The administration of local affairs throughout the province was exclusively under the control of the King's officers at Quebec. The ordinances of the intendant and of the council were the law. The country was eventually subdivided into the following divisions for purposes of government, settlement, and justice: 1. Districts. 2. Seigniories. 3. Parishes. The districts were simply established for judicial and legal purposes, and each of them bore the name of the principal town within its limits—viz., Quebec, also called the Prévoté de Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers. In each of these districts there was a judge, appointed by the king, to adjudicate on all civil and criminal matters. An appeal was allowed in the most trivial cases to the supreme or superior council, which also exercised original jurisdiction. The customary law of Paris, which is based on the civil law of Rome, was the fundamental law of Canada, and still governs the civil rights of the people.
The greater part of Canada was divided into large estates or seigniories, with the view of creating a colonial noblesse, and of stimulating settlement in a wilderness. It was not necessary to be of noble birth to be a Canadian seigneur. Any trader with a few louis d'or and influence could obtain a patent for a Canadian lordship. The seignior on his accession to his estate was required to pay homage to the King, or to his feudal superior in case the lands were granted by another than the King. The seignior received his land gratuitously from the crown, and granted them to his vassals, who were generally known as habitants, or cultivators of the soil, on condition of their making small annual payments in money or produce known as cens et rente. The habitant was obliged to grind his corn at the seignior's mill (moulin banal), bake his bread in the seignior's oven, give his lord a tithe of the fish caught in his waters, and comply with other conditions at no time onerous or strictly enforced in the days of the French régime. This system had some advantages in a new country like Canada, where the government managed everything, and colonisation was not left to chance. The seignior was obliged to cultivate his estate at a risk of forfeiture, consequently it was absolutely necessary that he should exert himself to bring settlers upon his lands. The obligation of the habitant to grind his corn in the seignior's mill was clearly an advantage for the settlers. In the early days of the colony, however, the seigniors were generally too poor to fulfil this condition, and the habitants had to grind corn between stones, or in rude hand mills. The seigniors had the right of dispensing justice in certain cases, though it was one he very rarely exercised. As respects civil affairs, however, both lord and vassal were to all intents and purposes on the same footing, for they were equally ignored in matters of government.
In the days of the French régime, the only towns for many years were Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers. In remote and exposed places—like those on the Richelieu, where officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment had been induced to settle—palisaded villages had been built. The principal settlements were, in course of time, established on the banks of the St. Lawrence, as affording in those days the easiest means of intercommunication. As the lots of a seigniorial grant were limited in area—four arpents in front by forty in depth—the farms in the course of time assumed the appearance of a continuous settlement on the river. These various settlements became known in local phraseology as Côtes, apparently from their natural situation on the banks of the river. This is the origin of Côte des Neiges, Côte St. Louis, Côte St. Paul, and of many picturesque villages in the neighbourhood of Montreal and Quebec. As the country became settled, parishes were established for ecclesiastical purposes and the administration of local affairs. Here the influential men were the curé, the seignior, and the captain of the militia. The seignior, from his social position, exercised a considerable weight in the community, but not to the degree that the representative of the Church enjoyed. The church in the parishes was kept up by tithes, regulated by ordinances, and first imposed by Bishop Laval for the support of the Quebec Seminary and the clergy. Next to the curé in importance was the captain of the militia. The whole province was formed into a militia district, so that, in times of war, the inhabitants might be obliged to perform military service under the French governor. In times of peace these militia officers in the parishes executed the orders of the governor and intendant in all matters affecting the King. In case it was considered necessary to build a church or presbytery, the intendant authorised the habitants to assemble for the purpose of choosing from among themselves four persons to make, with the curé, the seignior, and the captain of the militia, an estimate of the expense of the structure. It was the special care of the captain of the militia to look after the work, and see that each parishioner did his full share. It was only in church matters, in fact, that the people of a parish had a voice, and even in these, as we see, they did not take the initiative. The Quebec authorities must in all such cases first issue an ordinance.
Under these circumstances it is quite intelligible that the people of Canada were obliged to seek in the clearing of the forest, in the cultivation of the field, in the chase, and in adventure, the means of livelihood, and hardly ever busied themselves about public matters in which they were not allowed to take even a humble part.
XII.
THE PERIOD OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY:
PRIESTS, FUR-TRADERS, AND COUREURS DE BOIS
IN THE WEST.
(1634-1687.)
We have now come to that interesting period in the history of Canada, when the enterprise and courage of French adventurers gave France a claim to an immense domain, stretching from the Gulf of St. Lawrence indefinitely beyond the Great Lakes, and from the basin of those island seas as far as the Gulf of Mexico. The eminent intendant, Talon, appears to have immediately understood the importance of the discovery which had been made by the interpreter and trader, Jean Nicolet, of Three Rivers, who, before the death of Champlain, probably in 1634, ventured into the region of the lakes, and heard of "a great water"—no doubt the Mississippi—while among the Mascoutins, a branch of the Algonquin stock, whose villages were generally found in the valley of the Fox River. He is considered to have been the first European who reached Sault Ste. Marie—the strait between Superior and Huron—though there is no evidence that he ventured beyond the rapids, and saw the great expanse of lake which had been, in all probability, visited some years before by Etienne Brulé, after his escape from the Iroquois. Nicolet also was the first Frenchman who passed through the straits of Mackinac or Michillimackinac, though he did not realise the importance of its situation in relation to the lakes of the western country. It is told of him that he made his appearance among the Winnebagos in a robe of brilliant China damask, decorated with flowers and birds of varied colours, and holding a pistol in each hand. This theatrical display in the western forest is adduced as evidence of his belief in the story that he had heard among the Nipissings, at the head-waters of the Ottawa, that there were tribes in the west, without hair and beards, like the Chinese. No doubt, he thought he was coming to a country where, at last, he would find that short route to the Chinese seas which had been the dream of many Frenchmen since the days of Cartier. We have no answer to give to the question that naturally suggests itself, whether Champlain ever saw Nicolet on his return, and heard from him the interesting story of his adventures. It was not until 1641, or five years after Champlain's death, that Father Vimont gave to the world an account of Nicolet's journey, which, no doubt, stimulated the interest that was felt in the mysterious region of the west. From year to year the Jesuit and the trader added something to the geographical knowledge of the western lakes, where the secret was soon to be unlocked by means of the rivers which fed those remarkable reservoirs of the continent. In 1641 Fathers Raymbault and Jogues preached their Faith to a large concourse of Indians at the Sault between Huron and Superior, where, for the first time, they heard of the Sioux or Dacotah, those vagrants of the northwest, and where the former died without realising the hope he had cherished, of reaching China across the western wilderness. Then came those years of terror, when trade and enterprise were paralysed by those raids of the Iroquois, which culminated in the dispersion of the Hurons. For years the Ottawa valley was almost deserted, and very few traders or coureurs de bois ventured into the country around the western lakes. An enterprising trader of Three Rivers, Médard Chouart, Sieur de Grosseilliers, is believed to have reached the shores of Lake Superior in 1658, and also to have visited La Pointe, now Ashland, at its western extremity, in the summer of 1659, in company with Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur Radisson, whose sister he had married. Some critical historians do not altogether discredit the assumption that these two venturesome traders ascended the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and even reached the Mississippi, twelve years before Jolliet and Marquette.