Narrator: On the morning of April 9th, 1682,
Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle sees a miraculous sight.
For more than a dozen years, he has dreamed of this day.
Now he has become the first Frenchman to reach the Gulf of Mexico
travelling overland.
Next, he is sure he will find the mysterious western sea
and the treasures of China.
La Salle: I do now take, in the name of his majesty,
possession of this country of Louisiana,
from the mouth of the great river called Ohio,
as also along the river Mississippi,
and rivers which discharge themselves therein.
Narrator: But La Salle's grand ambitions are at odds with France's colonial plans.
In Paris and Quebec, he is considered dangerous,
perhaps even mad.
Louis XIV, writes to the governor at Quebec.
Louis XIV: I am convinced, as you are,
that the Sieur de La Salle's discovery is quite useless,
and that, in the future, we must forbid such enterprises.
Narrator: But La Salle will not be denied.
He will continue his quest for glory at all costs:
fraud, deceit, ever murder.
La Salle: Vive le Roi!
All: Vive le Roi!
Narrator: It seems an impossible task:
a few hundred young men of New France,
setting out to claim an entire continent.
But with courage, determination, and sometimes folly,
they learn to make their way down rivers and through the dark forests of the New World.
The Canadiens learn to build alliances with powerful Indian nations,
and become masters of the west,
keeping their New England rivals penned up along the Atlantic shore.
On the banks of the St. Lawrence,
they build a new society,
shaped by the wilderness and its wild air of freedom.
But it will not be long before a clash of empires
throws the continent into turmoil once again.
Narrator: In the years after 1670,
hundreds of young Frenchmen set off on a great adventure.
They leave the St. Lawrence colony for the world of the Indians,
seeking a fortune in the fur trade.
For these young men,
the freedom of the upper country is irresistible.
Man: The life of the coureur de bois is one of perpetual idleness.
They live in complete independence.
They are accountable to no one.
They recognize neither superior, nor judge, nor laws.
Narrator: New France is still a fragile colony,
outnumbered 10 to 1 by the English settlers to the south.
The coureur de bois are ignoring direct orders to stay along the St. Lawrence,
orders from Jean-Baptiste Colbert, France's colonial minister.
Colbert: It would be best to restrict ourselves to an area of land
that the colony can maintain on its own,
rather than expanding over an area so vast
that, someday, we may have to abandon part of it.
Narrator: Colbert has reason to be worried.
The English in New York have a powerful ally of their own,
the Iroquois,
giving them rum and muskets in exchange for furs.
Albany is now an important trading post,
competing with Montreal and Quebec.
France now sends the colony a new governor,
Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac.
His orders are to consolidate the St. Lawrence settlement.
But Frontenac does the exact opposite.
He has a trading post built on far-off Lake Ontario,
and then tries to lure the Iroquois away from Albany.
Frontenac: The settlement that I am starting,
I expect to make sizable in very little time,
and merchandise will be brought there
so that you will not have to carry your pelts as far as you do now.
You will find all kinds of refreshments and commodities
that will be given to you at the best prices possible.
You will be treated as Frenchmen.
Narrator: The Indians flock to Fort Frontenac
and the Governor keeps most of the profits himself.
Not only the English are upset;
even the French merchants have a new competitor.
The intendant, Jacques Duchesneau, complains to the court.
Duchesneau: Everybody boldly contravenes the King's interdictions.
I have enacted ordinance against the coureur de bois,
against the merchants who furnish them with goods.
All of that has been in vain
as several of the most considerable families in this country are involved,
and the Governor lets them go on and even shares in their profits.
Narrator: One of Frontenac's closest associates
is Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle,
the son of a wealthy family from Rouen.
La Salle comes to New France in his 20's,
after leaving the Jesuit order, because, he said, of his moral frailties.
Together, he and Frontenac defy their church and their king.
The fur trade is based on giving the Indians the commodities they most desire.
The Indians are astonished by the consciousness-altering effects of alcohol;
and French traders are only too willing to provide it.
The results are devastating;
so devastating
that the Church threatens to excommunicate anyone who traffics in alcohol.
But commercial competition has its own morality.
Cavelier de La Salle and his partner, the Governor, defy the Church.
La Salle: It is for laymen only, and not for clergymen,
to determine what is good or bad for commerce.
The sole purpose of the savages is to sell it to their people,
which is the only reason that forces them to come to us.
Narrator: Finally, Louis XIV has had enough.
Frontenac is recalled to France.
Meanwhile, La Salle builds alliances with the different Indian nations of the interior,
extending the French trading network all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi.
But when he returns to Quebec, he too is ordered back to France.
La Salle is not ready to give up his dreams of glory yet.
He lies to the King,
telling him Louisiana is full of rich silver mines.
He falsifies his maps,
showing the mouth of the Mississippi much farther west than its actual location.
He argues that this is an ideal place from which to attack the Spanish in New Mexico.
The deception succeeds.
The King names La Salle commandant of all the territory he has claimed.
And puts him in charge of 320 men and 4 ships.
But many of the officers don't trust La Salle.
Beaujeu: There are very few who do not believe he is crazy.
I have spoken of it to people who have known him for 20 years.
Everyone says that he has always been something of a visionary.
Narrator: Under La Salle's erratic leadership,
the expedition goes disastrously wrong.
In March, 1687, La Salle is wandering in a dense area of Texas, completely lost.
Several of his men are dead.
The rest are exhausted.
On the morning of March 19th,
a disgruntled merchant travelling with the party
brings La Salle's dreams of glory to an end.
Henri Joutel was La Salle's friend and right-hand man.
Joutel: Cavelier de La Salle had the mind and the talent to succeed.
His courage, his boundless capacity for work,
which allowed him to overcome all obstacles,
would have brought him a glorious triumph in the end,
had it not been that all these qualities were matched by an imperious manner
and a harshness towards his subordinates,
which brought him their implacable hatred
and was the cause of his death.
Narrator: In less than 20 years, La Salle and others,
Joliet, Nicolas Perrot, Duluth,
have reached far into the interior.
New France's Indian alliances have made it the master of half a continent.
But the English, like Thomas Dongan, the governor of New York,
have expansion plans of their own.
Dongan: Tis a hard thing that all countries a Frenchman walks over in America
must belong to Canada.
In Europe, France and England are at peace
but in their North American colonies, tension is growing.
The governor of New York
urges the Iroquois to resist the French and their Indian allies.
Dongan: The King, my master,
has forbidden me from providing you with arms and munitions to use against the French,
but do not be alarmed by this.
You will want for nothing that you may need.
I would rather supply you at my own expense.
Narrator: Among the nations of the west,
the Illinois, the Ottawa,
the Fox and others,
New France has built a complex network of friendship and alliance.
Their support is essential to the colony's trade and expansion.
One of the most influential French ambassadors to the Indians,
is Nicolas Perrot.
Perrot strives to keep New France's allies united.
Perrot: There is no nation that does not have some reason to go to war against the others.
When they were looking for reasons to go to war against each other,
did I not convince them that, instead,
they should support each other against the Iroquois,
who are their common enemy.
Narrator: His most important task
is to convince the Indians it is in their interests to support the French,
not the English.
Perrot: When the English tried to lure them,
I told them that they were about to enter into an alliance with traitors
who had poisoned part of the nations that lived among them,
and that, after having intoxicated the men,
they had kidnapped their women and children,
and sent them to far away islands, from which they would never return.
Narrator: But Frontenac's adventurism has upset the delicate balance,
leaving New France too weak to defend its allies.
The Iroquois take advantage,
sowing terror among the nations of the west.
The intendant, Jacques Duchesneau, recognizes the danger.
Duchesneau: There can be no doubt that,
if the Iroquois are allowed to continue unchecked,
they will subdue the Illinois,
and, in a short time, they will make themselves the master of all the Ottawa nation
and take the fur trade to the English.
So it's a necessity to make them friends or to destroy them.
Narrator: For more than 20 years,
New France's diplomacy has protected the colony from Indian attacks.
But in May, 1689,
France and England declare war.
In North America, the English of New York are first to hear the news
and immediately tell their Iroquois allies.
The Iroquois have been rivals of New France for much of the last 80 years.
They consider the French system of alliances a potent threat
to their security and their territory.
In New France, no one knows that war has been declared.
Most Canadiens still live in unfortified villages
like Lachine, near Montreal.
August 5th, 1689.
Fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors attack Lachine:
24 settlers are killed;
most of the houses destroyed, more than 70 people taken prisoner.
The superior of the Sulpicians of Montreal,
Vachon de Belmont describes their fate.
Belmont: That unfortunate group of prisoners
bore the full fury that a cruel thirst for vengeance
can bring out in these savages.
This victorious army took them across Lake Saint-Louis.
There, they lit fires,
burned five Frenchmen,
roasted six children and some of the others,
and ate them.
Narrator: Only two month later
does the colony learn that France and England are at war.
The best young officers are needed back in Europe,
so Frontenac is named Governor once again.
His orders are to attack the English settlements in New York.
But Frontenac cannot mount a full-scale offensive.
Instead, he relies on guerrilla raids by Canadien militiamen and Indian allies.
Among the war party are the coureur de bois Nicolas d'Ailleboust de Manthet,
and the brothers Jacques Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene
and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville.
Their objective: the village of Schenectady.
A force of 200 in all; half French, half Indian.
They arrive after midnight on February the 18th.
There is no guard and one of the gates has been left unlocked.
Schuyler: Company of 200 French and Indians
fell upon said village and murdered 60 men, women, and children
most barbarously.
Narrator: The dead of Lachine are avenged.
Now it is Pieter Schuyler, the mayor of Albany,
who laments the brutality of frontier warfare.
Schuyler: The cruelties committed at said place no pen can write, nor tongue express.
The women being with child,
ripped up and the children alive, thrown into the flames.
And their heads dashed in pieces against the doors and windows.
Narrator: The Canadiens and their allies strike virtually at will
at Salmon Falls, on the Atlantic coast, and at Falmouth.
The English colonies are terrified.
It is time for a new strategy: a frontal assault.
Under the command of Sir William Phips, a powerful fleet sails from Boston.
First, it destroys Port-Royal in Acadia.
Then, on October 16th, all 34 ships appear before Quebec.
For the second time in its short history,
Quebec is under siege.
The next day, Phips sends an emissary to demand that Quebec
and the whole colony surrender.
Frontenac is given one hour to capitulate.
Frontenac: I have no reply to make to your General,
other than from the mouths of my cannons and muskets.
Let him know that this is no way to summon a man such as myself.
Narrator: The English land 1,000 men at Beauport,
but they are pushed back by the Canadien militia.
After three days, the siege is over.
Cold weather forces the fleet to leave before it is imprisoned in the ice.
The war continues for seven more years
but the English colonists will not attempt to invade Canada again.
And the peace that follows will neutralize their greatest ally.
Narrator: At the beginning of the 18th century,
New France is facing hard times.
In France, the market is flooded with beaver.
The merchants of New France are going bankrupt.
The western trading posts are closed;
the furs rot in the warehouses.
Even worse are the epidemics of disease that strike the colony:
influenza, smallpox.
In some years, sickness carries off almost 10 percent of the population.
These are hard years for the Indian nations too.
All the tribes are weak;
decimated by European disease and decades of warfare.
The time is right for a radical change of course.
In the summer of 1701,
more than a thousand Indians gather near Montreal.
They come from the Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes, and Acadia.
The Iroquois are here too.
Many are lifelong enemies,
but all have responded to an invitation from the French governor.
Among them is the great Huron chief, Kondiaronk, of Michilimackinac,
the most influential of France's allies.
He knows Montreal is ravaged by disease but comes anyway.
Kondiaronk: We have found many of our brothers dead along the riverbanks.
We heard rumours that there was much sickness at Montreal.
All of these bodies,
half eaten by birds that we saw at every turn, were convincing proof;
yet we made ourselves a bridge of these bodies
and walked over it with great determination.
Narrator: The goal is to negotiate a comprehensive peace
among themselves and with the French.
For Governor Hector de Calliere,
it's the culmination of 20 years of diplomacy.
But overcoming the years of death and distrust is not easy.
The negotiations drag on for days.
One sticking point is the return of prisoners who are captured during previous campaigns
and enslaved or adopted.
Governor de Calliere tries to mediate but Kondiaronk is sceptical.
Kondiaronk: You wanted us to bring all of the Iroquois slaves that we hold.
We have obeyed.
Now let us see if the Iroquois have obeyed your command.
Let us see how many of our nephews they have brought.
If they have done so, it is proof of their sincerity.
If they have not done so, they are deceitful.
I know very well that they have brought none.
Narrator: But Kondiaronk also believes the bloodshed must end one way or another.
Although he has become seriously ill, he speaks for two hours.
He calls for a peace treaty that will be guaranteed by the French.
Kondiaronk's support is decisive but this will be his final act.
That night, Kondiaronk dies, struck down by influenza.
He is given a magnificent funeral,
as impressive as Frontenac's, who had died three years earlier.
The French commissioner of the marine, Bacqueville de la Potherie,
pays him homage.
Bacqueville: Had he been born a Frenchman,
he would have had the character to govern the most delicate matters of a flourishing state.
He had the sensibilities of a noble soul
and was a savage in name only.
Narrator: The next day, 38 nations sign a treaty:
'The Great Peace of 1701'.
It is a milestone in a colony's history.
The Indians and the French are now all at peace,
and the Iroquois promise to remain neutral in any future conflict with New England.
The stage is set for New France's greatest years.
Narrator: In the summer of 1749,
the Swedish naturalist, Pehr Kalm, visits the valley of the St. Lawrence.
And is enchanted by what he sees.
Kalm: Country on both sides was very delightful,
and the fine state of its cultivation added greatly to the beauty of the scene.
It could really be called a village,
beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, which is a distance of more than 180 miles.
Narrator: Most of the inhabitants live on seigneuries,
large farms along the river.
For 35 years now, no enemy has attacked the St. Lawrence valley.
The population is steadily growing and life is comfortable.
Many sons of the pioneers have become large landowners.
On the colony's first highway, 'The King's Road',
it takes four days to travel from Quebec to Montreal.
This is a good country for crops.
The colony now supplies all its own food,
with enough wheat and peas left over to send to the French colonies in the Caribbean.
Pehr Kalm has spent nine months in the English colonies.
What impresses him most about Canada is the behaviour of its people.
Kalm: The difference between the manners of the French in Canada,
and those of the English in the American colonies, is great.
Here, the gentlemen and ladies, as well as the poorest peasants and their wives,
are called Monsieur and Madame.
The men are extremely civil and take their hats off to every person whom they meet in the streets.
Narrator: In 1749, when Kalm visits,
New France has a population of 50,000 people.
The English colonies have 20 times more, almost a million.
Despite the enormous difference in size,
Kalm sees a glowing future for the little French colony.
Kalm: Tis true that the inhabitants are poor;
but they love their king.
Anyone who notices that all the dwellings in Canada are filled with children,
and that the men and women of French origin
are better made than anyone else to have joy,
anyone who considers to what extent the Canadien are alert and joyful,
courageous, able to withstand any hardship;
that person must also foresee
that Canada will soon become an extremely powerful country,
and the Rome of the English provinces.
Narrator: But other visitors,
like the French Jesuit, Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix,
are less impressed.
Charlevoix: Their carefree attitude,
an aversion to sustained work,
and a spirit of independence;
these are their most obvious weaknesses.
It is as though the air one breathes, in this vast continent, attributes to them.
But their contact with the natural inhabitants
is more than enough to shape this character.
Narrator: The Jesuits have had a college in Quebec since 1635
where the same curriculum is taught as in France.
But the young Canadiens prefer a more practical education.
Charlevoix: Many are convinced
that they are not suited to the sciences that require considerable diligence
and sustained study.
But no one can deny their rare genius for the mechanical arts.
They almost need no teacher to excel
and every day we see some of them succeed in every trade without even an apprenticeship.
Narrator: After more than a century,
the Canadiens have made their peace with winter.
For six months, they are free from work in the fields,
free to relax and socialise.
And kick up their heels.
Judge Pierre Raimbault strongly disapproves of one favourite winter pastime.
Raimbault: In the city of Montreal, all those, even the officers,
who have a carriage or team of horses,
take pride in galloping at full speed through the streets.
Most of these braggarts bring their wild horses to town to race them
and they will trample anyone in their path.
Narrator: But not all the Canadiens love winter.
Begon: I tremble at the thought that we are stuck with snow for the next nine months.
I'd rather be in France.
At least I wouldn't be exposed to freeze and die in a pile of snow.
Narrator: Elisabeth Begon, widow of the governor of Trois-Rivieres,
hates the cold.
Yet she was born here
and is a member of the new local aristocracy.
Begon: Everyone is hoping to shine at the ball
that we expect Monsieur Bigot will give here.
Monsieur Bigot is causing a lot of expenses
for there is nothing of teachers here for all those who wish to learn how to dance.
Narrator: The colonial upper class
models itself after the French aristocrats who come here,
like the new intendant, Francois Bigot.
They live in a world of balls, flirtations, and scandal.
Begon: Would you believe it.
The devout Madame Vercheres held a dance that lasted all through the night?
Our priests are going to have something to preach about.
To hold a ball! On the feast of Notre-Dame.
What is even better is that tomorrow,
there is another at Madame Lavaltrie's,
and the day after tomorrow, at Madame Bragelogne's.
Narrator: In 1750, Elizabeth Begon's wish comes true.
She moves to France,
free at last of the Canadian winter she so detests.
But she is soon disappointed.
Begon: In France, I believed that, with money,
one could have anything one wanted.
But in truth, I find that things here are better than in Canada,
only in December, January, and February.
Everything else is worse.
Narrator: The aristocrats of Versailles give her a nickname: l'Iroquoise.
She will never return to Canada.
Narrator: 1749 was a good year for the people of New France.
But far away, great forces are being set in motion.
Forces that will shatter their lives.
Narrator: Acadia took its name from the garden of the gods in Greek mythology.
Some of the best land in North America is found here;
so fertile that the Acadians have never suffered epidemics of scurvy, typhus, or cholera.
But they live on a continental fault line
caught on the colonial frontier where two great empires meet.
Acadia has been handed back and forth between France and England at least six times.
The treaties give it two names at once: Acadia or Nova Scotia.
In 1713, France finally gives up Acadia to the English for good.
Two thousand French subjects, peaceable farmers, live here.
They are given a year to move elsewhere in New France.
But most decide to stay.
The English demand they must swear an oath of allegiance to their new king.
The Acadians delay.
Then, refuse.
A delegate from Beaubassin explains why.
Beaubassin delegate: While our ancestors were under English rule,
such an oath was never required of them.
Narrator: Five years after the handover, Governor Richard Philipps is not optimistic.
Philipps: They will neither swear allegiance nor leave the country.
Narrator: With Newfoundland and Acadia now in English hands,
France decides to make the most of its one remaining possession on the Atlantic coast:
Ile-Royale.
France builds a huge fortress at Louisbourg.
It soon becomes the centre of French military and commercial power in the north Atlantic
and earns the hatred of the English in Boston.
In Nova Scotia, another irritant.
Some Acadians begin plotting against the English,
inciting the Indians to rise up against them.
As tension mounts, the oath becomes essential.
To persuade the Acadians to agree,
Philipps promises they will not have to bear arms.
He says nothing of this to his superiors in London,
nor is it mentioned in the oath.
But Alexandre Bourg Belle-Humeur, a notary,
witnesses the promise as it is made.
Belle-Humeur: We certify that his excellency Sir Richard Philipps,
has promised the habitants of the Minas Basin
that they are exempted from the duty
of bearing arms and waging war against the French and the savages,
and that the said French have agreed and promised never to bear arms
against the English crown.
Narrator: Philipps only tells London that he has obtained
the complete submission of a people who have been obstinate for so long.
The Acadians believe they have found a way to preserve their religion and way of life.
From 1730 on, the English colonists call them 'French neutrals'.
But the governor's compromise will have terrible consequences.
A wind of hatred is blowing through North America,
and by 1755, Acadia is in the eye of the storm.
Ten years earlier, Louisbourg had become such a threat to Boston
that the Governor of Massachusetts, William Shirley,
with a colonial army, attacked and captured it.
Three years later, Shirley is enraged to learn
that Louisbourg will be given back to France.
The Acadians become the target of his fury.
Shirley: The province of Nova Scotia will never be out of danger
as long as the Acadians are tolerated there.
If I had an army, I would lead it to Minas and Grand-Pre;
I would rake the dikes again; I would lay waste the whole country.
I would ground its brood of vipers.
Narrator: In 1749, the English built their own fortress:
Halifax on Chebucto Bay.
A clash is inevitable.
The New York Gazette's correspondent in Halifax writes that the Acadians must go.
Correspondent: We are now upon a great and noble scheme
of sending the neutral French out of this province,
who have always been secret enemies.
If we effect their expulsion,
it will be one of the greatest things that ever the English did in America;
for by all accounts, that part of the country they possess
is as good a land as any in the world.
We could get some good English farmers in the room.
Narrator: A new governor, Charles Lawrence,
demands that the Acadians swear a new oath;
this time with no reservations.
But the Acadians refuse to renounce the promise made 25 years earlier.
Beaubassin delegate: Our fathers,
having taken for themselves and on our behalf,
an oath of allegiance
which has since been approved many times in the name of the King.
We will never commit the inconsistency of swearing an oath which,
in any small way,
alters the conditions and privileges
which have been granted to us in the past
by our fathers and our sovereigns.
Narrator: Lawrence makes his decision;
on August 11th, 1755, he writes to Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow,
commander of a Massachusetts unit at Grand-Pre.
Lawrence: You must collect the inhabitants together
in order to their being transported in the best manner in your power,
either by stratagem or force, as circumstances may require.
But, above all, I desire you would not pay the least attention to
any remonstrance or memorial from any of the inhabitants.
Winslow: I, therefore, order all the inhabitants,
both old men and young men, as well as all the lads of 10 years of age,
to attend the Church at Grand-Pre on Friday the 5th instant,
at three of the clock in the afternoon.
The duty I have now found necessary is very disagreeable
to my nature and temper as I know it must be grievous to you,
who are of the same species as I am.
Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds,
and livestock of all sorts,
are forfeited to the crown with all your other effects
except your money and household goods.
And you yourselves are to be removed from this province.
Man: No! Then it will be war.
Narrator: Acadia has been a British possession for 42 years.
Almost all these people were born British subjects.
Soldier: Hand me your possessions; be quick about it.
Narrator: John Thomas, a doctor with Winslow's troops,
kept a meticulous journal during the autumn of 1755.
Thomas: Sept 2nd.
Pleasant day; Lieutenant John Indicut, on shore with men to burn a village
at a place called Petcojack.
Sept 18th.
Very hard gale of wind. Much rain and snow.
Major Prible returned with his party having burned 200 houses and barn.
Narrator: In the summer of 1755,
12,000 Acadians of French origin live in Acadia.
That year, 7,000 are expelled.
The upheaval will last for five years;
more than 10,000 Acadians will be sent into exile.
Winslow: Began to embark the inhabitants
who went very sullenly and unwillingly.
The women in great distress, carrying off their children in their arms;
others carrying their decrepit parents in their carts and their goods,
moving in great confusion, it appeared a scene of woe and distress.
Narrator: Most of the Acadians are deported to the American colonies;
but they are not welcome there.
John Labrador and his family of seven end up in Salem, Massachusetts.
Labrador: I was refused a team of oxen to fetch on the firewood that I cut myself.
We were left in the middle of winter without fire, or victuals,
in a house with no doors or roof.
When it rains, we're obliged to move the bed from part of the wet to leeward.
When I told one of the selectman that we were afloat in the house,
he said that I should build a boat and sail it.
Narrator: A third of the Acadians who were deported will die
of typhoid, smallpox or yellow fever.
One third more make their way to the French colony of Louisiana.
The rest are scattered to France, the English colonies, and the Caribbean.
When the deportation ends, only 165 French families remain in Acadia.
And in 1756, the wind of war that blows over North America
will become a hurricane.
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