Native encampment

Ville-Marie (Montreal), New France (Quebec), June 1685. Illustration : Francis Back. Photography : Bernard Dubois.
Native encampment

When the first colonists from France settled in Montréal in 1642, Hochelaga, the Iroquois village which Jacques Cartier visited in 1535, no longer existed. During the first months following their arrival, the settlers built a fort surrounded by a stake palisade. Houses multiplied through the years. Several Amerindian nations set up camp on the island and their members traded furs from the Great Lakes with the new settlers.