Forts-et-Châteaux-Saint-Louis
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Transcript
Below Dufferin Terrace are remains of the forts and official residences that made this cliff the political centre of New France. Governors issued orders here, received Indigenous diplomats, negotiated alliances and directed a colony whose survival depended on relationships far beyond the walls.
Those meetings should not be reduced to Europeans “dealing with tribes.” Indigenous nations were political actors with leverage, territory and strategic interests of their own. French officials often had to persuade rather than command.
After the British conquest, the site remained useful to imperial government. Fire destroyed the château in 1834, and the ruins disappeared beneath later public space.
Archaeology turns grand politics into foundations, drains, ceramics and fragments. Those small things often reveal institutions more reliably than monuments do.