Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville was born in Ville Marie (Montreal) in 1661 and died in Havana, Cuba, in 1706, just six days before his 45th birthday. He was the son of a wealthy fur merchant and had 10 brothers and all distinguished themselves in solidifying the French position in New France, Pierre making his mark in the Hudson Bay campaign. He went to France at age 14 to become a midshipman in the French Navy returning to Canada four years later.
He has been described as "ship's captain, explorer, colonizer, privateer and trader". He moved to
prominence in Hudson Bay which led to his being given a commission in 1695 to drive all the
English settler from the East Coast, from Fort William Henry on the Maine-Acadia border to
Newfoundland. After the fall of that Fort he sailed to Placentia with three ships and in 1696 began
the Newfoundland campaign. With a company of 400, some of whom were Canadian Indians, he
set out across the Avalon Peninsula to Ferryland, where he began a systematic tour of the coast
around Cape St. Francis up to Holyrood and on to Carbonear where he was finally stopped by a
civilian garrison on Carbonear Island. He was accompanied by Jacques-Francois de Mombeton
deBrouillon who had tried unsuccessfully, the year before to take St. John's. In all he destroyed
36 settlements, killed 200.