| Samuel de Champlain |
|
| Born |
between 1567 and 1580
(most probably near 1580
in Brouage), in the Province of Saintonge, France |
| Died |
December 25, 1635
in Quebec, Canada, New France |
| Occupation |
Navigator, Cartographer, soldier, Explorer, Administrator and Chronicler of New France |
| Known for |
Exploration of New France, foundation of Quebec City, Canada, being said "The Father of New France" |
Samuel de Champlain, IPA: [samɥɛl də ʃɑ̃plɛ̃], (c. 1580[1] – December 25, 1635), "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat and chronicler. He founded Quebec City on July 3, 1608, and served as its administrator for the rest of his life.
In every way but name Samuel de Champlain was Quebec City's and New France's governor. Given that Champlain did not belong to the class of nobility, he never would have been able to acquire that title. 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 in 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 nine years old at the death of his father). Champlain received the official title of "lieutenant" (adjunct representative) of the, one after the other, noble designated as Viceroy of New France, the first being Pierre Du Gua De Mons. From 1629 Champlain was named "commandant" under the authority of the King Minister, Richelieu. It is Champlain's successor at Quebec City, Charles Jacques Huault de Montmagny, who was the first to be formally named as the governor of New France and Quebec City, where he moved in 1636, being the first noble to live there in that century.
It was Samuel de Champlain's determination to establish a French colony in America that earned him designation as "The Father of New France", in the 19th century. He was also integral in opening North America to French trade, especially the fur trade. French colonization on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River expanded in 1634 and 1635, the last two years of his life, with the arrival, at summertime, of many colonizing families recruited by Robert Giffard.
Early years
He was born in Brouage,[2] near Rochefort, in the province of Saintonge, France. 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 a Catholic city in a Protestant region, and his Old Testament first name (Samuel) was not usually given to Catholic children.[3] Born into a family of mariners (both his father and uncle were sailors), Samuel Champlain did not study Ancient Greek or Latin, and thus did not read ancient literature. He instead learned to navigate, draw, make nautical charts, and write practical reports, with no literature inside. As each French fleet had to assure its own defense on the sea, Champlain wanted to learn fighting with all the fire arms of his time: he acquired this practical knowledge when serving into the royal army in Bretagne from 1595 to 1598, beginning as a fourrier (feeding and cleaning horses), ending as the fourriers' sargent.
Early travels
Painting showing the arrival of Samuel de Champlain on the future site of
Quebec City,
1608
In 1598 his uncle-in-law, a navigator who served in the Spanish fleet, allowed him a two-year voyage to the Spanish colonies on the Gulf of Mexico, as an observer and as being responsible of the "Saint-Julien". Champlain wrote an illustrated report on what he learned on this trip, and gave this secret report to King Henry IV.[5]
Champlain's first trip to North America was as an observer on a fur-trading expedition led by François Gravé Du Pont, a navigator and merchant. The Bonne-Renommée (the Good Fame) arrived on 15 March 1603. 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 St. Lawrence River on this trip and, after his return to France on September 20, published an account as Des Sauvages: ou voyage de Samuel Champlain, de Brouages, faite en la France nouvelle l'an 1603 ("Concerning the Savages: or travels of Samuel Champlain of Brouages, made in New France in the year 1603").[6] Included in his account were meetings with Begourat, a chief of the Montagnais at Tadoussac.
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 Acadia. It was led by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts, a Protestant merchant who had been given a fur trading monopoly in New France by the king. Dugua ordered 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 abandoned and relocated across the bay to Port Royal. Champlain used that site as his base until 1607, 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.
In 1605 and 1606, Champlain explored the North American coast as far south as Cape Cod, searching for sites for a permanent settlement. Small skirmishes with the resident Monomoyick Peoples dissuaded him from the idea of establishing one near present-day Chatham, Massachusetts. He named the area Port Fortune.[7][8]
Founding of Quebec City
In the spring of 1608, Dugua wanted Champlain to start a new French colony on the shores of the Grande Rivière de Canada. Dugua equipped, at his own expense, a fleet of three ships with workers, that left the French port of Honfleur. The main ship, called the Don-de-Dieu (the Gift of God), was commanded by Champlain. Another ship, the Lévrier (the Hunt Dog), was commanded by François Gravé 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. On July 3, 1608, Champlain landed at the "point of Quebec" and set about fortifying the area by the erection of three main wooden buildings, each two stories tall, that he collectively called the "Habitation", with a wooden stockade and a moat 12 feet (4 m) wide surrounding them. 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.
In the 1620s, this Habitation on the shore of the River was mainly a store for the Compagnie des Marchands (Traders Company), and Champlain lived in the wooden Fort Saint Louis newly built up the hill (south from the present-day Château Frontenac Hotel), nearby the only two houses built by the two settler families (the ones of Louis Hébert and Guillaume Couillard, his gender).
Relations and war with natives
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 native 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 demanded that Champlain help them in their war against the Iroquois, who lived further south. Champlain set off with 9 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 Iroquois 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 claims that it occurred near its site), Champlain and his party encountered a group of Iroquois. A battle began the next day. Two hundred Iroquois advanced on Champlain's position, and one of his guides pointed out the 3 Iroquois chiefs. Champlain fired his arquebus, killing two of them with a single shot, and one of his men killed the third. The Iroquois turned and fled. This action set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for rest of the century[9].
Champlain returned to France in an unsuccessful attempt, with the Sieur de Mons, to renew their fur trade monopoly. They did, however, reach an agreement with some merchants from Rouen, in which Quebec became an exclusive warehouse for their fur trade and, in return, the Rouen merchants supported the settlement.
Exploration of New France
On March 29, 1613, arrived 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.[10] 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.[8]
By August 26 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[11] 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.[12]
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 the fresh-water sea he called Lac Attigouautau (now Lake Huron).
In 1615, Champlain was escorted through the Peterborough area by a group of Hurons. He used the ancient portage between Chemong Lake and Little Lake (now Chemong Road); stayed for a short period of time in Bridgenorth area.
Military expedition
On September 1, at Cahiagué (on Lake Simcoe), he started a military expedition. 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 found themselves at an Onondaga fort. Pressured by the Hurons to attack prematurely, the assault failed. Champlain was wounded twice in the leg by arrows, one in his knee. The attack lasted three hours until they were forced to flee.
Although he did not want to, the Hurons 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 aboriginals by chance. He spent the rest of the winter learning "their country, their manners, customs, modes of life". On May 22, 1616, he left the Huron country and returned to Quebec before heading back to France on July 2.
Improving administration in New France
Map of
New France (Champlain, 1612). A more precise map was drawn by Champlain in 1632.
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 May 6, 1624. 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.
Things were not to continue well for Champlain and his small village. Supplies were low during the summer of 1628 and English merchants had pillaged Cap Tourmente in early July. Champlain received a summons on July 10 from two English merchants, the Kirke brothers. Champlain refused to deal with them and, in response, the English cut off supplies to the city. By the spring of 1629 supplies were dangerously low and Champlain was forced to send people to Gaspé to conserve rations. On July 19, the Kirke brothers arrived and Champlain was forced to negotiate the terms of the city's capitulation. By October 29, Champlain found himself in London.
As a member of the Compagnie des Cent-Associés, Champlain was commander in New France "in the absence of my Lord the Cardinal de Richelieu" from 1629 to 1635.[13] During the next several years Champlain wrote Voyages de la Nouvelle France, which was dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu, and Traitté de la marine et du devoir d’un bon marinier. It was not until the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye that Quebec was given back to France. Champlain reclaimed his role as commander of New France on behalf of Richelieu on March 1, 1633.
Champlain returned to Quebec on May 22, 1633, after an absence of four years. On August 18, 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".
Illness and death
19th century artist's conception of Champlain by E. Ronjat.
[14]
Champlain suffered a stroke at Fall 1635, and died on 25 December 1635, leaving no immediate heirs. Jesuit records tell us he died in the hands of his friend Charles Lallemant, who also heard his last confession.
He was temporarily buried in the church while a standalone chapel was under construction to hold his remains, in the upper part of the city. Unfortunately, this small building as 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, into the ulterior remaining archives and study reports, and here and there into the ground. There is a general agreement: the remains of Champlain should be somewhere near the Notre-Dame de Québec Cathedral, under some building, or sidewalk, or street, which now occupies the previous Champlain chapel site.[15]
Memorials
Many sites and landmarks were named to honour Champlain, who remains, to this day, a prominent historical figure in many parts of Acadia, Ontario, Quebec, New York, and Vermont. They include:
- Lake Champlain, Champlain Valley, The Champlain Trail Lakes, and Champlain Sea, a glacial sea which disappeared 6000 years before Champlain was born;
- Two communities in New York named Champlain, as well as a township in Ontario and a municipality in Quebec;
- Fort Champlain at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario was named in his honour in 1965. This dormitory houses 8, 9 and 10 Squadrons;
- The provincial electoral district of Champlain, Quebec;
- Champlain Bridge, which connects the island of Montreal to the mainland;
- Champlain Bridge, which connects the cities of Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec;
- A French school, located in Saint John, New Brunswick; Champlain College, in Burlington, Vermont, as well as a CEGEP in Quebec;
- Streets named Champlain in numerous cities, including Quebec, Shawinigan and no less than eleven communities in northwestern Vermont;
- Champlain Commons, a shopping center in St. Albans, Vermont.
- Marriott Château Champlain hotel, in Montréal.
- Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park, a provincial park in northern Ontario near the town of Mattawa.
- A memorial statue on Cumberland Avenue in Plattsburgh, New York on the shores of Lake Champlain.
- A commemorative stamp issue in May 2006 jointly by the United States Postal Service and Canada Post[16]
- Champlain Mountain, Acadia National Park - which he first observed in 1604[17]
- Memorial statue in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada in Queen Square that commemorates his discovery of the Saint John River.[18]
- Memorial statue in Isle La Motte, Vermont, on the shore of Lake Champlain.
- Champlain Trail Public School in Mississauga, Ontario. A school named after Samuel de Champlain for grades K-5
Example of a fictional "portrait of Champlain", by Théophile Hamel (1870), after a portrait of Particelli d'Émery by Moncornet. No authentic portrait of Champlain exists.
[19]
Notes
- ^ Almost everywhere, a proofless and absurd "1567" year of birth, coming from Pierre-Damien Rainguet's 1851 Biographie Saintongeaise (ou Dictionnaire historique de tous les personnages qui se sont illustrés […]: (French) page 140 - page 141, image format, of the book), was engraved or carved on monuments dedicated to Champlain, and written in books containing the word Champlain. There is now strong evidence that Champlain might have been born as late as about 1580. This is first mainly based on the now known year of birth (1560) of François Gravé, and on what Champlain wrote about Gravé, when reporting the 1619 events: (translation) "His age would make me respect him like my father." (In: Champlain, "Les Voyages [...] depuis l'an 1603 jusques en l'an 1629", published in 1632).
More over, Champlain was just a fourrier (giving food and basic cares to the horses) into the army in 1595 at Blavet (Bretagne), being there, for such a low level job, rather 15 years old than 28 (majority age being 25 at that time)... And, did Champlain wait to be 43 years old, instead of 30, before getting married (at the end of 1610) and thus receiving a substantial dowry, so lately ? ... In 1978, Jean Liebel wrote On a vieilli Champlain (They made Champlain older), in the Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, RHAF, number XXXII, pages 229 to 237 (French)PDF, comparing all the old and new sources, and concluding that "1580" is a much better approximated year than the proven proofless and absurd "1567" year of birth. Nowadays, most of the historians agree on the near "1580" as being the birth year of Champlain, as written in recent works, like Champlain: the birth of French America / edited by Raymonde LItalien and Denis Vaugeois. (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004). David Hackett Fischer recently argued strongly for a compromise date of 1570 in Appendix A of "Champlain's Dream"
- ^ Britannica.com; "born in this place" means that his family had yet his house there: it does not exclude that his mother could have been outside this place, at a parent's, when giving birth… - no proof were yet found about this birth place and date.
- ^ According to many historians now, as Alain Laberge, Chair of the History Department at Quebec City's Laval University, also a specialist in the history of New France, Champlain could have been born a Protestant. A guest on the February 6, 2008 CBC radio program, Sounds Like Canada, Professor Laberge said that the fact of Champlain's Protestantism would have been downplayed and omitted from education material by the Roman Catholic Church, who controlled the Province of Quebec's education system from 1627 until 1962. However, Champlain was born in or nearby a time when the city was taken by Protestants, but Brouage became a royal fortress and its governor was the Cardinal Richelieu from 1627 to his death (in 1642), known to be anti-protestant, or willing to stop the civil wars, in promoting catholicism only, as it was the religion of every King of France. And, to avoid the appearing of religion wars in New France, Richelieu decided in 1627 that catholicism will be, there also and for ever, the only official religion.
- ^ Samuel de Champlain, (sculpture)
- ^ Three different handwritten copies of this report still exist. One of them is at the John Carter Brown Library (at Brown University).
- ^ Champlain did not begin using the honorific de in his name until at least 1610, when he married and King Henry was murdered. A reprint of this book in 1612 was credited to "sieur de Champlain.[1]
- ^ "USA National Park Service Archeology Program: Visit Archeology". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/history/archeology/visit/Champlain/about.htm.
- ^ a b "Map of Samuel de Champlain voyages". http://www.travel-vermont.net/2008/09/map-samuel-de-champlain-voyages-travels/.
- ^ In 1701, The Great Peace Treaty will be signed in Montreal, involving the French and every native nation coming or living on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River except maybe in wintertime.
- ^ 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?
- ^ Les voyages du Sieur de Champlain, Saintangeois, capitaine ordinaire pour le Roy en la Marine.
- ^ Dalton, Roy. The Jesuit Estates Question 1760-88, p. 60. University of Toronto Press, 1968.
- ^ Trudel
- ^ François Pierre Guillaume Guizot, A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Vol. 6, Chapter 53, (Boston: Dana Estes & Charles E. Lauriat (Imp.), 19th C.), 190.
- ^ Time Periods - Life and Death of Champlain
For a detailled report on the rechearches : (French) La chapelle et le tombeau de Champlain : état de la quesion
- ^ ed. William J. Gicker (2006). "Samuel de Champlain 39¢ (USA); Samuel de Champlain 51¢ (Canada)" (print). USA Philatelic 11 (3): 7. "This souvenir sheet celebrates the 400th anniversary of the explorations of Samuel de Champlain in 1606.".
- ^ History | Acadia | Oh, Ranger!
- ^ Saint John Additional Information
- ^ Morris Bishop, Samuel de Champlain: The Life of Fortitude (New York: Knopf, 1948), 6-7.
References
External links
