The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, 1665-1672Chapais, Thomas
History
The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, 1665-1672
Chapais, Thomas
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Intendants -- Canada -- Biography; Talon, Jean, comte d'Orsainville, 1625?-1694
Another enterprise of the intendant was numbering the
people. Under his personal supervision, during the winter
of 1666-67, a general census of the colony was taken--the
first Canadian census of which we have any record. The
count showed, as we have already said, a total population
of 3215 in Canada at that time--2034 males and 1181
females. The married people numbered 1109, and there were
528 families. Elderly people were but few in number, 95
only being from fifty-one to sixty years old, 43 from
sixty-one to seventy, 10 from seventy-one to eighty, and
4 from eighty-one to ninety. In regard to professions
and occupations, there were then in New France 3 notaries,
5 surgeons, 18 merchants, 4 bailiffs, 3 schoolmasters,
36 carpenters, 27 joiners, 30 tailors, 8 coopers, 5
bakers, 9 millers, 3 locksmiths. The census did not
include the king's troops, which formed a body of 1200
men. The clergy consisted of the bishop, 18 Priests and
aspirants to the priesthood, and 35 Jesuit fathers. There
were also 19 Ursulines, 23 Hospitalieres, and 4 Sisters
of the Congregation. The original record of this, the
first Canadian census, has been preserved and is without
question a most important historical document. It is
likewise full of living interest, for in it are recorded
the names of many families whose descendants are now to
be found all over Canada.
CHAPTER III
THE IROQUOIS SUBDUED
It was the special task of Tracy and Courcelle to rid
the colony of the Iroquois scourge. The Five Nations
[Footnote: The Iroquois league consisted of five tribes
or nations--the Mohawks, the Cayugas, the Senecas, the
Onondagas, and the Oneidas.] had heard with some disquietude
of the body of trained soldiers sent by the French king
to check their incursions and crush their confederacy.
At the beginning of December 1665, the Marquis de Tracy
received an embassy from the Onondagas. They desired to
enter into a peace negotiation, and one of the most noted
chiefs, Garakonthie, delivered on that occasion a long
and eloquent address to the viceroy. A treaty was signed
by them on behalf of their own and two of the other
tribes, the Senecas and the Oneidas. But meanwhile the
Oneidas did not cease from hostilities, and the Mohawks
also continued their bloody raids against the French
settlements. Courcelle therefore decided to march at once
against their villages beyond Lake Champlain, in what is
now New York state and to teach them a lesson. But he
did not know the nature of a winter expedition in this
northern climate. Leaving Quebec on January 9, he reached
Three Rivers on the 16th, and proceeded to Fort Saint-Louis
on the Richelieu, where he had fixed the rendezvous of
the troops. The cold was very severe, and many soldiers
were frozen at the outset. On January 29 the little band,
five or six hundred French and Canadians, left Fort
Saint-Louis, unfortunately without waiting for a party
of Algonquins who should have acted as scouts. It was a
distressing march.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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