TIBIERGE, agent of the Compagnie de la Pêche sédentaire de l’Acadie, author of several reports on Acadia around the period 1695 to 1703.

Biographical details about Tibierge are rare. The Compagnie de la Pêche sédentaire de l’Acadie had brought into association a number of La Rochelle merchants, among them Bergier* (who was the owner of the ship Saint-Louis, and on 8 May 1684 obtained registration of a fishing concession on the Acadian coast); Tibierge himself, however, does not seem to have come originally from La Rochelle. He stayed in Acadia as an agent of the company at Fort Saint-Joseph (Nashwaak) on the Saint John River from July 1695 to July 1697. He made a trip to Les Mines (Grandpré, N.S.) and Beaubassin (Chignecto) in the autumn of 1698 and he was still in Acadia in 1703. At that time he was instructed to load on the Éléphant, commanded by the Sieur Petit, the merchandise which the company, now in decline, still owned in Acadia. This merchandise was to be handed over at La Rochelle to the company’s mercantile agent.

Tibierge was the author of journals and reports about Acadia. The journals cover the period 1695–96, the reports are of later date. A good observer of things and people, he has left a description of Fort Saint-Joseph and of the works that were carried out there by Villebon [Robinau * ] from 1696 to 1697, as well as day-to-day notations about relations between the principal officers and settlers, relations between English, French, and Indians, and the intrigues of France and England concerning the Indians. He spoke highly of Father Louis-Pierre Thury*, but censured the behaviour of the other missionaries, who, he said, neglected the garrison, busied themselves with discrediting the company in the eyes of the settlers by asserting that it was exploiting them, and encouraged trade with the English. He insisted on the necessity of forbidding officers to engage in trade, even if it meant compensating them with presents. Finally he wanted to reduce the company’s profits so that the settlers might receive their due. He likewise advocated that a ship be dispatched annually from Acadia to the West Indies to supply the islands with various kinds of meal, peas, salt meat, cod, fish-oil, boards, planks, and joists. For this purpose, he reported, it would be necessary to build a warehouse for the company at Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal) and another at Les Mines.

On 21 May 1698 he received from the king a land grant in Canada a league and a half in depth. After 1703 we lose all trace of this person.

M. A. Ménier

AN, Col., B, 20, f.81v; 23, f.266v; C^11D, 3, f.216ff. Two journals and a memorial by Tibierge have been printed in Webster, Acadia, 141–55.