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Since the majority of milicens came from the peasantry this article should shed some light where these men came from, and why they were so loyal to their land (Canada not France).

We think of peasants as the lowest station in society, but in fact servants, soldiers, indentures, and slaves were beneath them. To many, the peasantry was desirable because it offered the stability and security of farming the land for your own sustenance, and only the excess was sent up to the title holder. Fellow re-enactor Andy Gallup once commented “the world grew less important the farther you got away from the hearth”. In other words, the fireplace was the center of the peasant’s world, as long as he had his farm and his house he and his family would survive. Unless his world was threatened by an invader nothing ‘out there’ was all that important.

I have included a section of Roberta Hamilton’s book ‘Feudal society and colonization, historiography of New France’ titled ‘The making of the peasantry’. Hopefully this information will be helpful in showing the difference between life in the American colonies and New France.

- Dan Swart

Fort & Area History

On September 22, 1731, the Marquis de Beauharnois, then governor general of Canada, erected a fort at Pointe a la Chevelure (Crown Point) on Lake Champlain. Fort St. Frederic as it is called, was a small stockade, which could accommodate a garrison of only 30 men. This was replaced in 1736 by a “redoubt a machoi coulis”, sufficient for a garrison of 120 men. It was subsequently enlarged, and in 1742 was, with the exception of Quebec, the strongest work held by the French in Canada. Shortly after completion of the fort, a settlement of considerable size began to spring up around it. This village spread to both sides of the lake.

Principally families of old soldiers who had been discharged from service populated it. A few of the houses were large, but most were only small cabins built of boards. To each soldier in service was allotted a small piece of ground near the walls of the fort. Fort St. Frederic, says Peter Kalm, “is built on a rock consisting of black lime slates, and is nearly quadrangular, has high and thick walls, made of the same limestone, which there is a quarry about a half a mile from the fort. On the eastern part of the fort is a high tower, which is proof against bomb shells, provided with very thick and substantial walls, and well stored with cannon from the bottom almost to the very top, and the governor lives in the tower. In the terra plaine of the fort is a well-built little church and houses of stone for the officers and soldiers. There are sharp rocks on all sides towards the land beyond cannon shot from the fort, but among them are some which are as high as the walls of the fort, and very near them. Within on one two musket shots to the east of the fortis a windmill, built of stone, with very thick walls, and most of the flour, which is wanted to supply the fort, is ground here. This windmill is so constructed as to serve the purpose of a redoubt and at the top of it are five or six small pieces of cannon. Subsequently a trench or wide ditch was dug around the fort, on the landside, enclosing the hill referred to. This trench commenced at the water edge about two rods north and terminated about fifteen rods south of the fort. An enclosure was also erected about twenty five rods north-west of the fort which reached the waters edge and surrounded several buildings used for soldiers quarters.”

Saint-Frederic was erected as much for offensive operations as for defense and until 1759, was the seat of French power on the lake. Here was the rallying point for the Abenakis from St. Francis, the Arundacks of the fertile Ottawa, and the warlike Wyandots of the west. Here the ferocious Outagamis, the restless Algonquin and the Huron met to recount their deeds.