Fort Frontenac

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Map of Fort Frontenac from 1685

Fort Frontenac was founded on July 12, 1673 by Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac , the governor of the French colony of New France ( Canada ). Frontenac had met to negotiate with the leaders of the Iroquois League at the mouth of the Cataraqui River in Lake Ontario to encourage them to trade with the French. During the negotiations, Frontenac's people set up a temporary fortification with a wooden palisade.

The construction of the fort aimed to bring access to the Great Lakes and the highly profitable fur trade under the control of France - and to deny it to the English - and to intimidate the Iroquois. Frontenac and its partners also hoped for personal profit. Frontenac handed the fort and the surrounding lands over to his closest partner, Robert Cavelier de La Salle , but reserved the right to trade there for himself.

La Salle used the fort as a base for his research trips inland. Around 1685, the palisade was transformed into a rectangular stone fortress with four bastions at the corners and a complex of buildings inside. A settlement with various houses, a church and an Indian village developed southwest of the fortress. La Salle did not use Fort Frontenac permanently; from 1682 he stopped there and concentrated on exploring the areas south of the Great Lakes . The fort fell into the hands of its creditors, who were only interested in the lucrative fur trade, and fell into disrepair.

The outbreak of fighting with the British-backed Iroquois, which coincided with the Palatine War of Succession in Europe, made Fort Frontenac the target of an attack by the Indians. After a long siege, during which 93 men of the crew died of scurvy , the survivors evacuated the fort in 1689 and blew up the fortifications before they left.

However, after the war ended in 1695, Frontenac came back with 300 soldiers, 160 settlers and 200 Indians to restore the fort. For the next 50 years, Fort Frontenac was the location of a small French garrison, which however became less important as the fur trade became more and more unprofitable. During the tensions between the British and French in North America, which preceded the Seven Years War (1756–1763) and the French and Indian War, the French increased the troops stationed there and expanded the fortifications. The efforts turned out to be in vain. In August 1758 the British attacked the fort with 3,000 men under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Bradstreet and forced the 110 defenders to surrender after three days. Fort Frontenac was sacked and abandoned.

Remains of the old fort in the foreground, new fort in the background (2010)

After lying desolate for 25 years, the fort's military importance was rediscovered after the British had to vacate their positions in the now independent United States . In 1783 British troops were stationed and the city of Kingston was founded, where loyalists displaced from the USA settled. Until the end of the second British-American War from 1812 to 1814, Fort Frontenac served as the most important British military base at the eastern end of Lake Ontario . The trigger for this war was the alliance between Tecumseh (chief of the Shawnee and unite from the western Indian tribes to a united defensive front), the loyal English Canadians and the British government against the American pioneers. Then the fort was abandoned, demolished and built over. The end of the war meant the neutralization of the Great Lakes chain on the Canadian-American border. Today, the remains of the fort, which were declared a National Historic Site in 1923 and have been archaeologically investigated since 1982, lie in the urban area of ​​Kingston, Ontario.

literature

Web links

Commons : Fort Frontenac  - collection of images

Coordinates: 44 ° 14 ′ 0.4 ″  N , 76 ° 28 ′ 42.6 ″  W.