Société Notre-Dame de Montréal

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Seal of community
Memorial plaque with the names of the founders

The Société Notre-Dame de Montréal (full name: Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal pour la conversion des Sauvages de la Nouvelle-France , dt. "Society of Our Lady of Montreal for the conversion of the Wild New France") was a religious lay community which existed from 1639 to 1663. She was responsible for founding the Ville-Marie settlement in New France , from which the Canadian city ​​of Montreal developed.

history

The founders of the company were the tax officer Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière and the priest Jean-Jacques Olier (later founder of the Sulpizian order ). They planned an idealistic-utopian settlement project in New France to convert the indigenous people to Christianity. For this purpose, a settlement should be built on the Île de Montréal . Various sponsors supported the project with a total of 25,000 livres .

Le Royer acquired the lordship over the Île de Montréal on behalf of the company from the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France , which at the time had the trade monopoly in New France . The officer Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve was to lead the colonization project and serve as governor . The nurse Jeanne Mance , who secured financial support from other sources, planned to build a hospital. On May 9, 1641, Maisonneuve, Mance and around forty other colonists set sail from La Rochelle . More than a year later, on May 17, 1642, they reached their destination and founded Ville-Marie .

In the first few years the settlement was repeatedly attacked by the Iroquois and was barely able to develop. It was only when Maisonneuve recruited around a hundred more colonists in France in 1653 that Ville-Marie's long-term survival was ensured. The deaths of Olier in 1657 and Le Royer in 1659 put the company in financial difficulties. It was dissolved in 1663 and the manorial power passed to the Sulpizians.

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