The failure of the colony — the discovery that the “gold” was pyrite, that the “diamonds” were quartz, that the land was not quickly exploitable in the way that the silver mines of Peru had been for Spain — was a significant blow to French colonial ambition.

Marguerite’s abandonment on her island was a minor incident within this larger story — a personal act of a colonial administrator exercising his authority.

But it is also inseparable from that larger story.

She was on that ship because of the colonial ambition that drove Roberval across the Atlantic.

She was abandoned in the context of a colonial governance structure that gave her guardian essentially unchecked authority over her.

And her return to France was made possible by the commercial fishing industry that was itself a product of European engagement with North Atlantic resources.