Founding of Quebec City (1608): Champlain and New France

The founding of Quebec on 3 July 1608 by Samuel de Champlain created the first permanent French settlement on the St. Lawrence River. Built at a narrow point of the river beneath high cliffs, it became the capital of New France and the centre of a vast fur-trading network. Today Quebec City is one of the oldest cities of European origin in North America.

Background: France on the St. Lawrence

French interest in the region began with the voyages of Jacques Cartier from 1534, who sailed up the St. Lawrence to the Iroquoian villages of Stadacona, on the future site of Quebec, and Hochelaga, now Montreal. Cartier’s attempt at a colony failed, and by the end of the 16th century the Iroquoian peoples of the valley had disappeared, for reasons historians still debate.

French fishermen and traders kept visiting the Gulf of St. Lawrence and discovered the value of furs, especially beaver pelts, used to make felt hats in Europe. In 1600 a trading post was set up at Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay River.

Samuel de Champlain, from Brouage in western France, first sailed to the St. Lawrence in 1603 with the trader François Gravé Du Pont. From 1604 to 1607 he took part in Pierre Dugua de Mons’s attempt to settle Acadia, including the settlement of Port-Royal in present-day Nova Scotia. When de Mons’s trading monopoly was cancelled, attention returned to the St. Lawrence.

The founding of 1608

In 1608 de Mons, granted a renewed one-year monopoly, sent Champlain to establish a trading base on the St. Lawrence. Champlain chose the point where the river narrows below the cliffs of Cape Diamond, a place the Algonquian peoples called kébec. He arrived on 3 July 1608 and set his men to work.

They built the Habitation, a cluster of two-storey wooden buildings with a storehouse, a dovecote, a gallery around the upper floor, a moat and small cannon. During construction, a locksmith named Jean Duval plotted to kill Champlain and hand the post to Basque or Spanish traders. The plot was discovered, and Duval was hanged.

The first winter was disastrous. Of the 28 men who stayed, only 8 were alive by the spring of 1609, most of the others having died of scurvy and dysentery.

Alliances and the fur trade

Quebec’s survival depended on the fur trade and on Indigenous partners. Champlain allied the French with the Montagnais (Innu), the Algonquin and the Wendat (Huron), who brought furs from the interior in exchange for metal goods, cloth and other European products.

These allies were at war with the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. In July 1609 Champlain joined a war party travelling south to the lake that now bears his name. On 30 July, in a clash with Mohawk warriors, he fired his arquebus and killed two chiefs, and a third was killed by one of his companions. The encounter helped set the French and the Haudenosaunee on a long path of hostility.

Champlain explored widely in the following years, travelling up the Ottawa River and in 1615 reaching Lake Huron and wintering among the Wendat. He also brought Récollet friars to Quebec in 1615, followed by Jesuits in 1625, beginning Catholic missionary work among Indigenous peoples.

Slow growth

Quebec grew slowly because the fur trade needed few settlers. In 1617 the apothecary Louis Hébert arrived with his family and became the first settler to farm land there. A decade later the population was still well under 100.

In 1627 Cardinal Richelieu founded the Company of One Hundred Associates, which received New France on condition that it bring out settlers. Its first fleet was captured by English forces in 1628, and in July 1629 the Kirke brothers, English privateers, forced Champlain to surrender the starving post. Quebec was returned to France by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1632, and Champlain came back in 1633. He died at Quebec on 25 December 1635.

Capital of New France

After Champlain’s death Quebec developed into the political and religious capital of New France. Ursuline nuns, led by Marie de l’Incarnation, and the nursing sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu arrived in 1639. François de Laval became the first bishop in 1674, after serving as vicar apostolic from 1659.

In 1663 Louis XIV made New France a royal province with a governor, an intendant and a Sovereign Council at Quebec. Settlement increased, helped by about 800 young women sent by the Crown between 1663 and 1673, the filles du roi. The colony’s population grew from about 3,000 in 1663 to roughly 60,000 to 70,000 by the 1750s.

During the French and Indian War, British forces under James Wolfe defeated the French under the Marquis de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759, and Quebec surrendered days later. France ceded Canada to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

Key people

• Samuel de Champlain (c. 1574-1635): navigator, mapmaker and founder of Quebec, often called the “Father of New France”.
• Pierre Dugua de Mons (c. 1558-1628): Protestant nobleman and holder of the fur-trade monopoly who sponsored the 1608 expedition.
• François Gravé Du Pont: experienced trader and mariner who sailed with Champlain on his early voyages and managed the trade at Tadoussac.
• Louis Hébert (c. 1575-1627): Paris apothecary who settled at Quebec in 1617 and is regarded as the first farmer of New France.
• Marie Rollet: Hébert’s wife, who stayed in Quebec after his death and is honoured as one of the first French women settlers in Canada.

Myths and facts

Myth: Champlain’s birth date is well known. For a long time historians could only estimate that he was born between about 1567 and 1580. A baptism record from La Rochelle dated August 1574, found in 2012, is now widely thought to be his, which suggests he may have been raised a Protestant.

Myth: Champlain’s grave has been found. He was buried at Quebec in 1635, but the chapel built over his grave was later destroyed, and despite many searches the exact site has never been identified.

Fact: Quebec was not the first French post in Canada. Tadoussac had been a seasonal trading post since 1600, and Port-Royal in Acadia was founded in 1605. Quebec, however, was the first lasting French settlement on the St. Lawrence and the permanent centre of New France.

Fact: Champlain left detailed records. His published accounts, starting with Des Sauvages in 1603, and his maps are among the most important sources for the early history of northeastern North America.

Legacy

Quebec remained the heart of French-speaking North America. Its walled Old Town was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, and archaeologists have uncovered remains of Champlain’s Habitation near the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Place Royale. The city celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2008.

Timeline

• 1534-1542: Jacques Cartier explores the St. Lawrence and visits Stadacona.
• 1603: Champlain’s first voyage to the St. Lawrence.
• 1608, 3 July: Champlain founds Quebec and begins the Habitation.
• 1609, 30 July: Champlain fights alongside Indigenous allies against the Mohawk.
• 1617: Louis Hébert and his family settle at Quebec.
• 1629, July: The Kirke brothers capture Quebec.
• 1632: The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returns Quebec to France.
• 1635, 25 December: Champlain dies at Quebec.
• 1663: New France becomes a royal province.
• 1759, 13 September: The British win the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

Why it matters

Quebec anchored the French presence in North America for 150 years and shaped the alliances, trade and conflicts of the continent’s interior. Its founding is the starting point of French Canadian history and of today’s French-speaking Quebec.