Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle

Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle , also de Courcelles (* 1626 perhaps in Toulon ; † October 24, 1698 ) was a French colonial official under King Louis XIV. He was governor of New France from 1665 to 1672 . He had a poorly planned winter campaign against the Mohawk - Iroquois give up, but later reached a peace agreement between the western Iroquois and the Indian allies of France. He supported the explorers going west and south, but was in constant dispute with the artistic director Jean Talon . From 1672 he commanded the citadel of Arras , an office that he had exercised in Thionville before his activity in America , and was then governor of Toulon until his death. He was entitled Sieur de Montigny, de La Fresnaye et de Courcelle, seigneur de Rouvray et Du Bourg .

Life

Courcelle succeeded Saffray de Mézy as governor of New France from 1665 . He was appointed on March 23, 1665. He had previously been Governor of Thionville , Lorraine . Together with the artistic director Jean Talon , he reached Québec on September 12th. Lieutenant Governor Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy , head of all North American colonies, had arrived in June 1664 with the Carignan Salières Regiment , which was supposed to take action against the Iroquois . Courcelle continued the construction of forts ordered by Tracy and was now able to occupy them with a crew. You should prevent the Iroquois Mohawk invasions along the Richelieu River .

At that time, however, they were unable to attack the French as they were suffering severely from a smallpox epidemic . So they felt about Jesuit missionaries in Québec, but Tracy, Courcelle and Talon decided to take the opportunity to attack.

On January 9, 1666, Courcelle left Québec at the head of 600 men. As soon as they reached the Richelieu River, many men had frostbite. Algonquin hostile to the Iroquois , who were supposed to lead the French, did not appear. Courcelle nevertheless gave the order to leave on January 29th. The men, not used to the cold and snowshoes, were soon exhausted. The troops got lost and found on February 15 that they were already near the Dutch settlement of Schenectady, three days' march from Mohawk villages. The only Mohawk they had seen had killed a detachment that had been chasing them, which consisted of ten men and one officer.

When the British noticed the French in Albany , a delegation asked what they were doing in the country of the King of England without first informing the Governor of New York Province. Neither side was aware that the two countries had been at war for two weeks. Courcelle was also completely surprised that New Amsterdam (New York) was now English, and even believed that the English had conquered all of America. He had seven of his wounded taken care of by the settlers in Schenectady.

When the thaw and persistent rain set in, Courcelle had to give up his campaign for good. On February 21, they began the march back, in which 60 other men died. Courcelle, narrowly escaped from a catastrophe, accused the Jesuits on his return that it was their fault that they had set out without a local guide. The Marquis de Salières did not hesitate to blame Courcelle, who, in his opinion, had not provided adequate equipment or clothing.

At the end of September 1666, Tracy and Courcelle led an army of 1,400 men, plus 100 Hurons and Algonquians from Fort Sainte-Anne on Lake Champlain against the Mohawk. They had no prospect of success against the largest army ever raised against them. They left their four villages that the French burned down. A cross and the French coat of arms were erected in the main village, and the land was claimed for King Louis XIV. The Mohawk declared themselves ready for peace on July 10, 1667. It lasted until the early 1680s.

The legal system of New France was two-tiered until 1667. On December 6, 1666, Courcelle, Talon and Tracy set up the Conseil Souverain , because up until then Jean Talon himself had ultimately spoken the right. In August 1667, the procedure was adjusted again, so that Talon had each case to face to decide whether the Conseil Souverain , the Cour de Prévôté or himself should judge. The three-tier system provided for a train of instances, the lowest tier of which were the seigneurial courts. An objection could be lodged with one of the three officials who were responsible for the three regions of the colony. Against their decision an appeal could be made to the Conseil Souverain .

Courcelle felt restricted in his power. He refused to agree to the edict, again the following January, seeking an open conflict for power with Talon. Tracy, his most important ally, left the colony in August 1667. As a result, tension between Intendant and Governor grew , even when Talon went to France for two years and was replaced by Claude de Boutroue d'Aubigny . In 1669, minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert rebuked him, warning that the king's interests were the only important ones. Talon informed Colbert in November 1670 that his adversary envious his influence, especially with Colbert himself. Talon complained that Courcelle was trying to treat him like a subordinate - Talon was a commoner - and that he had his plans for the development of the colony hinder.

When in 1669 three men from the Montréal garrison murdered a chief of the Seneca , an Iroquois tribe, Courcelle had the murderers tried and executed immediately. The Seneca were impressed and ready for peace talks. The wars between the Iroquois and Algonquin dragged on, so that Courcelle asked both to exchange the prisoners and to stop the fighting. The western Iroquois, who lived far away, felt safe and doubted that the governor had such a long arm to steal their scalps from them.

Courcelle had a flat boat built that should be able to carry heavy loads. On June 2, the ship and his army left and reached Lake Ontario on June 12 . The Iroquois were impressed by this daring venture and agreed to make peace with their enemies. Courcelle took the opportunity to find out where a fort was to be built at the eastern end of the lake. He did not want to gain a military advantage, but to divert the fur trade of the Iroquois from the Dutch and the English. Talon even asked for two forts, one in the south and one in the north of the lake, but Colbert refused. Frontenac built a fort two years later at the mouth of the Cataracoui River, where Kingston is today.

Instead, Courcelle got into a dispute with the chief of the Ottawa , who were previously the main fur suppliers of the French. They tried to come into contact with the Dutch and English through the Iroquois as middlemen or directly in Albany. Courcelle successfully played the two tribes off against each other, however, by making both sides credible that the offer only served to destroy the opponents.

Idealizing representation of Daumont de Saint Lussons by CW Jefferys from 1895

He also supported the research and trade trips of Robert Cavelier de La Salle , Simon François Daumont de Saint-Lusson , Jean Peré , Louis Joliet , François Dollier de Casson and René de Bréhant de Galinée . He also had all men between the ages of 16 and 60 trained to use weapons. This militia was the only protection for the colony after the regiment they had brought with them. The officers of these militias, along with priests and seigneurs, i.e. feudal lords, were among the local leadership groups.

In 1671 Courcelle asked to be recalled, a request that was granted the following year. His last legacy was for a six-year-old Iroquois girl whom he had adopted. Dollier de Casson, superior in the seminary in Montreal, received the 1,000 livre for this . The girl came into the care of the Sœurs de la Congrégation. At the end of November 1672 he sailed back to France, where he became commandant of the citadel of Arras . He later became governor of Toulon, where he died on October 24, 1698.

literature

• Regis Roy, Gérard Malchelosse: Le régiment de Carignan. Son organization et son expédition au Canada (1665–1668). Montréal 1925
• Jack Verney: The Good Regiment. The Carignan-Salières Regiment in Canada, 1665–1668. Montréal 1991

Web links

• Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

See also

• History of Canada
• First Nations history
• History of Québec

Remarks