Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit was a French naval and military captain and a lieutenant of New France, who built at Tadoussac in present day Quebec, the oldest surviving French settlement in the Americas.

Born in Dieppe, Normandy, into a wealthy merchant family Chauvin served initially in military campaigns before he developed interest in commercial and maritime enterprises. As owner of four ships, he was active in the North American fur trade and cod-fishery in Canada and Newfoundland.

The beaver robes were at the time a statute symbol and affordable only to the richest citizens. In the other side, the furs could be bartered with the Indians for an axe or a knife, and were very profitable trade. In 1599 Chauvin and François Gravé Du Pont obtained a fur trading monopoly for New France.

The next year he built a fort at Tadoussac, the first French fur trading post in the Americas and left there 16 men as colonist of which only 5 survived the harsh winter.