The Compagnies Franches de la Marine, who…
August 1690 CE
The Compagnies Franches de la Marine, who are to constitute the longest-serving unit of French regular force troops in New France, have come to identify themselves with the colony over the years, while the officer corps becomes completely Canadianized.
Thus in a sense these troops can be identified as Canada's first standing professional armed force.
Officers' commissions both in the militia and in the Compagnie Franches become much coveted positions among the socially eminent of the colony.
The militia together with members of the Compagnie Franches, dressed in the manner of their Algonquin native allies, has come to specialize in that swift and mobile brand of warfare termed la petite guerre, characterized by long and silent expeditions through the forests and sudden and violent descents upon enemy encampments and settlements—the same kind of warfare that the Iroquois practice against them.
As they are seen to be urging the Iroquois on, some of the most infamous of these raids are made against settlements in the English colonies.
A party of over two hundred French and Sault and Algonquin raiders set out from Montreal to attack English outposts to the south as retaliation for a series of devastating Iroquois raids for which the English had provided weapons and ammunition.
Isolated northern and western settlements are the targets.
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville takes part in a raid on the English at Schenectady, New York, on August 2, 1690, known as the Schenectady Massacre.
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