Pierre Dugua de Mons (or Du Gua de Monts; c. 1558 – 1628) was a French merchant, explorer and colonizer. A Calvinist, he was born in the Château de Mons, in

Royan Royan (; in the Saintongeais dialect; oc, Roian) is a commune and town in the south-west of France, in the department of Charente-Maritime in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Its inhabitants are known as ''Royannais'' and ''Royannaises''. Capi ...

, Saintonge (southwestern France) and founded the first permanent French settlement in Canada. He was Lieutenant General of New France from 1603 to 1610. He travelled to northeastern North America for the first time in 1599 with

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit (born c. 1550, died 1603) was a French naval and military captain and a lieutenant of New France who built at Tadoussac, in present-day Quebec, the oldest and strongest surviving French settlement in the Americas. ...

Biography

Pierre Du Gua de Mons was born about 1558 in Saintonge, France to Guy and Claire Goumard Du Gua. He fought for the cause of

Henri IV Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...

during the religious wars in France. The king later awarded him an annual pension of 1,200 crowns and the governorship of the town of

Pons The pons (from Latin , "bridge") is part of the brainstem that in humans and other bipeds lies inferior to the midbrain, superior to the medulla oblongata and anterior to the cerebellum. The pons is also called the pons Varolii ("bridge of Va ...

in Saintonge in recognition of his outstanding service. De Mons seems to have made several voyages to Canada including in 1600, with

Tadoussac Tadoussac () is a village in Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saguenay and Saint Lawrence rivers. The indigenous Innu call the place ''Totouskak'' (plural for ''totouswk'' or ''totochak'') meaning "bosom", probably in reference to the tw ...

. In 1603, King Henry granted Du Gua exclusive right to colonize lands in North America between 40°–60° North

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

. The King also gave Du Gua a monopoly in the fur trade for these territories and named him Lieutenant General for

Acadia Acadia (french: link=no, Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the The Maritimes, Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17t ...

and

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 Spa ...

. In return, Du Gua promised to bring 60 new colonists each year. In 1604, Du Gua organized an expedition, underwritten by merchants in Rouen, Saint-Malo, and La Rochelle, and left France with 79 settlers including

François Gravé Du Pont François Gravé (Saint-Malo, November 1560 – 1629 or soon after), said ''Du Pont'' (or ''Le Pont'', ''Pontgravé''...), was a Breton navigator (captain on the sea and on the "Big River of Canada"), an early fur trader and explorer in the N ...

as senior officer, Royal cartographer Samuel de Champlain, the Baron de Poutrincourt, a priest Nicolas Aubry, and Mathieu de Costa: a legendary linguist, the first registered black man to set foot in North America, and a Protestant member of the clergy. Entering ''Baie Française'' (the Bay of Fundy) in June 1604, he and his settlers founded a colony on St. Croix Island. Numerous settlers succumbed to the harsh winter climate and scurvy as they exhausted the limited natural resources on the island. The colony moved to better land on the south shore of Baie Française at

Port-Royal Port Royal is the former capital city of Jamaica. Port Royal or Port Royale may also refer to: Institutions * Port-Royal-des-Champs, an abbey near Paris, France, which spawned influential schools and writers of the 17th century ** Port-Royal A ...

in 1605. Following the disaster of the Saint Croix settlement in the winter of 1604–1605, the French began to look for a more hospitable location for a colony. During this time, they encountered Native Americans along the northeastern coast of the continent, and also had a pair of Native guides in their party, the man who is named as Panounias, and his wife who came from the part of the country they were exploring. Travelling along the coast, Samuel de Champlain is given to have recounted their meetings with the natives, noting when the languages between the groups began to vary. Also, it was noted that the Natives who lived in this area also practised cultivation, particularly methods of farming that were new to the French explorers. It was from these signs and the trading that occurred between the French and the natives that the explorers felt as though they were on the correct track, for if the Natives were living off of this land, this area offered far more hope than Saint Croix Island ever did.Francis P. McManamon
The French Along the Northeast Coast 1604–1607. National Park Service
/ref> In 1606,

Hendrick Lonck Adm. Hendrick Corneliszoon Lonck (or Loncque and Loncq) (born 1568, Roosendaal – 10 October 1634, Amsterdam), a Dutch naval hero, was the first Dutch sea captain to reach the New World. Early years He was born in Roosendaal in the southern ...

, the Dutch West India Company sea captain boarded two of Du Gua's boats, and pillaged them for furs and munitions. The Port-Royal settlement survived and prospered somewhat until 1607 when other merchants protested the monopoly, which the King had to revoke. As a consequence, Du Gua and the settlers had to abandon the colony and return to France. Du Gua then turned his attention to the colony of

Nouvelle-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 Spain ...

in the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

valley, after ceding Port-Royal to Poutrincourt. He never came back to the New World but he sent Champlain to open a colony at

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

in 1608, thus playing a major role in the foundation of the first permanent French colony in North America. Henri IV appointed him as Governor of the Protestant city of Pons, Charente-Maritime, from 1610 to 1617, when he retired. He then oversaw the construction of the monumental grand staircase along the ramparts near the

Keep of Pons The Keep of Pons (French: ''Donjon de Pons'') is an 830-year-old fortified tower located in Pons, France and is one of the few remnants of the original castle of Pons. The keep is located near the chapel and porch of Saint Gilles and remains of t ...

. This 6-level staircase connected the once segregated upper city to the lower city. He died in 1628, in the nearby Château d'Ardenne in Fléac-sur-Seugne.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dugua De Monts, Pierre Explorers of Canada French explorers of North America Governors of Acadia Huguenots People of New France People from Royan 1628 deaths 1550s births 1600s in Canada 17th century in Quebec Acadia Acadian history

Biography

See also

References