DEVAUDREUIL, PIERREDERIGAUD
Despite his youth he
proved himself a reason-
ably competent officer
and by 1726 had risen in
rank to captain. In 1728,
he accompanied a fruit-
less expedition against
the Fox Indians in what is
present-day Wisconsin,
but the experience con-
vinced him that Native
American allies would be
a valuable tactical asset
in any future war with
England. The sheer vast-
ness of French holdings,
combined with its small
population, placed New
France at a precarious
disadvantage when op-
posing its more populous
enemies to the south. As
a consequence of his
good behavior, Vaudreuil received the presti-
gious Cross of St. Louis, France’s highest mili-
tary decoration. In 1733, the minister of ma-
rine also appointed him governor of Trois
Rivieres, then the third-largest settlement dis-
trict in Canada. Vaudreuil handled his affairs
competently and honestly for nearly a decade,
and in 1743 he received even greater distinc-
tion by replacing Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne
de Bienvilleas governor of Louisiana. He ac-
cepted this task as a stepping-stone toward
his ultimate goal—becoming governor-general
of New France.
Vaudreuil inherited a dispirited colony
with hostile neighbors and a flagging econ-
omy. For security reasons, he turned his at-
tention first to the Choctaw Indians, tradi-
tional allies of France, who had been drifting
slowly into the English orbit. Vaudreuil sum-
moned them frequently to friendly confer-
ences, showered the chiefs with gifts and gra-
tuities, and encouraged greater trade with
them. Moreover, he incited intratribal vio-
lence against pro-English factions within the
Choctaw nation and also encouraged the Indi-
ans to attack and harass
English traders operating
out of the Carolinas.
Once territorial affairs in
the Mississippi Valley
were stabilized, he next
oversaw the economic
development of Loui-
siana, with a view toward
expanding trade with the
Spanish Caribbean. The
cultivation of exports
such as timber, rice, to-
bacco, and hides kept a
steady stream of gold in
the colony’s coffers. But
perhaps his greatest ac-
complishment was in get-
ting the mother country
to pay more attention to
its southernmost colony.
Between 1742 and 1752,
Vaudreuil convinced the
French regime to triple its expenditures for
housing, fortification, and roads. By the time
he was recalled to Paris in 1752, Louisiana
was in excellent economic shape despite re-
gional competition from England and its In-
dian allies. On January 1, 1755, Vaudreuil’s
most cherished hope was finally realized
when he, like his father before him, was com-
missioned governor-general of New France.
He thus became the first native Canadian so
honored.
When Vaudreuil arrived back at Quebec in
June 1755 he inherited another colony in the
midst of crisis. The French and Indian War
had recently broken out, and it would be ruth-
lessly waged for final and absolute control of
North America. But to offset England’s superi-
ority in men and resources, Vaudreuil advo-
cated an offensive strategy to keep his ene-
mies off-balance and prevent them from
launching a coordinated offensive against
New France. A major component of this strat-
egy was maximum utilization of Native Amer-
ican allies and Canadian militia, both of
whom were extremely adept at forest war-Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil
National Archives of Canada