The Battle of Fort Albany (about 26 June 1709) was an attack by
French colonial
French colonial architecture includes several styles of architecture used by the French during colonization. Many former French colonies, especially those in Southeast Asia, have previously been reluctant to promote their colonial architecture ...
volunteers and their native allies against the Canadian
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...
outpost of
Fort Albany in the southern reaches of
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay ( crj, text=ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, translit=Wînipekw; crl, text=ᐐᓂᐹᒄ, translit=Wînipâkw; iu, text=ᑲᖏᖅᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᐃᓗᐊ, translit=Kangiqsualuk ilua or iu, text=ᑕᓯᐅᔭᕐᔪᐊᖅ, translit=Tasiujarjuaq; french: b ...
. About 70 Frenchmen and 30 Indians attacked the fort, which was under the command of
John Fullartine
John Fullartine (c. 1652 – October 1738) was governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in the James Bay area of Canada. He replaced James Knight and was replaced by Anthony Beale
Anthony A. Beale (born October 22, 1967) is an American politic ...
. Fullartine repulsed the attack, killing eighteen men including the leaders. He lost two men to ambush on their way back to the fort shortly after the attack.
Background
Following the creation of the
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...
by
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
investors in 1670, a lucrative fur trade was established on the shores of
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay ( crj, text=ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, translit=Wînipekw; crl, text=ᐐᓂᐹᒄ, translit=Wînipâkw; iu, text=ᑲᖏᖅᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᐃᓗᐊ, translit=Kangiqsualuk ilua or iu, text=ᑕᓯᐅᔭᕐᔪᐊᖅ, translit=Tasiujarjuaq; french: b ...
by the company. By the early 1680s the company had established several trading posts near the mouths of rivers entering into the bay, and Indians living in those watersheds would deliver their furs to these trading posts in exchange for provisions and European goods, including weapons, ammunition, and other items.
[''Statutes, Documents and Papers'', p. 40]
The success of this enterprise drew the attention of the authorities in
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
, who objected to English encroachment on their claimed territories, and whose fur trade (and concomitant economic benefits) was hurt by the company's activities. Beginning with
an expedition in 1686, and running through the
Nine Years' War
The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarch ...
(1689–97, known in the English colonies as
King William's War
King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...
), raiders from New France
repeatedly attacked the company's outposts, capturing and holding the facilities, and sometimes making off with furs awaiting transport to Europe. By the end of the war, only one of the company's outposts,
Fort Albany (so named because it was located near the mouth of the
Albany River
Albany, derived from the Gaelic for Scotland, most commonly refers to:
*Albany, New York, the capital of the State of New York and largest city of this name
*Albany, Western Australia, port city in the Great Southern
Albany may also refer to: ...
in what is now far northern
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
), remained in the company's hands.
When the
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...
(known to English colonists as
Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. In E ...
) began in 1702, the idea of raiding this last vestige of English authority came up in New France. In 1709, a group of French colonists decided to launch an overland raid against Fort Albany. New France's governor,
Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil
Philippe de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil (; c. 1643 – 10 October 1725) was a French military officer who served as Governor General of New France (now Canada and U.S. states of the Mississippi Valley) from 1703 to 1725, throughout Queen ...
, gave his blessing to the raid, and also helped fund the expedition from his private purse. The investors in the expedition expected to recoup their costs from the furs that would be taken. Command of the expedition was given to
Nicolas d'Ailleboust de Manthet
Nicolas d'Ailleboust de Manthet, also known as Nicolas de Manthet, born 1664, killed in action 1709, was a Canadian captain in the French marines serving in Canada. He was one of the leaders of the French and Indians at the Schenectady massacre 16 ...
, an experienced frontier raider who appears, by the few surviving records concerning his life, to never have been to Hudson Bay before.
Manthet recruited between 60 and 70 Frenchmen and 30
Caughnawaga Mohawk, and set out, went down the
Moose River (Ontario)
The Moose River is a river in the Hudson Plains ecozone of northern Ontario, Canada. The river flows 100 km northeast from the confluence of the Mattagami and Missinaibi Rivers into James Bay. Its drainage basin is and it has a mean disch ...
, skirted the James Bay coast in canoes and arrived near Fort Albany in late June 1709.
Battle
Fort Albany was inhabited by company employees under the direction of
John Fullartine
John Fullartine (c. 1652 – October 1738) was governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in the James Bay area of Canada. He replaced James Knight and was replaced by Anthony Beale
Anthony A. Beale (born October 22, 1967) is an American politic ...
, a longtime company employee who had spent time as a prisoner of the French in the earlier raids.
Fullartine was alerted to the French expedition by
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
traders, and thus had time to prepare a defense; the number of defenders and the exact date of the event are not known from the fragmentary records of the event.
[
All that is known of the French attack is that it was successfully repulsed, and that both Manthet and his second in command were killed. French casualties totalled 18 killed (including the two leaders), while the company lost only two men. They had not been in the fort and were ambushed by the French as they made their way toward it.][
]
Aftermath
Because the company did not send a ship to Fort Albany in 1709, officials in London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
learned of the event through an unexpected channel.[ ]Francis Nicholson
Lieutenant-General Francis Nicholson (12 November 1655 – ) was a British Army general and colonial official who served as the Governor of South Carolina from 1721 to 1725. He previously was the Governor of Nova Scotia from 1712 to 1715, the ...
, who had led an aborted expedition against New France from New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
in 1709, brought one Mahican and three Mohawk chiefs to London in a bid to gain support for a new expedition in 1710. The Mohawks informed company officials that they learned of the attack because they were in Montreal at the time of the expedition's return.[ Fullartine filed a report on the event when he returned to England in 1711, but it has been lost.][
Governor Vaudreuil was criticized by government ministers in ]Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
for his role in supporting and funding the expedition.[Charlevoix et al, p. 224] The Hudson's Bay Company recovered all of its outposts in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht
The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne o ...
that ended the war, but France and Great Britain continued to dispute the extent of French and company territories in the following decades.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fort Albany, Battle of, 1709
Conflicts in 1709
1709 in Canada
Battles involving France
Battles involving Great Britain
Battles of the War of the Spanish Succession
New France
Military history of Ontario
Hudson's Bay Company
Queen Anne's War
Conflicts in Ontario