Charles La Tour
Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, born in 1593 in Champagne, France, was a prominent figure in the early 17th-century Acadian settlement. After accompanying his noble father to Port-Royal, Nova Scotia, La Tour remained in the region following an English attack in 1613. Transitioning from agriculture to the fur trade, he established a significant trading post at Cape Sable and became the colony's leader by 1623. His military and political career advanced in 1631 when he was appointed lieutenant governor of a large Acadian territory, overseeing fortifications against English colonization.
La Tour's tenure was marked by conflict with rival governor Charles de Menou d'Aulnay, resulting in a decade of violent clashes and La Tour's temporary exile in 1645. Despite challenges, including capture during the English takeover of Acadia in 1654, he returned to the region before retiring to Cape Sable, where he passed away in 1666. Throughout his life, La Tour was married three times, including a union with d'Aulnay's widow, and he is remembered for his significant contributions to Acadian development, reflected in the naming of Port La Tour and Upper Port La Tour in his honor.
Charles La Tour
Politician
- Born: 1593
- Birthplace: Champagne, France
- Died: 1666
- Place of death: Cape Sable, Acadia (now Port La Tour, Nova Scotia)
Contribution: Charles La Tour was the French-born governor of the French territory of Acadia from 1631 to 1642 and again from 1653 to 1657. He was responsible for settling Acadia, establishing relations with the First Nations peoples in the area, setting up an extensive fur-trading operation, and defending the French colonial empire against encroaching English settlement.
Early Life and Education
Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour was born in 1593 in the French province of Champagne. His father, Claude de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, was a French nobleman. In around 1610, La Tour sailed with his father to the Acadian settlement at Port-Royal, now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.
After an attack on the settlement by English colonists from Virginia in 1613, La Tour remained in Acadia among the Mi’kmaq people of eastern Canada. Rather than rebuilding the agricultural concerns of the settlement, La Tour turned to the fur trade, established a significant trading post at Cape Sable (now Port La Tour, Nova Scotia), and became the leader of the colony in 1623. The defeat of the French settlers by the English, however, contributed to a growing English confidence that they could unseat the French throughout Canada. This campaign would intensify, and La Tour would later encounter further challenges to his Acadian holdings.
Military and Political Career
In 1631, La Tour became lieutenant governor of a large area of Acadia, which then included the present-day Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island as well as some portions of the state of Maine. He oversaw the construction of Fort Lomeron at the mouth of the Saint John River in what is now Saint John, New Brunswick. For a time, this fort was the last French outpost in the country, and La Tour defended it staunchly against English colonization attempts.
After France regained control of the New French settlements, La Tour came into conflict with a rival governor, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay. Their violent clashes lasted a decade and led to charges of treason against La Tour, the destruction of his fort, and his exile to Quebec in 1645. Nevertheless, three years after d’Aulnay’s death in 1650, La Tour married his widow, possibly in order to consolidate French assets against increasing threats by the English colonists.
In 1654, when Acadia was captured by the English, La Tour was forced to surrender and was taken to England as a prisoner. Though he was allowed to return to Acadia several years later, he was ultimately compelled to sell his rights in the trading business to his partners and retire to Cape Sable, where he died in 1666.
La Tour’s contributions to Acadian settlement and development are memorialized in the names of the cities of Port La Tour and Upper Port La Tour in Nova Scotia.
Personal Life
La Tour married three times. His first wife was a member of the Mi’kmaq nation; her name is not recorded. They were married in 1626 and had three daughters. After her death, La Tour married Francoise-Marie Jacquelin in 1640; they had one son who died in childhood. In 1653, La Tour married Jeanne Motin, the widow of rival governor d’Aulnay. This marriage produced five children.
Bibliography
Conrad, Margaret. A Concise History of Canada. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.
Hodson, Christopher. The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.
Laxer, James. The Acadians: In Search of a Homeland. New York: Random, 2010. Print.
MacDonald, Marjorie Anne. Fortune and La Tour: The Civil War in Acadia. Halifax: Nimbus, 2000. Print.
Reid, John G. Essays on Northeastern North America, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2008. Print.