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Home : Colonial America :Samuel de Champlain
The French were somewhat slow to develop an interest in the New World. It was only after a French privateer captured a Spanish ship laden with Mexican gold and silver that attentions were directed westward. Spurred by dreams of great wealth, Francis I (r. 1515-47), dispatched three navigators to the New World. Giovanni da Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier were instructed to discover a Northwest Passage to India. Verrazzano, a hired Italian pilot, failed to find the passage during his voyage of 1525, but he did establish a French claim to portions of North America. Cartier crossed the Atlantic in 1534 and 1535; on his second trip he ventured up the St. Lawrence River as far as the eventual site of Montréal. Sieur de Robervall in 1542 captained the first meaningful attempt by the French to establish a permanent settlement in North America; he took over a camp left earlier by Cartier at the site of present-day Québec; the settlers remained one brutal winter before returning to France. Samuel de Champlain, the greatest of the French explorers, though probably born a commoner, moved beyond his modest roots in the town of Brouage, France to become one of his country's most noted explorers. The acknowledged founder of the city of Quebec and the first European to discover the lake that bears his name, Champlain led expeditions deep into areas that would later be known as New York and Ontario. Son and nephew of mariners, Samuel Champlain did not study Ancient Greek or Latin, neither did he read ancient literature. He instead learned to navigate, draw, and make marine maps. From 1595 to 1598, he served into the royal army in Bretagne, first as a fourrier (feeding and cleaning horses). After 1598, thanks to his uncle-in-law, a navigator who often served into the Spanish fleet, he visited as an observer some spanish colonies into the Gulf of Mexico, for two years, and wrote an illustrated report on what he learnt during this long journey, and gave this secret report to his King, Henry IV. Three different handwritten copies of this report still exist. Champlain first suggested the possibility of uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by cutting through the Isthmus of Panama. Champlain kept a journal of his explorations in the Gulf of Mexico, and after his return to France, in 1601 or 1602, he received a pension and the appointment of geographer to the king. Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, and mapmaker. He explored much of eastern Canada and became known as the father of New France, which was the French part of Canada. Champlain first traveled to North America in 1603, after establishing a reputation as a skilled navigator in expeditions to the West Indies and Central America. Champlain arrived on board the Bonne-Renommée (the Good Fame) as an observer, with members of a fur-trading expedition. Although he had no official assignment on the voyage commanded by François Gravé Du Pont, a navigator and merchant, Champlain was anxious to see by himself all the way and the places that Jacques Cartier followed or saw, and described about sixty years before, and wanted to even go further. Champlain created a map of the St. Lawrence River and after his return to France on September 20, published an account as Des Sauvages: ou voyage de Samuel Champlain, de Brouages, faite en la France nouvelle l'an 1603 ("Concerning the Savages: or travels of Samuel Champlain, of Brouages, made in New France the year 1603") Promising again to Henry IV to make a report on his further discoveries, Champlain joined, in the spring of 1604, a second expedition to New France, but of long duration, south of the St. Lawrence River, in Acadia, and still without women neither children. It was led by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts, a Protestant merchant to whom was given fur trade monopoly in new France by Henry IV. He spent three years in Acadia, a region in what is now Nova Scotia. Champlain took part in several summer journeys around the area to find a suitable spot for a settlement, but, as the months dragged on, many of his compatriots died during the biting cold winter seasons. Champlain agreed in choosing the location of the Saint Croix Island settlement in the Bay of Fundy. However, after enduring a harsh winter on the island, the settlement was abandoned the following spring when Champlain, Gravé, and others, relocated the settlers to the Fundy coast of Nova Scotia at Port Royal. Champlain remained on the site until 1607, while he explored the Atlantic coast. In 1605 and 1606, Champlain explored the land that is now Chatham, Cape Cod, as a prospective settlement, but small skirmishes with the resident Monomoyick Indians dissuaded him from the idea. He named the area Port Fortune. By the time Champlain stopped at Cape Cod in 1605, he had been preceded by other adventurers, including the Englishman Bartholomew Gosnold, who named the spit of land in 1602. Champlain charted the safe harbors and the dangerous ones, met with the Indians, and sailed away to the north. His explorations led him as far south as the Massachusetts Bay, mapping areas that English explorers, who would land there in 1607, hadn't yet touched. In 1608, Champlain and 32 colonists founded what would later become the city of Quebec. Of the group, only nine survived the brutal winter to welcome new settlers in the spring. But trade alliances with native tribes led to prosperity and Champlain's Quebec colony flourished. Before Champlain, French explorer Jacques Cartier built a fort at the site in 1535, where he stayed for the winter before going back to France in spring 1536. He came back in 1541 with the goal of building a permanent settlement. This first settlement was abandoned less than one year after its foundation, in the summer 1542, due in large part to the hostility of the natives combined with the harsh living conditions during winter. It was left to Champlain to establish the first permanent French colony in North America. “I could find none more convenient or better situated than the point of Quebec, so called by the savages, which was covered with nut-trees. I at once employed a portion of our workmen in cutting them down,” he wrote, with a directness that leaps the years. ”… one I set to sawing boards, another to making a cellar and digging ditches, another I sent to Tadoussac with the barque to get supplies.” The narrowing of the Saint Lawrence River approximate to Quebec and Lévis, on the opposite bank, provided the name given to the city, Kébec, an Algonquin word meaning "where the river narrows". Quebec is one of the oldest cities in North America. The ramparts surrounding Old Quebec (Vieux-Québec) are the only remaining fortified city walls in the Americas north of Mexico. After three years in France, Champlain returned to Quebec in 1613 and organized missions to bolster the sagging French fur trade and further his own explorations. He led a group of Huron-Algonquin warriors in an ill-fated attack on an Iroquois village, but ceased his adventures in 1620 after the King Louis XIII ordered him back to Quebec as an administrator. In time Champlain ceased his explorations entirely to govern the Quebec settlement. His goals were to map North America, find a quicker way to get to the Pacific Ocean, and teach North American natives about Christianity. Many of Champlain's explorations were connected with military expeditions in company with the Hurons against the Iroquois Indians. In 1609 Champlain discovered the lake that was later named for him, and by 1615 he had reached the north end of Lake Huron. Samuel de Champlain was a major contributor to the development of a French presence in North America. When Quebec was overtaken during a war with the British in 1628, Champlain was taken to England as a prisoner. He was released after arguing Quebec's surrender to the British had occurred after the war between the two countries had ended. England returned Quebec to France in 1632 and Champlain returned a year later. Champlain died in Quebec in 1635. He left six fascinating books of travels, filled with many superb maps and illustrations. His writings tell much about his actions but little about the man, and nearly nothing about his inner life. French efforts in the New World differed sharply from those of the English. The French excelled at exploring new areas — even deep into the interior regions — while the English usually stayed close to the coastlines. The French contented themselves with developing thriving commercial interests, especially fur trading and fishing, rather than planting large permanent settlements populated by French citizens. These radically different colonial strategies did nothing to dim the growing rivalry between the two nations. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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