The Port Nelson relations, miscellaneous writings, and related documents / edited by Germaine Warkentin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warkentin, Germaine, Author.

Contributor:

Warkentin, Germaine, editor.

Series:

Pierre-Esprit Radisson: The Collected Writings ; Volume 2

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hudson's Bay Company.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (314 p.)

Place of Publication:

Montreal, Quebec : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636?-1710) was many men. He was a teenager captured, tortured, and adopted by the Mohawk, and a youth relishing the freedom of the wilderness. He was the French-born servant of an ambitious English trading company and a hapless petitioner at the court of Louis XIV. He was a central figure in the tug-of-war between France and England over Hudson Bay and a pretender to aristocratic status who had to defend his actions before James II. Finally, he was a retired "sea captain" trying to provide for his children, and despite the pension he had fought for, the "decay'd Gentleman" described in his burial record. Radisson's writings, characterized by hubris and contradiction, provoke many questions. Was he a semi-literate woodsman? Are his accounts of Native life ethnographically reliable? Can he be trusted to tell the truth about himself? How important were his explorations? All these questions are raised in this first critical edition of Radisson’s writings in both English and French, which includes previously unknown documents. Volume 1 follows Radisson's account of the decade he spent, in part with his brother-in-law Médard Des Groseilliers, exploring far into the interior of North America. In Volume 2, Radisson recounts his part in the battle over possession of Hudson Bay waged in the 1680s by England and France, his difficulties at the French and English courts, and his struggle with the Hudson's Bay Company for his just reward. Striking a superb balance between accessible writing and comprehensive scholarship, this new edition of Radisson's writing is indispensable, definitive, and reasserts the important roles that Radisson played in seventeenth-century North American rivalries.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Abbreviations

Preface

Textual Introduction

The Port Nelson Relations, 1682–84

Des Voyages Du Sieur Pierre Esprit Radisson

Relation Du Voyage De L’Année 1684

Miscellaneous Writings, 1676?–83

Journal des choses les plus remarquables arivéé depuis nostre despart de la pointe Confort pour Port Nelson l’annéé 1673 [1676–78?]

Mémoire on the Northern Seacoast of North America [original untitled; 1676–78]

Letter to Claude Bernou [December 1677?]

Petition [to the Marquis de Seignelay? late 1683]

Related Documents

Médard Chouart Des Groseilliers: Letter Concerning the Events at Port Nelson, 1682–83 [late 1683 or early 1684]

Radisson vs. the Hudson’s Bay Company: Complaint in Chancery, May 1694

Radisson’s Narrative in Reference to the Answer of the Commissioners of France, 1697

Radisson’s Affidavit, sworn before Sir Robert Geffery, 23 August 1697

Radisson’s Petition to Parliament, 1698

The Last Will and Testament of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, 17 June 1710

Appendices

The Abbé Bernou Debriefs Radisson: The Supposed “Petitions” of 1677 and 1681

“The History of Mr Radison’s Transactions” William Yonge’s Letter, 1692

Addendum: References in Volume 1 to Pages in Volume 2

Works Consulted

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed October 24, 2014).

ISBN:

0-7735-9665-8

OCLC:

923244024