
assimilated into their world, never to return.
[…] there were however some daunting obstacles. Indians and Europeans who learned to live
together had to overcome their mutual repugnance. The Indians found the white men’s beards and
hairy bodies disgusting, and the paunches some of them had grotesque. The considered the exaggerated gestures they
made while talking ridiculous, and their tendency to keep certain things for
themselves and never spontaneously share what they had immoral. The Europeans, for their part, were appalled
at the total freedom the Indians allowed their children and at the cruelty with
which they treated their enemies. They
were put off by the extreme disorder and claustrophobic closeness in which the
Indians lived and by their eating habits.
[..] the staple food of the tribes of the St.
Lawrence Valley and the Great Lakes region was sagamite, an unappetizing gruel
into which the Indians threw hunks of red meat, small animals, birds, fish, and
frogs, usually tossing the in whole without bothering to skin, pluck, or gut
them. The men, women, children and dogs
all slept huddled together, sometimes lying around for days in deadening idleness. The shelter was often filled with thick,
eye-stinging smoke. Other discomforts
were the cold, heat, and swarms of mosquitoes.
Fatigue and hunger were frequent.
For the sake of politeness and convenience, the interpreter
adopted the Indians’ hairstyle and way of dressing. In the summer, he would go around half naked,
wearing only a leather breechcloth and leggings. He either had moccasins on his feet or went
barefoot. In the winter, he would wrap
himself in his beaver coat, which he wore day and night.
[..] eventually, he would develop a taste for sagamite, the
wandering life, and the close quarters.
Many of the interpreters discovered a welcome freedom and brotherhood
among the Indians and adapted very quickly to this new life. The missionaries were shocked at their
behaviour. They felt that, far from
helping to convert the Indians, these young men were undermining the
missionaries’ efforts by acting like savages and setting a bad example.5
Records indicate that Maurice was an ‘engage’ (voyageur) in the West on September 19th,
1718 which means he had been hired on behalf of a merchant.
The following is a rather unflattering description
of what life was like at the fort in those early days:
"There
are ten French families in the fort among whom three are of mixed blood;
although this piece of land is quite
barren they could nevertheless give themselves some of the comforts of the life if they were more
laborious, for the soil produces as good peas as may be seen, beans also grow very well, all root crops in
general would do as well, but if would
cost them too much effort to procure these good things for themselves. They
prefer strolling around the fort's parade
ground, from morn till night, with a pipe in their mouth and a tobacco pouch on their left arm,
rather than take the least pain to make life more comfortable... They only take the trouble of going to the edge
of the lake, as if going to the
market, to get their supplies of corn and fish, and deer or moose
grease....They make use of Maple
water which they let turn sour, and of rather clear bear oil of the same color and taste as lard when it is in the
process of cooling down....To put it briefly, they are content as long as they have their corn and grease to live on all year
round, which makes me think that for a
long as there will be one single pelt to be had in there countries they will never engage in any other
business. The traders of this place, who all turned merchants after having made three or four trips as engage's,
and who must be farmers since
they all come from rural areas, would feel dishonored if they cultivated the
soil." 6
While coureurs des bois was a renegade and an outlaw, the
voyageur would be a professional. He had signed (usually with an X) a legally
binding contract in which he agreed to go to the Pays d’en Haut* on behalf of a trader. He would set off in the spring in a canoe
laden with trade goods and supplies for the distant trading posts and return
either that fall or the following fall with bales of furs.
[…] the voyageurs had specific responsibilities and a firm
date on which they were expected to arrive at Michilmackinac or Grand Portage.
[…] a voyageur was typically fairly small, agile and inured
to cold, hunger, backbreaking work, and boredom. Some were able to paddle for almost
twenty-four hours straight and to cover over a hundred kilometers a day.
[…] although they were often wet and usually slept in the
open air, the men were rarely ill.
Leaving early each spring, they avoided the epidemics that broke out
following the arrival of the ships from France.
[…] their diet too was healthy, though monotonous,
consisting primarily of wheat or buckwheat flour, salt, pork, dried peas, small
game, fish, and berries. They did a
little hunting if the opportunity presented itself but did not have time for
staling or lying in wait for game.
[…]the voyageurs did not wear clothing made of animal hides. Wet leather becomes very heavy and shrinks
and stiffens as it dries. And the
voyageurs spent much of their day wet – from sweat and rain, but also from
towing the canoe through the rapids, unloading it, carrying it to the shore, or
putting it in the water. Thus they
preferred quick drying fabrics such as cotton, linen, and wool.
[…] the voyageurs generally maintained a cadence of forty
paddle strokes a minute, achieving an average speed of six to ten kilometers per
hour. To set the pace, they sang
repetitive songs, occasionally varying the words. A good singer who could motivate his fellow
paddlers would receive extra pay. …[a
voyageur could earn 300, 500, or even 1,000 livres a year – three times as much
as a surgeon and ten times as much as a soldier. - Adventurers
in the New World…The Saga of the Coureurs des
Bos…Georges-Hebert Germain
Maurice Menard dit Lafontaine would continue to
travel between the mother colonies and Michilimackinac and the Pays d’en Haute into
the 1730s.
Maurice and Madeleine had nine children: the first four children were born in
Michilimackinac while the remaining five were born in Boucherville between 1701 and 1711, a time
frame when the western trading posts were being closed. Their son, Louis Menard
dit Lafontaine, whom you will read about later as the next link in your
lineage, was born in 1697 and christened at Fort Michillimakinac.
They say daughters marry ‘their fathers’ and it
might be supposed that Madeleine saw similarities between Maurice and her
father, Pierre Couc. Maurice and Madeleine were married for 37
years which indicates a long-lasting relationship. He too seemed to afford his mixed blood wife
a deference that was unusual for those times.
As evidence, he petitioned that his wife, Madeleine, be allowed the right
to go to the fort. Although it isn’t
known exactly why he would need to ask this, it is recorded that in 1708 Governor
Vaudreuil, at the insistence of two Jesuit priests at Fort Michilimackinac,
issued orders “forbidding mixed marriages with Indians at Fort Detroit”) – D.
Garneau www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis
).
If it was applicable to Detroit,
it was likely so for Michilimackinac as well and thus perhaps the reason
Maurice made application in 1713 for her admission to the fort. Nevertheless, it is thought that when she
passed away in 1721, it was there. This
indicates to me that they were very much a team; that is to say, he did not go
off on his travels and leave her behind.
Although it might not have been verbalized, it was known that a good
native wife could greatly enhance the life of her traveling husband, not only
for her company, for her expertise on the land and waterways, and her ability
to cook and care for her husband, but for her knowledge of the animals and
petltries. (Note: An interesting aside: one of the daughters of Maurice and Madeleine
named Suzanne would marry Gabriel Bolon, a soldier at Michilimackinac. In the reconstructed archaeological dig of
Fort, their home is marked as House D).
There is little know about Maurice’s final years – he
passed away in Boucherville, Chambly, Québec
on May 9th, 1741. His death record (see
tab ___) states he was “sergeant a demi-solde pour le Roi”, a solider at
half-pay for the King, perhaps a pension of some sort. He was, it
is noted by the “Metis Québec Connection (see tab ___): www.geninfo.org/metis/interpretes.html at various times as being:
(1712-09-16) Societe entre Maurice Menard, sergent des troupes et
inteprete en langue outaouaise et Michel Masse, taillandier, du Detroit; (1713-09-14)
transport somme d’argent; par Jacques Leber de Senneville, ecuyer et
lieutenant detach. De la Marine, a Maurice Mesnard, sergent des troupes et
interprete des langues etrangeres ; (1713-09-20) Obligation de
Maurice Mesnard, interpete de langue outaouaise et M-Madeleine Couq, son
epouse, de Boucherville, et Antoine Mesnard, leur fils, a Francois-Marie Bouat,
conseiller du Roi et son lieutenant particulier de la Prevote royale de Montréal ;
1713-09-21) Procuration de Maurice menard, interprete, segent des
troupes de marine et Madeleine Couque, son espouse, de Boucherville, a Louis
Menard, capitaine des habitants de Boucherville, leur frere et beau-frere.
Robidoux .
Much of what is written below comes from The Chronicles
- French-Indian Ethnoculture of the Trans-Mississippi West, written by Hugh
M. Lewis. For the purposes of your
genealogy, it is a document of limited interest but certainly it lays out the
beginnings of the Robidoux (Robidou) family in North
America.
All Robidou(x) in North America have been
descendants of a single man and woman married in Québec in 1667. The original name Robidou was a “perjorative”
meaning, a diminutive of the name Robert.
It has been traced back to 13th Century Tintiniac, France.
King Louis XIV sent Royal regular solider to
protect colonies and to enforce its laws.
Young twenty-two year old Andre Robidoux dit Lespagnol arrived in 1665
although the exact date is unknown.
Andre was known as dit Lespagnol because he was part Spanish and of dark
complexion. He was born and christened
in 1640 in Ste. Marie, Galice, Burgos,
Spain.
In the 1666 census for the town of Québec it shows Andre as a sailor (matelot)
and it is there that he also began working as a voyageur for Eustace Lambert, a
prominent interpreter, settler and fur trader.
In this position, Andre ferried goods and supplies up and down the St.
Lawrence; such employees were paid 10 cents a day with board and lodging.
On May 16, 1667 he married Jeanne Denot(e)/Deneau,
a ‘fille du roi’, in Québec City. From France,
a fille du roi would agree to travel to the new settlements in North America and marry a settler there in exchange for a
50 pound dowry from the King. They
usually married within a few days or weeks of the contract signing, something
that was often brokered by the priests or Ursuline nuns. Often the women broke the contracts, only to
remake them or to make new contracts with other men. They must have been tumultuous times!
Jeanne was the fifth daughter of Antoine Denote and
Catherine Leduc of St. Germain of Auxerre, Paris, France. As we
have read before, there was little hope of a decent life in France where
poverty was rampant and the rich and powerful ceded little or nothing to the
lower classes.
By June 1670 Andre and Jeanne had settled in a
farmstead in the concession of St. Lambert in
the parish of La Prairie de Magdeleine, Québec,
along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River south of Ville Marie (current
day Montréal). They were among the earliest settlers in this
district, possibly one of the first four families there. The
area was still mostly unsettled forest; all settlements before were restricted
to the northern shores, in part for protection from invading Iroquois tribes.
No doubt this relocation was based upon ties of employment,
consociation and allegiance within a vast and competitive fur-trade
network. – Robidoux Chronicles, Hugh M.
Lewis; page 9
In 1672 the Governorship of New France passed to
the Comte de Frontenac. Frontenac made
an effort to aggrandize himself and to restrict the activities of the courier
des bois by limiting the number of trading licenses each year to 25, and
issuing edicts forbidding persons to enter the woods without permission.
In the wake of this, the coureurs des bois and
voyageurs fanned out far and wide.
Efforts to bring them back under the wing of the government of New France and to settle them to agricultural pursuits
served only to scatter many of them further to the wind.
There were not many courieurs des bois at the
beginning. In the 1630s, for each man
who went off to live and die with the Indians, there were a score of colonists
who never ventured beyond the Lachine Rapids.
By mid-century, only a few dozen Frenchmen were making regular trips to
the Huron country vis a vis Pays d’en Haut.
However, furs would change everything, transforming what had initially
been the adventure of a few wild renegades into a large-scale movement. By 1672 there were 300 to 400 illegal ‘wood
runners’, and within the next eight years, twice that number. The illegal fur trade was not only profitable
but had become necessary following the tragic events of 1650 (Iroquois wars had
literally decimated the Hurons who were the main suppliers of furs). To meet the demand of the European fur
markets, the French had no choice but to go to the source of the beaver, to the
Indian trappers in the Pays d’en Haut. It
was in this context, at a time when the woods were more hostile and dangerous
than ever that the courier des bois emerged.
These daring young men were risking a great deal; they could easily
drown or be injured during a portage or might well be tortured and killed if
they ever fell into the hands of the Iroquois.
But they also risked fines or a flogging, possibly even the galleys, if
they engaged in the fur trade without a licence or, worse still, dared to sell
their furs on the black market instead of through the trading companies. 8
The government closed outposts at Chicago Portage,
Michilimackinac, Green Bay and St.
Joseph des Miamis. A vast illegal trade network developed out of
French Canada between the New England colonies via Lake
Champlain and the Indian tribes of the south and the west.
Over the course of just a few generations the
offspring of typically large, poor French catholic families would find life in
settlements along the St. Lawrence crowded and restrictive.
During the French-Indian wars, the two eldest of
Andre and Jeanne’s children, Joseph and Guillaume (William) would know of the
invasions of the English and the Iroquois. When they were teenagers, La Prairie
was attacked by John Schuyler’s company who were attached to the English of New
York. This would just be a prelude to
further English invasions.
Andre and Jeanne had five children: Romaine, Marguerite, Jeanne, Guillaume and
Joseph. The eldest, Joseph, would carry
the family name west and south heading to Detroit
and eventually St. Louis in order to evade the
restrictions of governmental law of New France.
All of Andre’s descendants can be traced from three of his
children: Jeanne, Guillaume and Joseph.
The harshness of life in a new country is no more evident than in the
tragic story of Jeanne and Andre’s life.
We do not know the reason, but Andre died at the age of 35 years, April
1, 1678 and was buried in Montréal. His death is recorded in the parish register
as the fifth entry for the year 1678, and states simply ‘ A este entterre
Andre, dit L’espagnol, notlhabitant de laprairie de la Magdelgne, age de trente
cinq ans ou environ prei chez Monsieur Fromlanch, Chirugine”. […] At the time of his death, his youngest
son, Joseph, was three months old. With
no recourse but to re-marry to provide for her family, the oldest of which was
nine, Jeanne married Jacques Suprenant (dit Sanssoucy) on August 16,
1678, and became the founding mother of not one, but two of Canada’s largest
families.
There is not much known about the life of Guillaume
and Marie – doubtless, there lives were probably those of early colonial
habitants filled with the labour of survival.
Their daughter, Marie Francoise, would marry on February 5, 1725 at Longueil, Chambly
Québec, and become the third wife
of Louis Menard (dit Lafontaine) Montour, voyageur, son of Maurice Menard and
Madeleine Couc married (Marie). He had
previously been married to Marie Anne Boudreau, and Marie, a Panis Indian. For Marie Francois, a contract had been drawn
up previously:
Metis Québec Connection: www.geninfo.org/metis/interpretes.html notes:
1721-01-31 Notaire: J.B.
Adhemar dit Saint-Martin (Mtl) Contrat de mariage entre Lous Mesnard, de
Montréal, fils de Maurice Mesnard,Interprete des langues outaouaises et
Madeleine Couc ; et Francoise Robidou, fille de Guillaume Robidou et de
Marie Guerin.
Louis and Marie Francoise would have sixteen
children. Their daughter (Marie)
Angelique married Maurice Plouf/Plouffe on January 17, 1747 at La Visitation,
Sault au Recollet, Québec.
(note: the Eglise de la
Visitation du Sault au Recollet was built between 1749 and 1752 – it currently
is at 1847 blvd. Grouin Est (Montréal) along the
southern shore of
Riviere de la Prairie.)
All Robidoux’s, regardless of the spelling, are descendants
of Andre, and we know this because history records his surname as being unique
in the records of arrivals in New France. Today, the Robidoux family can be found all
over Canada and the United States,
and numbers in the thousands. – Robidou Assoc. of North America
http://www.robidoux.org/3/miscellaneous1.htm
By the sixth generation the Robidoux lineage would
spread to more than 35 different localities.
Dubois dit
Brisebois (this story
is still under construction)
We know a little about the family branch that was
Dubois/Brisebois.
On March 27, 1639, (Pierre)
Rene Dubois dit Brisebois was baptized in Cisse, near Poitier, by Poitou
situated south of Bretagne,
Frnace. His parents were Louis Dubois
and Jeanne Naudin who were married in St. Pierre de Cisse on January 21, 1636.
There were civil and religious wars in his homeland
which precipitated Rene’s decision to leave for New France. He left sometime in late 1658 and we find him
on a piece of Seigneur Giffard’s in a small village called Fargy near Beauport. Then on August 10th, 1660, he has
some land in Sainte-Petronille on the Island of Orleans
(which in 1980 changes its name to Beaulieu after Jacques Gourdeau de Beaulieu
a well known seigneur in the mid 1600s).
In 1665, a humble young woman named Julienne
Dumont, participating in the policy of populating New
France, arrives with dozens of other ‘filles du roi”. She arrived on October 2nd, aboard
the Normandie and after several meetings with Rene Dubois, they mutually
decide to marry on November 25th, 1665 at Notre
Dame Church in Québec. She was born in Metz,
in the Lorraine
area, and was the daughter of Samuel Dumont and Marie-Anne d’Anglure.
Jot notes
of interest:
● 1649 - Iroqouis
burned many villages and chapels and captured and killed Father Brebeuf while
he laboured among the Hurons. The Huron
tribe was decimated and all but ceased to exist.
● Kennedy states
in his book: ethnologists have classified (tribes) according to linguistic
principles into three large groups:
Algonquian, Iroquois, and Sioux.
Of these, the Algonquians were the most populous, the Iroquois were the
most dynamic, and the Sioux, while occupying the largest continental area, as a
rule remained on the western fringes of the French advance
.
● One historian of
the missions later characterized the Algonquians as the “bourgeois of the
Indians; middlemen between the French and the Western trappers, they earned
esteem for their honesty in trading and their intelligence and fortitude as
guides in the dense Canadian forests”. (Gabriel Sagard-Theodat, Histoire du Canada et voyages que les Freres
Mineurs Recollets y ont faicts, 4 vol, Paris 1866, I, 367)
● Algonquians
designated collectively as the Montagnais lived around Québec
- this group later retreated out of reach of the Iroquois to northeast of Saguenay where they wandered in miserable exile
● The Ottawas (also Algonquins) lived along the (Ottawa) River and later drifted west around Lake Huron - they belonged to the Ojibway or Chippewa
family of the Algonquins
● Objibway also included Miamis,
Maskoutens, Illinois, Kickabous and Crees
● Algonquins had
tribes including Missassagnes, Niccariagus who roamed south Michigan
and north Indiana, and the Nipissings who were
in the area around a lake by the same name and north of Lake
Superior, as well as the Fox (or Detroits) tribe
● Hurons, although
they led the Algonquin league against the Iroquois in 1609, nevertheless
belonged to the Iroquois tribe. Following
1609, they fled west to the woodlands between Lake Simcoe and Georgian
Bay. After the Iroquois
ravages of 1648-51, the Hurons vanished as a tribe and their remnant survived
solely on French charity.
[Note: a licence was required in order to leave the
colony and go off to the woods. The missionaries
felt that the savages had an unhealthy affect on the young interpreters and
those with whom they came in contact.
Many young men welcomed the freedom and brotherhood of the Indians and
adapted very quickly to this new life.
The missionaries were shocked by their behaviour. They felt that, far from helping to convert
the heathens, these young men were undermining their efforts by acting and
dressing like the savages - they were in fact, setting a bad example.]
The temptation to
heed the call of the forest and waterways was often too great. These ‘courier des bois’ or illegal ‘wood
runners’ numbered 300 to 400 by 1672 and within the next eight years, twice
that number. A courier des bois was a
renegade while a ‘voyageur’ became the first typically North American
profession. In 1681 with the institution
of a ‘leave system’, the authorities of New France
(Minister Colbert) offered amnesty to courier des bois involved in illegal fur
trade. While many preferred to stay with
their new lives with the Indians, some did return to sign on with Montréal outfitters who
had official trading licences. The
holders of these licences (initially limited to twenty-five per year) were
authorized to outfit a canoe with goods and three paddlers in order to go and
trade in the Indian villages. A voyageur
would be a ‘professional’, having signed a contract in which he agreed to go to
the Pays d’en Haut, the area around the Great Lakes, on behalf of the
trader. They would have a specific
responsibility and firm dates to arrive in trading posts.
Badly organized footnotes:
1. The Hundred Associates in part: Edits et
Ordonnances, pp. 5-11
2. Memoires de la Societe Genealogique
Canadianne-Francaise, page 33 No. 139(1); Simone Vincens: “Le Compagnie des Cent Associes qui
exploitait la cononie sans grand tnthousiasme, enfin alarmee par les
missionaries, s’etait decidee a envoyer quelques renforts de troupes en 1651 et
il est probable que Pierre Couc faisant partie de ce contigent.
3. Jesuit
and Savage in New France - J.H. Kennedy, New Haven,
Yale University Press, 1950, page 86
4.Pierre Boucher arrived in New France in 1644 at
the age of 15 and by 22 he had settled in Trois
Rivieres. He
learned the native languages and travelled extensively as an interpreter. He was a well respected person and became
Governor in 1653, having married Jeanne Crevier in 1652. Pierre Couc would still have been in the
military at this time. It is known that
on May 21 across the river from Trois
Rivieres, Pierre C. was in an attack by the Iroquois
and he was wounded. By 1660 PC had left
the military that had been garrisoned at TR.
In 1653 Pierre Boucher with soldiers that included Pierre Couc routed
600 Iroquois but once he was appointed Governor in 1663 he was unable to face
his mother in law in court. She, Jeanne
Enard, was accused of illegally trading alcohol and running a house of ill
repute in Cap-de-la-Madeline. Unable to
testify against her, Boucher stepped down and retired to Boucherville, an
action that gave rise to murmurings that he could take on 600 Iroquois, but not
one mother in law!}
From Nos
Ancetres, Vol. 6; page 2; Jacques Saintonge, Saint Anne De Beaupre, 1992 : Le 23 aout 1653 six cents iroquois encerclent
le fort, apres avoir massacre ou vole les animaux, brule les moissons et les
batiments qui se trouvaient a l’exterieur de la palissade. La grnison registera pendant neuf jours aux
attaques repetees de l’ennemi qui finira par battre en retraite. Cet exploit vaudra a Boucher le titre de
gouverneur. Sa seigneurie des iles
Percees, endroit qu’on nommera plu tard Boucherville.
5.Adventurers in the New
World…The Saga of the Coureurs des Bois…Georges-Hebert Germain
6. Suzanne Boivin
Sommerville
7. I need to
find this quote again….where did I put it... ?
8.
Adventures in the New World...The Saga
of the Coureurs des Bois…Georges-Hebert Germain
Bibliography:
Our French-Canadian Forefathers – Lucille Fournier
Rock
Native and Critical History of America –
Justin Winsor
Canadian Historical Documents Series – Vol.
1 – The French Regime; Edited and translated by Cameron Nish; Prentice-Hall of Canada,
Ltd. Scarborough, Ont. 1965
Adventures in the New
World - The Saga of the Coureurs des Bois - Georges-Hebert German
- 2003 Editions Libre Expression
Our French Canadian Ancesters – Jacques
Saintonge
Our French Canadian Ancestors – Thomas J.
Laforest
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,
Volume VI - Reuben Gold Thwaites, Jesuits - Cleveland - The Burrows Brothers Company, M
DCCC XCVII
http://www.leveillee.net/ancestry/mariem.htm
D. Dagenais - Metis History http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis-b.htm
French Canadians in Michigan- Dulong
Dictionnaire genealogique des familles du Québec (des
origins a 1730); Rene Jette avec
Collaboration du Programme de recherché en demographie
historique de l’Universite de Montréal - 1944;
Handbook
of Indians of Canada, Appendix
to the Tenth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada,
Ottawa, 1913,
Page 509, Reproduced on CD15, Quintin Publications, 1998
Genealogie, Tome 3, Portraits
de familles pionneires by Robert Prevost
Couc - Johnston Ancestry
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