In order to properly talk about the New World museum of La Rochelle, it is necessary to evoke the astonishing, tormented and turbulent history of this city.
Free port of an unequaled economic power, La Rochelle is French or English depending on the various eras and influences of the Templars, Catholics and Protestants.
The city, protected by its fortifications, is entirely dedicated to a flourishing maritime trade, since its port which opens directly on the sea, unlike Bordeaux and Nantes, is nevertheless protected from the high seas by the Pertuis d’Antioche, a strait on the Atlantic coast of Western France, between two islands, Ré island and Oléron island.
The Templars settle there (there are very few traces of their presence, but the current Temple street and Templars street testify to their great activity in the historic city center) but are eradicated with the dissolution of their order for heresy in 1312, as everywhere else in France.
La Rochelle, which is recognized as a place of Protestant safety from the signing of the Edict of Nantes in 1598 (which grants a large religious liberty to its Protestant subjects), becomes the main center of protestantism in addition to being an overly independent economic place.
The Temple
La Rochelle derives incredible wealth from this maritime trade, as evidenced by the mansions that line the streets.
The city is soon a state within the State, which King Louis XIII and his Minister Richelieu cannot tolerate.
The latter organizes a siege of the city by land (fortifications will be built to prevent anyone from leaving) and by sea (a dyke is created by blowing up ships loaded with stones in order to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the port). The siege lasts a year and La Rochelle, which the English failed to liberate despite several attempts, surrenders, starving and exhausted: of the 28,000 inhabitants, only 5,400 survive. The capitulation subjects the city to the royal power which strips the Protestants of their political, military and territorial rights.
The royal power settles in town, as shown on the pediments.
New fortifications are built by the royal power (the “Porte Royale” and the “Porte Dauphine” are the best examples, with, on the pediment, the sculpture of the Sun King or that of the Crown).
The Protestants, already subjected to the Catholic oppression who would like to see them converted, face the infamous revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Protestantism is now illegal.
The thousand vexations suffered by the Protestants (the doubling of taxes because of their religion, the temples transformed into churches, the obligation to bury their dead in the middle of the night, the forced conversions extorted from the dying or from children who have the misfortune to stop in the street to watch Catholic processions) turn into a death warrant.
Only one solution: flee. As the Protestants of La Rochelle have for many decades based their fortunes on maritime trade, the main route of escape is obviously the sea. La Rochelle has a long history of direct trade with Canada and the Caribbean but the triangular trade quickly develops and the city becomes the third slave port of France. The black slaves become a commodity in the same way as salt, sugar and furs.
View of La Rochelle Port, by Joseph Vernet, 1866
And I now come to the New World museum, which traces the links of La Rochelle with this New World discovered by Samuel de Champlain (history wants him to be born in La Rochelle, he was actually born in Brouage, 30 kilometers from the city).
The ascent of the St. Lawrence River in 1603 by Champlain (history wants him to be a Protestant but he will die a Catholic in Quebec – so many inaccuracies to form a legend) leads in a few decades to the establishment of New France and Quebec.
Many King’s Daughters (poor but well-educated young girls) leave the port of La Rochelle to populate New France, marrying and founding a family there, and many Jesuits are sent to evangelize native populations. Some of them die there as martyrs, at the hands of the Iroquois or Huron populations. The fur trade with Acadia and New France nevertheless continues to grow.
As far as the Caribbean is concerned, trade is no less important, but of a different nature: the sugar plantations make the fortune of shipowners from La Rochelle, including Aimé-Benjamin Fleuriau, whose private mansion now houses the New World museum. In order to acknowledge its past as the third slave port in France, the city has installed a statue of Aimé Césaire, the anti-colonialist inventor of negritude, in the main courtyard of the building.
The Fleuriau mansion, now New World museum displaying the statue of Aimé Césaire
The building, which is superb, evokes the different aspects of the links maintained over the centuries by La Rochelle with the Americas. The conclusion is obviously not very comfortable since the visitor quickly understands that the wealth and beauty of the city were built on slavery (Caribbean), forced evangelization (Canada), annihilation of native populations (who were definitely not a few tribes lost in the forests – Canada), racism (everywhere), in short, colonization.
La Bamboula, Louis Gamain, 1836
A Blackfoot warbonnet
Jacques Cartier on the St Laurent river, Théodore Gudin, 1802
Martyrdom of Father de Brébeuf and Father Lalemant, Edouard-Antoine Marsal
Pocahontas saving John Smith
Allegory of America, French School XIX° century
America bringing its weath to Europe, Jean-Andrés Biset
Views of Brazil, Jean-Julien Delthil, 1829
Allegory of the four continents, Austrian School, XVIII° century
Visiting the New World museum is not always comfortable but it is edifying. The museum might have benefited from being frankly baptized “museum of colonization” but I fully understand that it is necessary to attract visitors with a less divisive name. This is the first French museum to address slavery and the slave trade, and I find the initiative very courageous in a city like La Rochelle.
May 17, 2024
