Pierre de Monts (1560?-1630?), French explorer and colonizer in North America. A Huguenot who had served under Henry IV of France, de Monts was granted a trade monopoly in New France (France's colonial empire in North America) in 1603. In 1603 de Monts and French explorer Samuel de Champlain made an expedition to the St. Lawrence River. In 1604 the explorers established a colony on an island at the mouth of the Saint Croix River, between present-day Maine and New Brunswick; in 1605 they relocated the colony to Port Royal (present-day Annapolis Royal) in Nova Scotia. De Monts and Champlain used the colony as a base for exploring the east coast of North America.