This passage is writing and compiled by Rev. Dennis M. Boudreau from his book "THE MARRIAGES OF LES ÎLES-DE-LA-MADELEINE, P.Q. (1794 to 1900) (c) 1980. I use this passage only for an english traduction for the Magdalen Islands Story.

Long before the discovery of New France, french coastal fishermen, in quest of great enterprise, made their way to the fertile fishing grounds on the banks of Newfoundland towards A.D. 1500. For nearly three decades, they continued to visit these uncharted waters end found in them, a veritable source of income. To tjisday, these daring mariners remain unkown. Departing from his native seaport of St-Malo in the Normandie region of France, on 20 April 1534. Jacques CARTIER Logged in his journal his descriptive visit to the Gulf of St-Lawrence, and during the week of 25 June 1534, recorded for all posterity, his sightings and landings at ILe Brion, Ile-de-Margaulx, Ile Allezat, Cap-du Dauphin (Dolphin Cape), Cap St-Pierre. This journal, describing his adventures over a period of several weeks, was published upon his return to France, and has become the earliest documented source describing the Iles-de-la-Madeleine (The Magdalen Islands)

After CARTIER's short visit to this continent, the Breton, Basque and Normand fishermen became the first Europeans to establih to themselves there and in the harbors of the Gulf Area. While there, they found the Micmac Indians had already settled before them, and so, they associated with them, becominng allies. It was probably during this era that name, "Iles Ramées" were given to the Islands by the French who, because the Islands were connected by sand dunes, called them a "string of islands". Towards the 1590's, there arose many disputes between the French fishermen and new-comers to their shores, the English, over fishing rights at which the French abandonned their post at the Islands.

In 1626, Samuel de CHAMPLAIN, then Governor of New France, on a return voyage to Québec, actually dropped-anchor in the Baie de Plaisance at a harbor wich he himself named "Havre-Aubert", and its island, that St-Aubert. To this day, the harbor and its village have kept that name. Also, on one of Champlain's maps, dated 1632, the Islands are called "Madeleine", pershap designated such under the patronage of the celebrated French devotion to Sta-Marie-Madeleine. Who tradition says spent her last days as a hermitess in France's southern region.

The first seigneur (Lord) of the Islands was Nicolas DENYS, the famed entrepreneur of the fishing industry in the Gulf during the early days of Acadie. He received title to the Islands in 1653, and incorporated them into his seigneurial estate, which stretched from the Baie des Chaleurs near the Gaspésie, to the settlement of Chedabouctou, just below Ile Royale (today's Cape Breton Island). Each year, ships from his compagny came to the Islands to fish, and capture thousands of seals and walrus. There is no doubt that DENYShad fishing post near to today's l'Anse-à-la-Cabane, where both Micmacs and Normands worked to build his enterprise.

François DOUBLET a Normand sea captain from Honfleur, had also been given title to the Islans ten years after, while DENYS still held his title to them, to establish a permanent colony there. With two existing seigneurs, conflicts soon began. DOUBLET arrived at the Island, where he planted a cross on Les Demoiselles at Havre-Aubert. He soon met with reprisal from some men of DENYS' compagny, especially a Captain SOPITE. DOUBLET returned to France to secure rights to his seigneurie, having left to winter on the Islands twenty-five of his men. Upon his return there, his establishment was devastated; his men had passed the winter drinking and revelling until their provisions had run out; then, they had stolen the boats of some Basque fishermen and made their way to Québec. It was DOUBLET, however, who had obtained from the King of France the authorization to name the whole archipel ago "Madeleine", after the name his wife, Madeleine FONTAINE.

In May of 1686, the Islands were conceded to Gabriel GAUTHIER, but he did nothing with them, and so, they passed in 1720 to the Comte de SAINT-PIERRE, who formed a compagny based on Ile St-Jean (today's Prince Edward Island) to exploit the other islands in the Gulf area. During this time, the Abbé's BRESLAY and MÉTIVIER came to the Islands from time-to-time on the compagny's vassels, each year, to minister to the spiritual needs of the fishermen. The Comte de ST-PIERRE abondonned the Islands in 1724. They were again conceded in 1731 to the Sieur HARANÉDÉ, who resided at Louisbourg, and who visited his concession for the first time in 1735. He too soon after abandonned his seignerial estate and enterprises there.

In 1742, they passed to the brothers, Antoine and Joseph PASCAUD of La Rochelle, who obtained exclusive privileges to fish and hunt seals ans walrus there. The PASCAUD brothers seemed well-disposed to make their seigneurie prosper, until the war of 1741 and conquest of Louisbourg by the Bostonians interrupted their work.

Richard GRINDLEY, born in Boston in 1710, participed in the seige of Louisbourg in 1745. In 1755, he was promoted to the rank of colonel in the British army. He had served under General Geoffrey AMHERST in 1758, and accompanied General James WOLFE to the plains of Abraham in 1759, where he also participated in the seige of Québec. From there, he went to England towards 1760, during qhich time, in recompense for his military services, he received the concession of Magdalen Islands.

Also, at this time, several Acadian families from Ile St-Jean and Ile Royale, and some from the Baie des Chaleurs, had found refuge from deportation at the Magdalen Islands. Settling at Havre-Aubert towards 1761. Other joined them in 1765. The heads of these families, wich included representatives of the ARSENEAU, BOUDREAU, CHIASSON, DOUCET, HACHÉ-GALLANT, and POIRIER families, all worker for GRIDLEY who, in 1762, established himself at the Islands and had organized at Havre-Aubert, a sedentary fishing post for hunting seals and walrus, and for Lobster-fishing. These twenty-two, engaged by GRIDLEY (17 Acadiens and 5 Canadians) took an oath of allegiance on the 31 August 1765*. Joined to this group, established at Cap-de-l'Est were Louis THÉRIAULT, Edouard NOEL from Jersey Island, and Louis SNAUT dit ARSENEAU of Marseilles, France. Some years following, they sold their property to other English families from Argyle, Nova Scotia: James CLARKE, John RANKIN, and Georges GOODWIN. As well, other members of the LOISEAU and TURBIDE families joined their Acadian compatruiots at the Islands and worked for Richard GRINDLEY. (* Père Frédéric LANDRY gives the year as 1763).

By 1770, the colony of the Magdalen Islands was finally established, and itinerant missionaries began visiting there again. From 1784 to 1792, Abbé William PHELAN, an Irish priest and pastor of Notre-Dame d'Arichat on Ile Madame, visited the Islands from time-to-time. The spiritual needs of fishermen were served also by Abbé Thomas-François LEROUX, a Breton missionary, from 1774 to 1782, who stopped there oncircuit from Ile St-Jean and Cape Breton Island. He did not have a fixed place of residence, and received the hospitality of the flock on the Islands whenever he visited them. To this day, no register of Abbé LEROUX's has been found; and that of Abbé PHELAN, as well as the early register of Arichat, all were sadly destroyed in a rectory fire there 1838. Prciously conserved censuses and later marriage dispensations of descendants have helped greatly to bridge the gap between earlier and later generations of Acadians in this region.

Migrations to the Island from St-Pierre et Miquelon towards 1772 of the BOUDREAU, BOURGEOIS, CORMIER and LAPIERRE families, as well as a considerable number of other Acadian families twenty-one years later in 1793, among whom were the CYR, BOURG and VIGNEAU families, have formed a strong basis of the Iles-de-la-Madeleine as a predominantly Acadian establishment. In that year, a number of these aforementioned families, fleeing the waves of the French Revolution, were led by a Normand missionary, Abbé Jean-Baptiste ALLAIN , from Miquelon to Havre-Aubert, to form its first parish, composed of nearly seventy to eighty Acadian families. During the 1800's other families from Québec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edouard Island, France, Englang and Ireland have migrated to the Magdalen Islands for one reason or another; some were attracted there by the fishing industry, or invitation of other relatives; some were givenjobs as teachers as the educationa opportunities on the Islands advanced; others still, were there due to being shipwrecked on its coasts during a storm, and had decided to settle there.

In 1787, the Islands were conceded to still another person: Sir Isaac COFFIN, of English descent. It was during his administration of the Islands, and that of his descendants, that over a hundred years of struggle between them and the Islanders took place over both land and fishing right. As a result of this constant fighting and their tyrannical control over the Isladers as soon as other sections of Québec were opened by the government for farming and fishing, vast migrations of Madeleine Islanders from 1850 to the 1890's took place. Much of the Islands' population move in waves to the Charlevoix, Saguenay, Beauce, and Matapédia Valleyregions of Québec. those who remained, continued to live a hard life, until the Islands were brought under the administration of the Gaspésie County. Towards the early 1900's until the 1920's, other emigrations to Québec City, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, the Verdun section of Montréal took place. Also, with the opening of mills and factories, a good number of the Islanders migrated to Cambridge and Fall River, Massachusetts, and Centredale, Rhode Island.

Base de Données: "Les Ancêtres des Îles-de-la-Madeleine"