Hochelaga

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Hochelaga (disambiguation) .

Idealistic representation of the High Elagas by Giovan Battista Ramusio and Giacomo Gastaldi (1556), based on Jacques Cartier's notes

Hochelaga ( Laurentisch : possibly "Great Rapids" or "Beaver Dam") was a fortified village of the Saint Lawrence Iroquois in the 16th century. It was located near Mont Royal , the local mountain of today's Canadian city ​​of Montreal . The French navigator Jacques Cartier visited the village in 1535. When Samuel de Champlain followed Cartier's footsteps in 1603, the village had disappeared. The exact location of the village is not known. A stone marker that was placed on the site of McGill University in 1925 is supposed to indicate the former location of Hochelagas.

Location

A detailed description of the village with approximate location information can be found in the report Bref récit et succincte narration de la navigation faite en 1535 et 1536 (“Short report and concise narrative of the journey made in 1535 and 1536”), which Jacques Cartier wrote to King Francis I in 1545 . handed over. Hochelaga was surrounded by a wooden palisade and contained around fifty houses made of wood and bark, mostly rectangular, rounded longhouses . The village is said to have had around 1500 inhabitants. Cartier returned to the Île de Montréal in 1541 . In his report he mentioned two villages, but only one, Tutonaguy, also by name.

When Samuel de Champlain followed in Cartier's footsteps in 1603, the Saint Lawrence Iroquois and their settlements had meanwhile completely disappeared, for which there are several theories: conflicts with neighboring tribes, the effects of epidemics brought in by Europeans or a migration towards the great Lakes . Archaeological evidence and the historical context point most likely to armed conflicts with other Iroquois, especially with the Mohawk . The few survivors seem to have been assimilated by them or by the Algonquians .

The habit of the Saint Lawrence Iroquois to dismantle their villages when soil fertility declines and to rebuild them in another place is a possible explanation for the fact that the exact location of Hochelaga is still unclear today. Various hypotheses assume that the village was near Mont Royal. In 1860, workers came across the remains of a village on the McGill University site . John William Dawson , the rector of the university, then carried out one of the first rescue excavations in the history of Canadian archeology. The Dawson site named after him dates back to between 1500 and 1550. However, the village does not seem to be identical to Hochelaga as it does not match Cartier's description, it was too small and a palisade was missing.

Illustrations

Jacques Cartier's voyages of discovery in North America also met with interest in Venice , particularly with Giovan Battista Ramusio . He published a series of books entitled Navigationi et Viaggi , a collection of travelogues from various explorers. The third volume, published in 1556, contains an illustration by Giacomo Gastaldi depicting the village of Hochelaga. The regular arrangement of the houses, surrounded by a circular palisade, hardly corresponds to Cartier's notes. Gastaldi, influenced by the Italian Renaissance , was guided by the idea of ​​an ideal city that has little to do with reality. A reproduction of this illustration, made by Paul-Émile Borduas , adorns the walls of the Chalet du Mont-Royal .

Web links

• Bref récit et succincte narration de la navigation faite en 1535 et 1536 (Cartier's travelogue)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hochelaga. In: The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 16, 2017 . 
2. ↑ http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=12017 . (No longer available online.) In: Directory of Designations of National Historic Significance of Canada. Parks Canada, formerly in the original ; accessed on August 18, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ^ Étude de caractérisation de l'arrondissement historique et naturel du Mont-Royal. (PDF, 822 KB) (No longer available online.) Commission des biens culturels du Québec, 2005, pp. 31–33 , archived from the original on December 9, 2008 ; Retrieved August 18, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Bruce Trigger : The Disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians . In: The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 . McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal 1976, ISBN 0-7735-0627-6 , pp. 214-228 .
5. ↑ Le site Dawson et le village d'Hochelaga. Les amis de la montagne, accessed on August 18, 2011 (French). 
6. ↑ La terra de Hochelaga nella Nova Francia. Royal Library of Belgium , accessed August 18, 2011 (French). 

Coordinates: 45 ° 30 ′ 13.3 "  N , 73 ° 34 ′ 29.6"  W.