Samuel de Champlain

V

Third Visit

In 1607 De Monts lost his commission to govern Acadia. The following year he decided to establish a trading post far up the St. Lawrence, at a point where it narrows to less than a mile wide. There his traders could greet indigenous people bringing furs from the west and take away business that would otherwise go to Tadoussac. This trading post, established by Champlain on July 3, 1608, became Québec. Scurvy again took its toll, claiming 16 of the 25 men; but they were replaced, and Québec survived. This was the first permanent white settlement in the region called Canada, and today it is the oldest city in the western hemisphere north of Saint Augustine, Florida. (Port Royal remained a small town.)

Champlain was given the title of lieutenant of the viceroy of New France in 1612. From this point on, Champlain’s aims in life were to explore and map the continent, to find a water route to the Pacific, and to convert the indigenous peoples to Christianity. Such aims were costly, and the money could come only from the fur trade. He therefore made a commercial alliance with the northern and western nations, the Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron.

The alliance included military aid. In June 1609 Champlain and two of his men joined these nations when they invaded the hunting grounds of a longtime enemy, the Iroquois confederacy. They met 200 Iroquois by the lake now known as Lake Champlain. This marked the beginning of warfare between the French and the Iroquois that lasted off and on for 90 years and almost destroyed the colony.

VI

Further Travels and Explorations

For most of the remainder of Champlain’s life, he would spend a few months of the year at Québec, then go to France to secure support. He spent far more time in France, and crossing the ocean, than he did in Québec. When he returned to Québec, he spent most of his time prodding lazy workers to do building and repairing they had neglected. He also renewed alliances with his indigenous allies, resolving their complaints.

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In 1613 Champlain explored the Ottawa, the river that would become the main highway to the west, as far as Allumette Island. He then returned to France and persuaded the Récollet order of Roman Catholic priests to send four missionaries to Canada. Two years went by before he returned with the Récollets. He then set out on a major voyage of discovery to the country of the Huron, the territory between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario.

On this journey Champlain and his party explored Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario. He spent the winter of 1615 in the Huron country, where he learned much about the land and its inhabitants. He was particularly interested in knowledge of the area farther west, beyond Lake Huron. He learned that this area contained other vast lakes, but the Huron would not allow him to go there. They were at war with the nations to the west and were afraid that the French might establish relations with their enemies. Thus Champlain had to rely on scanty information for the map that he eventually produced of the region. As a result, the map was flawed, but his account of his stay with the Huron is a mine of information about these people, their customs and religion, and the geography of the country.

VII

The Struggle for Financing

In 1610, while in France, Champlain was married to Hélène Boullé. It appears to have been a marriage of convenience: he was then in his forties, and she was 12 years old. She brought a handsome dowry of 6000 livres, money that he urgently needed to keep the Québec post in operation. Hélène accompanied Champlain to Québec in 1620 and stayed there with him for four years. She then went back to France with him and never returned.

From 1616 to 1620 Champlain spent most of each year in France, with brief summer visits to Québec. In France he had to struggle to keep the Canadian enterprise alive, raise capital, and enlist workers. He also had to fight to keep his command over Québec. In 1618 he presented reports on the future of the French colonies in America to the king and to the French Chamber of Commerce.

In these reports he proposed that 300 settler families and 15 Récollets be established at Québec, with 300 soldiers to protect them. He claimed that this would give France the ability to control the interior of the continent and to convert the pagans to Christianity. Wealth would pour into France from the land’s resources of fish, timber, copper, iron, silver, and precious stones. However, he believed that the major benefit would be the revenue from the short water route to the western ocean and China, once this route was discovered. Then all the maritime nations of Europe would have to use it and pay whatever tolls France chose to levy.

Champlain’s struggles to maintain the infant colony took a turn for the better in 1627 when the king’s first minister, Cardinal Richelieu, took charge of the overseas colonies. He founded the Company of One Hundred Associates and required each associate to invest a large sum of money. Champlain became one of the associates and remained in charge of New France.

But two years later disaster struck. Anglo-Scots privateers, the Kirke brothers, drew up their ships at Québec in 1629 and demanded its surrender. Champlain had to comply because he did not have the manpower to resist: in all of New France—Canada and Acadia together—there were only 107 settlers at that time. The Kirkes also seized the company’s convoy of ships bringing reinforcements and supplies up the St. Lawrence. That loss exhausted the company’s capital, and it never recovered. Champlain was taken prisoner and held in England until 1632. In 1633 he returned to New France and tried to repair the damage done by the Kirkes and reestablish good relations with his old allies. However, his health began to fail, and he died at Québec on December 25, 1635. Toward the end, his mind bewildered, he dictated a new will leaving all his possessions to the Virgin Mary. Two years later his wife succeeded in having the will annulled.

VIII

Evaluation

Champlain accomplished much during his relatively long life. He produced the first accurate chart of the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Cape Cod and maps of the St. Lawrence Valley and Great Lakes Basin. Many of his observations were published in the large body of writing he left behind, which eventually was printed in six volumes. Champlain’s accounts of the habits and characteristics of indigenous peoples, although flawed by his lack of understanding of their cultures, have been of great value to historians.

Champlain established the commercial and military alliances that endured to the end of the French regime in Canada. He created and maintained a base for the future French empire in North America in the face of great difficulties.

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