Louis de Buade de Frontenac

Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau (; 22 May 162228 November 1698) was a French soldier, courtier, and Governor General of New France in North America from 1672 to 1682, and again from 1689 to his death in 1698. He established a number of forts on the Great Lakes and engaged in a series of battles against the English and the Iroquois. In his first term, he supported the expansion of the fur trade, establishing Fort Frontenac (in what is now Kingston, Ontario) and came into conflict with the other members of the Sovereign Council over its expansion and over the corvée that were required to build the new forts. In particular, despite the opposition of Bishop François de Laval, he supported selling brandy to the aboriginal tribes, which Laval considered a mortal sin. The conflict with the Sovereign Council led to his recall in 1682. His second term was characterised by the defence of Quebec from an English invasion during King William's War, a successful campaign against Iroquois and English settlements that resulted in the elimination of the Iroquois threat against New France and a large expansion of the fur trade using Canadian coureurs des bois. He died before his second recall to France. Early life Frontenac was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, the son of Henri de Buade, colonel in the regiment of Navarre, and Anne Phélypeaux, daughter of Raymond Phélypeaux. The details of his early life are meager, as no trace of the Frontenac papers have been discovered. The de Buades, however, were a family of distinction in the principality of Béarn. Antoine de Buade, seigneur de Frontenac, grandfather of the future governor of New France, attained eminence as a councilor of state under Henri IV; and his children were brought up with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII.