Читать книгу Old Québec: The Fortress of New France - Gilbert Parker - Страница 17

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The Indians with whom the French explorers first came in contact were of the Algonquin family. Under different tribal names this race spread itself over the Atlantic seaboard from Carolina to Hudson's Bay, and farther west than the Great Lakes. In the comparatively small area now forming northern New York lived the Iroquois, or Five Nation Indians, who, like the Helvetii of old, out-stripped all the other tribes in valour, and at the time of the arrival of the Europeans were engaged in reducing their Algonquin foes to subjection. The Hurons, who figure so prominently in early Canadian annals, were of Iroquois stock; but owing to their situation in the Georgian Bay peninsula, and their alliance with the neighbouring Algonquins, they became the especial object of Iroquois enmity, and the feud went on till they were exterminated.

The story of this conflict so closely concerns the history of Quebec, that the period intervening between the death of Champlain and the establishment of Royal Government has been described as the Heroic Age of New France. Indeed, on looking back over the trials of that period, it seems incredible that the colony was able to weather the storms of Iroquois savagery by which it was swept. But this dark misery was so clearly the outcome of French colonial policy, that a reference to the underlying principles of that system is necessary.

The French idea of colonisation was propagandism. True, it was not actually born of that deep principle, but rather of high adventure and of the alluring mystery of discovery. Religion, however, very soon became its prevailing impulse. The expedition of Verrazzano had its raison d'être in nothing higher than the cupidity of Francis I., who was dazzled by legends of Mexican gold and Peruvian silver; but religion inspired Cartier to his great adventure ten years later.

The Old World was in the throes of the Reformation. With shafts of heresy, Luther in Germany and Calvin in France were assailing the Catholic Church, and devout Catholics like Cabot had conceived the idea of requiting the Church for her losses in the Old World by religious conquests in the New. Roberval's voyage had been likewise undertaken for discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the Indians. The aged De Chastes, the patron of Champlain, had been animated almost entirely by a religious motive, and the explorer's own frequent declaration was that "the salvation of a single soul is worth more than an empire."

Such sentiments alone were enough to explain the friendship of Champlain with the Hurons and Algonquins, on whose lands he had settled his colony, and to whom the French owed something at least in the way of assistance or protection. But apart from sense of a religious obligation, he was forced to depend on the Indians to guide him through the country he wished to explore, and their goodwill was also necessary to develop the fur trade for the great companies. It was natural, therefore, that Champlain should enter into alliance with the neighbouring tribes, whose amity meant so much to the struggling settlement. But New France was destined to reap bitter fruits from this seeding.

The offensive and defensive bond against the Iroquois almost cost the colony its existence. It was, in fact, another Hundred Years' War with a foe as implacable as death itself. The constant aim of the French was to organise and harmonise the tribes against their common enemy, and to establish a league of which Quebec would be the heart and head. All this was in direct contrast with the English system, which took no account whatever of the Indian tribes. The English colonists in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Virginia displaced the Indian; the French made him part of their system. New France was a trading colony, New England an agricultural colony. The French, with few exceptions, did not go to the New World to make a home, but to secure fortunes; the English colonists went to the New World to settle; they bore with them their household gods.

For a hundred years or more, New France was dependent on Old France for provisions; and even up to the death of Champlain, there were, in fact, only two plots of ground under cultivation by French settlers—that of Louis Hébert in Upper Town, and the small farm of the Récollects on the St. Charles. In New England, the settlers first of all cleared the land, laid out their farms, and stored their provisions against the winter season. They traded with the Indians and acquired wealth, and for their greater convenience they made purchases in the Old World. Thus, from the first days almost, the New England Colonies were self-contained, while New France depended on Europe to a degree amazing and pathetic. This fact strikes the keynote of the French régime, explaining, as it does, most of the trials and tribulations of New France in its perennial warfare with the Iroquois, and in the later friction with New England.

Nor is it astonishing that New France never became self-reliant. From first to last her natural growth was throttled, either by the greed of the fur companies or by the mistaken paternalism of the Bourbons. The Company of One Hundred Associates, which Richelieu founded in 1624, was no improvement on the previous administrations of New France, in spite of its elaborate charter and the fact that Richelieu himself was at the head of it. The fur companies were doubly politic in discouraging agriculture, for the purchase of peltries thus became practically the sole industry of the colony, while at the same time the people were left dependent upon the stores of the company for food. The colonisation of New England was intensive, the colonisation of New France extensive; New England cleared and built as occasion demanded; New France merely established bases from which to penetrate the wilderness. Before the death of Champlain, the white crosses which her pioneers were wont to set up were to be found as far west as Lake Huron, and before the close of the seventeenth century they dotted the trackless forests from Michillimackinac to New Orleans. It is not surprising, then, that the Indians became an important factor in the history of Canada.