In 1609,
Samuel de Champlain, on his way to
Lake Champlain, wrote of a
Huron and
Algonquin encampment one and a half leagues from St. Mary's River, which places it around the modern settlement of Batiscan. A year later, he wrote of having met an indigenous leader called "Batiscan". On his map of 1612, Champlain designated this area north of the Saint Lawrence River as the "region of bastisquan". While the name has virtually remained unchanged since first mentioned by Champlain, its meaning has remained uncertain, possibly meaning mist or haze (as often seen at the mouth of the Batiscan River), pulverized dried meat, rushes, or even making a mistake, taking a misstep. In 1636, the Madeleine Seignory was granted to Jacques Laferté, and included all the territory between the Chevrotière and
Saint-Maurice Rivers, until 100 kilometers inland from the Saint Lawrence River. Subsequently, the seignory was divided into several smaller estates or fiefs, including the Batiscan Fiefdom that on March 13, 1639, was given to the
Jesuits to accommodate the evangelization and the settlement of Indian tribes living there. This territory corresponded approximately to the current municipalities of Batiscan and
Saint-Geneviève-de-Batiscan. The actual colonization of the area began in 1666, and it developed according to the
seigneurial system of New France. The land granted to each settler was typically a long narrow rectangle with a proportion of about 1 to 10, that would allow each settler access to the river and the road. By 1709, all land bordering the Saint Lawrence River was occupied and a second row was equally divided inland. Over time, the territory of Batiscan grew to have 3 rows south-west of the Batiscan River and 2 rows north-east of it. In 1845, the Parish Municipality of Saint-François-Xavier-de-Batiscan was formed. It was abolished a few years later but reestablished on July 1, 1855. ==Geography==