Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval
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Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval (* c.1500 in Carcassonne, France; † 1560 in Paris) was the first lieutenant general of French Canada and a pirate.
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[edit] Military career
As a young nobleman, de Roberval joined the French army in the Italian campaigns. He quickly developed a lifelong friendship with the future King Francis. In addition to soldering together they hunted together on the de Roberval estates. On return from the wars, he led the expensive life of a courtier, and borrowed heavily on his estates. This was a debt that would encourage his adventurism throughout his life.[1]
[edit] Canada
On January 15 1541, King Francis I of France gave de Roberval a commission to settle the province of Canada and provide for the spread of the “Holy Catholic faith”. The King provided some funds for the expedition of 1541 and provided de Roberval with three ships, the Valentine, the Anne and the Lechefraye. Jacques Cartier was hired as pilot, and in fact made the initial sortie with 500 colonists but without de Roberval in May 1541.
In order to raise additional funds de Roberval went a pirating with Bidoux de Lartigue taking several English merchant ships. Despite his pleasure at tweaking the English, Francis I diplomatically kept the peace and rebuked de Roberval.[2][3]
De Roberval with his three ships and 200 more colonists set sail for Newfoundland in April 1542, arriving June 8th. Cartier promptly left for France with his military detachment and some discouraged colonists. De Roberval sailed up the Saint Lawrence River and founded a town at Charlesbourg-Royal on Cap-Rouge, where Cartier had earlier built a fort which had been abandoned that June. The settlement lasted less than a year due to the severe winter and attacks by the Hurons, who had been displeased with the French in the earlier fort. In 1543 a relief expedition arrived from France and de Roberval and all of the remaining colonists left.
[edit] Pirating
Taking his disappointment at the failed Canadian venture and his ships, de Roberval again went a pirating (privateering), this time in the Caribbean against Spanish ships and towns, since France and Spain were at war. Known to the Spanish as Roberto Baal[4], in 1543 he sacked Rancherias and Santa Marta, followed by an attack in 1544 on Cartagena de Indias.[5] In 1546 ships under his command attacked Baracoa and Havana. In 1547 he retired from pirating, and subsequently King Henry II appointed de Roberval as the Royal Superintendent of Mines. Despite all of these ventures and royal favor he did not manage to reconstitute his fortune. By 1555, his goods were fully mortgaged and the Château de Roberval was threatened with seizure.
[edit] Religion
De Roberval was an early convert to Calvinism. In 1535 he escaped hanging as a Protestant only by the intervention of the King. In his management of the Canadian expedition he showed a very Calvinistic severity. [6] One night in Paris in 1560 as he was coming out of a Calvinist meeting, de Roberval, along with his fellow Protestants, was attacked by a Catholic mob and killed. The remains of his fortune passed to his creditors, and the Château de Roberval was repurchased by his nephew Louis de Madaillan.
[edit] References & Notes
- ^ Jean-François de LaRocque de Roberval by Robert La Roque de Roquebrune
- ^ ”La Roque de Roberval“ Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Volume I, 1000 - 1700 University of Toronto Press, Toronto, p. 423;
- ^ de La Roncière, Charles Germaine Marie Bourel (1909) Histoire de la Marine Française Plon-Nourrit; p. 477;
- ^ Gerassi-Navarro, Nina (1999) Pirate Novels: Fictions of Nation Building in Spanish America Duke University Press, Durham, p. 22, discussing real pirates;
- ^ Lane, Kris E. (1998) Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750 M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York ISBN 0765602571
- ^ Thevet, André et al. (1986) André Thevet's North America: A Sixteenth-Century View McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston, Ontario, p. 121
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- This article is based in part on material from the French Wikipedia.
[edit] External links
- Jean-François de LaRocque de Roberval by Robert La Roque de Roquebrune;
- Piratas y Corsarios en Cuba in Spanish;
| Preceded by: none |
Lieutenant General of New France 1541–1543 |
Succeeded by: hiatus until 1598, then Troilus du Mesgouez |
