Works of Samuel de Champlain

There is no authentic portrait of Champlain and little is known about his family background or youth. He may have been baptized a Protestant.

It is certain, however, that he was a Catholic as of He may have made a voyage to the West Indies around ; though the account of these voyages, Bref Discours , is attributed to him, he himself never referred to it. He published an account of this voyage, the first detailed description of the St Lawrence since Jacques Cartier 's explorations. At Tadoussac and other locations in the Laurentian Valley, the French had contact primarily with the Montagnais , Algonquin, Malecite and Micmac peoples.

As a cartographer, he was given responsibility for investigating the coast in search of an ideal location for settlement. He was also required to act as diplomat in dealings with the Aboriginal peoples that Dugua wanted to get to know better. Twice, in and , he explored the coastline of what is now New England, going as far south as Cape Cod. Champlain developed a vast trade network by forming and consolidating alliances with the Montagnais of the St Lawrence, the nations on the Ottawa River and the Hurons of the Great Lakes.

This system obliged him to support his allies in their wars against the Iroquois , whose territory was to the south of Lake Ontario and into the state of New York.

He participated in military campaigns in on Lake Champlain , in near Sorel and in in Iroquois territory. Injured during the third expedition, he was forced to spend the winter of —16 in Huronia. He took advantage of this time to explore the Lake Huron region and develop cordial relations with new nations, notably the Odawa and the Nipissing. In a report, he outlined its commercial, industrial and agricultural opportunities.

The capital of the fledgling colony of New France was occupied by the English from until , when it was returned to the French. Paralyzed in the fall of , he died the following December. Champlain left behind a considerable body of writing, largely relating to his voyages. The most important editions of his work are the ones prepared by C.

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Champlain's works are the only account of the Laurentian colony at the beginning of the 17th century. Champlain approached de Chaste about a position on the first voyage, which he received with the king's assent. 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. Champlain was anxious to see for himself all of the places that Jacques Cartier had seen and described about 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 September 20, published an account as Des Sauvages: Promising to King Henry to report on further discoveries, Champlain joined a second expedition to New France in the spring of 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. 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 , Champlain used that site as his base, while he explored the Atlantic coast. Dugua was forced to leave the settlement for France in September , because he learned that his monopoly was at risk. His monopoly was rescinded by the king in July under pressure from other merchants and proponents of free trade, leading to the abandonment of the settlement.

In and , Champlain explored the North American coast as far south as Cape Cod , searching for sites for a permanent settlement.

Catalog Record: The works of Samuel de Champlain | Hathi Trust Digital Library

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". In the spring of , Dugua wanted Champlain to start a new French colony and fur trading center on the shores of the St.

Dugua equipped, at his own expense, a fleet of three ships with workers, that left the French port of Honfleur. The small group of male settlers arrived at Tadoussac on the lower St. 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. This was the very beginning of Quebec City. Gardening, exploring, and fortifying this place became great passions of Champlain for the rest of his life. Marie was a staunch Catholic with little interest in New France, and many of Champlain's Protestant financial supporters, including Pierre Dugua de Mons, were denied access to court.

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Champlain, on hearing the news, returned to France in September to establish new political connections in support of efforts at colonization. The marriage contract was signed on December 27, 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. Their relationship, while it apparently lacked any physical connection, recovered and was apparently good for many years. The couple had no children, although Champlain did adopt three Montagnais girls named Faith, Hope, and Charity in the winter of — During the summer of , Champlain attempted to form better relations with the local native tribes.

He made alliances with the Wendat derogatorily called Huron by the French and with the Algonquin , the Montagnais and the Etchemin, who lived in the area of the St. These tribes demanded that Champlain help them in their war against the Iroquois , who lived farther south. 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 July 29, 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 begun 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.

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This action set the tone for poor French-Iroquois relations for the rest of the century. The forces of Champlain 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. On March 29, , 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 traveled the Ottawa River , later giving the first description of this area. By August 26, Champlain was back in Saint-Malo. There, he wrote an account of his life from to and his journey up the Ottawa river, his Voyages [29] and published another map of New France. He returned to New France in the spring of with four Recollects in order to further religious life in the new colony.

The works of Samuel de Champlain

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. In , 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. 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 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.

He was accompanied by 10 Frenchmen and 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 May 22, , he left the Wendat country and returned to Quebec before heading back to France on July 2. Champlain returned to New France in and was to spend the rest of his life focusing on administration of the territory rather than exploration. 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.

Samuel de Champlain | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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 May 6, On August 15 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. Champlain was one of the investors, and its first fleet, loaded with colonists and supplies, set sail in April Champlain had overwintered in Quebec.

Supplies were low, and English merchants pillaged Cap Tourmente in early July Champlain refused to deal with them, misleading them to believe that Quebec's defenses were better than they actually were Champlain had only 50 pounds of gunpowder to defend the community. Successfully bluffed, they withdrew, but encountered and captured the French supply fleet, cutting off that year's supplies to the colony. A peace treaty had been signed in April , three months before the surrender, and, under the terms of that treaty, Quebec and other prizes were taken by the Kirkes after the treaty was supposed to be returned.

David Kirke was rewarded when Charles I knighted him and gave him a charter for Newfoundland. Champlain reclaimed his role as commander of New France on behalf of Richelieu on March 1, , having served in the intervening years as commander in New France "in the absence of my Lord the Cardinal de Richelieu " from to Champlain made more than twenty-five round-trip crossings of the Atlantic in his lifetime, without losing a single ship.

Champlain returned to Quebec on May 22, , after an absence of four years. Richelieu gave him a commission as Lieutenant General of New France , along with other titles and responsibilities, but not that of Governor. Despite this lack of formal status, many colonists, French merchants, and Indians treated him as if he had the title; writings survive in which he is referred to as "our governor". He also began an offensive against the Iroquois, reporting that he wanted them either wiped out or "brought to reason".

Champlain had a severe stroke in October , and died on December 25, leaving no immediate heirs. Jesuit records state he died in the care of his friend and confessor Charles Lallemant. However, Marie Camaret, a cousin on his mother's side, challenged the will in Paris and had it successfully overturned.

It is unclear exactly what happened to his estate. Samuel de Champlain was temporarily buried in the church while a standalone chapel was built to hold his remains in the upper part of the city. Unfortunately, this small building, along with many others, was destroyed by a large fire in Though immediately rebuilt, no traces of it exist anymore: The search for Champlain's remains supplies a key plot-line in the crime writer Louise Penny 's novel, Bury Your Dead.

Many sites and landmarks have been named to honour Champlain, who remains, to this day, a prominent historical figure in many parts of Acadia , Ontario , Quebec , New York , and Vermont.