CHAPTER XXVII
1672-1683
TRADE AT MONTREAL UNDER FRONTENAC AND PERROT
WEST INDIA COMPANY SUPPRESSED—MONTREAL HEAD OF FUR INDUSTRY—EXPEDITIONS—MARQUETTE—JOLIET—THE ANNUAL FAIRS—LAVAL RETURNS—THE "CONGREGATION" CONFIRMED—THE INDIAN MISSIONS—CATHERINE TEKAKWITHA—THE "FORT DES MESSIEURS"—EXPLORATIONS—LA SALLE, DULUTH, HENNEPIN—LOUISIANA NAMES—THE GOVERNOR GENERAL AND THE INTENDANT—FACTIONS AT MONTREAL, "A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES!"—FRONTENAC AND DUCHESNEAU RECALLED.
Trade at Montreal was prospering. In 1674 the West India Company, which had fulfilled none of its obligations, was suppressed, being succeeded by that of Oudiette and others, till 1707. Speaking of this period, Garneau (I, 262) in his "Histoire du Canada" says: "The new impulses which had been given to Canada by Colbert and Talon began to bear fruits. Commerce revived, immigration increased and the natives, dominated by the genius of civilization, feared and respected everywhere the power of France."
Montreal was to share in this prosperity. It was the centre of the fur trade and the starting place and base of expeditions such as the one of Joliet and Marquette, who had set out in 1673 to discover the Mississippi. La Salle frequently made Montreal his home at this period, as well as Duluth. At the east corner of the present Royal Insurance Building on the Place d'Armes, a tablet placed by the Antiquarian Society records the dwelling of another explorer: "Here lived in 1675 Daniel de Greysolon, Sieur Duluth, one of the explorers of the Upper Mississippi, after whom the city of Duluth was named."
Meanwhile, on May 18th, Father Marquette died on the west shores of Michigan. In 1776 the "Place du Marché" was granted by the seigneurs of the seminary to the people. It was situated where now stands the Place Royale and faced the historic landing place of the first pioneers arriving with de Maisonneuve. The growing trade needed a regular market and on this site subsequently were held the annual fairs in June, the first recorded being held in 1680. The picturesque description of Francis Parkman in his "Old Régime in Canada," dealing with this period, may be here introduced:
"To induce the Indians to come to the colonists, in order that the fur trade might be controlled by the government, a great annual fair was established, by order of the king, at Montreal. Thither every summer a host of savages came down from the lakes in their bark canoes. A place was assigned them a little distance from the town. They landed, and drew up their canoes in a line up the bank, took out their packs of beaver skins, set up their wigwams, slung their kettles and encamped for the night.
"On the next day there was a grand council on the common, between St. Paul street and the river. Speeches were made amid a solemn smoking of pipes. The governor was usually present, seated in an armchair, while the visitors formed a ring about him, ranged in the order of their tribe. On the next day the trade began in the same place. Merchants of high and low degree brought up their goods from Quebec, and every inhabitant of Montreal of any substance, sought a share in the profits. Their booths were set up along the palisades of the town and each had an interpreter to whom he usually promised a certain portion of his gains. The scene abounded in those contrasts, which mark the whole course of French Canadian history. Here was a throng of Indians, armed with bows and arrows, war clubs, and the cheap guns of the trade, some of them, completely naked, except for the feathers on their heads and the paint on their faces; French bush rangers, tricked out with savage finery; merchants and habitants in their coarse and plain attire, and the grave priests of St. Sulpice robed in black."