Charles Robin

Charles Robin (October 30, 1743 – June 10, 1824) was an entrepreneur from the Isle of Jersey who traded between the maritime region of Canada and the British Isles.

He was born in Saint Brélade, Jersey in 1743. By 1763, he was the captain of a ship working in the Newfoundland cod trade. In 1765, with his two brothers and two others, they formed a firm which developed fishing grounds off Cape Breton Island and the Gaspé region. The company sold dried cod to Portugal and Spain, and salmon, furs, and timber to England and Quebec. Robin saw off competitors from Guernsey and several other Jersey firms through judicious employment of a truck system.

Robin brought exiled Acadians from France to work on Cape Breton Island and in the Chaleur Bay region. The area was sparsely settled in these early years: in 1765 there were 209 persons in the Baie des Chaleurs: 93 Indians in the Restigouche area and 109 persons in Gaspé. By 1774-5 there were 200 persons in the Baie des Chaleurs and 158 at Bonaventure. In 1777, three families at "Gaspee" and four on Bonaventure Island, two families at each of the seigneuries of Grand River and Pabos, and ten families (sixty persons) wintering at Paspébiac were reported. Malbaie and Point St. Peter were described as "inhabited by people from the Rebel Colonies who came away at the Commencement of the War" and some Acadians had settled at Bonaventure and Tracadigaiche. The Census of Canada gives a total population, seasonal and permanent, of 874 persons on the coast between Gaspé and Tracadigaiche in 1777.

The operation suffered much damage at the hands of American forces during the American revolution. Robin became partner in a new firm under his own name in 1783. The company advanced merchandise to fisherman against future catches; this resulted in a labour force captive to credit and reduced costs for the company. His connections with the government in Quebec gave him access to the best beach locations near the fishing grounds used to cure the fish.

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