Almost as
quickly as the Treaty of St-Germain-en-Laye returned undisputed
ownership of Acadia to France, Cardinal Richelieu acted
to rebuild the French presence there.
He made
his cousin, Isaac de Razilly, lieutenant governor of all of New
France and governor of Acadia. Razilly made his name, and
some money, as a naval hero and was a shareholder in the Company
of New France. He intended to establish a true setlement in
Acadia, instead of only forts, fur trading posts, and fish
drying depots.
According
to Charles D. Mahaffie Jr, "Financing came from (the Company of
New France) and later from a second firm, the Razilly-Condonnier
Company, formed by Razilly, his brother Claude de Launay Razilly,
and an investor named Jean Condonnier. Ships were chartered and
colonists were recruited. They were mostly engagés:
laborers, artisans, and farmers hired for a prescribed period,
after which they were free to go home. But some meant to stay,
and everyone expected that once buildings were up and land was
cleared, there would be wives and children and permanent homes."
Razilly
sailed from France in July 1632 aboard l'Esperance de Dieu.
With him were two transports carrying 300 people, livestock,
seeds, tools, arms, and everything needed to establish and
maintain a community. He landed on the western shore of the La
Have River on September 8, 1632, and took possession of Port
Royal, drove the English away from the fort at Penobscot, and
sent home all of the Scots who had not yet left Nova Scotia.
Two
lieutenants came with Razilly to Acadia. Charles de Menou
de Charnisay, Sieur d'Aulnay, was placed in charge of settling
the new émigrés on the land and getting them started at
farming. Nicolas Denys, meanwhile, was to begin building up the
Acadian fisheries, the fur trade, and an export lumber trade
with France.
These
men would have a large hand in putting down the first truly
permanent beginnings of the Acadian colony. But they would do so
in the face of conflict, not only from their English neighbors,
but from within the French ranks.
Charles de
La Tour, who had almost single handedly defended the French
interest in Acadia, felt slighted when Razilly showed up.
La Tour thought that he should have been made governor. Razilly
compromised with him. Razilly would settle his people at La
Have. La Tour and his men would continue their fur trading from
their main outpost of Cape Sable. Razilly also gave La Tour the
Seigneurie de Jemseg, a rich hunting and fishing area
along the St. John River in New Brunswick.
According to
Mahaffie, "La Tour was interested in beaver, not farms and
chapels and schools. As long as Razilly did not try for a
disproportionate share of the trade, why fuss? La Tour got along
with Razilly, and he made an alliance with Denys as well. They
were men of affairs: they understood each other. D'Aulnay was a
different type - a starchy aristocrat, easily disliked - but
while Razilly was in charge at La Have, La Tour had no
difficulties in Acadia, nor did he have much trouble arranging
matters in Paris. In exchange for agreeing to maintain his forts
at Saint John and Cape Sable, he was assigned a quarter of the
furs. The profit potential was huge, and he returned well
satisfied."
He thought
that the English settlement at Machias, Maine, was a threat to
profits from his Jemseg lands. In 1633, he attacked Machias,
killed two men, captured three others, and brought them and a
passel of captured furs and provisions to Cape Sable.
The
English in Boston called La Tour's attack piracy, and decided to
do something about it. In 1634, a Boston merchant named Allerton
who owned an interest in the Machias trading post, sailed to
Acadia to reclaim furs taken from there and to bring back La
Tour's prisoners. La Tour told him that Machias was now French
territory and that he had acted in the name of France.
Coincidentally, Razilly was wrangling with New Englanders at the
same time, and told them that they could trade no further north
than the mouth of the Kennebec River, near today's Portland,
Maine.
The Puritans
in Boston were already less than enamored with the French. The
Massachusetts Bay Colony's Governor John Winthrop heard in
January 1633 that Razily had landed at La Have with the
wherewithal to form a permanent settlement, bringing with him
"diverse priests and Jesuits among them." Winthrop called in his
assistants to discuss "the French (who) were like(ly) to prove
ill neighbors (being Papists)." The English fortified Boston
Harbor and sent men to hold the ground north of Cape Ann,
Massachusetts, "less an enemy finding it void, should possess
and take it from us."
In August
1635, Razilly sent d'Aulnay to formally enforce the French claim
on the Penobscot area. He found a handful of Englishmen from the
Plymouth setlement there and sent them home without bloodshed,
but that was too much for the Puritans.
Mahaffie
tells us, "Ready for war, they sent their redoubtable soldier of
fortune Captain Miles Standish to Penobscot Bay to thrash the
upstart French, but d'Aulnay was dug in, and Standish's gunners
wasted their ammunition in a fruitless bombardment. Powder and
shot used up, they sought more in Boston, but there they found
that the Bay Colony would join Plymouth's war only if Plymouth
paid all the cost. With that they gave up, and Penobscot Bay
became French."
The French
effort to reclaim was off to a good start. But then there was a
dip in fortune. Razilly, who had provided a steady, sensible
guiding hand in the recolonization of Acadia, died in
1635. He was replaced by the stuffier d'Aulnay.
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