History of Montreal - The Arrival of The French

The Arrival of The French

The first European to reach the area was Jacques Cartier on October 2, 1535. Cartier visited the villages of Hochelaga and Stadacona, and noted others in the valley which he did not name. He recorded about 200 words of the people's language.

Seventy years after Cartier, explorer Samuel de Champlain went to Hochelaga, but the village no longer existed, nor was there sign of any human habitation in the valley. Although at times historians theorized that the people migrated west to the Great Lakes (or were pushed out by conflict with other tribes, including the Huron), or suffered infectious disease. Since the 1950s, other theories have been proposed. Based on increasing understanding of the political dynamics with other tribes and the French, and more knowledge about the origins of other tribes, many historians have now concluded that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians were essentially destroyed by the Mohawk of the Iroquois, who wanted to dominate hunting and trade in the valley below Tadoussac. The Mohawk had most to gain by moving up from New York into this area Tadoussac, at the confluence of the Saguenay and St. Lawrence rivers, was controlled by local Montagnais.

Champlain decided to establish a fur trading post at Place Royal on the Island of Montreal, but the Mohawk, based mostly in present-day New York, successfully defended what had by then become their hunting grounds and paths for their war parties. It was not until 1639 that the French created a permanent settlement on the Island of Montreal, started by tax collector Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière. Under the authority of the Roman Catholic Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, missionaries Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance and a few French colonists set up a mission named Ville Marie on May 17, 1642 as part of a project to create a colony dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In 1644, Jeanne Mance founded the Hôtel-Dieu, the first hospital in North America, north of Mexico.

Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve was governor of the colony. On January 4, 1648, he granted Pierre Gadois (who was in his fifties) the first concession of land - some 40 acres (160,000 m2). In 1650, family Grou, the lineage of historian Lionel Groulx, arrived from Rouen France and established a land holding known as Coulée_Grou which is today encompassed by the borough Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles. In November 1653, another 140 French arrived to enlarge the settlement.

By 1651, Ville-Marie had been reduced to less than 50 inhabitants by repeated attacks by the Mohawk. Maisonneuve returned to France that year to recruit 100 men to bolster the failing colony. He had already decided that should he fail to recruit these settlers, he would abandon Ville-Marie and move everyone back downriver to Quebec City. (Even 10 years after its founding, the people of Quebec City still thought of Montreal as "une folle entreprise" - a crazy undertaking.) These recruits arrived on 16 November 1653 and essentially guaranteed the evolution of Ville Marie and of all New France. In 1653 Marguerite Bourgeoys arrived to serve as a teacher. She founded Montreal's first school that year, as well as the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, which became mostly a teaching order. In 1663, the Sulpician seminary became the new Seigneur of the island.

Ville Marie would become a centre for the fur trade. The town was fortified in 1725. The French and Iroquois Wars threatened the survival of Ville-Marie until a peace treaty (see the Great Peace of Montreal) was signed at Montreal in 1701. With the Great Peace, Montreal and the surrounding seigneuries nearby (Terrebonne, Lachenaie, Boucherville, Lachine, Longueuil, ...) could develop without the fear of Iroquois raids.