Champlain Fort

Samuel de Champlain (; Fichier OrigineFor a detailed analysis of his baptismal record, see RitchThe baptism act does not contain information about the age of Samuel, neither his birth date nor his place of birth. – 25 December 1635) was a French colonist, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He made between 21 and 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean, and founded Quebec, and New France, on 3 July 1608. An important figure in Canadian history, Champlain created the first accurate coastal map during his explorations, and founded various colonial settlements.

Born into a family of sailors, Champlain began exploring North America in 1603, under the guidance of his uncle, François Gravé Du Pont. d'Avignon (2008) After 1603, Champlain's life and career consolidated into the path he would follow for the rest of his life.

From 1604 to 1607, he participated in the exploration and creation of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida, Port Royal, Acadia (1605).

In 1608, he established the French settlement that is now Quebec City.Thanks to Pierre Dugua de Mons, who fully financed—at a loss—the first years of both French settlements in North America (first Acadia, then Quebec).

Champlain was the first European to describe the Great Lakes, and published maps of his journeys and accounts of what he learned from the natives and the French living among the Natives.

He formed long time relationships with local Montagnais and Innu, and, later, with others farther west—tribes of the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, and Georgian Bay, and with Algonquin and Wendat. He agreed to provide assistance in the Beaver Wars against the Iroquois. He learned and mastered their languages.

Late in the year of 1615, Champlain returned to the Wendat and stayed with them over the winter, which permitted him to make the first ethnographic observations of this important nation, the events of which form the bulk of his book ''Voyages et Decouvertes faites en la Nouvelle France, depuis l’année 1615'' published in 1619.

In 1620, Louis XIII of France ordered Champlain to cease exploration, return to Quebec, and devote himself to the administration of the country.According to Trudel (1979), Louis was 18 years old, an inexperienced minor (when age of majority was 25), and Champlain was lieutenant to the Prince de Condé, the viceroy of New France since 1612, who, as Trudel writes, "was liberated rom jail, where he been for 3 yearsin October 1619, and yielded his rights as viceroy to Henri II de Montmorency, admiral of France. The latter confirmed Champlain in his office .. On 7 May 1620, Louis XIII wrote to Champlain to enjoin him to maintain the country 'in obedience to me, making the people who are there live as closely in conformity with the laws of my kingdom as you can.' From that moment Champlain was to devote himself exclusively to the administration of the country; he was to undertake no further great voyages of discovery; his career as an explorer had ended."

In every way but formal title, Samuel de Champlain served as Governor of New France, a title that may have been formally unavailable to him owing to his non-noble status.Some say that the King of France made him his "''royal'' geographer", but it is unproven and may only come from Marc Lescarbot books: Champlain never used that title.

The honorific "''de''" was only added to his name from 1610, when he was already well-known, right after his patron, King Henry IV, was murdered. This usage by a non-noble was tolerated so that he would continue to gain access to the court during the long regency of King Louis XIII (who was only eight years old at the death of his father).

Champlain received the official title of "lieutenant" (adjunct representative) of whichever noble was designated as Viceroy of New France, the first being Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons.

In 1629, Champlain was named "commandant" under the authority of the King Minister, Richelieu. It was Champlain's successor, Charles Jacques Huault de Montmagny, who was the first to be formally named as the governor of New France, when he moved to Quebec City in 1636 and became the first noble to live there in that century. Champlain established trading companies that sent goods, primarily fur, to France, and oversaw the growth of New France in the St. Lawrence River valley until his death, in 1635.

Many places, streets, and structures in northeastern North America today bear his name, most notably Lake Champlain.

Early life

Champlain was born to Antoine Champlain (also written "Anthoine Chappelain" in some records) and Marguerite Le Roy, in either Hiers-Brouage, or the port city of La Rochelle, in the French province of Aunis.

He was born on or before 13 August 1574, according to a recent baptism record found by Jean-Marie Germe, French genealogist. Germe, p. 2

Although in 1870, the Canadian Catholic priest Laverdière, in the first chapter of his ''Œuvres de Champlain'', accepted Pierre-Damien Rainguet's estimate of Champlain's birth in 1567 and tried to justify it, his calculations were based on assumptions now believed or proven, to be incorrect.

Although Léopold Delayant (member, secretary, then president of ''l'Académie des belles-lettres, sciences et arts de La Rochelle'') wrote as early as 1867 that Rainguet's estimate was wrong, the books of Rainguet and Laverdière have had a significant influence. The 1567 date was carved on numerous monuments dedicated to Champlain and is widely regarded as accurate.

In the first half of the 20th century, some authors disagreed, choosing 1570 or 1575 instead of 1567. In 1978 Jean Liebel published groundbreaking research about these estimates of Champlain's birth year and concluded, "Samuel Champlain was born about 1580 in Brouage, France."

Liebel asserts that some authors, including the Catholic priests Rainguet and Laverdière, preferred years when Brouage was under Catholic control (which include 1567, 1570, and 1575).
Champlain claimed to be from Brouage in the title of his 1603 book and to be ''Saintongeois'' in the title of his second book (1613).

He belonged to either a Protestant family, or a tolerant Roman Catholic one since Brouage was most of the time a Catholic city in a Protestant region, and his Old Testament first name (Samuel) was not usually given to Catholic children.

According to many modern historians, including Alain Laberge, the 2008 Chair of the History Department at Quebec City's Laval University, a specialist in the history of New France, Champlain could have been born a Protestant. A guest on the 6 February 2008 CBC radio program, ''Sounds Like Canada'', Professor Laberge said that the fact of Champlain's Protestantism would have been downplayed or omitted from educational materials in Quebec by the Roman Catholic Church, who controlled Quebec's education system from 1627 until 1962.

However, Champlain was born in or near a time when the city was taken by Protestants, but Brouage became a royal fortress and its governor, from 1627 until his death in 1642, was Cardinal Richelieu, a strong anti-Protestant. The exact location of his birth is thus also not known with certainty, but at the time of his birth his parents were living in Brouage.His family lived in Brouage at the time of his birth; the exact place and date of his birth are unknow
Britannica.com
/ref>

Born into a family of mariners (both his father and uncle-in-law were sailors, or navigators), Samuel Champlain learned to navigate, draw, make nautical charts, and write practical reports. His education did not include Ancient Greek or Latin, so he did not read or learn from any ancient literature.

As each French fleet had to assure its own defense at sea, Champlain sought to learn to fight with the firearms of his time: he acquired this practical knowledge when serving with the army of King Henry IV during the later stages of France's religious wars in Brittany from 1594 or 1595 to 1598, beginning as a quartermaster responsible for the feeding and care of horses.

During this time he claimed to go on a "certain secret voyage" for the king, and saw combat (including maybe the Siege of Fort Crozon, at the end of 1594). Fischer (2008), p. 65 Note: Fischer cites numerous other authorities in repeating this. By 1597 he was a "capitaine d'une compagnie" serving in a garrison near Quimper.

Early travels

In year 3, his uncle-in-law, a navigator whose ship ''Saint-Julien'' was to transport Spanish troops to Cádiz pursuant to the Treaty of Vervins, gave Champlain the opportunity to accompany him.

After a difficult passage, he spent some time in Cádiz before his uncle, whose ship was then chartered to accompany a large Spanish fleet to the West Indies, again offered him a place on the ship. His uncle, who gave command of the ship to Jeronimo de Valaebrera, instructed the young Champlain to watch over the ship.

This journey lasted two years and gave Champlain the opportunity to see or hear about Spanish holdings from the Caribbean to Mexico City. Along the way, he took detailed notes, wrote an illustrated report on what he learned on this trip, and gave this secret report to King Henry,Three different handwritten copies of this report still exist. One of them is at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. who rewarded Champlain with an annual pension.

This report was published for the first time in 1870, by Laverdière, as ''Brief Discours des Choses plus remarquables que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a reconneues aux Indes Occidentalles au voiage qu'il en a faict en icettes en l'année 1599 et en l'année 1601, comme ensuite'' (and in English as ''Narrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico 1599–1602'').

The authenticity of this account as a work written by Champlain has frequently been questioned, due to inaccuracies and discrepancies with other sources on a number of points; however, recent scholarship indicates that the work probably was authored by Champlain.For a detailed treatment of claims against Champlain's authorship, see the chapter by François-Marc Gagnon in Litalien (2004), pp. 84ff. Fischer (2008), pp. 586ff also addresses these claims and accepts Champlain's authorship.

On Champlain's return to Cádiz in August 1600, his uncle Guillermo Elena (Guillaume Allene), who had fallen ill, asked him to look after his business affairs. This Champlain did, and when his uncle died in June 1601, Champlain inherited his substantial estate. It included an estate near La Rochelle, commercial properties in Spain, and a 150-ton merchant ship.

This inheritance, combined with the king's annual pension, gave the young explorer a great deal of independence, as he did not need to rely on the financial backing of merchants and other investors.

From 1601 to 1603 Champlain served as a geographer in the court of King Henry IV. As part of his duties, he traveled to French ports and learned much about North America from the fishermen that seasonally traveled to coastal areas from Nantucket to Newfoundland to capitalize on the rich fishing grounds there.

He also made a study of previous French failures at colonization in the area, including that of Pierre de Chauvin at Tadoussac. When Chauvin forfeited his monopoly on the fur trade in North America in 1602, responsibility for renewing the trade was given to Aymar de Chaste. Champlain approached de Chaste about a position on the first voyage, which he received with the king's assent.

Champlain's first trip to North America was as an observer on a fur-trading expedition led by François Gravé Du Pont. Du Pont was a navigator and merchant who had been a ship's captain on Chauvin's expedition, and with whom Champlain established a firm lifelong friendship.

He educated Champlain about navigation in North America, including the Saint Lawrence River, and in dealing with the natives there (and in Acadia after). The ''Bonne-Renommée'' (the ''Good Fame'') arrived at Tadoussac on March 15, 1603. Champlain was anxious to see for himself all of the places that Jacques Cartier had seen and described sixty years earlier, and wanted to go even further than Cartier, if possible.

Champlain created a map of the Saint Lawrence on this trip and, after his return to France on 20 September, 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 in the year 1603").

Champlain did not begin using the honorific ''de'' in his name until at least 1610 when he married, the year King Henry was murdered. A reprint of this book in 1612 was credited to "Sieur ''de'' Champlain
civilization.ca
/ref>

Included in his account were meetings with Begourat, chief of the Montagnais at Tadoussac, in which positive relationships were established between the French and the many Montagnais gathered there, with some Algonquin friends.

Promising to King Henry to report on further discoveries, Champlain joined a second expedition to New France in the spring of 1604. This trip, once again an exploratory journey without women and children, lasted several years, and focused on areas south of the St. Lawrence River, in what later became known as Acadia. It was led by Pierre Dugua de Mons, a noble and Protestant merchant who had been given a fur trading monopoly in New France by the king. Dugua asked Champlain to find a site for winter settlement.

After exploring possible sites in the Bay of Fundy, Champlain selected Saint Croix Island in the St. Croix River as the site of the expedition's first winter settlement. After enduring a harsh winter on the island the settlement was relocated across the bay where they established Port Royal. Until 1607, Champlain used that site as his base, while he explored the Atlantic coast. Dugua was forced to leave the settlement for France in September 1605, because he learned that his monopoly was at risk. His monopoly was rescinded by the king in July 1607 under pressure from other merchants and proponents of free trade, leading to the abandonment of the settlement.

In 1605 and 1606, Champlain explored the North American coast as far south as Cape Cod, searching for sites for a permanent settlement. Minor skirmishes with the resident Nausets dissuaded him from the idea of establishing one near present-day Chatham, Massachusetts. He named the area Mallebar ("bad bar"). Vermont Map

Founding of Quebec

In the spring of 1608, Dugua wanted Champlain to start a new French colony and fur trading centre on the shores of the St. Lawrence. Dugua equipped, at his own expense, a fleet of three ships with workers, that left the French port of Honfleur. The main ship, called ''Don-de-Dieu'' (French for ''Gift of God''), was commanded by Champlain. Another ship, ''Lévrier'' (''Hunt Dog''), was commanded by his friend Du Pont. The small group of male settlers arrived at Tadoussac on the lower St. Lawrence in June. Because of the dangerous strength of the Saguenay River ending there, they left the ships and continued up the "Big River" in small boats bringing the men and the materials.Only at his last arrival (in 1633), Champlain did not leave the ships at Tadoussac but sailed them directly to Quebec City. Trudel (1979)

Upon arriving in Quebec, Champlain later wrote: "I arrived there on the third of July, when I searched for a place suitable for our settlement; but I could find none more convenient or better suited than the point of Quebec, so called by the savages, which was covered with nut-trees." Champlain ordered his men to gather lumber by cutting down the nut-trees for use in building habitations.

Some days after Champlain's arrival in Quebec, Jean du Val, a member of Champlain's party, plotted to kill Champlain to the end of securing the settlement for the Basques or Spaniards and making a fortune for himself. Du Val's plot was ultimately foiled when an associate of Du Val confessed his involvement in the plot to Champlain's pilot, who informed Champlain. Champlain had a young man deliver Du Val, along with 3 co-conspirators, two bottles of wine and invite the four worthies to an event on board a boat. Soon after the four conspirators arrived on the boat, Champlain had them arrested. Du Val was strangled and hung in Quebec and his head was displayed in the "most conspicuous place" of Champlain's fort. The other three were sent back to France to be tried.

Relations and war with Native Americans

During the summer of 1609, Champlain attempted to form better relations with the local First Nations tribes. He made alliances with the Wendat (called ''Huron'' by the French) and with the Algonquin, the Montagnais and the Etchemin, who lived in the area of the St. Lawrence River. These tribes sought Champlain's help in their war against the Iroquois, who lived farther south. Champlain set off with nine French soldiers and 300 natives to explore the ''Rivière des Iroquois'' (now known as the Richelieu River), and became the first European to map Lake Champlain. Having had no encounters with the Haudenosaunee at this point many of the men headed back, leaving Champlain with only 2 Frenchmen and 60 natives.

On 29 July, somewhere in the area near Ticonderoga and Crown Point, New York (historians are not sure which of these two places, but Fort Ticonderoga historians claim that it occurred near its site), Champlain and his party encountered a group of Haudenosaunee. In a battle that began the next day, two hundred and fifty Haudenosaunee advanced on Champlain's position, and one of his guides pointed out the three chiefs. In his account of the battle, Champlain recounts firing his arquebus and killing two of them with a single shot, after which one of his men killed the third. The Haudenosaunee turned and fled. While this cowed the Iroquois for some years, they would later return to successfully fight the French and Algonquin for the rest of the century.In 1701, The Great Peace Treaty was signed in Montreal, involving the French and every Indigenous nation coming or living on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River except maybe in wintertime.

The Battle of Sorel occurred on 19 June 1610, with Samuel de Champlain supported by the Kingdom of France and his allies, the Wendat people, Algonquin people and Innu people against the Mohawk people in New France at present-day Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. Champlain's forces armed with the arquebus engaged and slaughtered or captured nearly all of the Mohawks. The battle ended major hostilities with the Mohawks for twenty years.

Marriage

One route Champlain may have chosen to improve his access to the court of the regent was his decision to enter into marriage with the twelve-year-old Hélène Boullé. She was the daughter of Nicolas Boullé, a man charged with carrying out royal decisions at court. The marriage contract was signed on 27 December 1610 in presence of Dugua, who had dealt with the father, and the couple was married three days later. The terms of the contract called for the marriage to be consummated two years later.

Champlain's marriage was initially quite troubled, as Hélène rallied against joining him in August 1613. Their relationship, while it apparently lacked any physical connection, recovered and was apparently good for many years. Hélène lived in Quebec for several years, but returned to Paris and eventually decided to enter a convent. The couple had no children, and Champlain adopted three Montagnais girls named Faith, Hope, and Charity in the winter of 1627–28.

Exploration of New France

On 29 March 1613, arriving back in New France, he first ensured that his new royal commission be proclaimed. Champlain set out on May 27 to continue his exploration of the Huron country and in hopes of finding the "northern sea" he had heard about (probably Hudson Bay). He travelled the Ottawa River, later giving the first description of this area.In 1953, a rock was found at a location now known as the Champlain lookout, which bore the inscription "Champlain juin 2, 1613". What about this finding? Along the way, he apparently dropped or left behind a cache of silver cups, copper kettles, and a brass astrolabe dated 160
(Champlain's Astrolabe)
which was later found by a farm boy named Edward Lee near Cobden, Ontario. It was in June that he met with Tessouat, the Algonquin chief of Allumettes Island, and offered to build the tribe a fort if they were to move from the area they occupied, with its poor soil, to the locality of the Lachine Rapids.

By 26 August, Champlain was back in Saint-Malo. There, he wrote an account of his life from 1604 to 1612 and his journey up the Ottawa river, his ''Voyages'' and published another map of New France. In 1614, he formed the "Compagnie des Marchands de Rouen et de Saint-Malo" and "Compagnie de Champlain", which bound the Rouen and Saint-Malo merchants for eleven years. He returned to New France in the spring of 1615 with four Recollects in order to further religious life in the new colony. The Roman Catholic Church was eventually given '' en seigneurie'' large and valuable tracts of land, estimated at nearly 30% of all the lands granted by the French Crown in New France. Dalton (1968)

In 1615, Champlain reunited with Étienne Brûlé, his capable interpreter, following separate four-year explorations. There, Brûlé reported North American explorations, including that he had been joined by another French interpreter named Grenolle with whom he had travelled along the north shore of ''la mer douce'' (the calm sea), now known as Lake Huron, to the great rapids of Sault Ste. Marie, where Lake Superior enters Lake Huron, some of which was recorded by Champlain.(online
archive.orgLibrary of Congress

Champlain continued to work to improve relations with the natives, promising to help them in their struggles against the Iroquois. With his native guides, he explored further up the Ottawa River and reached Lake Nipissing. He then followed the French River until he reached Lake Huron.

In 1615, Champlain was escorted through the area that is now Peterborough, Ontario by a group of Wendat. He used the ancient portage between Chemong Lake and Little Lake (now Chemong Road) and stayed for a short period of time near what is now Bridgenorth.

Military expedition

On 1 September 1615, at Cahiagué (a Wendat community on what is now called Lake Simcoe), he and the northern tribes started a military expedition against the Iroquois. The party passed Lake Ontario at its eastern tip where they hid their canoes and continued their journey by land. They followed the Oneida River until they arrived at the main Onondaga fort on October 10. The exact location of this place is still a matter of debate. Although the traditional location, Nichols Pond, is regularly disproved by professional and amateur archaeologists, many still claim that Nichols Pond is the location of the battle, south of Canastota, New York. Weiskotten (1998) Champlain attacked the stockaded Oneida village. He was accompanied by 10 Frenchmen and 300 Wendat. Pressured by the Huron Wendat to attack prematurely, the assault failed. Champlain was wounded twice in the leg by arrows, one in his knee. The conflict ended on October 16 when the French Wendat were forced to flee.

Although he did not want to, the Wendat insisted that Champlain spend the winter with them. During his stay, he set off with them in their great deer hunt, during which he became lost and was forced to wander for three days living off game and sleeping under trees until he met up with a band of First Nations people by chance. He spent the rest of the winter learning "their country, their manners, customs, modes of life". On 22 May 1616, he left the Wendat country and returned to Quebec before heading back to France on 2 July.

Improving administration in New France

Champlain returned to New France in 1620 and was to spend the rest of his life focusing on administration of the territory rather than exploration. Champlain spent the winter building Fort Saint-Louis on top of Cape Diamond. By mid-May, he learned that the fur trading monopoly had been handed over to another company led by the Caen brothers. After some tense negotiations, it was decided to merge the two companies under the direction of the Caens. Champlain continued to work on relations with the natives and managed to impose on them a chief of his choice. He also negotiated a peace treaty with the Iroquois.

Champlain continued to work on the fortifications of what became Quebec City, laying the first stone on 6 May 1624. On 15 August he once again returned to France where he was encouraged to continue his work as well as to continue looking for a passage to China, something widely believed to exist at the time. By July 5 he was back at Quebec and continued expanding the city.

In 1627 the Caen brothers' company lost its monopoly on the fur trade, and Cardinal Richelieu (who had joined the Royal Council in 1624 and rose rapidly to a position of dominance in French politics that he would hold until his death in 1642) formed the Compagnie des Cent-Associés (the Hundred Associates) to manage the fur trade. Champlain was one of the 100 investors, and its first fleet, loaded with colonists and supplies, set sail in April 1628.

Champlain had overwintered in Quebec. Supplies were low, and English merchants sacked Cap Tourmente in early July 1628. A war had broken out between France and England, and Charles I of England had issued letters of marque that authorized the capture of French shipping and its colonies in North America. Champlain received a summons to surrender on July 10 from the Kirke brothers, two Scottish brothers who were working for the English government

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases