Louis de Buade de Frontenac
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Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau (May_22, 1622 – November_28, 1698) was a French courtier and Governor of New France from 1672 to 1682 and from 1689 to his death in 1698. He established a number of forts on the Great Lakes and engaged in a series of battle against the English and the Iroquois.
In his first term, he supported the expansion of the fur trade, establishing Fort Frontenac (now Kingston, Ontario) and came into conflict with the other members of the Sovereign Council over its expansion and over the corvées required to build the new forts. In particular, despite the opposition of bishop François de Laval, he supported selling brandy to the First Nations, which Laval considered a mortal sin. The conflict with the Sovereign Council led to his recall in 1682.
His second term was characterised by the defense of Quebec from a British invasion during King William's War, a guerilla war against the Iroquois and English settlements which resulted in the elimination of the Iroquois threat against New France, and a large expansion of the fur trade using Canadian coureurs des bois.
When Sir William Phips, governor of Massachusetts, demanded the surrender of Quebec on October 16 1696, Frontenac responded with the famous words: "Non, je n'ai point de réponse à faire à votre général que par la bouche de mes canons et de mes fusils." ("I have no reply to make to your general other than from the mouths of my cannon and muskets.")
New France had been under constant Iroquois attack during the 17th century. Under Frontenac's leadership, the Canadian militia became increasingly adept at guerrila warfare and took the war into Iroquois territory and attacked a number of English settlements. In 1696, at the age of 74, Frontenac led an invasion of the Iroquois country. The result was that the Iroquois would never again be a peril to the colony.
At the time of his second appoinment as Governor in 1689, France authorized the importation of slaves to Quebec from the West Indies.
Frontenac had a short lived marriage to Anne de la Grange-Trianon with whom he had one child, Francois Louis.
Quebec's most famous building and sight, the Château Frontenac, is named after him.
External links
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=34218)de:Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac