La France de Henri IV en Amérique du Nord. De la création de l’Acadie à la fondation de Québec (review)

Éric Thierry, a French specialist in New France and the author of a much appreciated full-length biography on the French lawyer and author Marc Lescarbot (2001), took upon himself the daunting task of adding some forty years of new historiography to Canadian historian Marcel Trudel’s two early volumes of his Histoire de la Nouvelle France (1963, 1966). In very traditional fashion, but in a lively style, he retells the history of the Europeans’ early years in Acadia and Canada from 1598 to 1613, a period roughly corresponding to the rule of Henri IV of France (1589–1610). He does so simply by adding to Trudel’s familiar story whatever new documentary evidence was provided over the years by Trudel’s contemporaries – Robert Le Blant (1898–1989), René Baudry (1910–72), and Lucien Campeau (1914–2003) – and by making extensive use of the pioneering work of Laurier Turgeon on the early North Atlantic fisheries, of Bernard Allaire on the fur trade, and of Denys Delâge and Bruce G. Trigger on the early relationship between Frenchmen and Aboriginal peoples. Furthermore, Thierry has fully exploited the documents that in the past twenty-five years or so have been unearthed, mainly in the French departmental archives, by researchers working under the aegis of the Paris bureau of the National Archives of Canada under the direction of archivist and historian Raymonde Litalien. Finally, the author has successfully integrated into his narrative both the results of archaeological diggings performed over many years on the sites of the French early settlements, and the new appreciation of the deeply religious sentiment that influenced the thoughts and actions of the French men and women who were involved with French early expansion. (French historian Denis Crouzet is explicitly mentioned in this regard.)

Although Thierry knows more than Trudel, he has not strayed from his eminent predecessor’s path. The overall framework is still that of France’s ‘vain attempts’ at colonization. The main cause of France’s failure is attributed to Henri IV’s lack of financial commitment and an initial enthusiasm that was soon dampened by international politics and other overseas priorities, such as Brazil and the East Indies (8, 41, 88, 106, 108, 215, 219, 256, 314, 397, 401, 460–1). The economic role of the Catholic church is emphasized – although not as much as Canadian historian William J. Eccles (1917–98) did (272, 392, 406). The meagre results of France’s early attempts are valued mainly as necessary steps towards further colonization – the progress in cartography, the physical acclimatization, and the grand alliance with the Aboriginal nations (24, 329, 461–2). Thierry also shares Trudel’s passion for the verification of any documentary evidence, no matter how small. From this perspective, Thierry can be challenged on some statements – very few, one should immediately add – in which the general implication espoused by the author is not firmly rooted in the original source. For example, Samuel de Champlain is said to have been ‘pleinement admis à participer à l’élaboration de la stratégie [amérindienne],’ but the only source for this statement is Champlain himself (305). The same point can be made of the alleged fears of the Montagnais, who ‘craignent de perdre leur rang d’alliés privilégiés des Français’ (329). If anything, Thierry’s synthesis confirms in this reviewer the conviction that, no matter how significant the new evidence that came to light, it is astounding how much we still depend, for both our knowledge and interpretation, on the works of a very few highly placed participants such as Champlain, Lescarbot, or the Jesuit Pierre Biard.

The way Thierry writes his narrative – in a cumulative fashion, one fact after another – may give the impression that there is little room for interpretation. However, this is not always so. Interpretive frameworks do...