JEAN-CLAUDE DUBE. The Chevalier de Montmagny (1601-1657): First Governor of New France. Translated by ELIZABETH RAPLEY. (French America Collection, number 10.) Ottawa, Ontario: University of Ottawa Press. 2005. Pp. xxvi, 381. Cloth $65.00, paper $35.00.
2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 111; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/ahr.111.2.457
ISSN1937-5239
Autores Tópico(s)Canadian Identity and History
ResumoJean-Claude Dubé is well known for his biographies of eighteenth-century French colonial intendants. Writing an account of Canada's first titular governor in the 1600s posed two challenges. Charles Huault de Montmagny followed the famous Samuel de Champlain, and he will always be compared with the admired explorer-administrator. Moreover, Champlain left a series of books and letters that make it easy to delineate his character. Dubé worked with more limited sources. The administrative papers of Montmagny's regime were mostly destroyed, and there is no series of private letters to disclose the inner man—although his actions testify to an intense religious devotion. The author has had to piece together Montmagny's story from church records, notarial documents, a few official dispatches, and the published letters of missionaries and a nun. His account of the governor's activities in Canada is often a paraphrase of the Jesuits' annual reports. Nonetheless, this governor deserves our attention. A free Huron translation of Montmagny, “Onontio” [Big Mountain], became the Natives' name for all subsequent governors of the French North American colony. During his governorship (1636–1648) the colony went from a precarious missionary and fur-trading outpost, with some 350 European residents, to an infant agricultural settlement with nearly 700 colonists. In this period the first schools and convents were established in Canada, Montreal Island was colonized, and the fur trade was taken over by a colonial company. The governor tried to protect the colonists by keeping the Iroquois in check while conciliating his Native allies and strengthening the colony's defenses. He preferred negotiation to war when dealing with the Iroquois because his military resources were so small. Maintaining the flow of furs to the French was a perpetual concern. Ever the optimist, he planned for the development of Quebec as a city. Montmagny's later appointment by the Order of Malta to the governorship of its Caribbean island of Saint-Christophe indicates that he had performed well in Canada. The book describes his career in three geographic regions, but New France is emphasized for Canadian readers.
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