Fonds

Born in Montreal, Maurice-Régis Blondeau (1734-1809) was the son of Jean-Baptiste Blondeau (1700-1787) and Marie Geneviève Lefebvre Angers (1713-1787). The Blondeau family settled in New France in the mid-17th century and included several fur traders. Jean-Baptiste Blondeau, the father of Maurice-Régis, specialized in the trade in the "Illinois Country" (area in the Mississippi Valley colonized by the French in what is now the states of Illinois and Missouri). From 1757 to 1767, Maurice-Régis took part, probably as a "hired man" (a labourer hired on contract, usually as a paddler), in fur-trading expeditions to Fort Saint-Frédéric (New York), Fort Dauphin and Fort La Reine (Manitoba), Michilimakinac (Michigan) and Grand Portage (Minnesota).

Upon his return to Montreal, Maurice-Régis Blondeau married Marie Josephe Le Pellé Lahaye (1736?-1809) in 1767. He immediately left again for the "Upper Country" (Great Lakes region) and points further west, in present-day Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where he conducted several fur-trading expeditions. Montreal was, however, the administrative centre of this commercial activity, and in the 1770s, he purchased two houses (one with a storehouse) on St. Paul Street, another on St. François, and a fourth on De l'Hôpital.

Beginning in 1774, Maurice-Régis Blondeau collaborated with other traders, including Jean Baptiste Amable Adhémar, James McGill, Isaac Todd, and Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, to trade furs in the Lake Superior region. A short time later, he joined the North West Company (NWC), a coalition of Montreal fur traders founded in 1779 following fur trader Peter Pond's discovery of a particularly rich trapping area in the area of Lake Athabasca (northern Saskatchewan). The company's goal was to pool the efforts and resources of Montreal fur merchants, who were being affected by the growing costs of doing business in the Northwest and competition amongst themselves. The other NWC objectives were to oppose the monopoly enjoyed by the Hudson's Bay Company and pressure the colonial government to limit any regulations affecting trade. The NWC included influential business leaders like Simon McTavish, Isaac Todd, James McGill and the Frobisher brothers, Benjamin, Joseph and Thomas. Headquartered in Montreal, the company set up numerous trading posts in the northern Plains and the Subarctic. The company's success over its 42 or so years of existence was due largely to its proactive business practices. NWC merchants went further inland, following the main waterways, seeking out Aboriginal trappers, who were key to the fur trade, and establishing a veritable system of economic and cultural exchange with them.

In the years that followed, Maurice-Régis Blondeau partnered with John Grant, Gabriel Cotté and Jean-Baptiste Cadot to conduct fur-trading expeditions around the Great Lakes. In 1785, he was also a founding member of Montreal's Beaver Club. This club, made up exclusively of fur traders working in the "Upper Country," was closely associated with the activities of the NWC. It was dissolved in 1827.

In addition to his business activities, Maurice-Régis Blondeau was involved in the political, legal and military affairs of Montreal and the colony. For example, in 1785 he was part of the reform movement advocating the adoption of a British-style constitution, and in 1794 he was a member of the Association loyale de Montreal. He helped administer Jesuit landholdings in the seigneury of Prairie-de-la-Madeleine and in Montreal. He was also a justice of the peace in Montreal from 1795 to 1799, and an officer in Montreal's 1st Militia Battalion between 1791 and 1802.

Maurice-Régis Blondeau died in Montreal in 1809.