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In 1604, Pierre Dugua Sieur de Mons, accompanied by Samuel Champlain and 77 other men, established a settlement on St. Croix Island. Preceding Jamestown (1607) and Plymouth (1620), Sieur de Mons' outpost was one of the earliest European settlements on the North Atlantic coast of North America. More specifically, it was the first attempt by the French at permanent colonization in the territory they called La Cadie or l'Acadie (Acadia).

Champlain drew a plan of the St. Croix settlement and described the challenge of sowing grain and nurturing gardens over a dry summer. He also left a record of their voyages and meetings along the way with many of the Algonquin peoples. As it turned out, the island’s isolation and unusually harsh winter severely tested the colonists. More than half succumbed to scurvy before the mild weather brought friendly Wabenaki with fresh game.

The settlement was short-lived, however, and in the summer of 1605, the French moved to a more favorable location where they established the Port Royal Habitation on the shores of the present-day Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia. The experience of the French on St. Croix Island taught them much about the "New World" environment and about interacting with the native peoples.