Peter Bisaillon (also Bezellon, Bizaillon, and other spellings), (baptized Pierre) ( – 18 July 1742) was a New France fur trader and interpreter who spent most of his career in Pennsylvania engaged in trade with Native American communities. Bisaillon and other coureurs des bois dominated the Pennsylvania fur trade during the late 17th and early 18th century, as they were skilled hunters and trappers and had established good relations with local Native American tribes. Bisaillon and his colleagues were regarded with suspicion by Pennsylvania authorities, however, and he was frequently accused and jailed on false or minor charges. He was eventually forced out of the fur trade, but retired a wealthy man.
Birth and immigration to North America Bisaillon was born in Saint-Jean-d'Aubrigoux, diocese of Clermont, Auvergne, (dept. of Haute-Loire) France to Benoit Bisaillon (b. 1638) and Louise-Françoise Blaise Dublay (b. 1642).Rapport de l'archiviste de la province de Québec, Volumes 36-37 of the Archives de la province de Québec, Ls-A. Proulx, 1955 He came to New France with his three brothers (Étienne, Benoit, and Michel) in about 1680. He and his brothers were probably inspired to move to Canada by the example of their cousin Mathieu Faye (1641-1695), who was serving in the Carignan-Salières Regiment in Quebec.Godbout, Archange. Nos ancêtres au XVIIe siècle: dictionnaire généalogique et bio-bibliographique des familles canadiennes. Canada: Ministère des affaires culturelles. Archives nationales du Québec, 1953.Lucie LeBlanc Consentino, "Soldiers in the Carignan-Salières Regiment"
Brothers Étienne Bisaillon purchased land in Laprairie outside Montreal in November, 1682 and all four brothers occupied themselves in trading with various native tribes.Francis Jennings, "Bisaillon, Peter," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 3, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed December 17, 2020 Étienne began trading in 1683 with the Odawa and became a wealthy landowner with a home in Montreal, although he frequently entered into debt to pay for equipment and supplies on his trading journeys. He was killed by Iroquois Indians at Laprairie on 25 September 1697.Bisaillon Descendants
Benoit Bisaillon worked as a trader with the Sioux for several years, then purchased land and became a farmer outside Montreal. In June 1700 he drowned while traveling in a canoe between Laprairie and Montreal."Bisaillon Genealogical Website: Immigrant Ancestors"
Michel Bisaillon was involved in fur trading between Detroit and New York, and eventually partnered with his brother Peter in Pennsylvania trading. His association with the English fur trade raised questions in Montreal about his loyalty to France. Hoping to clear his name with French authorities, Michel used his trade relationship with the Illinois Indians to mobilize their support for the French. At the beginning of the First Fox War in 1715, he led hundreds of Illinois warriors to aid the French in an attack on the Meskwaki.Rushforth, Brett. Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France. University of North Carolina Press, 2012. He was thereafter banned from trading in Pennsylvania and lived out the rest of his life in Laprairie. Rushforth, Brett. "Slavery, the Fox Wars, and the Limits of Alliance." The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 63, no. 1 (2006): 53-80. Accessed March 25, 2021. doi:10.2307/3491725.
Some sources also refer to a Louis Bisaillon,Benjamin Sulte, "Pierre Bisaillon en Pennsylvanie," Mélanges historiques: études éparses et inédites de Benjamin Sulte, 1918, Montreal, G. Ducharme; Vol. I, 89-103. a Claude Bisaillon,Vincens, Simone. Madame Montour and the Fur Trade (1667–1752). Xlibris US, 2011. and a Richard Bisaillon.Robert, Jean Chartier, The Chartier Families: A Complete Record of the Chartier Families in North America. The Section, 1982.
Career
Travels with Henri de Tonti In February 1686, Pierre (Peter) Bisaillon was one of twenty-five men who went with Henri de Tonti to search for René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle at the mouth of the Mississippi,Rapport de l'archiviste de la province de Québec, Volume 7 of the Archives de la province de Québec, Ls-A. Proulx, 1955Jennings, Francis. Miquon's Passing: Indian-European Relations in Colonial Pennsylvania, 1674 to 1755. University of Pennsylvania, 1965. but they failed to locate him.E. B. Osler, “TONTY, HENRI,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed December 17, 2020 They returned up the river and established the Arkansas Post, the first European settlement in the lower Mississippi River Valley, where traders would exchange French goods with the local Quapaw for beaver furs. They then returned to Montreal.Lea Flowers Baker, "Henri de Tonti (1649–1704)," Encyclopedia of Arkansas
Early business venture, 1687 In 1687, Bisaillon entered into a partnership with Gédéon PetitStanwood, Owen. The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire. Oxford University Press, 2020. and the Sieur de Salvaye, (Pierre Salvaye TremontPierre Salvaye (or Salvail) Tremont, 1650-1689), two coureurs des bois who were wanted by French authorities for breaking trading rules by trafficking with the English and so had transferred their operations to Albany from Montreal (where Salvaye had served as an ambassadorO'Callaghan, Edmund Bailey, The Documentary History of the State of New-York, 1797-1880, Vol. 1. Weed, Parsons & Co. Albany, 1850 and Petit had managed a brothel).Stanwood, Owen. The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire. Oxford University Press, 2020. Brodhead, John Romeyn. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York: Procured in Holland, England, and France. Weed, Parsons, 1853. In a letter from New York dated 4 July 1687, Governor Thomas Dongan wrote to a Seneca chief: I have given leave to Mr. Gideon & Salvay & his Company, being french that Run away from Canida, to goe up by ye way of Susquehanne & trade amongst ye Indians. They have my Passe & you must tell yr People to do them No harme being gone upon Discovery.Robert Livingston, The Livingston Indian Records 1666-1723, Lawrence Leder (ed.), The Pennsylvania Historical Association, Gettysburg, Pa., 1956
The trading venture ended when their boat sank and their cargo was lost.Charles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path, Volume 1, Putnam's sons, 1911 In a letter from Pennsylvania Governor William Markham to Governor Francis Nicholson of Maryland on 26 June 1696, Markham says: I enclose to your Excellency what I found among castaway papers. Basalion was in equal partnership with Petit and Salvay, though it went in only their two names, Basalion coming in after the others had provided for the voyage, and after the voyage was overthrown, I divided the left cargo, and Basalion had one-third.
Partnership with Jacques Le Tort In about 1688, Bisaillon arrived in Pennsylvania, "poor and miserable,"Cecil Headlam, ed. Calendar of state papers, Colonial series. America and West Indies, Jan. - Dec. 1, 1702. The Hereford Times, Hereford, 1902 and joined the trading company of Jacques Le Tort, a Huguenot refugee. Le Tort was employed by the New Mediterranean Sea Company managed by Daniel Coxe and Matthias Vincent,Marfy Goodspeed, "Daniel Coxe, Merchant Investor," in Goodspeed Histories: New Jersey History and Genealogy, May 27, 2010 who attempted to establish a colony of French Huguenots in East and West Vincent Township, Pennsylvania and planned to create an empire in the Indian trade on the south shore of Lake Erie. However, the colony failed as Huguenot families did not want to move from Philadelphia to wild lands along the Susquehanna River, although Jacques Le Tort and his wife Anne established a homestead there. Vincent died in 1687 and Coxe sold the company to the London Company in 1692, but Bisaillon and other coureurs des bois went on trading in Pennsylvania. Bisaillon eventually went to work for the Pennsylvania Company and its manager Robert Quary. When a band of Shawnees came into Pennsylvania in 1694, Bisaillon met his old friend Martin Chartier, who had been on La Salle's 1679 expedition, but had mutinied and fled. He had married a Shawnee woman and assimilated into her band.Charles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path, Volume 2, Putnam's sons, 1911
By the late 1690s, the Canadian fur trade network had become so well-developed that there was a glut of furs coming into Quebec, leading to a drop in prices. For a few years, Bisaillon, Chartier and Le Tort ran a smuggling operation, bringing furs from Detroit to Albany and Pennsylvania, where the English paid a higher price for them.Marrero, Karen L., Detroit's Hidden Channels: The Power of French-Indigenous Families in the Eighteenth Century. Michigan State University Press, 2020.
On 4 May 1696, Casperus Augustine Herman, son of Augustine Herman and Lord of Bohemia Manor, wrote to the Maryland Provincial Council that: "Peter Basilion does now live at St. John's, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, but formerly lived thirty miles backwards from any inhabitants, where he treated with the Indians, and was then reported that...Capt. Le Tort, a Frenchman, does now live back in the woods in the same place where the said Basilion formerly lived, and trades with the Indians." This indicates that Bisaillon decided to move out of the backcountry, closer to a town such as Downingtown, while his colleague Jacques Le Tort took over the direct trade with the Native Americans who supplied most of their furs.
Legal problems in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania authorities including William Penn suspected that Bisaillon and other coureurs des bois such as Le Tort and Chartier were spying for the French, that they were "very dangerous persons" who "kept private correspondence with the Canida Indians and the French," who "entertained strange Indians in remote and obscure places," and who "uttered suspicious words."James Hart Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. They were harassed, arrested and imprisoned, often on false or minor charges.George O. Seilhamer, "Old Mother Cumberland," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1900), pp. 17-47
Conspiracy trial, 1693-04