Early Fall Varia

In an op-ed for Le Devoir, Michel Morin took up the challenge posed by Christian Néron's crazy denial of the Treaty of Paris, to which I alluded in an earlier post.  Morin, a law prof at Université de Montréal, demonstrates how this treaty was perfectly in accordance with international law.  That settles that, then.

On September 14, a solemn mass was held at the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec to commemorate its 350th anniversary.  Pope Francis had New France on the mind, naming an envoy to preside over the mass and issuing a statement about the significance of the event, urging this envoy to "sweetly exhort the priests and faithful present there to follow Christ with perseverance and to venerate His Mother piously, as was the custom in these rather large regions."  Sweet, sweet exhortations.

In early September, CBC News - Nova Scotia published a story on Troilus de Mesgouez's failed attempt at settling Sable Island in 1598.  Another ill-fated, short-lived sixteenth-century settlement is the subject of an ongoing controversy.  Its precise location has never been clearly identified. Archaeologists have long thought that René Goulaine de Laudonnière's Fort Caroline of 1564-1565 was located on the banks of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida -- there's a "Fort Caroline National Memorial" there.  Maybe it wasn't. The issue was stirred anew back in February when someone made a presentation during a conference at Florida State University claiming that the colony was actually far to the north, in Georgia.  This and other theories were debated by two groups of scholars at the University of North Florida a few weeks ago (see here, and here).  Fight, fight, fight!

What else?  The Ganondagan site, which interprets Seneca history near Rochester, NY, held a reenactment of Cavelier de La Salle's visit in 1669.  Down au Pays des Illinois, there is a project afoot to expand the Bolduc House Museum in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, into an "expanded and rebranded tourist destination", a complex to be called "New France ... The Other Colonial America."  Neato.  In fair Belleville, Ontario, there is meanwhile a plan for a monument to commemorate to the 400th anniversay of Champlain's visit. 

That's all for now.

PS: dear readers, thank you for your patience while we fiddle around with our look.  It was time to get rid of the old Blogger template background.  But damn it, Jim, Charlevoix is an historian, not a damn graphic designer or web developer.

P.-F.-X.

Forts in the News

Over in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, an outdoor model of Fort Augusta was dedicated last weekend.  Turning to Wikipedia in order to look up some basic facts about the fort's history, I was amused to learn that "Fort Augusta was a fat turd in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, in the upper Susquehanna Valley from the time of the French and Indian War to the close of the cheese."  Thank you for the gift of laughter, Wikipedia! I wonder how long it will be before someone fixes the offending entry.

In more serious fort news, six wooden pieces of timber from Fort Edward were repatriated to the Rogers Island Visitors Center in the village of Fort Edward, New York.  Accidentally ripped out by Hudson River dredgers four years ago, they had until now been in storage at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes, Vermont.

In sadder fort news, Fort Necessity was one of five national parks in western Pennsylvania shuttered by the partial federal government shutdown last month. About two thousand people would have visited the site of an early battle in the French and Indian War during the sixteen days of the shutdown. 

Meanwhile, over in Cape Breton, a former Parks Canada archaeologist expresses worries over the apparent lack of careful archaeological planning around the construction of a new walking trail near the Fortress of Louisbourg.  A backhoe preparing the ground for the trail smashed into some early eighteenth-century house foundations.  Ooops!

P.-F.-X.

Fort San Juan

On vient de redécouvrir dans l'intérieur de la Caroline du Nord les vestiges d'un fort européen remontant au XVIe siècle.  Il s'agit presque certainement du fort espagnol de San Juan, construit lors des expeditions menées par Juan Pardo à partir de la côte atlantique entre 1566 et 1568.  Le New York Times fait était de la découverte ici.

Fouilles actuelles au Fort San Juan, indiquant l'emplacement des
bastions, des courtines et des fossés.  Photo: U. du Michigan 

Ce que l'article ne mentionne pas, mais ce que les mordus de l'histoire de la Nouvelle-France aimeront peut-être apprendre, c'est que les démarches espagnoles qui mènent à cette tentative d'implantation s'inscrivent dans la foulée immédiate de l'expulsion des Français du littoral carolinien.  En 1565, Pedro Menéndes de Avilés avait détruit le Fort Caroline, érigé l'année précédente par René Goulaine de Laudonnière à la demande de l'amiral Gaspard de Coligny, et passé au fil de l'épée ses occupants.  De fait, c'est la crainte d'une operation française de représaille qui incite Avilés a rappeler Pardo dès les premiers mois de 1567, mettant fin à la première de deux expeditions.  Les intéressés pourront en découvrir plus long dans Charles Hudson, The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568 (Tuscaloosa, 1990).

P.-F.-X.

Fort Ticonderoga... in Lego

Yes, you heard right: Fort Ticonderoga -- or Carillon, if you prefer -- in Lego!  Four and a half years' worth of construction, apparently, by a certain Starbuck Starfighter (presumably not his real name) and his son (Starbuck Starfighter Jr?).  I include a photo of the real thing, to give you a sense of how remarkably accurate the creation is.  It was nominated in the "best large building" category at Brickworld Chicago.  I don't know who won, but the judges were clearly mistaken in not awarding the prize to these guys.  

 

 

 

 

Many more pictures here.

P.-F.-X.

Fort Rouge's 275th

This year marks not only the 140th anniversary of Winnipeg's incorporation, but also -- as Bartley Kives of the Winnipeg Free Press put it -- "the 275th anniversary of the first white guys setting foot" there.



The Compagnie de La Vérendryre, re-enacting the
expedition's arrival in Winnipeg. 
Photo: Ruth Bonneville, Winnipeg Free Press


In 1738, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, paddled up the Rivière Rouge or Red River to the mouth of the Assiniboine.  While La Vérendrye and his sons pushed westward, Louis Damours de Louvières built a fur-trading post for him there which soon acquired the name of Fort Rouge.  This first post was abandonned within the decade and only briefly revived in the 1750s, but its site would in time become that of Fort Gibraltar, later renamed Fort Garry, which would evolve into the City of Winnipeg in 1873.

Kives's article in the Winnipeg Free Press provides a good overview of Fort Rouge's history.  He quotes a few local Francophones who point to the foundational significance of the event, but also Adele Perry, of the University of Manitoba, who offers a caveat.  Though La Vérendrye's arrival heightened the area's place within a broader colonial trade network, we should not attribute too much significance to it.  The forks of the Rouge and Assiniboine had served as a gathering place for indigenous people for some 6,000 years.  "People in this part of the world had an extraordinarily sophisticated system of trade that was continent-wide in reach," explained Perry.  But Europeans  kept better records.  "La Vérendrye has a place in popular memory because of those records, but it behooves us to be a little more searching," she said.

The Compagnie de La Vérendrye, a Winnipeg-based reenactment unit, has put together a very attractive web site on Fort Rouge's 275th anniversary.  The commemorative programme seems quite elaborate.

P.-F.-X.