Location
The primary source of documentation that allows us to appreciate both the configuration and position of this village is: "Bref Récit et succincte narration de la navigation faite en 1535 et 1536" (Brief account and succinct narration of the navigation done in 1535 and 1536) that Jacques Cartier handed to François Ier in 1545. We know of a plan titled: "La Terra de Hochelaga nella Nova Francia" illustrating, in the European manner of the period, Cartier's visit. Drawn by Giacomo Gastaldi (~1500- 1566), he illustrates volume III of "Delle Navigationi et viaggi", a work done in Venice between 1550 and 1556 by Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485–1557). The perfect, regular arrangement of the houses, conforming to the urban ideal of the Italian Renaissance, was probably his own invention; as well as the boards covering the palisade, which was unknown to the indigenous people. In fact, if the plan faithfully illustrates the notes of the French explorer, it offers little resemblance to the ethno-historical reality. A reproduction of La Terra de Hochelaga by Paul-Émile Borduas decorates the walls of the Grand Chalet of the parc Mont-Royal.
The town, surrounded by a wooden palisade, had around fifty houses made of wood and bark, mostly long-houses, rectangular and rounded; the population is estimated to have been approximately 3,000 inhabitants. It was doubtlessly destroyed afterwards, because it was not mentioned by Jacques Cartier on his return visit to the island in 1541. He spoke about two villages, but only one, Tutonaguy, was named. War has been suggested as the cause of the disappearance of Hochelaga, possibly coming from Stadacona. The inhabitants' disappearance has spawned several theories, including devastating wars with the Iroquois tribes to the South or with the Hurons to the West, the impact of Old World diseases, or their migration Westward toward the shores of the Great Lakes. However, according to Archéobec, villages that were regularly abandoned, following a cycle of land exhaustion, would be the main reason. At the time of Samuel de Champlain's arrival, both Algonquins and Mohawks hunted in the Saint Lawrence Valley and conducted raids, but neither had any permanent settlements.
This custom of moving villages is a possible explanation of why the exact emplacement of the Iroquois settlement remains a mystery in the present day, despite all the hypotheses that agree to place it close to Mount Royal. W.D. Lighthall held that Hochelaga was at the Dawson site, discovered in 1860 close to McGill University. The site appears to correspond to a village preceding the foundation of Ville-Marie by one or two centuries, but didn't have a palisade and seems to be too cramped. Another proposed emplacement is Outremont, North of the mountain, likely if J. Cartier arrived via the rivière des Prairies. The urbanist Pierre Larouche, based on the topometric data deduced from the Gastaldi illustration, has proposed that the village was situated on the summit of the mountain. This hypothesis isn't very well-supported, since "La Terra de Hochelaga" is a second-hand reconstruction. Furthermore, Cartier states clearly that the mountain was "adjacent to their said village," that Hochelaga was "close to and adjoining a mountain" and that he went to "Mount Royal a distance of a quarter league of the site", the distance that, in fact, separates the basin of Mount Royal from the surrounding hills dominating it. The archaeological excavations undertaken recently on the summit of the mountain, around the basin and in the Jeanne-Mance park East of Mount Royal have come up empty. The exact location of Hochelaga remains unknown.
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