Amy in Acadia: A Story for Girls

by Helen Leah Reed

As Amy had prophesied, the afternoon was foggy, and she felt little compunction in insisting that Martine as well as Priscilla should join her before her open fire while she talked to them of Port Royal history.

"Although some French," she said, "may have visited Acadia as early as 1504, our starting point is 1604, when De Monts, who was a nobleman of the Court of Henry Fourth, and Champlain, and Poutrincourt, and Pontgravé came out on a voyage of exploration. Poutrincourt seems to have been the one most anxious to make a permanent settlement here. Champlain was the geographer and map-maker of the expedition, and was also on the search for ores. The grant of the land known as Acadia had been given by Henry Fourth to De Monts. He, as well as Pontgravé had been on a previous expedition to the New World. At first they were delighted with Acadia. They saw fine opportunities for fur-trading as well as for a permanent settlement. But after visiting the shores of the Annapolis Basin, they made a mistake by going farther south to the St. Croix River, and they spent their first winter on an island some distance from its mouth. This proved a bad thing, for the climate was severe and many of the colonists died; so when the weather permitted they went back to the neighborhood of Port Royal and set up their houses and built a small fort on Goat Island.

"They found the Indians everywhere very friendly, especially the old chief, Membertou, who was said to be nearly one hundred years old.

"When their buildings were finished, De Monts sailed back for France, knowing that he could be spared until after the harvests were gathered. Pontgravé was left in charge of the colony in his absence, assisted by Champlain and Champdore. When the spring of 1606 came and De Monts had not returned, the colonists were alarmed. They needed the supplies that he had promised to bring them, and they were afraid that something had happened to him. So, late in July, Pontgravé started off to see if he could not find some fishing-vessel to take them all back to France.

"In the meantime, De Monts in France had had trouble in getting people to interest themselves in the Port Royal Colony. But Poutrincourt, who had returned with him, proved his best friend, and helped in fitting out a vessel called the 'Jonas,' and promised to return to Acadia with De Monts, and take his family with him, to establish a permanent colony.

"With them came Lescarbot, an advocate of Paris, who afterwards wrote a full account of his residence in Acadia, from which we learn many interesting details that, but for him, we would not know. Pontgravé fell in with a shallop from De Monts' vessel and all returned to Port Royal. De Monts wasn't perfectly satisfied with Port Royal for a permanent settlement, and he persuaded Poutrincourt to make a journey farther south to find a better place; but this expedition ended badly, and Poutrincourt returned, convinced that he could be better off at Port Royal than anywhere else in the New World.

"Unluckily, the merchants in France who had supplied money for this trading colony sent word that they had decided to give it up. Without money with which to trade, the colony could not prosper, and so the majority of the colonists decided to go back to France. Poutrincourt, however, was determined to come back, and he took home with him specimens of grain grown in Acadia, and various animal, vegetable, and mineral products, to show the King what could be raised in Acadia. The King encouraged him to go back, and ratified the grant of land that De Monts had given him.

"So Poutrincourt returned to Acadia, and it is greatly to the credit of the Indians he had left in charge that all the buildings were unharmed. A new crop of grain, planted by the Indians, was growing finely, and Membertou and savages welcomed him very cordially.

"The King had given him a grant of money to be used for the Church and he brought with him a Jesuit priest, who baptized the savages by wholesale.

"In the summer of 1610, Poutrincourt sent his son, Biencourt, back to France to report the conversion of the savages and the general prosperity of the colony. Things in France were not going to be very favorable now for Poutrincourt. When Biencourt arrived in Paris, it was not long after the assassination of Henry Fourth. The Jesuits were now anxious to get control of Acadia, and, to make a long story short, Madame De Guercheville obtained a grant from the King of the very land that De Monts had granted to Poutrincourt; Biencourt had to take certain Jesuits back with him to Acadia; and there was much dissension in the little colony. But what really proved its downfall was an attack made in 1613 by the Virginian Argall, who killed and captured many of the inhabitants and burnt all the buildings to the ground. Poutrincourt made no effort to re-establish Port Royal, but Biencourt, his son, remained in the woods, living, with a few companions, the life of an Indian."