Fort Frontenac
| Fort Frontenac (formerly Fort Cataraqui) | |
|---|---|
| Part of chain of French forts throughout Great Lakes and upper Mississippi region. | |
| Mouth of Cataraqui River, Kingston, Canada | |
 Plan of Fort Frontenac, 1685 |
|
| Built | 1673 |
| Built by | Louis de Buade de Frontenac |
| In use | 1673 - present. Periods of abandonment. |
| Demolished | 1689 but later rebuilt. Destroyed by British, 1758. Partly rebuilt, 1783. |
| Current condition |
Present fort: military barrack buildings. Remnants of original stone fort can be seen. |
| Controlled by | Original fort: New France |
| Occupants | French, British, Canadian |
| Battles/wars | Iroquois siege, 1688, Battle of Fort Frontenac, 1758 |
Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in 1673 in what is now Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It was strategically positioned at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario in a location traditionally known as Cataraqui. The original fort, a crude, wooden palisade structure, was called Fort Cataraqui but was later named for Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor of New France (Count Frontenac), who was responsible for building the fort. The fort, however, was still often referred to as Fort Cataraqui.
Establishment and early use
The intent of Fort Frontenac was to control the lucrative fur trade in the Great Lakes Basin to the west and the Canadian Shield to the north. It was one of many French outposts that would eventually be established throughout the great lakes. The fort was meant to be a bulwark against the English who were competing with the French for control of the fur trade. A secondary function of the fort was the provision of supplies and reinforcements to other French installations on the Great Lakes and in the Ohio Valley to the south. Frontenac hoped that the fort would also help fulfill his own business aspirations.
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the original administrator and commander of the fort, built many additional buildings and even brought in domestic animals with the hope of inducing settlers to come to the Cataraqui outpost. He replaced the wooden fort with a more secure stone fort in 1675. A description of the fort written in the 17th century mentions that:
"Three quarters of it are of masonry or hardstone, the wall is three feet thick and twelve high. There is one place where it is only four feet, not being completed. The remainder is closed in with stakes. There is inside a house of squared logs, a hundred feet long. There is also a blacksmith's shop a guardhouse, a house for the officers, a well, and a cow-house. The ditches are fifteen feet wide. There is a good amount of land cleared and sown around about, in which a hundred paces away or almost there is a barn for storing the harvest. There are quite near the fort several French houses, an Iroquois village, a convent and a Recollet church." [1]
La Salle used Fort Frontenac as a convenient base for his explorations into the interior of North America.
The Iroquois wars
Fur trade rivalries resulted in the Iroquois Wars. The French and Iroquois were never on very friendly terms. A peace treaty was signed in 1667, but the war was renewed in the 1680s, and this renewal of war affected Fort Frontenac. In 1687 several Iroquois, many of them friendly to the French, were captured and imprisoned at Fort Frontenac under the orders of the Marquis de Denonville[1]. Some were sent to France to be used as galley slaves. Denonville's troops and native allies went on to attack the Seneca Iroquois south of Lake Ontario.
In retaliation for these incidents and other "treacheries", the Iroquois attacked a number of French settlements, including Fort Frontenac. The fort and the settlement at Cataraqui were besieged for two months in 1688. Although the fort was not destroyed, the settlement was devastated and many defenders died, mostly from scurvy. The French abandoned and destroyed the fort in 1689, claiming that its remoteness prevented proper defense and that it could not be adequately supplied. Count Frontenac eventually rebuilt the fort, which again became a trading post.
The Seven Years' War
In the early 1700s the French upgraded the fort's defensive capabilities by adding new guns, building new barracks and increasing the size of the garrison. These improvements, however, would be futile.
During the Seven Years' War the British considered Fort Frontenac to be a
strategic threat since it commanded transportation and communications along the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes water route. The British
wanted French communications severed along this route. The fort was also regarded as a competitive and military threat to
The fort's destruction secured Fort Oswego for the British but it did not succeed in severing French communications and transportation to the west since other routes were available (e.g. the Ottawa River-Lake Huron route). Supplies could be moved west from other French posts.[3] Since the fort was no longer important to the French, it was never rebuilt and was left abandoned for the next 25 years.
French imperial power was waning, and by 1763 France had withdrawn from the North American mainland. Cataraqui and Fort Frontenac were in the hands of the British.
Reconstruction and modern times
United Empire Loyalists who had fled the United States after the American War of Independence formed a community in the vicinity of the fort and along the waterfront. To protect the growing population of Cataraqui (eventually to be called Kingston) from attack from the United States, the British partly rebuilt Fort Frontenac in 1783 to accommodate a military garrison. In 1789, the Tête-de-Pont Barracks were established on the site and the name Fort Frontenac fell out of favor. Many of the present barrack buildings were built between 1819 and 1824.[4]
After British troops were withdrawn from all Canadian locations except Halifax in 1870-71, the militia authorized the creation of two batteries of garrison artillery. "A" Battery School of Gunnery was established at Tête-de-Pont Barracks and other locations in Kingston. In 1905 the Kingston battery was designated the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, with headquarters at the Tête-de-Pont Barracks until 1939. In 1939 the site of the fort again became known as Fort Frontenac.[5]
Canadian Army staff training began at Fort Frontenac when the Canadian Army Staff College moved to the fort from the Royal Military College in 1948. The college is now known as the Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College. Fort Frontenac was also the location of the National Defence College until 1994.
The fort has undergone extensive archaeological investigation and partially reconstructed remains of the northwest bastion and other walls can be seen.
Fort Frontenac was designated a National Historic Site in 1923.
References
- ^ Finnigan 1976, p.38.
- Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War - the Seven Years'War and the Fate of the Empire in British North America, 1754 - 1766. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Ltd., 2000. ISBN 0-375-40642-5.
- Chartrand, René. Fort Frontenac 1758: Saving face after Ticonderoga. Article from Osprey Publishing Military Books.
- Finnigan, Joan. Kingston: Celebrate This City. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1976. ISBN 0-7710-3160-2.
- Mika, Nick and Helma et al. Kingston, Historic City. Belleville: Mika Publishing Co., 1987. ISBN 0-921341-06-7.
External links
- Biography of Louis de Buade de Frontenac at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Biography of the Marquis de Denonville at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- The Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation - Fort Frontenac History and Archaeology
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