MILITARY UNIFORMS IN AMERICA 965: Compagnies franches de la Marine, “Canadian Style” dress, mid-eighteenth century, by Francis Back and René Chartrand

Private, wilderness campaign Compagnies franches de la Marine, “Canadian Style” dress, mid-eighteenth century

Compagnies franches de la Marine, “Canadian Style” dress, mid-eighteenth century

Plate No. 965

In the eighteenth century, French soldiers posted in towns such as Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, and Montreal, as well as in large forts, usually wore European uniforms. But this dress changed as one went into the deep wilderness and into isolated western outposts. Also, as European military costume was proving almost useless for military expeditions going far away through forests and wild prairies, officers and men took to wearing the “short capot, mitasses, breechclouts, and deerskin shoes [mocassins]. This practical and light equipment [and dress] gave them a great advantage over enemies dressed in the European fashion” as a relative of Ens. Villiers de Jummonville later wrote.1

This remarkable costume was initially a result of the adaptation of the early French male settlers in Canada to the North American environment. Above the waist, they usually wore a wool cap, a cloth capot, which was basically a hooded coat that came in basically three lengths (short, medium, and long) and a with a sash fastened around the waist much like sailors. The garments bellow the waist were borrowed from the First Nations: the breechclout was a piece of rectangular cloth, which went between the legs and slipped over a waist-belt; the “mitasses” were long leggings of sturdy cloth or soft leather that were also attached to the waist-belt; the mocassins were the soft leather shoes without heels. This Canadian clothing, used in the fur trade and even for farm work, proved most suitable and, with variations, became the standard for militiamen going on military expeditions and raids in the wilderness.2

With regard to the French regular troops stationed in Canada, the Compagnies franches de la Marine, a gradual adaptation occurred from the 1680s when officers and men realized that Canadians were ideally dressed for North American wilderness raid warfare. It was really the only practical way to dress for going hundreds of kilometers deep into the forests or far away prairies by canoes and on foot. European style uniforms were nevertheless sent on to small western forts up until the early 1730s. Canoes would leave Montreal laden with uniforms for soldiers posted at Michilimackinac and as far the Miamis in Illinois. After Gilles Hocquart became Intendant [head of the civil administration] of New France in 1731, he put a stop to this expensive practice. In the future, soldiers who garrisoned such outposts would leave Montreal with their regulation European uniform and then procure replacement Canadian style clothing from their fort’s trade store. It seems that the soldiers in such outposts preserved their European style uniform for more formal occasions. However, for everyday life, patrolling in the wilderness and ordinary duties, soldiers wore the comfortable Canadian style clothing as show in this plate.3

The colors of the everyday ‘Canadian’ dress are not definitively known. “Regulation capots” and capots made with old uniform are mentioned, which seems to indicate these capots were often grey-white, possibly with blue cuffs, a logical choice in terms of logistics as well as the easy identification of troops on campaign. In the first half of the eighteenth century, there appears to have been a type of rank structure on this type of campaign clothing as the capots of officers were noted as being laced, while those of the enlisted men were plain. For soldiers of the Compagnies franches de la Marine, grey-white military forage caps with a blue turn-up (this may have varied with, for instance, some being all dark blue) made an ideal headdress. Both officers and men were armed with muskets, tomahawks, and several knives (usually one at the waist, one hanging down the chest and one fastened to a garter). Hangers and pistols might also be carried. The accouterments would have been the buff waist belt, the nine rounds’ belly cartridge box whose dark brown leather flap bore, by the 1740s, the stamped royal arms, a regulation powder horn with brass dispenser, a strong linen shoulder bag with its buff leather belt, and various items such as a cooking pot or tent poles. Only officers had gilt gorgets.4

This plate is reproduced from the original 1983 painting with the kind courtesy of the National Historic Sites Branch of Parks Canada.

Art: Francis Back Text: René Chartrand

1. Philipe Aubert de Gaspé, Les Anciens Canadiens (Montreal: Fides, 1970), 343–344. Aubert de Gaspé was the great uncle of Joseph de

Coulon de Villiers de Jummonville, the Compagnie franches officer killed by George Washington and his men in 1754. 2. Francis Back, “S’habiller à la canadienne”, Cap-aux-Diamants, No. 24, Hiver 1991. The finest and best illustrated study on the subject of traditional male costume in early French Canada. 3. Rapport de l’Archiviste de la Province de Québec (Quebec City, 1922), 198–199, shipments of uniforms to Michilimackinac (9 June 1722) and Miamis (27 July); Archives Nationales (France), Colonies (henceforth: AC), B, Vol. 72, f. 391. Minister to Beauharnois and Hocquart, Marly, 12 May 1741. 4. Archives Nationales du Québec à Montréal, Documents judiciares, boîte 06–MT1–1/64, dossier mai-juin-juillet 1754. Contains many references to soldiers standing guard at Fort Duquesne in their “capot d’ordonnance” (regulation capot). Boîte 06–MT1–1/161 contains the record of a trial concerning deserters at Fort Sandoskey [Sandusky] which mention capots made from old regulation uniforms and mentions one soldier who had left his uniform to be repaired by one a soldier-tailor named Lacouture at Detroit. On weapons and accoutrements, see: René Chartrand, French Military Arms and Amor in

America 1503–1783 (Woonsocket, RI: Mowbray, 2016), chapters 5 and 7.