Charles de Menou Charnisay, Seigneur d'Aulnay (ca. 1604-1650), was a governor of Acadia, a territory in the northeast of Canada. He was responsible for a solid and well-rooted establishment of French colonists in Nova Scotia.

Charles de Menou Charnisay was the son of a councilor of state of Louis XIII. He served in the French navy and, when his cousin Isaac de Razilly was appointed governor of Acadia in 1632, went there with him to a settlement at the mouth of the La Have River on the south shore of Nova Scotia, not far from the present town of Bridgewater.

On the death of Razilly in 1635, Charnisay acted as the effective governor of Acadia, though he did not have the title, which had been passed to Razilly's brother, with whom Charnisay worked cordially. Gradually the weight of settlement was shifted from La Have to the sunnier and more fertile...