Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville et d'Ardillières
The first native-born Canadian to receive the CROIX DE SAINT LOUIS for valour - 1699.
Of all the sons of New France, none is more celebrated than Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, who served in the military (on land but especially at sea), and was an explorer, a colonizer and even a merchant at times. He was born into the influential Le Moyne family and baptized in Montreal on July 20, 1661. Little is known about his youth, except that he apparently received his military and naval training in the Gardes de la Marine, probably in the late 1670s and early 1680s.
He undertook his first campaign in Canada with the Chevalier de Troyes to Hudson Bay in 1686. Young d'Iberville certainly did not lack valour. At Moose Factory, he stormed the fort with his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. When surrounded, he managed to kill a few Englishmen before being rescued. At Fort Albany, he succeeded in seizing a ship with only 13 men.
The repercussions of the European conflict affected the region of Montréal where, on August 5, 1689, the residents of Lachine were attacked and massacred. Finally, Governor Frontenac organized a counterattack in which d’Iberville enthusiastically took part. On February 18, 1690, an attack on Corlaer (Schenectady, New York) ends with the pillaging and burning of the town and the massacre of approximately 60 townspeople.
On August 15, 1696, he adds to his mythic status by securing Fort William Henry at Pemaquid, on the coast of Maine.
After considerable preliminary wrangling, the parties of both commanders left Placentia, Governor Brouillan by sea on 29 October, d’Iberville overland on 1 November. Meeting some 50 miles south of St John’s, at Ferryland, both detachments began the march north to the English capital, which surrendered on 30 November following a brief siege. After setting fire to St John’s, d’Iberville’s Canadians under Jacques Testard de Montigny almost totally destroyed the English fisheries along the eastern shore of the island. Small raiding parties terrorized the hamlets hidden away in remote bays and inlets, burning, looting, and taking prisoners. By the end of March 1697, only Bonavista and Carbonear remained in English hands. At the latter place William Pynne, a local merchant, actually organized a successful defence against the French. In four months of raids, Brouillan and d’Iberville, but primarily d’Iberville, were responsible for the destruction of 36 settlements. Two hundred persons were killed and 700 were taken prisoner.
However, he is not given much time to savour his victory as he is ordered to proceed immediately to Hudson’s Bay where the forts have been retaken.
After an arduous navigation north, d’Iberville’s lead ship, the Pélican, became separated from the others in fog in Hudson Strait. This was to be the occasion for what was probably the most gallant single action of Iberville’s career. The Pélican, having preceded the squadron to the mouth of the Hayes River on 4 September, was attacked the following day by three English warships, the Hampshire, a man-of-war carrying 56 guns, the Dering of 36, and the Hudson’s Bay [I] of 32 guns. It was, of course, essential for the success of the French venture that the Pélican, with her 44 guns, prevent reinforcements from reaching the English at York Fort. D’Iberville accordingly engaged the enemy despite a most unfavourable position. After two and a half hours of inconclusive sparring, the adversaries met finally in a duel during which d’Iberville carried out brilliant naval manœuvres that culminated in the sinking of the Hampshire by the Pélican. Following this action the Hudson’s Bay was captured without resistance, though she too soon sank. Only the Dering (Capt. Michael Grimington, senior) fled unpursued, for the Pélican had to be abandoned as well, its hull having been opened at the waterline by the Hampshire’s guns. As the Pélican was being abandoned and its men regrouped in a camp slightly to the south of the English fort, the three remaining ships of the French squadron arrived including the direly needed supply ship, the Profond. Then, after five days of lively skirmishing, the English under Henry Baley, governor of Hudson Bay, surrendered on 13 September; Kelsey again negotiated the terms. This had been d’Iberville’s swiftest and most brilliant campaign. He put Serigny in command of Hudson Bay, and left hastily in late September 1697; if he wished to escape the early winter ice, he could not afford to sail south to recapture Albany Fort. This was the last time he would see the northern regions which had thus far been the major theatre of his military, naval, and commercial endeavours.
However, his victory is in vain, since the Treaty of Ryswick, signed a week later, enshrine English dominance in Hudson’s Bay and French hegemony in James Bay. France holds on to Port Royal and Placentia but must yield Pemaquid and part of Acadia. D’Iberville’s conquests were for naught.
Forced to look elsewhere but still dreaming of giving North America to France, d’Iberville argues for the establishment of a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi: “If France does not seize this most beautiful part of America and set up a colony, the English colony which is becoming quite large, will increase to such a degree that, in less than one hundred years, it will be strong enough to take over all of America and chase away all other nations.” His plan is to strangle the New England colonies between Canada in the north, the Gulf Mexico and Louisiana in the south and the Mississippi River in the west.
On March 2, 1699, he succeeds where Robert Cavelier de La Salle failed: travelling by sea, he discovers the mouth of the Mississippi. Three consecutive expeditions, in 1699, 1700 and 1701, allow him to built the forts of Maurepas (Biloxi), Mississippi and Saint-Louis (Mobile). In 1702, having won the trust of the natives, the commander of Louisiana leaves that colony, never to return.
At the beginning of 1706, d’Iberville is spreading fear throughout the English Antilles. He terrorizes pillages and neutralizes the island of Nevis. The settlements in New England brace themselves, expecting the worst.
D'Iberville then headed for Havana; however, once in the Cuban capital, his fever returned and he died on July 6, 1706, two weeks short of his forty-fifth birthday. He was buried on July 9 in San Cristobal church. Some claim that his tomb was transferred to the San Ignacio of Havana cathedral in 1741, after the demolition of San Cristobal, but there is no evidence of this, and the final resting place of the first great hero in Canadian military history remains a matter of conjecture.
