Basques in New France

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   Issue 48


Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 49, 1994

Basques in New France
By Mario Mimeault

The first time I saw the Ile-aux-Basques (Island of the Basques in Quebec), I was ten years old. The memory has remained with me because the head of our vacation resort had told us that the Basques were melting down whale fat there long before Jacques Cartier. I still recall the day he told us about the voyages of the whalers. We were gathered on the bank of the Saint-Laurent (St. Lawrence), facing the island. My beret was pulled down to my ears because it was cold and drizzling and I said to myself, “Jacques Cartier, that's old!” The Breton Cartier had taken possession of Canada in the name of the King of France in 1534 in a harber today known as Gaspé, and I already thought Gaspé was a long ways away, 250 miles from us. Just imagine, the Basque Country!

Imagine my surprise as well as seeing a report on the Basque country on television one day and discovering that the Basques wore wool berets just like ours! For the first time in my life, I made a connection between the Basques and America. Why had the Basques copied our beret, I wondered? But I soon forgot all that and, after many years, I became a historian.

The Role of Chance
Chance can play amusing tricks on people, as it did on me. I found myself 250 miles from home in-you guessed it-Gaspé. And you can see the link now: Gaspé, Cartier, Bretons, discoverers, mariners, fishermen, and Basques. By means of research carried out in Quebec's provincial archives, I discovered over time a body of documentation that, although scattered, shed new light on the misconstrued history of Canadian maritime life. René Bélanger had already published a popular work entitled Les Basques dans l'estuaire du Saint-Laurent (Basques in the St. Lawrence Estuary) in which he traced the Basque presence in eastern Canada from 1500 to 1640 based on the Euskarie archives. He indicated nothing in his work about Basques contributing to the population of Canada, a fact that the Quebec archives quietly revealed to me.

Informed about my research, the director of a local museum suggested that I participate in a cultural exchange project that he had worked out with universities in the Basque Country. He asked me to take on the Canadian part of the history segment. I agreed to assemble my documentation but meanwhile the project fell through. I made use of the effort I had invested in the presentation of my Master’s Thesis at Laval University. Its title: “Destins de Pêcheurs: Les Basques en Nouvelle-France” (Fate of the Fishermen: Basques in New France). “Nouvelle-France” was Canada’s name in the days when the territory belonged to France, and the period I studied was 1500 to 1760, the latter being the year in which Canada passed into British hands.

This study is interesting because it springs from research done on Canadian documentation that was produced as a result of the social and economic activities of the Basque nationals who had immigrated to Canada or who frequented the Canadian coastline during that period. Notarized deeds were a particularly rich source of information. My thesis also relied on the correspondence of civil servants posted in Nouvelle-France as well as on the minutes of the meetings of the Conseil Souverain (Sovereign Council), the highest body of colonial administration.

Who Came First?
Before settling definitively on American soil, the Basque fishermen intensively explored the Canadian Coast. Bretons and Normans did the same thing. The English claimed to have come before everyone else. Although it was not the purpose of my research to resolve the bitterly disputed European problem of who was first in these discoveries, the Basques, Bretons, Normans, or English, there are documents that allow us to establish a certain order in the arrival of the European discoverers. In 1924 Canadian Archivist H.P. Biggar published a copy of some contracts showing that some ship owners from Bayonne (in the Northern Basque Country) sent ships to our coastline before King Francois I had officially taken possession. Thus, we know that the Lande family was already involved in transoceanic trade in 1520.

And with a careful reading of Jacques Cartier’s journal, we realize that in 1534 Francois I’s envoy commented on the existence of fishing establishments on the coast of Labrador, but he did not stress it. For example, he mentioned the word “buttus,” “mounds.” Now, archeologist Francois Grenier of Parcs Canada made a first rate discovery in 1978 of a Spanish-Basque galleon sunk at Red Bay, Labrador. Building on information supplied to him by historian Selma Barkham, he identified the site of the discovery as what was once called Buttus. If, then, Buttus existed in 1534, we can only assume that the Basques preceded Cartier.

This observation is unimportant to our understanding of the consequence of Cartier’s voyage that also made its way, during the same long and complicated journey, to Gaspésie where he officially took possession of the country. We can easily see in the log of the Breton navigator that he had never navigated that part of the Gulf of Saint Laurent (St. Lawrence) and therefore just before entering the Bay of Gaspé in July of 1534, he stopped at a place he had never seen before, a place unknown to him, called “Cap Prato.” He did not assign the name, he simply indicated it without telling how he came to know its name. Today, that place is an important tourism area in Canada and carries the name Percé. How did Cartier know the name, a name that was Spanish, not French, unless he had met Spanish-Basque fishermen in the area whose presence he did not mention to ensure that he would receive credit for his expedition, for neither did he mention that Basques were fishing in Labrador when he passed by its coastline.

Assiduous Fishermen
It appears, then, that Basque fishermen preceded the official discovery of Canada, but that does not change the course of history at all. In fact, a number of French provinces sent ships to the American Coast both before and after the discovery. Various documents have made possible the identification of more than 700 of them in the region of Gaspé and Percé over a period of 250 years. We have, for example, found the names of some twenty ships from Bayonne during the years 1686 and 1687 alone. That represents at least 500 Basque crewmen each summer in that fishing sector, but there were also Basques in Labrador, Newfoundland, on the isle of Cap-Breton, in Acadia, and in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine.

In fact, Basque mariners were so numerous on the coast of Labrador and in Petit-Nord (the west coast of Newfoundland), and they were so steady with their work, that the King named an officer responsible for the security of those fishing operations. By a curious chance, one of the holders of that office, Francois Martel de Bérhouague, who occupied the post from 1714 until his death in 1761, was the son of Raymond Martel de Bérhouague, a native of Labastide-Clairence, in the diocese of Bayonne.

Teaching the Trade
The Basque fishermen set up installations at Plaisance after 1660 since they had moved onto Cap-Breton Isle once France gave Newfoundland to the British during the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. A small colony of barely 20,000 inhabitants remained, however, on the upper St. Lawrence River. In spite of its low population, especially if we compare it with that of its neighbor New England, the heart of New France came through it well, thanks to the fur trade, but when the New Canadians who inhabited it turned toward the wealth of the sea in the last quarter of the XVII century, they ascertained that their abilities were wanting.

Denis Riverin was the first colonial entrepreneur who truly tried to establish a fishing industry in Canada. To that end he asked the king of France to send him master fishermen from Bayonne to teach the trade to the colony’s inhabitants. An entire crew, that of Dominique Berdoulin, came to his aid in the establishment of fishing at Mont-Louis in 1697. All through the history of New France, we find Basque fishermen who served as the pillars of Canadian enterprise. In the 1720s, it was Jean Gatin, called Saint-Jean, an innkeeper from Quebec, who mitigated his inexperience by engaging European experts, some of whom were Basque. Later, from 1753 to 1758, Joseph Cadet who had restarted the Mont-Louis fishing operations that had been abandoned long before, depended on the crew of Joseph Caillabet for his essential operations.

The New Canadians
Although the majority of the fishermen returned home after the fishing season ended, there were some who remained in New France and became part of the French community. One hundred twenty-four Basque nationals were counted among the Canadian pioneers. Not a lot compared to the tens of thousands of Basque fishermen who frequented the Canadian coast, but it put the Basque Country in 21st place out of forty French provinces that populated Canada. It is also remarkable to see that several of these new arrivals plied trades related to the sea (navigators, sailors, fishermen, captains, ropemakers, and sailmakers).

Fishing season provided them with only a seasonal income, and the fisherman were often obliged to exercise several trades. For example, Martin Cheniqui, whose descendants would later leave their mark on Canadian religious history, was a fisherman, a sailor, a carpenter, and a caulker. In another case, Michel d’Irrumberry de Salaberry began a career as a captain in Canada, a career that opened doors for him in the hierarchy of the royal navy and won him the highest awards. Léon Roussey, on the other hand, steered his career as a transatlantic navigator into that of a colonial pirate, then decided to settle on post-conquest Gaspésie.

Family ties played an important role in the implantation of new Basque arrivals in New France. Jacques de Lalande-Gayon, himself integrated into the nucleus of an influential family, the Jolliets, gathered around himself his brother Pierre, his cousin Pierre Bénac, and by marriage, the Martel de Bérhouague family. Together at the end of the XVII century, they constituted a network of influence composed of merchants, lords and high officials of the king.

All of these people did not come directly from the Basque Country. Newfoundland and the Royal Island (Prince Edward Isle) attracted their share of immigrants. Dominque Daguerre, apprentice ropemaker, and Pierre Bidegaré, a tanner, had first traveled to Louisbourg before heading for Quebec. Joseph Caillabet had fished in Plaisance and Louisbourg before joining Joseph Cadet. The Madeleine Isles would later see the arrival of families from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, notably the Turbide and Bastarache families.

Epilog
As many Basques as we can count who came as a result of professional obligations, we can find just as many who crossed the Atlantic in the service of the King or by means of events that disrupted Canada’s colonial history. Wars attracted soldiers, cooks, merchants, and people from all the professions, but the field of research dedicated to my thesis about the Basques ended during the turning-point years of the conquest. Thus it was impossible to study and measure the settling of these final arrivals from the French regime.

Knowing that the wave of migration from the Basque Country to America, and to Canada in particular, resumed at the end of the last century, the field of research remains open. A brief look at the last Canadian census figures reveals, for example, that hundreds of Basque citizens continue to come to Canada. The same glance shows that they are no longer interested only in fishing and that they do not come only to Quebec. In number, these new Canadians are less important than in the United States or Latin America. Finally, whatever their reason for coming to America, all of these people have developed an original social fabric within their adopted country, but always at the expense of their ethnicity. In fact, north of the 48th parallel they do not constitute a group large enough to safeguard their cultural traits. They have nevertheless contributed the genius of their race to our nation.

Copyright © 2000 the Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno. All rights reserved. Updated 14 September 2000. E-mail: basque@unr.edu

University of Nevada, Reno
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My beret was pulled down to my ears because it was cold and drizzling and I said to myself, “Jacques Cartier, that's old!” The Breton Cartier had taken possession of Canada in the name of the King of France in 1534 in a harber today known as Gaspé, and I already thought Gaspé was a long ways away, 250 miles from us. Just imagine, the Basque Country! Imagine my surprise as well as seeing a report on the Basque country on television one day and discovering that the Basques wore wool berets just like ours! For the first time in my life, I made a connection between the Basques and America. Why had the Basques copied our beret, I wondered? But I soon forgot all that and, after many years, I became a historian. The Role of Chance Chance can play amusing tricks on people, as it did on me. I found myself 250 miles from home in-you guessed it-Gaspé. And you can see the link now: Gaspé, Cartier, Bretons, discoverers, mariners, fishermen, and Basques. By means of research carried out in Quebec's provincial archives, I discovered over time a body of documentation that, although scattered, shed new light on the misconstrued history of Canadian maritime life. René Bélanger had already published a popular work entitled Les Basques dans l'estuaire du Saint-Laurent (Basques in the St. Lawrence Estuary) in which he traced the Basque presence in eastern Canada from 1500 to 1640 based on the Euskarie archives. He indicated nothing in his work about Basques contributing to the population of Canada, a fact that the Quebec archives quietly revealed to me. Informed about my research, the director of a local museum suggested that I participate in a cultural exchange project that he had worked out with universities in the Basque Country. He asked me to take on the Canadian part of the history segment. I agreed to assemble my documentation but meanwhile the project fell through. I made use of the effort I had invested in the presentation of my Master’s Thesis at Laval University. Its title: “Destins de Pêcheurs: Les Basques en Nouvelle-France” (Fate of the Fishermen: Basques in New France). “Nouvelle-France” was Canada’s name in the days when the territory belonged to France, and the period I studied was 1500 to 1760, the latter being the year in which Canada passed into British hands. This study is interesting because it springs from research done on Canadian documentation that was produced as a result of the social and economic activities of the Basque nationals who had immigrated to Canada or who frequented the Canadian coastline during that period. Notarized deeds were a particularly rich source of information. My thesis also relied on the correspondence of civil servants posted in Nouvelle-France as well as on the minutes of the meetings of the Conseil Souverain (Sovereign Council), the highest body of colonial administration. Who Came First? Before settling definitively on American soil, the Basque fishermen intensively explored the Canadian Coast. Bretons and Normans did the same thing. The English claimed to have come before everyone else. Although it was not the purpose of my research to resolve the bitterly disputed European problem of who was first in these discoveries, the Basques, Bretons, Normans, or English, there are documents that allow us to establish a certain order in the arrival of the European discoverers. In 1924 Canadian Archivist H.P. Biggar published a copy of some contracts showing that some ship owners from Bayonne (in the Northern Basque Country) sent ships to our coastline before King Francois I had officially taken possession. Thus, we know that the Lande family was already involved in transoceanic trade in 1520. And with a careful reading of Jacques Cartier’s journal, we realize that in 1534 Francois I’s envoy commented on the existence of fishing establishments on the coast of Labrador, but he did not stress it. For example, he mentioned the word “buttus,” “mounds.” Now, archeologist Francois Grenier of Parcs Canada made a first rate discovery in 1978 of a Spanish-Basque galleon sunk at Red Bay, Labrador. Building on information supplied to him by historian Selma Barkham, he identified the site of the discovery as what was once called Buttus. If, then, Buttus existed in 1534, we can only assume that the Basques preceded Cartier. This observation is unimportant to our understanding of the consequence of Cartier’s voyage that also made its way, during the same long and complicated journey, to Gaspésie where he officially took possession of the country. We can easily see in the log of the Breton navigator that he had never navigated that part of the Gulf of Saint Laurent (St. Lawrence) and therefore just before entering the Bay of Gaspé in July of 1534, he stopped at a place he had never seen before, a place unknown to him, called “Cap Prato.” He did not assign the name, he simply indicated it without telling how he came to know its name. Today, that place is an important tourism area in Canada and carries the name Percé. How did Cartier know the name, a name that was Spanish, not French, unless he had met Spanish-Basque fishermen in the area whose presence he did not mention to ensure that he would receive credit for his expedition, for neither did he mention that Basques were fishing in Labrador when he passed by its coastline. Assiduous Fishermen It appears, then, that Basque fishermen preceded the official discovery of Canada, but that does not change the course of history at all. In fact, a number of French provinces sent ships to the American Coast both before and after the discovery. Various documents have made possible the identification of more than 700 of them in the region of Gaspé and Percé over a period of 250 years. We have, for example, found the names of some twenty ships from Bayonne during the years 1686 and 1687 alone. That represents at least 500 Basque crewmen each summer in that fishing sector, but there were also Basques in Labrador, Newfoundland, on the isle of Cap-Breton, in Acadia, and in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine. In fact, Basque mariners were so numerous on the coast of Labrador and in Petit-Nord (the west coast of Newfoundland), and they were so steady with their work, that the King named an officer responsible for the security of those fishing operations. By a curious chance, one of the holders of that office, Francois Martel de Bérhouague, who occupied the post from 1714 until his death in 1761, was the son of Raymond Martel de Bérhouague, a native of Labastide-Clairence, in the diocese of Bayonne. Teaching the Trade The Basque fishermen set up installations at Plaisance after 1660 since they had moved onto Cap-Breton Isle once France gave Newfoundland to the British during the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. A small colony of barely 20,000 inhabitants remained, however, on the upper St. Lawrence River. In spite of its low population, especially if we compare it with that of its neighbor New England, the heart of New France came through it well, thanks to the fur trade, but when the New Canadians who inhabited it turned toward the wealth of the sea in the last quarter of the XVII century, they ascertained that their abilities were wanting. Denis Riverin was the first colonial entrepreneur who truly tried to establish a fishing industry in Canada. To that end he asked the king of France to send him master fishermen from Bayonne to teach the trade to the colony’s inhabitants. An entire crew, that of Dominique Berdoulin, came to his aid in the establishment of fishing at Mont-Louis in 1697. All through the history of New France, we find Basque fishermen who served as the pillars of Canadian enterprise. In the 1720s, it was Jean Gatin, called Saint-Jean, an innkeeper from Quebec, who mitigated his inexperience by engaging European experts, some of whom were Basque. Later, from 1753 to 1758, Joseph Cadet who had restarted the Mont-Louis fishing operations that had been abandoned long before, depended on the crew of Joseph Caillabet for his essential operations. The New Canadians Although the majority of the fishermen returned home after the fishing season ended, there were some who remained in New France and became part of the French community. One hundred twenty-four Basque nationals were counted among the Canadian pioneers. Not a lot compared to the tens of thousands of Basque fishermen who frequented the Canadian coast, but it put the Basque Country in 21st place out of forty French provinces that populated Canada. It is also remarkable to see that several of these new arrivals plied trades related to the sea (navigators, sailors, fishermen, captains, ropemakers, and sailmakers). Fishing season provided them with only a seasonal income, and the fisherman were often obliged to exercise several trades. For example, Martin Cheniqui, whose descendants would later leave their mark on Canadian religious history, was a fisherman, a sailor, a carpenter, and a caulker. In another case, Michel d’Irrumberry de Salaberry began a career as a captain in Canada, a career that opened doors for him in the hierarchy of the royal navy and won him the highest awards. Léon Roussey, on the other hand, steered his career as a transatlantic navigator into that of a colonial pirate, then decided to settle on post-conquest Gaspésie. Family ties played an important role in the implantation of new Basque arrivals in New France. Jacques de Lalande-Gayon, himself integrated into the nucleus of an influential family, the Jolliets, gathered around himself his brother Pierre, his cousin Pierre Bénac, and by marriage, the Martel de Bérhouague family. Together at the end of the XVII century, they constituted a network of influence composed of merchants, lords and high officials of the king. All of these people did not come directly from the Basque Country. Newfoundland and the Royal Island (Prince Edward Isle) attracted their share of immigrants. Dominque Daguerre, apprentice ropemaker, and Pierre Bidegaré, a tanner, had first traveled to Louisbourg before heading for Quebec. Joseph Caillabet had fished in Plaisance and Louisbourg before joining Joseph Cadet. The Madeleine Isles would later see the arrival of families from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, notably the Turbide and Bastarache families. Epilog As many Basques as we can count who came as a result of professional obligations, we can find just as many who crossed the Atlantic in the service of the King or by means of events that disrupted Canada’s colonial history. Wars attracted soldiers, cooks, merchants, and people from all the professions, but the field of research dedicated to my thesis about the Basques ended during the turning-point years of the conquest. Thus it was impossible to study and measure the settling of these final arrivals from the French regime. Knowing that the wave of migration from the Basque Country to America, and to Canada in particular, resumed at the end of the last century, the field of research remains open. A brief look at the last Canadian census figures reveals, for example, that hundreds of Basque citizens continue to come to Canada. The same glance shows that they are no longer interested only in fishing and that they do not come only to Quebec. In number, these new Canadians are less important than in the United States or Latin America. Finally, whatever their reason for coming to America, all of these people have developed an original social fabric within their adopted country, but always at the expense of their ethnicity. In fact, north of the 48th parallel they do not constitute a group large enough to safeguard their cultural traits. They have nevertheless contributed the genius of their race to our nation.
		Copyright © 2000 the Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno. All rights reserved. Updated 14 September 2000. E-mail: basque@unr.edu