Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 3

The French in Gaspé, 1534 to 1760

by David Lee

Conclusions

It is obvious that the dry cod fisheries of New France were valuable to the mother country, but how valuable was the Gaspé fishery in itself? Until 1713, the dry fisheries of Placentia in Newfoundland were more important, attracting perhaps around 50 ships a year.¹ An English account of 1745 claims that the Cape Breton fisheries, which France developed after the loss of Newfoundland, filled 93 ships with cod exported to France. De la Morandière's figures indicate a slightly smaller number of shiploads.² In comparison, the number of French fishing ships coming to the Gaspé dry fisheries was certainly smaller. Although they favoured various Gaspé harbours at various periods in the century between 1660 and 1760, the number remained fairly constant (in peacetime) at about 20 to 25 ships per year.³ Thus, the Gaspé fisheries provided France with roughly from a third to a fifth of the cod dried on the beaches of New France. Most of the dried cod was exported and there is no doubt that it was a valuable contribution to France's balance of trade. Along with the green fishery, the industry strengthened the nation's military potential for it stimulated shipbuilding and provided a cheap and durable staple for the navy.

With respect to Canada, though, the Gaspé fisheries were only of minimal importance. In the 1750s, places like Mont-Louis and occasionally Gaspé Bay sent dried cod to Quebec. This local source meant that less food provisions had to be imported from France at a time when the price of fish and other food products was steadily climbing. But, since Gaspé was as much a part of the French economy as it was a part of the Canadian economy, the amount of Gaspé cod consumed in Canada was never able to help Canada's balance of trade problem with France. Nor was it able to keep the price of cod in Canada in balance with the price in France. Mont-Louis supplied the Canadian market for cod and got its supplies there; Gaspé Bay participated in both the Canadian and French markets; but Percé, Pabos and Grande-Rivière were economically tied more to France and most of their population originated there. They sold their cod directly to French fishing vessels and in return could procure at least some of their imports, like fishing equipment, from them. In the 1730s, several shipments of food, lumber and shingles were sent from Quebec to Gaspé.⁴ There is no reason to believe that food shipments continued, for after 1740, Canada experienced numerous crop failures and severe food shortages due to war, pestilence and bad weather. Besides, as the Gaspé settlements became more firmly established, they would have been able to supply many of their basic needs from their own gardens, forests and fisheries — and Gaspé Bay had its own sawmill. If the Gaspé fisheries had been more important to Canada's economy, the government of Quebec surely would have done something to protect them from the continuing danger of English attack. When the government considered defensive measures for Gaspé, it was not to protect the fisheries but to defend Gaspé as the approach to the heart of Canada.

Michilimackinac and the Ohio Valley were more remote from Quebec than Gaspé, yet in comparison they were more closely tied to Canada. All three exported their products to France but the interior posts had to export their products (furs) through Canada to France. We know of no Gaspé fish ever being exported to France through Canada. The government of Canada (at Quebec) had titular authority in Gaspé but as settlement grew on the peninsula, the government came to recognize that Gaspé was a region of New France, different and distinct from Canada. As time went by, the government relinquished more and more of its authority in Gaspé. In 1685, the king recognized that Gaspé was not suited to the fur trade like Canada and declared free trade in furs in that region. At about the same time, at le Percé, there was an apparent total lack of order and the governor at Quebec was unable to help; in the end the fishermen had to learn to police themselves. Quebec was unable to stop furs or fugitives from being smuggled out of New France by way of Ile Percé. At Pabos the local seigneur was given judicial and military powers beyond his seigneurial grant, and on the few occasions that Quebec did send him orders, he did not always feel constrained to carry them out. Lefebvre de Bellefeuille became almost the de facto governor. It is interesting to note that only a few years later the English recognized the distinctiveness of Gaspé: under the English, Gaspé had its own lieutenant governor until 1833. As a result of the neglect by Quebec, the inhabitants of Gaspé came to expect no assistance from the government of Canada. Fur traders and other entrepreneurs in Canada received special privileges and aid, but fishermen settled in Gaspé with no government help or even encouragement and yet by the 1750s their numbers had grown to 500 or 600. To this number should also be added perhaps an other 600 fishermen who came from France every year to fish.

The government at Quebec was more interested in the fur trade and agricultural settlement for they were considered sounder foundations for colonial development. Despite the early experience of the Rochelais at Matane and the king's declaration of 1685 on the Gaspé fur trade, it took a long time for the French to realize that Gaspé was different from the rest of Canada. Riverin's bad experience at Mont-Louis shows that it was not suited to the fur trade but rather to fishing. And Riverin also knew that agriculture in Gaspé should only be thought of as a supplement to fishing. Nor did Gaspé ever support mining or lumbering enterprises.

The dependence of Gaspé on dry cod resulted in a society much different from Canadian society which operated on a more diversified economy. Still, the fishing community at Pabos may have enjoyed a health record better than the rest of New France indicating that its people enjoyed a higher standard of living. The English reported that Bellefeuille at Pabos, Revol at Gaspé Bay and Maillet at Mont-Louis also seem to have enjoyed a good material standard of living; it was probably better than the average Canadian seigneur. Life in Gaspé was also different in that the seigneurs and their settlers made their living not from the land, as in Canada, but from the sea, and they seldom ventured out of sight of the sea. Moreover it was a society tied by family bonds to France and not New France.

The life of the other residents of Gaspé, the Indians, changed as French settlement grew, but not to the extent of the Indians in the rest of New France. This was because there was so little fur trade in Gaspé but also because Gaspé Indians were exposed to the teachings of Christian missionaries for only a short period, and were never drawn into wars with the English. As a result, even by 1758, the Micmacs of Gaspé had not been acculturated to the extent of, for example, the Hurons or the distant Ottawas or even the Micmacs of Acadia. At the same time this minimal contact meant that the presence of Indians in Gaspé had little reciprocal effect on the French of Gaspé. Thus, the historical experience of the Gaspé Micmacs was decidedly different from the experience of the Indians of the rest of New France.

The French experience in Gaspé is probably more similar to their experience in Newfoundland than anywhere else in New France. Both developed economies exclusively dependent on dry cod due to the forbidding terrain of their hinterlands. As well, they both combined resident and visiting fisheries. But they differed in other ways as, for example, the French did not extend the seigneurial system to Newfoundland. The Newfoundland fisheries were also more important to France and thus evidently deserved military protection and a true civil government. Fishing was important to the French colony in Acadia, too, but not to the exclusive extent of Gaspé, for Acadia was always basically agricultural.

The historical experience of Gaspé was shaped by the forces of both metropolitanism and frontierism. The Gaspé economy was subject to two metropolitan forces — that of France and that of Quebec — whose importance was nearly equal. At the same time the isolation of Gaspé and its peculiar geographic characteristics fostered the growth of a frontier spirit of independence and self-policing. In any case there is no doubt that the historical experience of the French in Gaspé was different from their experience in any other region or colony of New France. Gaspé was almost a colony in itself.