In 1598 the governor of Brittany, the Marquis de La Roche-Mesgouez, “received new letters patent from the King, appointing him lieutenant-general of the territories of Canada, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Norumbega … granting him title to the area and the monopoly of the fur trade, and forbade all others to trade in furs without his consent, on pain of losing all their ships and merchandise.” (Lanctot, 1979).
La Roche hired Thomas Chefdostel, the master of a boat named La Catherine (170 tons) to fish off the coast of Newfoundland and land a group of soldiers and settlers on Sable Island, which La Roche had seen in a fishing trip he had made in 1597. When no willing colonists stepped forward to make the trip, La Roche arranged with the Parliament of Rouen to get prisoners to fill out the party. He was given “200 sturdy beggars, male and female” (Bigger, 1901) and agreed to pay Chefdostel an additional six hundred crowns to transport them. La Roche would ultimately take only about 40 of the criminals, selling the rest their freedom.
Added to the mission was Capt. Jehan Girot of the François, who received 100 crowns to join. It was agreed that any furs and goods obtained in trade with the Amerindians would be divided equally between Chefdostel, the owners of the Catherine, and La Roche. The profits from the fishing were to go to the ships’ captains.
When the expedition arrived at Sable Island, “The viceroy settled his party on the north coast, on a small waterway forming a narrows which he named the Boncreur River. There he built living quarters, and a storehouse in which were placed provisions, clothes, tools, arms, and furniture. Leaving the post under the orders of a commandant, Querbonyer, La Roche accompanied the ships to the Newfoundland fisheries.” (Lanctot, 1979).
Bigger (1901) suggests that “ … a slight examination of the island convinced him [La Roche] that it was not fit for settlement”, but he left them behind anyway. The island was pretty much a barren sandbar that was 300 km distant from the little-known mainland. ”It barely stood above sea level and big waves crashed hard over it. Little lived.”
La Roche hoped to find a more suitable location on the mainland; however, when he attempted to return to Sable Island after his fishing, a storm blew him all the way back to France and he was forced to leave the colony in place.
Upon his return, Henri IV awarded La Roche a grant of one ecu for each barrel of merchandise passing through the ports of Normandy. La Roche used this subsidy to maintain his little settlement and each spring he had it supplied by Chefdostel with “wine, coats and clothing“: the deportees got their food from the fish and game available locally as well as from the cattle that had been landed on the island, probably by the Portugues Fagundes around 1520. They also cultivated gardens, which supplied them with vegetables (Lanctot, 1979).
In 1602 for some unknown reason, no relief vessels were sent by La Roche. In the long winter of 1602-3, there was a rebellion against their long detention, and the deportees killed their two leaders and some of the other settlers. When a relief mission was finally sent in the summer of 1603, only 11 retched souls were left, after a winter of hunger and dissent on the barren reef of sand. Remarkably, when they got back to France, Henri IV, rather than hanging them, rewarded each with the sum of 50 ecus for the furs they brought back.
La Roche attempted to obtain more prisoners to maintain his colony, but the Parliament of Rouen refused, knowing only a fraction of the original batch had been transported to Sable Island. Frustrated, La Roche died three years later.
Illustration: Sable Island from page 187 of Atlantic Ocean Pilot. The Seaman’s Guide to the Navigation of the Atlantic Ocean, by J.F. Imray and H.D. Jenkins. British Library.
Bibliography:
Biggar, H. P. (1901). The Early Trading Companies of New France: a contribution to the history of commerce and discovery in North America (Vol. 1). University of Toronto Library. 1901..
Lanctot, G.(2003) La Roche de Mesgouez, Troilus de. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/la_roche_de_mesgouez_troilus_de_1E.html.
Tattrie, J. (2014) Sable Island: Criminal colonists settle on a desert island. Nova Scotia In Depth. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/sable-island-criminal-colonists-settle-on-deserted-island-1.2755143
Catalysts of trade and exploration 