Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit (Born mid. 16th c., Died 1603) was a French naval and military captain and a lieutenant of New France, who built at Tadoussac in present day Quebec, the oldest surviving French settlement in the Americas.

Fishermen from Normandy, Britany, the Basque country, who came ashore in Acadia during the summer months to dry their fish, found that they could carry on profitable trade with the Indians, exchanging axes, knives, pots and cloth for furs. In that epoch, only the rich men in Paris could afford a beaver robe, that could be bartered for an axe or a knife. With such profits possible, many fishermen and their backers turned to the fur trade, which was not only far more profitable but also easier to carry out. Such a lucrative trade also attracted the attention of some gentlemen of the court who had influence with the king. The king had the power to grant monopolies, the sole right to trade in certain commodities, but the monopolies were granted in return for favours rendered to the crown of France.

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit was born in Dieppe, Normandy, of a wealthy merchant family. In 1583 he was serving under admiral Aymar de Chaste in the Azores. In 1589 he was captain of the important Huguenot garrison at Honfleur. By 1596, Chauvin had developed an interest in commercial and maritime enterprises. He now owned four vessels, the Don-de-Dieu, the Espérance, the Bon-Espoir, and the Saint-Jean, and he was regularly engaged in the North American fur trade and cod-fishery of Canada and Newfoundland.

A Calvinist, he had given illustrious service in the wars against the League, and was soon rewarded with a position of influence in the new king’s court. Chauvin, along with François Gravé Du Pont, obtained a fur trading monopoly for New France in 1599 from Henri IV.

Chauvin embarked from Honfleur in the early spring of 1600, with his four ships and the intended colonists, Gravé as his partner and lieutenant, and Pierre Du Gua de Monts. Against the advice of Gravé, Chauvin chose Tadoussac as his destination. Basque and Norman whalers were already using Tadoussac as a stopping point. Strategically situated on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River at the junction with the Saguenay River, with a harbour adjacent, Tadoussac had long been a Montagnais summering place for barter, and for half a century a fur-trading and fishing resort for Europeans. But with the arms they received the Montagnais had ousted the Iroquois from the region; they were soon to be visited by a revenge of equal horror, and driven far into the interior. Tadoussac was to suffer; and as allies of the Montagnais, and soon of the Algonquins and Hurons too, all enemies of the Iroquois, the French and their fur trade were distressed for many years. The area was ill fitted for settlement because of the rugged terrain and poor soil, and because of the cold in winter.

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