Date Published:
January 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

King's Posts

King's Posts, a name applied to the trading and fishing posts on the north bank of the St. Lawrence river, comprised within the limits of what was known as the Domaine du Roi (King's Domain). The vast territory, with an area of 72,000 square miles, was surveyed in 1732; and its limits were fixed by the Intendant Hocquart in 1733. It stretched from the eastern end of the seigniory of Les Eboulements to cape Cormorant, below the mouth of the Moisie river, a distance of about 300 miles; and it extended inland to the height of land dividing the watershed of the St. Lawrence from the watersheds of Hudson bay and Hamilton inlet. The chief posts included in it, with the dates of their establishment, were as follows: Tadoussac (about 1600), Chicoutimi (about 1650), Lake St. John or Metabetchouan (about 1650), Godbout (before 1670), Mistassini (about 1673), Nekouban or Nemiscan (1685), St. Charles (1686), Ashuapmuchuan (1690), Moisie (before 1694), Papinachois (before 1703), Bersimis (before 1703), Sept Isles or Seven Islands (before 1710), Muskwaro (about 1710), Nichigun (before 1725), Ile Jérémie (before 1730), Bondésir (before 1730), Naskapis (before 1733), Malbaye or Murray bay (before 1733), Manicouagan (before 1749), and Mille Vaches (before 1800). This vast territory was, during the French period, farmed out to the Compagnie des Postes du Roi; and after the British conquests the King's Posts continued to be farmed out to individuals or private companies. In 1780 it was leased to the Labrador Company of Quebec ; in 1803 to the North West Company; in 1821 to J. Goudie, a shipbuilder of Quebec ; and in 1842 to the Hudson's Bay Company. For an account of the King's Posts in the King's Domain in 1808, see James McKenzie, "The King's Posts, and journal of a canoe jaunt through the King's Domains," in L. R. Masson, Les bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, vol. ii (Quebec, 1890).

The name "King's Posts" was also applied during the French period to a number of posts established by the government of New France outside the King's Domain. These were Baye des Puants (1670), Lachine (1671), Fort Frontenac (1673), Fort Niagara (1678), La Presentation (1718), Fort Rouillé (1749), Presqu' isle (1753), Machault (1753), Fort Duquesne (1753), Little Portage (1753), and Rivière au Boeuf (1753).

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE. Ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 338.