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Samuel de Champlain

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Samuel de Champlain
Samuel-de-champlain-s.jpg
Inauthentic depiction of Champlain, by Théophile Hamel (1870), after the one by Ducornet, based on a portrait of Michel Particelli d'Emery by Balthasar Moncornet. No authentic portrait of Champlain is known to exist.[1]
Born
Samuel Champlain

(1567-08-13)13 August 1567[2]
Brouage or La Rochelle, France
Died25 December 1635(1635-12-25) (aged 68)
Other names"The Father of New France"
Occupation(s)Navigator, cartographer, soldier, explorer, administrator and chronicler of New France
Spouse
Hélène Boullé
(m. 1610)
Signature
Typical signature of Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain (French: [samɥɛl də ʃɑ̃plɛ̃]; c. 13 August 1567[2][Note 1][Note 2] – 25 December 1635) was a French explorer, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He made between 21 and 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean,[3] 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.[4][5] After 1603, Champlain's life and career consolidated into the path he would follow for the rest of his life.[6]

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.[Note 3]

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.[6]

In 1620, Louis XIII of France ordered Champlain to cease exploration, return to Quebec, and devote himself to the administration of the country.[Note 4]

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.[Note 5] 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.

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History of Canada

History of Canada

The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to North America thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Canada were inhabited for millennia by Indigenous peoples, with distinct trade networks, spiritual beliefs, and styles of social organization. Some of these older civilizations had long faded by the time of the first European arrivals and have been discovered through archeological investigations.

François Gravé Du Pont

François Gravé Du Pont

François Gravé, said Du Pont, was a Breton navigator, an early fur trader and explorer in the New World.

Acadia

Acadia

Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early 18th centuries, Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and Castine at the end of the Penobscot River were the southernmost settlements of Acadia. The French government specified land bordering the Atlantic coast, roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels. It was eventually divided into British colonies. The population of Acadia included the various indigenous First Nations that comprised the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Acadian people and other French settlers.

Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes, which are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario and are in general on or near the Canada–United States border. Hydrologically, lakes Michigan and Huron are a single body joined at the Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes.

Innu

Innu

The Innu / Ilnu or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period, are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the northeastern portion of the present-day province of Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to their traditional homeland as Nitassinan or Innu-assi.

Lake Nipissing

Lake Nipissing

Lake Nipissing is a lake in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has a surface area of 873.3 km2 (337.2 sq mi), a mean elevation of 196 m (643 ft) above sea level, and is located between the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. Lake Nipissing is the third-largest lake entirely in Ontario. It is relatively shallow for a large lake, with an average depth of only 4.5 m (15 ft). The shallowness of the lake makes for many sandbars along the lake's irregular shoreline. The lake reaches a maximum depth of 64 m (210 ft) near the mouth of the French River, off the shore of Blueberry Island. The lake has many islands most of which are protected under the Protection of Significant Wetlands scheme, controlled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

Georgian Bay

Georgian Bay

Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To its northwest is the North Channel.

Algonquin people

Algonquin people

The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). Algonquins call themselves Omàmiwinini or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.

Beaver Wars

Beaver Wars

The Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the lower Great Lakes region which pitted the Iroquois against the Hurons, northern Algonquians and their French allies. As a result of this conflict, the Iroquois destroyed several confederacies and tribes through warfare: the Hurons or Wendat, Erie, Neutral, Wenro, Petun, Susquehannock, Mahican and northern Algonquins whom they defeated and dispersed, some fleeing to neighboring peoples and others assimilated, routed, or killed.

Iroquois

Iroquois

The Iroquois, officially the Haudenosaunee, are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America and Upstate New York. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. The English called them the Five Nations, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, which became known as the Six Nations.

Governor of New France

Governor of New France

The governor of New France was the viceroy of the King of France in North America. A French nobleman, he was appointed to govern the colonies of New France, which included Canada, Acadia and Louisiana. The residence of the Governor was at the Chateau St. Louis in the capital of Quebec City. Acadia, Louisiana, and the towns of Trois-Rivières and Montreal had their own particular governors.

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.

Early life

Detail from "Défaite des Iroquois au Lac de Champlain,"  Champlain Voyages (1613). This self-portrait is the only surviving contemporary likeness of the explorer.[7]
Detail from "Défaite des Iroquois au Lac de Champlain," Champlain Voyages (1613). This self-portrait is the only surviving contemporary likeness of the explorer.[7]

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.[2][Note 1][8]

Although in 1870, the Canadian Catholic priest Laverdière, in the first chapter of his Œuvres de Champlain, accepted Pierre-Damien Rainguet's[9] 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."[10]

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).[11] 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 a Roman Catholic family in Brouage which was most of the time a Catholic city, Brouage was a royal fortress and its governor, from 1627 until his death in 1635, was Cardinal Richelieu. 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.[Note 6]

Sir Sandford Fleming Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia – Stone from Samuel de Champlain's birthplace in Brouage, France (1574)
Sir Sandford Fleming Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia – Stone from Samuel de Champlain's birthplace in Brouage, France (1574)

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,[12] and saw combat (including maybe the Siege of Fort Crozon, at the end of 1594).[13] By 1597 he was a "capitaine d'une compagnie" serving in a garrison near Quimper.[13]

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Self-portrait

Self-portrait

A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture. Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a separate portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits, already more common among wealthy Netherlanders than south of the Alps. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, did it become truly popular.

Hiers-Brouage

Hiers-Brouage

Hiers-Brouage is a former commune in the Charente-Maritime department, southwestern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Marennes-Hiers-Brouage.

La Rochelle

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With 75,735 inhabitants in 2017, La Rochelle is the most populated commune in the department and ranks fifth in the New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, the regional capital, Limoges, Poitiers and Pau. Its inhabitants are called "les Rochelaises" and "les Rochelais".

Aunis

Aunis

Aunis is a historical province of France, situated in the north-west of the department of Charente-Maritime. Its historic capital is La Rochelle, which took over from Castrum Allionis (Châtelaillon) the historic capital which gives its name to the province.

Cardinal Richelieu

Cardinal Richelieu

Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu, known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French statesman and clergyman. He was also known as l'Éminence rouge, or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the title "Eminence" applied to cardinals and the red robes that they customarily wear.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. Halifax is one of Canada's fastest growing municipalities, and as of 2022, it is estimated that the CMA population of Halifax was 480,582, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The regional municipality consists of four former municipalities that were amalgamated in 1996: Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and Halifax County.

Nautical chart

Nautical chart

A nautical chart or hydrographic chart is a graphic representation of a sea region or water body and adjacent coasts or banks. Depending on the scale of the chart, it may show depths of water (bathymetry) and heights of land (topography), natural features of the seabed, details of the coastline, navigational hazards, locations of natural and human-made aids to navigation, information on tides and currents, local details of the Earth's magnetic field, and human-made structures such as harbours, buildings, and bridges. Nautical charts are essential tools for marine navigation; many countries require vessels, especially commercial ships, to carry them. Nautical charting may take the form of charts printed on paper or computerized electronic navigational charts. Recent technologies have made available paper charts which are printed "on demand" with cartographic data that has been downloaded to the commercial printing company as recently as the night before printing. With each daily download, critical data such as Local Notices to Mariners are added to the on-demand chart files so that these charts are up to date at the time of printing.

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek, Dark Ages, the Archaic period, and the Classical period.

Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage. For most of the time it was used, it would be considered a "dead language" in the modern linguistic definition; that is, it lacked native speakers, despite being used extensively and actively.

Henry IV of France

Henry IV of France

Henry IV, also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. He was assassinated in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a Catholic zealot, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII.

French Wars of Religion

French Wars of Religion

The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four million people died from violence, famine or diseases which were directly caused by the conflict; additionally, the conflict severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. The fighting ended in 1598 when Henry of Navarre, who had converted to Catholicism in 1593, was proclaimed Henry IV of France and issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to the Huguenots. However, Catholics continued to have a hostile opinion of Protestants in general and of Henry, and his assassination in 1610 triggered a fresh round of Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s.

Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.

Early travels

Champlain and guide[14] in Isle La Motte, Vermont, at the site Champlain is said to have first set foot in Vermont (and encamped) in 1609. Lake Champlain is in the background. (Sculptor E.L.Weber, 1967; Photo by Matt Wills, 2009)
Champlain and guide[14] in Isle La Motte, Vermont, at the site Champlain is said to have first set foot in Vermont (and encamped) in 1609. Lake Champlain is in the background. (Sculptor E.L.Weber, 1967; Photo by Matt Wills, 2009)

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.[15]

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,[Note 7] 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.[Note 8]

On Champlain's return to Cádiz in August 1600, his uncle Guillermo Elena (Guillaume Allene),[16] 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.[17]

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.[18]

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.[19] 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.[20]

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).[4] 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").[Note 9]

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").[21][22]

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Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.

Cádiz

Cádiz

Cádiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia.

Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of Mexico within the high Mexican central plateau, at an altitude of 2,240 meters (7,350 ft). The city has 16 boroughs or demarcaciones territorialescode: spa promoted to code: es , which are in turn divided into neighborhoods or coloniascode: spa promoted to code: es .

La Rochelle

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With 75,735 inhabitants in 2017, La Rochelle is the most populated commune in the department and ranks fifth in the New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, the regional capital, Limoges, Poitiers and Pau. Its inhabitants are called "les Rochelaises" and "les Rochelais".

Nantucket

Nantucket

Nantucket is an island about 30 miles (50 km) south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government in Massachusetts, a U.S. state.

Newfoundland (island)

Newfoundland (island)

Newfoundland is a large island off the east coast of the North American mainland and the most populous part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It has 29 percent of the province's land area. The island is separated from the Labrador Peninsula by the Strait of Belle Isle and from Cape Breton Island by the Cabot Strait. It blocks the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, creating the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world's largest estuary. Newfoundland's nearest neighbour is the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit

Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit was a French naval and military captain and a lieutenant of New France who built at Tadoussac, in present-day Quebec, the oldest and strongest surviving French settlement in the Americas.

François Gravé Du Pont

François Gravé Du Pont

François Gravé, said Du Pont, was a Breton navigator, an early fur trader and explorer in the New World.

Acadia

Acadia

Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early 18th centuries, Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and Castine at the end of the Penobscot River were the southernmost settlements of Acadia. The French government specified land bordering the Atlantic coast, roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels. It was eventually divided into British colonies. The population of Acadia included the various indigenous First Nations that comprised the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Acadian people and other French settlers.

Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier was a French-Breton maritime explorer for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas" after the Iroquoian names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona and at Hochelaga.

Begourat

Begourat

Begourat was a chief of the Montagnais Indians whose summer home was at Tadoussac.

Algonquin people

Algonquin people

The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). Algonquins call themselves Omàmiwinini or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.

Founding of Quebec

Plaque in Honfleur commemorating Champlain's departures
Plaque in Honfleur commemorating Champlain's departures
Painting by George Agnew Reid, done for the third centennial (1908), showing the arrival of Samuel de Champlain on the site of Quebec City.[Note 10]
Painting by George Agnew Reid, done for the third centennial (1908), showing the arrival of Samuel de Champlain on the site of Quebec City.[Note 10]

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.[Note 10]

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.[23]

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.[23]

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Relations and war with Native Americans

Engraving based on a drawing by Champlain of his 1609 voyage. It depicts a battle between Iroquois and Algonquian tribes near Lake Champlain
Engraving based on a drawing by Champlain of his 1609 voyage. It depicts a battle between Iroquois and Algonquian tribes near Lake Champlain

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.[Note 11]

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.[24]

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Iroquois

Iroquois

The Iroquois, officially the Haudenosaunee, are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America and Upstate New York. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. The English called them the Five Nations, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, which became known as the Six Nations.

First Nations in Canada

First Nations in Canada

First Nations is a term used to identify Indigenous Canadian peoples who are neither Inuit nor Métis. Traditionally, First Nations in Canada were peoples who lived south of the tree line, and mainly south of the Arctic Circle. There are 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands across Canada. Roughly half are located in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.

Algonquin people

Algonquin people

The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). Algonquins call themselves Omàmiwinini or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.

St. Lawrence River

St. Lawrence River

The St. Lawrence River is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a roughly northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting the North American Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean, and forming the primary drainage outflow of the Great Lakes Basin. The river traverses the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, as well as the U.S. state of New York, and demarcates part of the international boundary between Canada and the United States. It also provides the foundation for the commercial St. Lawrence Seaway.

Richelieu River

Richelieu River

The Richelieu River is a river of Quebec, Canada, and a major right-bank tributary of the St. Lawrence River. It rises at Lake Champlain, from which it flows northward through Quebec and empties into the St. Lawrence. It was formerly known by the French as the Iroquois River and the Chambly River, and was named for Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful minister under Louis XIII.

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.

Crown Point, New York

Crown Point, New York

Crown Point is a town in Essex County, New York, United States, located on the west shore of Lake Champlain. The population was 2,024 at the 2010 census. The name of the town is a direct translation of the original French name, Pointe à la Chevelure.

Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York, in the United States. It was constructed by Canadian-born French military engineer Michel Chartier de Lotbinière, Marquis de Lotbinière between October 1755 and 1757, during the action in the "North American theater" of the Seven Years' War, often referred to in the US as the French and Indian War. The fort was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played an important role during the Revolutionary War.

Arquebus

Arquebus

An arquebus is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.

Beaver Wars

Beaver Wars

The Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the lower Great Lakes region which pitted the Iroquois against the Hurons, northern Algonquians and their French allies. As a result of this conflict, the Iroquois destroyed several confederacies and tribes through warfare: the Hurons or Wendat, Erie, Neutral, Wenro, Petun, Susquehannock, Mahican and northern Algonquins whom they defeated and dispersed, some fleeing to neighboring peoples and others assimilated, routed, or killed.

Battle of Sorel

Battle of Sorel

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

Kingdom of France

Kingdom of France

The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world.

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.[25]

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.[26] Hélène lived in Quebec for several years,[27] 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

Chaleur Bay and Gulf of Saint Lawrence — extract of Champlain 1612 map
Chaleur Bay and Gulf of Saint Lawrence — extract of Champlain 1612 map
Marine astrolabe attributed to Champlain, made in France in 1603, found in Ontario in 1867.
Marine astrolabe attributed to Champlain, made in France in 1603, found in Ontario in 1867.

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.[Note 12] Along the way, he apparently dropped or left behind a cache of silver cups, copper kettles, and a brass astrolabe dated 1603 (Champlain's Astrolabe), which was later found by a farm boy named Edward Lee near Cobden, Ontario.[28] 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.[22]

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[29] 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.[30]

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.[31][32]

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.[33]

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.[34]

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Chaleur Bay

Chaleur Bay

Chaleur Bay, also Chaleurs Bay, baie of Chaleur, is an arm of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence located between Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada.

Proclamation

Proclamation

A proclamation is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations and are usually issued in the name of the head of state. A proclamation is (usually) a non-binding notice.

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay, sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of 1,230,000 km2 (470,000 sq mi). It is located north of Ontario, west of Quebec, northeast of Manitoba and southeast of Nunavut, but politically entirely part of Nunavut. It is an inland marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It drains a very large area, about 3,861,400 km2 (1,490,900 sq mi), that includes parts of southeastern Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, all of Manitoba, and parts of the U.S. states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana. Hudson Bay's southern arm is called James Bay.

Ottawa River

Ottawa River

The Ottawa River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word 'to trade', as it was the major trade route of Eastern Canada at the time. For most of its length, it defines the border between these two provinces. It is a major tributary of the St. Lawrence River and the longest river in Quebec.

Cobden, Ontario

Cobden, Ontario

Cobden is a small community in the Township of Whitewater Region, in Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada. It is located 95 kilometres (59 mi) northwest of Ottawa, and roughly halfway between Renfrew and Pembroke on Highway 17.

Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, on the English Channel coast.

Recollects

Recollects

The Recollects were a French reform branch of the Friars Minor, a Franciscan order. Denoted by their gray habits and pointed hoods, the Recollects took vows of poverty and devoted their lives to prayer, penance, and spiritual reflection. Today, they are best known for their presence as missionaries in various parts of the world, most notably in early Canada.

Lake Huron

Lake Huron

Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the 5-mile-wide (8.0 km), 20-fathom-deep Straits of Mackinac. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the Huron people inhabiting the region.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie is a city in Ontario, Canada. The third-largest city in Northern Ontario after Sudbury and Thunder Bay, it is located on the St. Mary's River on the Canada–US border. To the southwest, across the river, is the United States and the Michigan city of the same name. The two cities are joined by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which connects Interstate 75 on the Michigan side and Huron Street on the Ontario side. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the Saint Mary's Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage that passes through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal.

Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh water. Located in central North America, it is the northernmost and westernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, straddling the Canada–United States border with the Canadian province of Ontario to the north and east and the U.S. states of Minnesota to the west and Wisconsin and Michigan to the south. It drains into Lake Huron via St. Marys River, then through the lower Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean.

Lake Nipissing

Lake Nipissing

Lake Nipissing is a lake in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has a surface area of 873.3 km2 (337.2 sq mi), a mean elevation of 196 m (643 ft) above sea level, and is located between the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. Lake Nipissing is the third-largest lake entirely in Ontario. It is relatively shallow for a large lake, with an average depth of only 4.5 m (15 ft). The shallowness of the lake makes for many sandbars along the lake's irregular shoreline. The lake reaches a maximum depth of 64 m (210 ft) near the mouth of the French River, off the shore of Blueberry Island. The lake has many islands most of which are protected under the Protection of Significant Wetlands scheme, controlled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

French River (Ontario)

French River (Ontario)

The French River is a river in Central Ontario, Canada. It flows 110 kilometres (68 mi) from Lake Nipissing west to Georgian Bay. The river largely follows the boundary between the Parry Sound District and the Sudbury District, and in most contexts is considered the dividing line between Northern and Southern Ontario. The French River was designated a Canadian Heritage River in 1986.

Military expedition

Samuel de Champlain, Nepean Point, Ottawa by Hamilton MacCarthy
Samuel de Champlain, Nepean Point, Ottawa by Hamilton MacCarthy

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, 10 miles (16 km) south of Canastota, New York.[35] 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.

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Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). As of 2021, Ottawa had a city population of 1,017,449 and a metropolitan population of 1,488,307, making it the fourth-largest city and fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.

Hamilton MacCarthy

Hamilton MacCarthy

Hamilton Thomas Carlton Plantagenet MacCarthy was one of the earliest masters of monumental bronze sculpture in Canada. He is known for his historical sculptures, in particular his Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia (1904) as well as Samuel de Champlain overlooking Parliament Hill on Nepean Point, Ottawa (1915), next to the National Gallery of Canada. His monument to the Ottawa volunteers who died in the South African War (1902) was moved to Confederation Park in 1969 after several moves. Other works include that of Ottawa mayor, Samuel Bingham, in Notre-Dame Cemetery in Vanier.

Lake Simcoe

Lake Simcoe

Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called Ouentironk by the native Wendat/Ouendat (Huron) people. It was also known as Lake Taronto until it was renamed by John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, in memory of his father, Captain John Simcoe of the Royal Navy. In Anishinaabemowin, the ancestral language of the First Nations living around this lake, namely Anishinaabek of Rama and Georgina Island First Nations, Lake Simcoe is called Zhooniyaang-zaaga'igan, meaning "Silver Lake".

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border spans the centre of the lake.

Oneida River

Oneida River

The Oneida River is a river that forms a portion of the boundary between Oswego and Onondaga counties in central New York. The river flows 18 miles (29 km) from Oneida Lake's outlet to its confluence with the Seneca River, where the two rivers combine to form the Oswego River that empties into Lake Ontario.

Canastota, New York

Canastota, New York

Canastota is a village located inside the Town of Lenox in Madison County, New York, United States. The population was 4,804 at the 2010 census.

Improving administration in New France

Map of New France (Champlain, 1612). A more precise map was drawn by Champlain in 1632.
Map of New France (Champlain, 1612). A more precise map was drawn by Champlain in 1632.
19th century artist's conception of Champlain by E. Ronjat.[36]
19th century artist's conception of Champlain by E. Ronjat.[36]

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.[37]

Champlain had overwintered in Quebec. Supplies were low, and English merchants sacked Cap Tourmente in early July 1628.[38] 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.[39] Champlain received a summons to surrender on July 10 from the Kirke brothers, two Scottish brothers who were working for the English government. 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.[40] By the spring of 1629 supplies were dangerously low and Champlain was forced to send people to Gaspé and into Indian communities to conserve rations.[41] On July 19, the Kirke brothers arrived before Quebec after intercepting Champlain's plea for help, and Champlain was forced to surrender the colony.[42] Many colonists were transported first to England and then to France by the Kirkes, but Champlain remained in London to begin the process of regaining the colony. A peace treaty had been signed in April 1629, three months before the surrender, and, under the terms of that treaty, Quebec and other prizes that were taken by the Kirkes after the treaty were to be returned.[43] It was not until the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, however, that Quebec was formally given back to France. (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 1 March 1633, having served in the intervening years as commander in New France "in the absence of my Lord the Cardinal de Richelieu" from 1629 to 1635.[44] In 1632 Champlain published Voyages de la Nouvelle-France, which was dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu, and Traitté de la marine et du devoir d'un bon marinier, a treatise on leadership, seamanship, and navigation. (Champlain made more than twenty-five round-trip crossings of the Atlantic in his lifetime, without losing a single ship.)[45]

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Cardinal Richelieu

Cardinal Richelieu

Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu, known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French statesman and clergyman. He was also known as l'Éminence rouge, or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the title "Eminence" applied to cardinals and the red robes that they customarily wear.

Anglo-French War (1627–1629)

Anglo-French War (1627–1629)

The Anglo-French War was a military conflict fought between the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of England between 1627 and 1629. It mainly involved actions at sea. The centrepiece of the conflict was the siege of La Rochelle (1627–28), in which the English Crown supported the French Huguenots in their fight against the French royal forces of Louis XIII of France. La Rochelle had become the stronghold of the French Huguenots, under its own governance. It was the centre of Huguenot seapower and the strongest centre of resistance against the central government. The English also launched a campaign against France's new colony in North America which led to the capture of Quebec.

Charles I of England

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France.

David Kirke

David Kirke

Sir David Kirke, also spelt David Ker, was an adventurer, privateer and colonial governor. He is best known for his successful capture of Québec in 1629 during the Thirty Years' War and his subsequent governorship of lands in Newfoundland. A favourite of Charles I, Kirke's downfall came with that of the Crown during the English Civil War and it is believed he died in prison.

Kingdom of England

Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England existed on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it unified from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Gaspé Peninsula

Gaspé Peninsula

The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia, is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick on its southern side by Chaleur Bay and the Restigouche River. The name Gaspé comes from the Miꞌkmaq word gespe'g, meaning "end", referring to the end of the land.

Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1632)

Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1632)

The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was signed on March 29, 1632. It returned New France to French control after the English had seized it in 1629, after the Anglo-French War (1627–1629) had ended.

Newfoundland (island)

Newfoundland (island)

Newfoundland is a large island off the east coast of the North American mainland and the most populous part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It has 29 percent of the province's land area. The island is separated from the Labrador Peninsula by the Strait of Belle Isle and from Cape Breton Island by the Cabot Strait. It blocks the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, creating the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world's largest estuary. Newfoundland's nearest neighbour is the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Last return, and last years working in Quebec

Champlain returned to Quebec on 22 May 1633, 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".[46] On 18 August 1634, he sent a report to Richelieu stating that he had rebuilt on the ruins of Quebec, enlarged its fortifications, and established two more habitations. One was 15 leagues upstream, and the other was at Trois-Rivières. He also began an offensive against the Iroquois, reporting that he wanted them either wiped out or "brought to reason".

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Lieutenant General of New France

Lieutenant General of New France

Lieutenant General of New France was the military post that governed early New France from 1598 until 1627. Before 1598, the office was briefly occupied from 1541 to 1543. The office was replaced by the title of Governor of New France in 1627. It was the first vice-regal post in what would later become Canada, and is a precursor of the present-day office of Governor General of Canada, the representative of King Charles III, Canada's King and Head of State.

Governor of New France

Governor of New France

The governor of New France was the viceroy of the King of France in North America. A French nobleman, he was appointed to govern the colonies of New France, which included Canada, Acadia and Louisiana. The residence of the Governor was at the Chateau St. Louis in the capital of Quebec City. Acadia, Louisiana, and the towns of Trois-Rivières and Montreal had their own particular governors.

Trois-Rivières

Trois-Rivières

Trois-Rivières is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River across from the city of Bécancour. It is part of the densely populated Quebec City–Windsor Corridor and is approximately halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. Trois-Rivières is the economic and cultural hub of the Mauricie region. The settlement was founded by French colonists on July 4, 1634, as the second permanent settlement in New France, after Quebec City in 1608.

Death and burial

Champlain had a severe stroke in October 1635, and died on 25 December, leaving no immediate heirs. Jesuit records state he died in the care of his friend and confessor Charles Lallemant.

Although his will (drafted on 17 November 1635) gave much of his French property to his wife Hélène Boullé, he made significant bequests to the Catholic missions and to individuals in the colony of Quebec. However, Marie Camaret, a cousin on his mother's side, challenged the will in Paris and had it overturned. It is unclear exactly what happened to his estate.[47][48][49]

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 1640. Though immediately rebuilt, no traces of it exist anymore: his exact burial site is still unknown, despite much research since about 1850, including several archaeological digs in the city. There is general agreement that the previous Champlain chapel site, and the remains of Champlain, should be somewhere near the Notre-Dame de Québec Cathedral.[50][51]

The search for Champlain's remains supplies a key plot-line in the crime writer Louise Penny's 2010 novel, Bury Your Dead.[52]

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Legacy

Statue of Samuel de Champlain at sunrise (looking to the north-west; with a similar expressive face as traditionally Jacques Cartier's), by Paul-Romain Marie Léonce Chevré [fr] (Paris, 1896–1898), as newly repaired for 2008, at Quebec City since 1898, near Château Frontenac grand hotel, on the Terrasse Dufferin.
Statue of Samuel de Champlain at sunrise (looking to the north-west; with a similar expressive face as traditionally Jacques Cartier's), by Paul-Romain Marie Léonce Chevré [fr] (Paris, 1896–1898), as newly repaired for 2008, at Quebec City since 1898, near Château Frontenac grand hotel, on the Terrasse Dufferin.

Many sites and landmarks have been named to honour Champlain, who was a prominent figure in many parts of Acadia, Ontario, Quebec, New York, and Vermont. Memorialized as the "Father of New France" and "Father of Acadia", his historic significance endures in modern times. Lake Champlain, which straddles the border between northern New York and Vermont, extending slightly across the border into Canada, was named by him, in 1609, when he led an expedition along the Richelieu River, exploring a long, narrow lake situated between the Green Mountains of present-day Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of present-day New York. The first European to map and describe it, Champlain claimed the lake as his namesake.

Memorials include:

Discover more about Legacy related topics

Jacques Cartier

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Quebec City

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Château Frontenac

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The Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, commonly referred to as the Château Frontenac, is a historic hotel in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The hotel is situated in Old Quebec, within the historic district's Upper Town, on the southern side of Place d'Armes. The Château Frontenac was designed by Bruce Price, and was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company. The hotel is managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.

Acadia

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Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early 18th centuries, Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and Castine at the end of the Penobscot River were the southernmost settlements of Acadia. The French government specified land bordering the Atlantic coast, roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels. It was eventually divided into British colonies. The population of Acadia included the various indigenous First Nations that comprised the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Acadian people and other French settlers.

Ontario

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Quebec

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Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the largest province by area and the second-largest by population. Much of the population of Quebec lives in urban areas along the St. Lawrence River, between its most populous city, Montreal, and the provincial capital, Quebec City. The province is the home of the Québécois nation. Located in Central Canada, the province shares land borders with Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast, and a coastal border with Nunavut; in the south it borders Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York in the United States.

New York (state)

New York (state)

New York, often called New York state, is a state in the Northeastern United States. With 20.2 million people enumerated at the 2020 United States census, its highest decennial count ever, it is the fourth-most populous state in the United States as of 2021. Approximately 44% of the state's population lives in New York City, including 25% in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens; and 15% of the state's population is on the remainder of Long Island, the most populous island in the United States. With a total area of 54,556 square miles (141,300 km2), New York is the 27th-largest U.S. state by area. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to its south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to its east; it shares a maritime border with Rhode Island, east of Long Island; and an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to its north and Ontario to its northwest.

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.

Richelieu River

Richelieu River

The Richelieu River is a river of Quebec, Canada, and a major right-bank tributary of the St. Lawrence River. It rises at Lake Champlain, from which it flows northward through Quebec and empties into the St. Lawrence. It was formerly known by the French as the Iroquois River and the Chambly River, and was named for Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful minister under Louis XIII.

Green Mountains

Green Mountains

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Adirondack Mountains

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Champlain Valley

Champlain Valley

The Champlain Valley is a region of the United States around Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York extending north slightly into Quebec, Canada. It is part of the St. Lawrence River drainage basin, drained northward by the Richelieu River into the St. Lawrence at Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. The Richelieu valley is not generally referred to as part of the Champlain Valley.

Source: "Samuel de Champlain", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 23rd), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_de_Champlain.

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Bibliography

These are works that were written by Champlain:

  • Brief Discours des Choses plus remarquables que Sammuel 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 (first French publication 1870, first English publication 1859 as Narrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico 1599–1602)
  • Des Sauvages: ou voyage de Samuel Champlain, de Brouages, faite en la France nouvelle l'an 1603 (first French publication 1604, first English publication 1625)
  • Voyages de la Nouvelle-France (first French publication 1632)
  • Traitté de la marine et du devoir d'un bon marinier (first French publication 1632)
Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ a b For a detailed analysis of his baptismal record, see Ritch
  2. ^ The baptism act does not contain information about the age of Samuel, neither his birth date nor his place of birth.
  3. ^ 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).
  4. ^ 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 [from jail, where he been for 3 years] in 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."
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ His family lived in Brouage at the time of his birth; the exact place and date of his birth are unknown.Britannica.com
  7. ^ Three different handwritten copies of this report still exist. One of them is at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ a b Only at his last arrival (in 1633), Champlain did not leave the ships at Tadoussac but sailed them directly to Quebec City.Trudel (1979)
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ 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?

Citations

  1. ^ Bishop (1948), pp 6–7
  2. ^ a b c Fichier Origine
  3. ^ "Samuel de Champlain". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
  4. ^ a b d'Avignon (2008)
  5. ^ Vaugeois (2008)
  6. ^ a b Heidenreich, Conrad E.; Ritch, K. Janet, eds. (2010). Samuel de Champlain before 1604: Des Sauvages and Other Documents Related to the Period. The Publications of the Champlain Society. p. 16. doi:10.3138/9781442620339. ISBN 978-0-7735-3756-9.
  7. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 3
  8. ^ Germe, p. 2
  9. ^ Rainguet (1851)
  10. ^ Liebel (1978), p. 236
  11. ^ Liebel (1978), pp. 229–237.
  12. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 62
  13. ^ a b Fischer (2008), p. 65 Note: Fischer cites numerous other authorities in repeating this.
  14. ^ Weber (1967)
  15. ^ Litalien (2004), p. 87
  16. ^ Heidenreich, Conrad E.; Ritch, K. Janet, eds. (2010). Samuel de Champlain before 1604: Des Sauvages and Other Documents Related to the Period. The Publications of the Champlain Society. p. 14. doi:10.3138/9781442620339. ISBN 978-0-7735-3756-9.
  17. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 98–99
  18. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 100
  19. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 100–117
  20. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 121–123
  21. ^ NPS
  22. ^ a b Vermont Map
  23. ^ a b "Founding of Quebec | Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA)". eada.lib.umd.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-20.
  24. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 577–578
  25. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 287–288
  26. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 313–316
  27. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 374–5
  28. ^ Brebner, John Bartlett (1966). The Explorers of North America, 1492–1806. Cleveland, Ohio: The World Publishing Company. p. 135.
  29. ^ Champlain (1613)
  30. ^ Dalton (1968)
  31. ^ Butterfield, Consul Willshire (1898). History of Brulé's Discoveries and Explorations, 1610–1626. Cleveland, Ohio: Helman-Taylor. pp. 49–51.(online: archive.org, Library of Congress)
  32. ^ "The Explorers Étienne Brûlé 1615-1621". Virtual Museum of New France. Canadian Museum of History. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  33. ^ "Samuel de Champlain: timeline". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  34. ^ Williams, Doug (September 8, 2015). "A small man with a big gun". Peterborough Examiner. Archived from the original on February 20, 2018. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  35. ^ Weiskotten (1998)
  36. ^ Guizot, p. 190
  37. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 404–410
  38. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 410–412
  39. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 409
  40. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 412–415
  41. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 418–420
  42. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 421
  43. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 428
  44. ^ Trudel (1979)
  45. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 447
  46. ^ Fischer (2008), pp. 445–446
  47. ^ Fischer (2008), p. 520
  48. ^ Heidenreich
  49. ^ Le Blant (1964), pp 425–437
  50. ^ Champlain: Travels in the Canadian Francophonie
  51. ^ La Chappelle
  52. ^ Penny (2010)
  53. ^ Acadia National Park
  54. ^ Saint John Additional Information Archived September 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  55. ^ Gicker (2006)
  56. ^ "Orillia's Champlain monument restoration on hold". 18 July 2018.

References

Further reading
External links

Media related to Samuel de Champlain at Wikimedia Commons

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1632–1635
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