Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts
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Pierre Dugua, the Sieur de Monts, (c.1558 - 1628) was a merchant, explorer and colonizer. He was born in Saintonge, France and had a great influence over the first two decades of the 17th century. He may have travelled to northeastern North America for the first time in 1600 with Pierre Chauvin de Tonnetuit.
In 1603 Henry IV, the King of France, granted Dugua a 10-year exclusive right to colonize lands in North America between 40º-45º North latitude. The King also gave Dugua a monopoly in the fur trade for these territories and named him governor of the area. In return, Dugua promised to bring 60 new colonists each year to what would be called l'Acadie.
In 1604, Dugua organized an expedition and left France with about 100 settlers, including Royal cartographer Samuel de Champlain, the Baron de Poutrincourt and priest Nicolas Aubry.
Entering Baie François (the Bay of Fundy) in June 1604, Dugua and his settlers founded a colony on Île-Ste-Croix (ironically, the island is north of 45º). Numerous settlers succumbed to the harsh winter climate and malnutrition disease as they exhausted the limited natural resources on the island. The colony moved to better land on the south shore of Baie François at Port-Royal in 1605.
The Port-Royal settlement survived and prospered somewhat until 1607 when the King decided that Port-Royal was not making enough profit in fish and fur. Dugua and the settlers were ordered to abandon the colony and return to France after the fur trade monopoly was revoked.
Dugua returned to France and then turned his attention to the colony of Nouvelle France in the St. Lawrence River valley, forgetting about l'Acadie. He never came back to the New World but he sent Champlain to open a commercial centre at Quebec in 1608, thus playing a major role in the foundation of the largest French colony in the world. Dugua maintained his commercial interests until 1617 when he retired to the Ardennes. He died in 1628.
External links
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=34320)
See also List of Acadian governors