Explorers and Travellers

by A. W. Greely

PETER LE MOYNE, SIEUR D’IBERVILLE,

Founder of Louisiana.

Among the very earliest settlers of Hochelega, now Montreal, was the son of a Norman innkeeper, a young French lad of fifteen, Charles le Moyne, who came to this Indian village in 1641. Apt, strong, daring, and zealous, he soon became one of the most efficient aids to French power. The language, the wood-craft, the arts of the savage soon became his, and added to these such suavity of manner, clearness of perception, and native kindness as made him loved equally by French and savage. As interpreter, soldier, negotiator, and captain of the guard, he rendered such great service to the young and exposed colony as caused him to be made captain of Montreal, and later, in 1668, to be ennobled by Louis XIV. under the title of Sieur of Longueuil. For four years service in the country of the Hurons he received for his entire pay the sum of twenty crowns and his clothing, but he gained also such a knowledge of the possibilities of the country, such an insight into Indian character, and such a wealth of vigorous manhood as enabled him to acquire during his life an estate that was princely. He did better than this, he married a woman worthy of him, whose family is scarcely known, Catherine Tierry, an adopted daughter of Antoine Primot.

In all the history of American families there is none that has as distinguished and brilliant a history as the twelve sons and two daughters born of this French peasant and the son of a Norman innkeeper in the forests of Canada. The two daughters married nobles, and of the twelve sons nine live distinguished in history, three of them were killed in the service of France, ten of them were ennobled, and four, Iberville, Serigny, Chateauguay, and Bienville the younger, played important parts in the founding of Louisiana.

Signature of le Moyne.

There were many brilliant and picturesque figures among the actors in the founding of a New France in the wilds of North America, but among them all there was scarcely one whose personality and deeds excited more admiration among his contemporaries, or whose services and career are more deserving of recognition by posterity, than Peter le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, third son of Longueuil, who was born on the extreme frontier, at the outpost of Montreal, July 16, 1661. As a soldier he rose to be the leader and idol of his fellow-Canadians; as a sailor he became an extremely skilful navigator, who was acknowledged as one of the greatest of French naval commanders; and as an explorer and administrator he so successfully accomplished his plans as to merit and receive the title of the Founder of Louisiana.

The freedom, vigor, and wildness of Canadian life developed men early, and Iberville entered the French Navy as midshipman at the age of fourteen. His first service of note, however, was as a soldier in the wilds of his native land, in the Canadian overland campaign to recover possession of an Indian trading post on Hudson Bay, which it was claimed the English had illegally seized. Iberville volunteered for this campaign under De Troye, and exhibited such judgment and vigor as caused him to be put in command of a small party of nine, some say twelve, men with two canoes, wherewith he did not hesitate to attack and compel the unconditional surrender of an English ship manned by fourteen, including the commander of Hudson Bay. St. Helene, his brother, meantime captured another vessel, and with the two as means of transport, the two brothers pushed on to Fort Quitchitchouen, which surrendered after withstanding a sharp cannonade.

These victories not only insured to the French the command of the entire southern part of Hudson Bay, but put them in possession of a vast amount of stores. Indeed, so destructive to English interests were the campaigns of Iberville in 1687-88, that the Hudson Bay Company declared that their actual losses amounted to 108,520 pounds sterling, an enormous sum in the young colonies of that day. The consequential losses must have been very great, for we are told that the value of furs obtained in the trade of one year amounted to 400,000 livres (francs).

Iberville remained in charge of the country which his valor had recaptured, and in 1688, while the Iroquois were ravaging Canada, waged successful war in Hudson Bay. One of his lieutenants, capturing an English official, found on him an order from the London Company to proclaim English sovereignty over the whole bay. Later two ships, with twenty-eight cannon and eight swivels, appeared before St. Anne in order to expel the French. Eventually Iberville compelled the surrender of the English ships, and releasing the smaller vessel for the safe transport of such prisoners as he paroled, himself navigated the larger ship, with eleven Hudson Bay pilots held prisoners, to Quebec through Hudson Strait.

In 1690 Iberville volunteered, under his brother St. Helene, for the retaliatory expedition in mid-winter against Schenectady, wherein a large number of the inhabitants of that unhappy town were ruthlessly massacred by the French and their Indian allies. Iberville seems to have exerted his influence to restrain the savagery of the Indians, and saved the life of at least one Englishman.