Robert Giffard de Moncel

Robert Giffard de Moncel^[1] (c. 1587 – 14 June 1668) was a Perche-based surgeon and apothecary who became New France's first colonizing seigneur.

Initial voyages

As a naval surgeon, Giffard made several voyages to Quebec between 1621 and 1627. He maintained a cabin called la Canardière at the mouth of the Petite or Sainte-Croix or, now, Saint-Charles rivers on the côte (shore) de Beauport east of Québec.

On a return voyage in 1628, he was captured by the English adventurer Sir David Kirke and lost considerable equipment for colonization. Giffard returned to France. Kirke later captured and held Quebec until its return to the French in 1632.

Percheron immigration movement

In the three decades of the 17th century starting in 1634, Robert Giffard spearheaded the Percheron immigration movement that recruited more than 300 tradesmen and workers, many of whom settled in Canada, New France. In so doing, Giffard working closed with the Juchereau brothers, Noël, Jean and their half-brother Pierre, with origins in Perche's Tourouvre hamlet. The Juchereau brothers were thus between 1646 and 1651 responsible for forty-one engagement contracts destined for Canada that were largely executed by the Tourouvre-based Choiseau notaries. The Percheron Immigration movement is noteworthy as ancient Perche province provided a lopsidedly, disproportionally large number of New France pioneers and descendants compared to the rest immigrants from France.

From colonizing seigneur to nobility

On 15 January 1634, Giffard was granted one of New France's the first seigneuries and he returned to the colony accompanied by his wife and two children. The colony - with Samuel de Champlain still as Governor - was continuing to experience a lack of immigration. Giffard's grant of a league of land along the Beauport and Montmorency rivers was in exchange for his commitment to bring other settlers. His recruitment efforts in ancient Perche province, yielded other well-known pioneers including: Jean Guyon du Boisson, Zacharie Cloutier, Henri Pinguet, Noël Langlois, Noël Juchereau and Marin Boucher from ancient Perche province.

In 1636, the marriage contract for Robert Drouin and Cloutier's daughter Anne was signed in Giffard's house, at one time the oldest house in Canada. This is the earliest marriage contract in Canada's archives.

In 1637, he was involved in a conflict with the Iroquois near Trois-Rivières.

By 1640, he became the first doctor of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec—the first hospital in Canada and in North America north of Mexico—an apothecary and even “doctor in ordinary” to the king, a purely honorary but prestigious title.

In 1645, Giffard helped found the newly established trading company, the Communauté des Habitants, which was open to all inhabitants in principle but which only the wealthiest colonists could join in practice. Severely dissatisfied, he went with Paul de Chomedey the following year back to France to convince the Crown officials to disband his fellow directors of the company, which they did, replacing them with a regulatory council in Quebec.

In 1646, Giffard obtained an explicit order from the governor of the colony, Charles de Montmagny, that ended a nine-year dispute with Guyon and Cloutier in Giffard's favour. Since their arrival in the colony, the two tenants had refused to provide foi et hommage (fealty and homage) to Giffard, as was his right as seigneur. This was an early case of New World resistance to Old World systems of governance. Refusing to accept him as their superior, they did not stake their lands or pay him annual taxes. Such cases of censitaire refractoriness filled the time of the courts for the duration of the seigneurial system, both during the French regime and under the English.

By 1658, his service was recognized by the granting of two more seigneuries, being named to the king's new council of Quebec, and becoming one of Canada's few citizens to be ennobled.

Giffard died in Beauport on 14 June 1668. The Bishop officiated his funeral and his tomb is within the hospital.

Legacy

In 1912, a neighbourhood of Beauport, Quebec was named after Giffard and he is commemorated by a monument there.

In 1935, Quebec City named a street Robert-Giffard Avenue.

In 1976, the provincial mental health hospital took the name the Centre hospitalier Robert Giffard, continuing an association with mental health. In 1845, Giffard's manor house begins being used as an asylum accommodating 23 mental health patients.

Notes

References

• apointinhistory.net (Online). "Percheron Immigration". Retrieved 25 May 2015.
• Bélanger, Claude; Bélanger, Damien-Claude; Québec History, Marianopolis University-sponsored website
• Binet, Réjean (hivers 2016). "Robert Giffard : les engagés de 1634", Revue de la Société de généagolie de Québec | www.sgq.qc.ca, L'Ancêtre, vol. 42, no. 313, pp. 98–112
• Carpin, Gervais (1999). Le Reseau du Canada: Étude du mode migratoire de la France vers Ie Nouvelle-France (1628-1662) (PDF).
• Drolet, Yves (2009). Tables généalogiques de la noblesse Québecois du XVIIe au XIXe siècle
• Ganivet, Michel (2014). "Congrès de France-Canada à Bellême (8 juin 2013), nouveaux regards sur l'émigration percheronne au XVIIe siècle". Cahiers Percherons (197).
• Charbonneau, Hubert (1970). "Tourouvre-au-Perche aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: Étude de démographie historique". Travaux et Documents. 55: see specially pp. 11–18: 'L'Émigration Percheronne au Canada.
• History, Centre hospitalier Robert Giffard
• Fichier Origine 241768. Giffard, Robert
• Jetté, René (1983). Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec. Des origines à 1730. Montréal, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. xxx-1180 pages
• Lesperance, Jerry (December 2002). Le Perche, Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society
• La Mémoire du Québec, Giffard de Moncel et de Beauport (Robert)
• La Mémoire du Québec, Beauport (ancienne municipalité)
• Montréal, Ville de; Repertoire historique des toponymes Montréalais, avenue Robert-Giffard
• Nos Origines 5223
• Association Perche-Canada.net (Online). "Giffard et les colons percherons : Chronique d'une épopée".
• perche-quebec.com - Giffard (Online). "Robert Giffard (~ 1587 Autheuil - 1668 Beauport)".
• perche-quebec.com - immigration (Online). "Percheron immigration movement".
• PRDH Pioneer 35641
• PREFEN Fiche 8117, Notice Complémentaire (2005). "Robert Giffard" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Provost, Honorius (1966, 2016). « Giffard de Moncel, Robert », dans DBC / DCB, vol. 1, ULaval / UofToronto, accessed 23 March 2018
• Rameau, Edme; 1859, La France aux colonies études sur le développement de la race française hors de l'Europe
• de Romanet, Vte; Tournouer, M. H. (1905), Chronique et correspondance de la province du Perche et des Percherons du Canada, published by L. Fournier, France
• Québec, Ville de, Histoire de raconter, Les premières familles de la paroisse de Beauport
• Québec, Ville de, fiche de toponymie. Fargy, parc du
• ________________, fiche de toponymie. Perche, avenue
• ________________, fiche de toponymie. Robert-Giffard, avenue
• ________________, fiche de toponymie. Renouard, avenue
• Toponomie, Ville de Québec
• CHUQ - L’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec Archived 31 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• Plaque commémorative de Robert Giffard, University of Laval website
• Portrait of the Seigneur of Beauport, Canadian Museum of Civilization
• Robert Giffard's manor house, seigneury of Beauport, Canadian Museum of Civilization
• Sulte, Benjamin (1918). Études éparses et inédites de Benjamin Sulte : volume 1
• Trépanier, Paul (hiver 1988). « Beauport (pdf) », « Beauport (En ligne) », Continuité, N^o. 38, pp. 49–55, URI

See also

• Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, grandson of Giffard