Champlain and the Foundation of Canada
From the first voyage of Cartier onwards, Canada was called
intermittently New France, and its possibilities were not lost sight
of by a few intelligent Frenchmen on account of the fur trade. Amongst
these was Amyard de Chastes, at one time Governor of Dieppe, who got
into correspondence with the adventurers who had settled as fur
traders at Tadoussac, prominent amongst whom was Du Pont-Gravé. De
Chastes dispatched with Pont-Gravé a young man whose acquaintance he
had just made, SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN.[1] This was the man who, more than
any other, created French Canada.
[Footnote 1: Afterwards the Sieur de Champlain. The title of _Sieur_
(from the Latin _Senior_) is the origin of the English "sir", and is
about equivalent to an English baronetcy.]
Champlain had had already a most adventurous life. He was born about
1567, at Brouage, in the Saintonge, opposite to the Island of Héron,
on the coast of western France. From his earliest years he had a
passion for the sea, but he also served as a soldier for six years.
His father had been a sea captain, and his uncle as an experienced
navigator was commissioned by the King of Spain to transport by sea to
that country the remainder of the Spanish soldiers who had been
serving in Brittany. The uncle took his nephew with him. Young
Champlain when in Spain managed to ingratiate himself so much with the
Spanish authorities that he was actually commissioned as a captain to
take a king's ship out to the West Indies. No sooner did he reach
Spanish America than he availed himself of the first chance to
explore it. For two years he travelled over Cuba, and above all
Mexico. He visited the narrowest part of Central America and conceived
the possibility of making a trans-oceanic canal across the Panama
isthmus.
When he got back to France he placed before Henry IV a report on
Spanish Central America, together with a project for making a canal at
Panama. Henry IV was so pleased with his work and enterprise that he
gave him a pension and the title of Geographer to the King. Shortly
afterwards he met Governor de Chastes at Dieppe, and was by him sent
out to Canada. The ship which carried Champlain, PONT-GRAVÉ,[2] the
SIEUR DE MONTS,[3] and other French adventurers (together with two
Amerindian interpreters whom Pont-Gravé had brought from Canada to
learn French) arrived at Tadoussac on May 24, 1603.
[Footnote 2: Correctly written this was François Gravé, Sieur du
Pont.]
[Footnote 3: The full name was Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts.
Including de Champlain and de Poutrincourt, who will be described
later, we have here the four great heroes who founded French Canada.]
Champlain lost no time in commencing his explorations. Tadoussac was
at the mouth of an important river, called by the French the Saguenay,
a name which they also applied to the mysterious and wonderful country
through which it flowed in the far north; a country rich in copper and
possibly other precious metals. Champlain ascended the Saguenay River
for sixty miles as far as the rapids of Chicoutima. The Amerindians
whom he met here told him of Lake St. John, lying at a short distance
to the west, and that beyond this lake and the many streams which
entered it there lay a region of uplands strewn with other lakes and
pools; and farther away still began the sloping of the land to the
north till the traveller sighted a great arm of the salt sea, and
found himself amongst tribes (probably the Eskimo) who ate raw flesh,
and to the Indians appeared absolute savages.[4] This was probably
the first allusion, recorded by a European, to the existence of
Hudson's Bay, that huge inlet of the sea, which is one of the leading
features in the geography of British North America.
[Footnote 4: The real name for this remarkable people, the Eskimo, is,
in Alaska and Arctic North America, _Innuit_, and in Labrador and
Greenland, _Karalit_. Eskimo (in French, _Esquimaux_) is said to be a
corruption of the Montagnais-Indian word, Eskimantsik, meaning "eaters
of raw flesh".]
The Montagnais Indians round about Tadoussac received Champlain with
great protestations of friendship, and at the headquarters of their
principal chief or "Sagamore" celebrated this new friendship and
alliance with a feast in a very large hut. The banquet, as usual, was
preceded by a long address from the Sagamore in answer to the
description of France, given by one of the Indian interpreters. The
address was accompanied by the solemn smoking of tobacco, and at every
pause in this grave oration the natives present shouted with one
voice: "Ho! ho! ho!" The repast consisted of elk's meat (which struck
the Frenchmen as being like beef), also the flesh of bear, seal,
beaver, and wild fowl. There were eight or ten stone boilers or
cauldrons full of meats in the middle of the great hut, separated each
six feet from each other, and each one having its own fire. Every
native used a porringer or vessel made of birch bark. When the meat
was cooked a man in authority distributed it to each person. But
Champlain thought the Indians ate in a very filthy manner. When their
hands were covered with fat or grease they would rub them on their own
heads or on the hair of their dogs. Before the meat was cooked each
guest arose, took a dog, and hopped round the boilers from one end of
the great hut to the other. Arriving in front of the chief, the
Montagnais Indian feaster would throw his dog violently to the ground,
exclaiming: "Ho! ho! ho!" after which he returned to his place.
At the close of the banquet every one danced, with the skulls of
their Iroquois enemies slung over their backs. As they danced they
slapped their knees with their hands, and shouted: "Ho! ho! ho!" till
they were out of breath.
The huts of these Indians were low and made like tents, being covered
with the bark of the birch tree. An opening about a foot of the top
was left uncovered to admit light and to allow the smoke to escape.
Though low, the huts were sometimes quite large, and would accommodate
ten families. These slept higgledy-piggledy on skins, with their dogs
amongst them. The dogs in appearance were something like what we know
as Eskimo dogs, and also rather resembled the Chinese chow, with broad
heads and rather short muzzles, prick ears, and a tail inclined to
curl over the back. "All these people have a very cheerful
disposition, laughing often, yet at the same time they are somewhat
phlegmatic. They talk very deliberately, as if desiring to make
themselves well understood, and, stopping suddenly, they reflect for a
long time, when they resume their discourse."
They were agile, well-proportioned people, who in the summertime went
about nearly naked, but in the winter were covered with good furs of
elk, otter, beaver, bear, seal, and deer. The colour of their skin was
usually a pale olive, but the women for some reason made themselves
much darker-skinned than the men by rubbing their bodies with pigments
which turned them to a dark brown. At times they suffered very much
from lack of food, being obliged then to frequent the shore of the
river or gulf to obtain shellfish. When pressed very hard by famine
they would eat their dogs (their only domestic animal) and even the
leather of the skins with which they clothed themselves. In the autumn
they were much given to fishing for eels, and they dried a good deal
of eel flesh, to last them through the winter. During the height of
the winter they hunted the beaver, and later on the elk. Though they
ate wild roots and fruits whenever they could obtain them, they do
not seem to have cultivated any grain or vegetables. In the early
spring they were sometimes dying of hunger, and looked so thin and
haggard that they were mere walking skeletons. They were then ready to
eat carrion that was putrid, so that it is little wonder that they
suffered much from scurvy.
Yet the rivers and the gulf abounded in fish, and as soon as the
waters were unlocked by the melting of the ice in April, the surviving
Indians rapidly grew fat and well, and of course the late summer and
the autumn brought them nuts (hickory and other kinds of walnut, and
hazel nuts), wild cherries, wild plums, raspberries, strawberries,
gooseberries, blackberries, currants,[5] cranberries, and grapes.
[Footnote 5: The wild currants so often mentioned by the early
explorers of Canada are often referred to as red, green, and blue. The
blue currants are really the black currant, now so familiar to our
kitchen gardens (_Ribes nigrum_). This, together with the red currant
(_Ribes rubrum_), grows throughout North America, Siberia, and eastern
Europe. The unripe fruit may have been the green currants alluded to
by Champlain, or these may have been the white variety of our gardens.
The two species of wild strawberry which figure so frequently in the
stories of these early explorers are _Fragaria vesca_ and _F.
virginiana_. From the last-named is derived the cultivated strawberry
of Europe. The wild strawberries of North America were larger than
those of Europe. Champlain does not himself allude to gooseberries
(unless they are his _groseilles vertes_), but later travellers do.
Three or more kinds of gooseberry grow wild in Canada, but they are
different from the European species. The blueberry so often Mentioned
by Champlain (bluëts or bluës) was _Vaccinium canadense_.]
Champlain observed amongst them for the first time the far-famed
Amerindian snowshoes, which he compares very aptly for shape to a
racquet used in tennis.
Champlain next visited the site of Stadacona, but there was no longer
any settlement of Europeans at that place, nor were the native
Amerindians the descendants of the Hurons that had received Jacques
Cartier. For the first time the name Quebec (pronounced Kebek) is
applied to this point where the great River St. Lawrence narrows
before dividing to encircle the Isle of Orleans. In fact, Quebec meant
in the Algonkin speech a place where a river narrows; for a tribe of
the great Algonkin family, _the_ Algonkins, allied to the tribes of
Maine and New Brunswick, had replaced the Hurons as the native
inhabitants of this region.
On the shore of Quebec he noticed "diamonds" in some slate rocks--no
doubt quartz crystals. Proceeding on up the River St. Lawrence he
observed the extensive woods of fir and cypress (some kind of _Thuja_
or _Juniper_), the undergrowth of vines, "wild pears", hazel nuts,
cherries, red currants and green currants, and "certain little
radishes of the size of a small nut, resembling truffles in taste,
which are very good when roasted or boiled". As they advanced towards
the interior the country became increasingly mountainous on the south
(the green mountains of New Hampshire), and was more and more
beautiful--"the pleasantest land yet seen". Landing on the south bank
of the St. Lawrence, west of the entrance of the river of the Iroquois
(the Richelieu), he found magnificent forests, which, besides the
trees already mentioned, included oaks, chestnuts, maples, pines,
walnut-like nut trees,[6] aspens, poplars, and beeches; with climbing
hops and vines, strawberries trailing over the ground, and raspberry
canes and currant bushes "growing in the thick grass". These splendid
woods on the islands and banks of the broad river were full of game:
elks,[7] wapiti deer, Virginian deer, bears, porcupines, hares, foxes,
beavers, otters, and musk rats, besides many animals he could not
recognize.
[Footnote 6: Of the genera _Juglans_ and _Carya_.]
[Footnote 7: The huge deer of the genus _Alces_. Elk is the old
Scandinavian name. _Moose_, derived from the Kri language, is the
Canadian term, "Elk" being misapplied to the wapiti (red) deer.
Champlain calls the elk _orignac_, its name in Algonkin.]
At last his little expedition in "a skiff and canoe" had to draw into
the bank, warned by the noise that they were approaching a great fall
of water--the La Chine or St. Louis Rapids. Champlain wrote: "I saw,
to my astonishment, a torrent of water descending with an impetuosity
such as I have never before witnessed.... It descends as if in steps,
and at each descent there is a remarkable boiling, owing to the force
and swiftness with which the water traverses the fall, which is about
a league in length.... The territory on the side of the fall where we
went overland consists, so far as we saw it, of very open wood, where
one can go with his armour without much difficulty."
From the Algonkin Indians in the neighbourhood of these St. Louis
Rapids, and also from those living near Quebec, Champlain obtained a
good deal of geographical information to add to his own observations.
He was given an idea, more or less correct, of Lake Ontario, the Falls
of Niagara, Lake Erie and Lake Huron, and perhaps also of Lake
Superior, a sea so vast, said the Amerindians, that the sun set on its
horizon. This sheet of water, Champlain calculated, must be 1200 miles
distant to the west, and therefore identical with the "Mer du sud"
(Pacific Ocean), which all North-American explorers for three
centuries wished to reach.
After collecting much information about possible copper mines in the
regions north and south of the Lower St. Lawrence, and of silver[8] in
New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and a terrible story which he more than
half believed about a monster of prodigious size, the _Gougou_,[9]
Champlain set sail for France at the end of August, 1603.
[Footnote 8: Or lead mixed with silver. The local natives used this
ore, which was white when beaten, for their arrowheads.]
[Footnote 9: The Gougou dwelt on the small island of Miscon, to the
east of the Bay of Chaleurs. It had the form of a woman but was about
a hundred feet high. Its habit was to catch and devour men and women,
whom it first placed in a pocket capacious enough to hold a small
ship. Its roarings and hissings could be heard at times coming from
the island of Miscon, where the Gougou lay concealed. Even a
Frenchman, the Sieur Prévert, had heard these noises. Probably this
islet had a whirlpool communicating with a cavern into which fishermen
were sucked by the current.]
In April, 1604, Champlain accompanied the Sieur de Monts (who had
succeeded the dead Amyard de Chastes as head of a chartered
fur-trading association) in a fresh expedition to North America,
together with a hundred and twenty artisans and several noblemen.
They were to occupy the lands of "Cadie" (Acadia, Nova Scotia),
Canada, and other places in New France. De Monts thought Tadoussac and
Quebec too cold in wintertime, and preferred the sunnier east coast
regions. He aimed indeed at colonizing what is now New England.
On the way to Nova Scotia, the expedition was nearly wrecked on Sable
Island, about one hundred and twenty miles south of Cape Breton
Island, and noticed there the large red cattle run wild from the bulls
and cows landed on Sable Island by the Portuguese some sixty years
earlier. (The Portuguese of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
deserved well of humanity for the generous way in which they left
cattle, goats, pigs, and rabbits to run wild on desert islands and
serve as provender for shipwrecked mariners like Robinson Crusoe.)
Champlain also speaks of the "fine large black foxes" which he and
other voyagers noticed on Sable Island. How they came there is a
mystery, unless the island had once been part of the mainland.
This same Sable Island had been the scene of an extraordinary
experiment at the end of the previous century. In 1598 the Marquis de
la Roche, given a commission to colonize New France, sailed in a small
ship for North America with sixty convicts from French prisons as
colonists. He landed them on Sable Island, and went away to look for
some good site for his colony. But then a storm arose, and his little
ship was literally blown back to France. The convicts, abandoned thus,
built themselves shelters out of the driftwood of wrecks; killed and
ate the cattle and caught fish. They made themselves warm clothes out
of the skins of the seals which frequented the island coast in
thousands. But these convicts quarrelled and fought among themselves
so fiercely that when at last a ship from Normandy came to take them
away, there were only twelve left--twelve shaggy men with long tangled
hair and beards; and, a legend says, in addition a Franciscan monk
who had been landed on the island with them as a kind of missionary or
chaplain, and who had been so heartbroken at their bloody quarrels and
horrible deeds that when the Norman ship arrived to take the castaways
back to France, the Franciscan refused to go with them, believing
himself to be dying and wishing to end his life undisturbed. So he was
left behind. But after the ship had sailed away he slowly mended, grew
well and strong, and cultivated eagerly his little garden. For food he
ate the whelks, mussels, and oysters that were so abundant on the
shore. Occasionally ships (then as now) were wrecked on Sable Island
in stormy weather, and the good monk ministered to the mariners who
reached the shore. Also he was visited, ever and again, by the Breton
fishing boats, which brought him supplies of necessaries and the bread
and wine for celebrating Mass. Long after his death his spirit was
thought to haunt the desolate island.
Champlain and his companions passed on from Sable Island to the
south-east coast of Nova Scotia, noticing as they landed here and
there the abundance of rabbits[10] and sea birds, especially the Great
Auk, of which they killed numbers with sticks, cormorants (whose fishy
eggs they ate with enjoyment), puffins, guillemots, gulls, terns,
scissorbills, divers, ospreys, buzzards, and falcons; and no doubt the
typical American white-tailed sea eagles, ravens, ducks, geese,
curlews, herons, and cranes. Here and there they found the shore
"completely covered with sea wolves"--seals, of course, probably the
common seal and the grey seal. Of these they captured as many as they
wanted, for the seals, like most of the birds, were quite unafraid of
man.
[Footnote 10: There are no real rabbits in America. This was probably
the Polar Hare (_Lepus timidus glacialis_), or the common small
varying hare (_L. americanus_).]
They then explored the Bay of Fundy, and, after zig-zagging about,
decided to fix on the harbour of St. John's (New Brunswick) as the
site for their colony. The future capital of New France, therefore,
was begun on La Sainte Croix (Dochet) Island, near the mouth of the
wonderful tidal estuary of the Uigudi (Ouygoudy) River.
Here they passed the winter, but suffered so badly from scurvy[11]
that, when in the spring of 1605 Du Pont Gravé arrived from Brittany
with supplies, the remnant of the colony was removed to the opposite
coast of Nova Scotia to Port Royal (afterwards named by the English
Annapolis[12]). The French seem to have fallen in love with this place
from the very first. Nevertheless here they suffered from scurvy
during the winter as elsewhere. Before moving over here, however,
Champlain, together with De Monts, had explored the west of New
England south of New Brunswick as far as Plymouth, just south of
Boston.
[Footnote 11: How awful was this "mal de terre" or scurvy amongst the
French settlers may be seen from this description of Champlain: "There
were produced in the mouths of those who had it great pieces of
superfluous and drivelling flesh, which got the upper hand to such an
extent that scarcely anything but liquid could be taken. Their teeth
became very loose and could be pulled out with the fingers without its
causing them pain.... Afterwards a violent pain seized their arms and
legs, which remained swollen and very hard, all spotted as if with
fleabites; and they could not walk on account of the contraction of
the muscles.... They suffered intolerable pains in the loins, stomach,
and bowels, and had a very bad cough and short breath.... Out of
seventy-nine who composed our party, thirty-five died and twenty were
on the point of death (when spring began in May)."
Scurvy is said to be a disease of the blood caused by a damp, cold,
and impure atmosphere combined with absence of vegetable food and a
diet of salted or semi-putrid meat or fish, such as was so often the
winter food of Amerindians and of the early French pioneers in Canada.
We have already noted Cartier's discovery of the balsam remedy.]
[Footnote 12: From Queen Anne.]
Off the coast of Maine (Richmond's Island) they encountered
agricultural Amerindians of a new tribe, the Penobskot probably, who
cultivated a form of rank narcotic tobacco (_Nicotiana rustica_),
which they called _Petun_. (A variety of this has produced the
handsome garden flower _Petunia_, whose Latin name is derived from
this native word Petun.) They also grew maize or Indian corn, planting
very carefully three or four seeds in little mounds three feet apart
one from the other, the soil in between being kept clear of weeds. The
American farmers of to-day cannot adopt any better method.
The islands round about Portland (Maine) were matted all over with
wild red currants, so that the eye could scarcely discern anything
else. Attracted by this fruit, clouds of wild pigeons had
assembled[13]. They manifested hardly any fear of the French, who
captured large numbers of them in snares, or killed them with guns.
The natives of southern Maine fled with dismay on sighting the French
ships, for they had never before seen sailing vessels, but later on
they timidly approached the French ships in a canoe, then landed and
went through a wild dance on the shore to typify friendliness.
Champlain took with him some drawing paper and a pencil or crayon,
together with a quantity of knives and ship's biscuit. Landing alone,
he attracted the natives towards him by offering them biscuits, and
having gathered them round him (being of course as much unable to
understand their speech as they were French), he proceeded to ask
questions by means of certain drawings, chiefly the outlines of the
coast. The savages at once seized his idea, and taking up his pencil
drew on the paper an accurate outline of Massachusetts Bay, adding
also rivers and islands unknown to the French. They went on by further
intelligent signs to supply information. For instance, they placed six
pebbles at equal distances to intimate that Massachusetts Bay was
occupied by six tribes and governed by as many chiefs. By drawings of
growing maize and other plants they intimated that all these people
lived by agriculture.
[Footnote 13: The pigeons referred to by Champlain were probably the
Passenger pigeon (_Ectopistes_) which at one time was extraordinarily
abundant in parts of North America, though it has now been nearly
killed out by man. It would arrive in flocks of millions on its
migratory journeys in search of food.]
Champlain thought Massachusetts (in his first voyage) a most
attractive region in the summer, what with the blue water of the
enclosed arms of the sea, the lofty forest trees, and the fields of
Indian corn and other crops.
When these French explorers reached the harbour of Boston, the islands
and mainland were swarming with the native population. The Amerindians
were intensely interested in the arrival of the first sailing vessel
they had ever seen. Although it was only a small barque, its size was
greater than any canoe known to them. As it seemed to spread huge
white wings and to glide silently through the water without the use of
paddles or oars, it filled them with surprise and admiration. They
manned all their canoes[14] and came out in a flotilla to express
their honour and reverence for the wonderful white men. But when the
French took their leave, it was equally obvious that the natives
experienced a sense of relief, for they were disquieted as well as
filled with admiration at the arrival of these wonderful beings from
an unknown world.
[Footnote 14: It is interesting to learn from his accurate notes that
in Massachusetts (and from thence southwards) there were no more bark
canoes, but that the canoes were "dug-outs"--trunks of tall trees
burnt and chipped till they were hollowed into a narrow vessel of
considerable length.]
Champlain describes the wigwams or native huts as being cone-shaped,
heavily thatched with reeds, with an opening at the top of the roof
for the smoke to escape. Inside the huts was a low bed raised a foot
from the ground and made of short posts driven into the ground, with a
surface made of boards split from trees. On these boards were laid
either the dressed skins of deer or bear, or thick mattresses made of
reeds or rushes. The beds were large enough for several people to lie
on. Champlain describes the huts as being full of fleas, and likewise
the persons of the nearly naked Indians, who carried these fleas out
with them into the fields when they were working, so that the
Frenchmen by stopping to talk to the natives became covered with
fleas to such an extent that they were obliged to change their
clothes.
In the fields were cultivated not only maize, but beans similar to the
beans grown by the natives of Brazil, vegetable marrows or pumpkins,
Jerusalem artichokes[15], radishes, and tobacco. The woods were filled
with oaks, walnut trees[16], and the red "cedar" of North America,
really a very large juniper, the foliage of which in the summertime
often assumes a reddish colour, together with the trunk. This
Virginian juniper or "red cedar" is now quite a common tree in
England. In warm weather it exhales a delicious aromatic scent.
[Footnote 15: This tuber, which is a well-known and very useful
vegetable in England, comes from the root of a species of sunflower
(_Helianthus tuberosus_). It has nothing to do with the real
artichoke, which is a huge and gorgeous thistle, and it has equally
nothing to do with Jerusalem. The English people have always taken a
special delight in mispronouncing and corrupting words in order to
produce as much confusion as possible in their names for things.
Jerusalem is a corruption of _Girasole_, which is the Italian name
given to this sunflower with the edible roots, because its flower is
supposed always to turn towards the sun. The Jerusalem artichoke was
originally a native of North America.]
[Footnote 16: These walnut trees were afterwards known in modern
American speech as hickories, butter-nuts, and pig-nuts, all of which
are allied to, but distinct from, the European walnut.]
All these natives of the Massachusetts coast were described by
Champlain as being almost naked in the summertime, wearing at most a
small piece of leather round the waist, and a short robe of spun hemp
which hung down over the shoulders. Their faces were painted red,
black and yellow. The men pulled out any hairs which might come on the
chin, and thus were beardless. They were armed with pikes, clubs,
bows, and arrows. The pikes were probably made of wood with the ends
hardened by being burnt to a point in the fire, and the arrow tips
were made of the sharp termination of the tail of the great
king-crab[17].
[Footnote 17: _Limulus polyphemus_. This extraordinary crustacean is
one of the oldest of living animals in its history, as it is closely
related to the Xiphosura and even the Trilobites of the Primary Epoch,
which existed millions of years ago. In a rough way it is a kind of
connecting link between the Crustacea, or crabs and lobsters, and the
Scorpions and spiders.]
These Massachusetts "Indians" described to Champlain a wonderful bird
which at some seasons of the year they caught in snares and ate. This
Champlain at once guessed was the wild turkey, now, of course, quite
extinct in that region. This wild turkey of the eastern half of North
America (including southern Canada) was quite a distinct form from the
Mexican bird, which last is the origin of our domestic turkey.
In July, 1606, as De Monts had not returned from France, and the
little colony at Port Royal was without supplies, they decided to
leave two Frenchmen in charge of the local chief of the Mikmak
Indians, and find their way along the coast to Cape Breton, where they
might get a fishing vessel to take them back to France. But after
travelling in an open boat--a chaloupe--round the coast of Nova Scotia
they met another small boat off Cape Sable, under the charge of the
secretary of De Monts, and learnt that Lieutenant-General DE
POUTRINCOURT[18] (one of the great names amongst the pioneers of
Canada, and the man who had really chosen Port Royal for the French
headquarters at Nova Scotia) had already returned from France with
fresh supplies. Consequently, Champlain and his companions returned to
Port Royal, and all set to work with eagerness to develop the
settlement. Champlain relates in his book how he created vegetable
gardens, trout streams and ponds, and a reservoir of salt water for
sea fish; but he was soon off again on a fresh journey of exploration,
because De Monts was not satisfied with Nova Scotia on account of the
cold in winter. Accordingly Champlain examined the whole coast round
the Bay of Fundy, and down to Cape Cod, and the islands of Martha's
Vineyard and Nantucket. But in this region, already visited in past
times by French, Spanish, and English ships, they found the natives
treacherous and hostile. An unprovoked attack was made on the French
after they landed, and several of the seamen were killed with arrows.
[Footnote 18: Jean de Biencourt, the Sieur de Poutrincourt and Baron
de Saint-Just, were his full titles.]
On the 24th of May, 1607, a small barque of six or seven tons burden
(fancy crossing the wide Atlantic from Brittany to Nova Scotia in a
ship of that size at the present day!) arrived outside Port Royal from
France, with an abrupt notification that De Monts' ten years' monopoly
and charter were _cancelled_ by Henry IV, and that all the colony was
to be withdrawn and brought back to France. Henry IV took this action
simply because De Monts attempted to make his monopoly a real one,[19]
and stop the ships of fur traders who were trading with the
Amerindians of Cape Breton without his licence. These fur traders of
Normandy then complained bitterly that because De Monts was a
Protestant he was allowed not only to have this monopoly, but to
endanger the spiritual welfare of the savages by spreading his false
doctrines! So King Henry IV, volatile and capricious, like most of the
French kings, cancelled a charter which had led to such heroic and
remarkable results.
[Footnote 19: You will observe that neither the French nor the English
sovereigns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went to much
personal expense over the creation of colonies. They simply gave a
charter or a monopoly, which cost them nothing, but which made other
people pay.]
The greater part of the little colony had to leave Port Royal and make
its way in small boats along the Nova Scotia coasts till they reached
Cape Breton Island. Here fishing vessels conveyed them back to
Brittany. It was in this boat journeying along the coast of Nova
Scotia that Champlain discovered Halifax Harbour, then called by the
Indian name of Shebuktu. As they passed along this coast with its many
islands, they feasted on ripe raspberries, which grew everywhere "in
the greatest possible quantity".
Poutrincourt, however, had succeeded in taking back with him samples
of the corn, wheat, rye, barley, and oats which had been so
successfully grown on the island of Sainte Croix and at Port Royal,
and also presented to that monarch five brent-geese[20] which he had
reared up from eggs hatched under a hen. The king was so delighted at
these presents that he once more veered about and gave to De Monts the
monopoly of the fur trade for one more year, in order to enable him to
renew his colonies in New France.
[Footnote 20: _Branta canadensis_, a handsome black-and-brown goose
with white markings, which the French pioneers in Canada styled
"outarde" or "bustard", and whose eggs were considered very good
eating.]
The Sieur de Monts was again appointed by Henry IV Lieutenant-General
in New France. The latter engaged Champlain as his lieutenant, and
also sent out Du Pont Gravé in command of the second vessel, as head
of the trading operations. This time, on the advice of Champlain, the
expedition made its way directly to the St. Lawrence River, stopping
first at Tadoussac, where Du Pont Gravé proceeded to take very strong
measures with the Basque seamen, who were infringing his monopoly by
trading with the natives in furs. Apparently they were still allowed
to continue their whale fishery.
Once more Champlain heard from the Montagnais Indians of the great
Salt Sea to the north of Saguenay, in other words, the southern
extension of Hudson's Bay; and in his book he notes that the English
in these latter years "had gone thither to find their way to China".
However, he kept his intent fixed on the establishment of a French
colony along the St. Lawrence, and may be said to have founded the
city of Quebec (the site of which was then covered with nut trees) on
the 4th of July, 1608. Then his enterprise was near being wrecked by a
base conspiracy got up between a surgeon and a number of French
artisans, who believed that by seizing and killing Champlain, and then
handing over the infant settlement to the Spanish Basques, they might
enable these traders and fishermen with their good strong ships to
overcome Du Pont Gravé, and seize the whole country. Naturally (they
believed) the Basques would reward the conspirators, who would thus at
a stroke become rich men. They none of them wished to go to France,
but would live here independent of outside interference. A
conspirator, however, revealed the plot to Champlain as he was
planting one of the little gardens which he started as soon as he had
been in a place a few days. He went about his business very
discreetly, arrested all the leading conspirators, gave them a fair
trial, had the ringleader executed by Pont Gravé, and sent three
others back to France. After this he settled down at Quebec for the
winter, taking care, however, in the month of October, to plant seeds
and vines for coming up in the spring.
In the summer of 1609 Champlain, apparently with the idea of thus
exploring the country south of the St. Lawrence, decided to accompany
a party of Algonkins and Hurons from Georgian Bay and the
neighbourhood of Montreal, who were bent on attacking the Iroquois
confederacy in the Mohawk country at the headwaters of the Hudson
River. He was accompanied by two French soldiers--Des Marais and La
Routte--and by a few Montagnais Indians from Tadoussac.
The Hurons[21] were really of the same group (as regards language and
descent) as the Iroquois (Irokwá), but in those days held aloof from
the five other tribes who had formed a confederacy[22] and alliance
under the name of _Ongwehonwe_--"Superior Men". The Iroquois
(Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Kayugas, and Senekas) dominated much of
what is now New York State, and from the mountain country of the
Adirondaks and Catskills descended on the St. Lawrence valley and the
shores of Lakes Ontario and Huron to rob and massacre.
[Footnote 21: Huron was a French name given to the westernmost group
of the Iroquois family (see p. 159). The Huron group included the
Waiandots, the Eries or Erigas, the Arendáronons, and the Atiwándoronk
or "neutral" nation. The French sometimes called all these Huron
tribes "the good Iroquois". Iroquois was probably pronounced "Irokwá",
and seems to have been derived from a word like Irokosia, the name of
the Adirondack mountain country.]
[Footnote 22: The confederacy was founded about 1450 by the great
Hiawatha (of Longfellow's Poem), himself an Onondaga from south of
Lake Ontario, but backed by the Mohawks only, in the beginning of his
work.]
The route into the enemy's country lay along the Richelieu River and
across Lake Champlain to its southern end, in sight of the majestic
snow-crowned Adirondak Mountains. On the way the allies stopped at an
island, held a kind of review, and explained their tactics to
Champlain. They set no sentries and kept no strict watch at night,
being too tired; but during the daytime the army advanced as follows:
The main body marched in the centre along the warpath; a portion of
the troops diverged on either side to hunt up food for the expedition;
and a third section was told off for "intelligence" work, namely, they
ran on ahead and roundabout to locate the enemy, looking out
especially along the rivers for marks or signals showing whether
friends or enemies had passed that way. These marks were devised by
the chiefs of the different tribes, and were duly communicated to the
war leaders of tribes in friendship or alliance, like our cipher
codes; and equally they were changed from time to time to baffle the
enemy. Neither hunters nor main body ever got in front of the advance
guard, lest they should give an alarm. Thus they travelled until they
got within two days or so of the enemies' headquarters; thenceforward
they only marched by night, and hid in the woods by day, making no
fires or noise, and subsisting only on cooked maize meal.
At intervals the soothsayers accompanying the army were consulted for
signs and omens; and when the war-chiefs decided on their plan of
campaign they summoned all the fighting men to a smooth place in a
wood, cut sticks a foot long (as many as there were warriors), and
each leader of a division "put the sticks in such order as seemed to
him best, indicating to his followers the rank and order they were to
observe in battle. The warriors watched carefully this proceeding,
observing attentively the outline which their chief had made with the
sticks. Then they would go away and set to placing themselves in such
order as the sticks were in. This manoeuvre they repeated several
times, and at all their encampments, without needing a sergeant to
maintain them in the proper order they were able to keep accurately
the positions assigned to them" (Champlain).
The Hurons who were accompanying Champlain frequently questioned him
as to his dreams, they themselves having a great belief in the value
of dreams as omens and indications of future events. One day, when
they were approaching the country of the Iroquois, Champlain actually
did have a dream. In this he imagined that he saw the Iroquois enemies
drowning in a lake near a mountain. Moved to pity in his dream he
wished to help them, but his savage allies insisted that they must be
allowed to die. When he awoke he told the Amerindians of his dream,
and they were greatly impressed, as they regarded it as a good omen.
Near the modern town of Ticonderoga the Hurons and Algonkins of
Georgian Bay and Ottawa met a party of Iroquois, probably of the
Mohawk tribe. The Iroquois had built rapidly a stockade in which to
retreat if things should go badly with them, but the battle at first
began in the old heroic style with as much ceremony as a French duel.
First the allies from the St. Lawrence asked the Iroquois what time it
would suit them to begin fighting the next day; then the latter
replied: "When the sun is well up, if you don't mind? We can see
better then to kill you all." Accordingly in the bright morning the
Hurons and Algonkins advanced against the circular stockade of the
Iroquois, and the Iroquois marched out to fight in great pomp, their
leaders wearing plumed headdresses. With this exception both parties
fought quite naked, and armed only with bows and arrows.
"I marched twenty paces in advance of the rest" (wrote Champlain)
"till I was within about thirty paces of the Iroquois.... I rested my
musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of the three
chiefs. With the same shot two fell to the ground, and one of their
men was so wounded that he died some time afterwards. I had loaded my
musket with four balls. When they saw I had shot so favourably for
them, they (the Algonkins and Hurons) raised such loud cries that one
could not have heard it thunder.
"Meantime the arrows flew on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly
astonished that two men had been so quickly killed, though they were
equipped with armour woven from copper thread and with wood, which was
proof against their arrows."
Whilst Champlain was loading to fire again one of his two companions
fired a shot from the woods, whereupon the Iroquois took to flight,
abandoning their camp and fort. As they fled they threw off their
armour of wooden boards and cotton cloth.
As to the way in which the Hurons tortured their Iroquois prisoners,
Champlain writes of one instance.
"They commanded him (the prisoner) to sing, if he had courage, which
he did, but it was a very sad song." The Hurons kindled a fire, and
when it was well alight they each took a brand from the blaze, the end
of which was red-hot, and with this burnt the bodies of their
prisoners tied to stakes. Every now and then they stopped and threw
water over them to restore them from fainting. Then they tore out
their finger nails and applied fire to the extremities of the fingers.
After that they tore the scalps off their heads, and poured over the
raw and bleeding flesh a kind of hot gum. Then they pierced the arms
of the prisoners near the wrists, and drew up their sinews with sticks
inserted underneath, trying to tear them out by force, and, if
failing, cutting them. One poor wretch "uttered such terrible cries
that it excited my pity to see him treated in this manner, yet at
other times he showed such firmness that one would have said he
suffered scarcely any pain at all".
In this case Champlain, seeing that the man could not recover from his
injuries, drew apart and shot him dead, "thus putting an end to all
the tortures he would have suffered".
But the savage Hurons were not yet satisfied. They opened the corpse
and threw its entrails into the lake. Then they cut off head, arms,
and legs, and cut out the heart; this they minced up, and endeavoured
to force the other prisoners to eat it.
With those of his allies who were Montagnais Indians from Tadoussac,
Champlain returned to that place. As they neared the shore the
Montagnais women undressed themselves, jumped into the river, and swam
to the prows of the canoes, from which they took the heads of the
slain Iroquois. These they hung about their necks as if they had been
some costly chain, singing and dancing meanwhile.
However, in spite of these and other horrors, Champlain had "separated
from his Upper Canadian allies with loud protestations of mutual
friendship", promising to go again into their country and assist them
with continued "fraternal" relations.
From this expedition Champlain learned much regarding the geography of
eastern North America, and he brought back with him to France, to
present to King Henry IV, two scarlet tanagers--one of the commonest
and most beautiful birds of the eastern United States--a girdle of
porcupine quills made from the Canadian porcupine, and the head of a
gar-pike caught in Lake Champlain.[23]
[Footnote 23: Unconsciously, no doubt, he brought away with him to the
King of France one of the most remarkable freshwater fish living on
the North-American continent, for the gar-pike belongs, together with
the sturgeon and its allies, to an ancient type of fish the
representatives of which are found in rock formations as ancient as
those of the Secondary and Early Tertiary periods. Champlain may be
said to have discovered this remarkable gar-pike (_Lepidosteus
osseus_), which is covered with bony scales "so strong that a poniard
could not pierce them". The colour he describes as silver-grey. The
head has a snout two feet and a half long, and the jaws possess double
rows of sharp and dangerous teeth. These teeth were used by the
natives as lancets with which to bleed themselves when they suffered
from inflammation or headache. Champlain declares that the gar-pike
often captures and eats water birds. It would swim in and among rushes
or reeds and then raise its snout out of the water and keep perfectly
still. Birds would mistake this snout for the stump of a tree and
would attempt to alight on it; whereupon the fish would seize them by
the legs and pull them down under the water.]
On Champlain's return from France in 1610 (he and other Frenchmen and
Englishmen of the time made surprisingly little fuss about crossing
the North Atlantic in small sailing vessels, in spite of the storms of
spring and autumn) he found the Iroquois question still agitating the
minds of the Algonkins, Montagnais, and Hurons. Representatives of
these tribes were ready to meet this great captain of the _Mistigosh_
or _Matigosh_[24] (as they called the French), and implored him to
keep his promise to take part in another attack on the dreaded enemy
of the Adirondak heights. Apparently the Iroquois (Mohawks) this time
had advanced to meet the attack, and were ensconced in a round
fortress of logs built near the Richelieu River.[25] The Algonkins and
their allies on this expedition were armed with clubs, swords, and
shields, as well as bows and arrows. The swords of copper(?) were
really knife blades attached to long sticks like billhooks. Before the
barricade, as usual, both parties commenced the fight by hurling
insults at each other till they were out of breath, and shouting "till
one could not have heard it thunder". The circular log barricade,
however, would never have been taken by the Algonkins and their
allies but for the assistance of Champlain and three or four
Frenchmen, who with their musketry fire at short range paralysed the
Iroquois. Champlain and one other Frenchman were wounded with arrows
in the neck and arm, but not seriously. The victory of the allies was
followed by the usual torture of prisoners, which Champlain made a
slight--only slight--attempt to prevent.
[Footnote 24: Spelt by Champlain with a "ch" instead of _sh_.]
[Footnote 25: Then called the Rivière des Iroquois.]
But results far more serious arose from these two skirmishes with the
Iroquois in 1609 and 1610. The Confederacy of the Five Nations
(afterwards six) realized that they had been attacked unprovoked by
the dominant white men of the St. Lawrence, called by the Montagnais
_Mistigosh_, and by the Iroquois _Adoreset[¯u]i_ ("men of iron", from
their armour). They became the bitter enemies of the French, and
tendered help first to the Dutch to establish themselves in the valley
of the Hudson, and secondly to the English. In the great Colonial wars
of the early eighteenth century the Iroquois were invaluable allies to
the British forces, Colonial and Imperial, and counted for much in the
struggle which eventually cost France Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Maine, the two Canadas, and Louisiana. On the other hand, the French
alliance with the Hurons, Algonkins, and Montagnais, begun by this
brotherhood-in-arms with Champlain, secured for France and the French
such widespread liking among the tribes of Algonkin speech, and their
allies and friends, that the two Canadas and much of the Middle West,
together with Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, became French in
sympathy without any war of conquest. When the French dominion over
North America fell, in 1759, with the capture of Quebec by Wolfe's
army, tribes of Amerindians went on fighting for five years afterwards
to uphold the banner and the rule of the beloved French king.
On Champlain's next visit to Canada, in 1610, he handed over to the
Algonkin Indians a French youth named Étienne Brulé (see p. 88), to
be taught the Algonkin language (the use of which was spread far and
wide over north-east America), and, further, sent a Huron youth to
France to be taught French. Between 1611 and 1616 he had explored much
of the country between Montreal (the foundations of which city he may
be said to have laid on May 29, 1611, for his stockaded camp is now in
the centre of it) and Lakes Huron and Ontario, especially along the
Ottawa River, that convenient short cut (as a water route) between the
St. Lawrence at Sault St. Louis (Montreal) and Lakes Huron and
Superior. With short portages you can get in canoes from Montreal to
the waters of Hudson Bay, or to Lake Winnipeg and the base of the
Rocky Mountains.
In exploring this "River of the Algonkins" (as he called it),
Champlain was nearly drowned between two rocks, and much hurt, from
over bravery and want of knowledge of how to deal with a canoe on
troubled water; but on June 4, 1613, he stood on the site of the
modern city of Ottawa--the capital of the vast Canadian Dominion--and
gazed at the marvellous Rideau or Curtain Fall, where the Rideau River
enters the Ottawa. But the air was resonant with the sound of falling
water. Three miles above the falls of the Gatineau and the Rideau, the
main Ottawa River descended with a roar and a whirl of white foam and
rainbow-tinted mist into the chasm called the Chaudière or Kettle. On
a later occasion he describes the way in which the Algonkins
propitiated the Spirit of the Chasm:
"Continuing our way, we came to the Chaudière Falls, where the savages
carried out their customary ceremony. After transporting their canoes
to the foot of the fall they assemble in one spot, where one of them
takes up a collection on a wooden platter, into which each person puts
a bit of tobacco. The collection having been made, the plate is placed
in the midst of the troop, and all dance about it, singing after
their style. Then one of the captains makes an harangue, setting forth
that for a long time they have been accustomed to make this offering,
by which means they are ensured protection against their enemies, that
otherwise misfortune would befall them from the evil spirit. This
done, the maker of the harangue takes the plate and throws the tobacco
into the midst of the cauldron (the chasm of foaming water), whereupon
they all together raise a loud cry. These poor people are so
superstitious, that they would not believe it possible for them to
make a prosperous journey without observing this ceremony at this
place; for sometimes their enemies (Iroquois) await them at this
portage, not venturing to go any farther on account of the difficulty
of the journey. Consequently they are occasionally surprised and
killed by the Iroquois at this place (the south bank of the Ottawa)."
Above the Chaudière Champlain met the Algonkin chief, Tessouat, and
thus described the burial places of his tribe:
"On visiting the island I observed their cemeteries, and was struck
with wonder as I saw sepulchres of a shape like shrines, made of
pieces of wood fixed in the ground at a distance of about three feet
from each other, and intersecting at the upper end. On the
intersections above they place a large piece of wood, and in front
another upright piece on which is carved roughly, as would be
expected, the figure of the male or female interred. If it is a man,
they add a shield, a sword attached to a handle after their manner, a
mace, and bow and arrows. If it is a chief, there is a plume on his
head, and some other _matachia_ or embellishment. If it is a child,
they give it a bow and arrow, if a woman or girl, a boiler, an earthen
vessel, a wooden spoon, and an oar. The entire sepulchre is six or
seven feet long at most, and four wide; others are smaller. They are
painted yellow and red, with various ornaments as neatly done as the
carving. The deceased is buried with his dress of beaver or other
skins which he wore when living, and they lay by his side all his
possessions, as hatchets, knives, boilers, and awls, so that these
things may serve him in the land whither he goes; for they believe in
the immortality of the soul, as I have elsewhere observed. These
carved sepulchres are only made for the warriors, for in respect to
others they add no more than in the case of women, who are considered
a useless class, accordingly but little is added in their case."
In the summer of 1615 Champlain, returning from France, made his way
up the Ottawa River, and, by a short portage, to Lake Nipissing,
thence down French River to the waters of Lake Huron. On the banks of
the French River he met a detachment of the Ottawa tribe (of the
Algonkin family). These people he styled the _Cheveux Relevés_,
because the men's hair was gathered up and dressed more carefully and
becomingly on the top of the head than (he says) could at that time be
done by a hairdresser in France. This arrangement of the hair gave the
men a very handsome appearance, but here their toilet ended, for they
wore no clothes whatever (in the summertime), making up for this
simplicity by painting their faces in different colours, piercing
their ears and nostrils and decorating them with shell beads, and
tattooing their bodies and limbs with elaborate patterns.
These Ottawas carried a club, a long bow and arrows, and a round
shield of dressed leather, made (wrote Champlain) "from the skin of an
animal like the buffalo".[26] The chief of the party explained many
things to the white man by drawing with a piece of charcoal on the
white bark of the birch tree. He gave him to understand that the
present occupation of his band of warriors was the gathering of
blueberries, which would be dried in the sun, and could then be
preserved for eating during the winter.
[Footnote 26: This was the first intimation probably that any European
sent home for publication regarding the existence of the bison in
North America, though the Spanish explorers nearly a hundred years
before Champlain must have met with it in travelling through
Louisiana, Texas, and northern Mexico. The bison is not known ever to
have existed near Hudson Bay, or in Canada proper (basin of the St.
Lawrence). South of Canada it penetrated to Pennsylvania and the
Susquehanna River, but not farther eastward.]
From French River, Champlain passed southwards to the homeland of the
Hurons, which lay to the east of what Champlain called "the Fresh
Water Sea" (Lake Huron). This country he describes in enthusiastic
terms. The Hurons, like the other Iroquois tribes (and unlike the
hunting races to the north of them), were agriculturists, and
cultivated pumpkins, sunflowers,[27] beans and Indian corn.
[Footnote 27: The Amerindians of the Lake regions made much use of the
sunflowers of the region (_Helianthus multiflorus_). Besides this
species of sunflower already mentioned, which furnishes tubers from
its roots (the "Jerusalem" artichoke) others were valued for their
seeds, and some or all of these are probably the originals of the
cultivated sunflower in European gardens. The largest of these was
called _Soleille_ by the French Canadians. It grew in the cultivated
fields of the Amerindians to seven or eight feet in height, with an
enormous flower. The seeds were carefully collected and boiled. Their
oil was collected then from the water and was used to grease the hair.
This same Huron country (the Simcoe country of modern times) was
remarkable for its wild fruits. There was the Canada plum (_Prunus
americana_), the wild black cherry (_Prunus serotina_), the red
cherries (_P. pennsylvanica_), the choke cherry (_P. virginiana_),
wild apples (_Pyrus coronaria_), wild pears (a small berry-like pear
called "poire" by the French: _Pyrus canadensis_), and the may-apple
(_Podophyllum peltatum_). Champlain describes this may-apple as of the
form and colour of a small lemon with a similar taste, but having an
interior which is very good and almost like that of figs. The
may-apples grow on a plant which is two and a half feet high, with not
more than three or four leaves like those of the fig tree, and only
two fruits on each plant.]
The Hurons persuaded Champlain to go with them to attack the Iroquois
tribe of the Senekas (Entuhónorons) on the south shores of Lake
Ontario. On the way thither he noticed the abundance of stags and
bears, and, near the lake, of cranes, white and purple-brown.[28]
[Footnote 28: The cranes of Canada--so often alluded to by the French
explorers as "Grues"--are of two species, _Grus canadensis_, with its
plumage of a purple-grey, and _Grus americanus_, which is pure white
(see p. 139).]
On the southern shores of the lake[29] were large numbers of chestnut
trees, "whose fruit was still in the burr. The chestnuts are small but
of a good flavour." The southern country was covered with forests,
with very few clearings. After crossing the Oneida River the Hurons
captured eleven of the Senekas, four women, one girl, three boys, and
three men. The people had left the stockade in which their relations
were living to go and fish by the lake shore. One of the Huron
chiefs--the celebrated Iroquet, who had been so much associated with
Champlain from the time of his arrival--proceeded at once to cut off
the finger of one of these women prisoners. Whereupon Champlain,
firmer than in years gone by, interposed and reprimanded him, pointing
out that it was not the act of a warrior such as he declared himself
to be, to conduct himself with cruelty towards women "who had no
defence but their tears, so that one should treat them with humanity
on account of their helplessness and weakness". Champlain went on to
say that this act was base and brutal, and that if he committed any
more of such cruelties he, Champlain, "would have no heart to assist
or favour them in the war". To this Iroquet replied that their enemies
treated them in the same manner, but that since this was displeasing
to the Frenchmen he would not do anything more to women, but he would
not promise to refrain from torturing the men.
[Footnote 29: Lakes Ontario and Huron were probably first actually
reached by Father Le Caron, a Recollett missionary who came out with
Champlain in 1615 (see p. 90), and by Étienne Brulé, Champlain's
interpreter.]
However, in the subsequent fighting which occurred when they reached
the six-sided stockade of the Senekas (a strong fortification which
faced a large pond on one side, and was surrounded by a moat
everywhere else except at the entrance), the Hurons and Algonkins
showed a great lack of discipline. Champlain and the few Frenchmen
with him, by using their arquebuses, drove the enemy back into the
fort, but not without having some of their Indian allies wounded or
killed. Champlain proposed to the Hurons that they should erect what
was styled in French a _cavalier_--a kind of box, with high, loopholed
sides, which was erected on a tall scaffolding of stout timbers. This
was to be carried by the Hurons to within a pike's length of the
stockade. Four French arquebusiers then scrambled up into the
_cavalier_ and fired through the loopholes into the huts of the Seneka
town. Meantime the Hurons were to set fire, if possible, to the wooden
stockade. They managed the whole business so stupidly that the fire
produced no effect, the flames being blown in the opposite direction
to that which was desired. The brave Senekas threw water on to the
blazing sticks and put out the fire. Champlain was wounded by an arrow
in the leg and knee. The reinforcement of the five hundred Hurons
expected by the allies did not turn up. The Hurons with Champlain lost
heart, and insisted on retreating. Only the dread of the French
firearms prevented the retreat being converted into a complete
disaster. Whenever the Senekas came near enough to get speech with the
French they asked them "why they interfered with native quarrels".
Champlain being unable to walk, the Hurons made a kind of basket,
similar to that in which they carried their wounded. In this he was so
crowded into a heap, and bound and pinioned, that it was as impossible
for him to move "as it would be for an infant in his swaddling
clothes". This treatment caused him considerable pain after he had
been carried for some days; in fact he suffered agonies while fastened
in this way on to the back of a savage.
He was afterwards obliged to pass the winter of 1615-6 in the Huron
country. At that time it swarmed with game. Amongst birds, there were
swans, white cranes, brent-geese, ducks, teal, the redbreasted thrush
(which the Americans call "robin"), brown larks (_Anthus_), snipe, and
other birds too numerous to mention, which Champlain seems to have
brought down with his fowling-piece in sufficient quantities to feed
the whole party whilst waiting for the capture of deer on a large
scale.
Meanwhile, many of the Indians were catching fish, "trout and pike of
prodigious size". When they desired to secure a large number of deer,
they would make an enclosure in a fir forest in the form of the two
converging sides of a triangle, with an open base. The two sides of
these traps were made of great stakes of wood closely pressed
together, from 8 to 9 feet high; and each of the sides was 1000 yards
long. At the point of the triangle there was a little enclosure. The
Hurons were so expeditious in this work that in less than ten days
these long fences and the "pound" or enclosure at their convergence
were finished. They then started before daybreak and scattered
themselves in the woods at a considerable distance behind the
commencement of these fences, each man separated from his fellow by
about 80 yards. Every Huron carried two pieces of wood, one like a
drumstick and the other like a flat, resonant board. They struck the
flat piece of wood with the drumstick and it made a loud clanging
sound. The deer who swarmed in the forest, hearing this noise, fled
before the savages, who drove them steadily towards the converging
fences. As they closed up, the Hurons imitated very cleverly the
yapping of wolves. This frightened the deer still more, so that they
huddled at last into the final enclosure, where they were so tightly
packed that they were completely at the men's mercy. "I assure you,"
writes Champlain, "there is a singular pleasure in this chase, which
takes place every two days, and has been so successful that in
thirty-eight days one hundred and twenty deer were captured. These
were made good use of, the fat being kept for the winter to be used as
we do butter, and some of the flesh to be taken to their homes for
their festivities."
Champlain himself, in the winter of 1615, pursuing one day a
remarkable bird "which was the size of a hen, had a beak like a parrot
and was entirely yellow, except for a red head and blue wings, and
which had the flight of the partridge"--a bird I cannot
identify--lost his way in the woods. For two days he wandered in the
wilderness, sustaining himself by shooting birds and roasting them.
But at last he found his way back to a river which he recognized, and
reached the camp of the Hurons, who were extremely delighted at his
return. Had they not found him, or had he not come back of himself,
they told him that they could never again have visited the French for
fear of being held responsible for his death.
By the month of December of this year (1615) the rivers, lakes, and
ponds were all frozen. Hitherto, Champlain had had to walk when he
could not travel in a canoe, and carry a load of twenty pounds, while
the Indians carried a hundred pounds each. But now the water was
frozen the Hurons set to work and made their sledges. These were
constructed of two pieces of board, manufactured from the trunks of
trees by the patient use of a stone axe and by the application of
fire. These boards were about 6 inches wide, and 6 or 7 feet long,
curved upwards at the forward end and bound together by cross pieces.
The sides were bordered with strips of wood, which served as brackets
to which was fastened the strap that bound the baggage upon the
sledge. The load was dragged by a rope or strap of leather passing
round the breast of the Indian, and attached to the end of the sledge.
The sledge was so narrow that it could be drawn easily without
impediment wherever an Indian could thread his way over the snow
through the pathless forests.
The rest of the winter and early spring Champlain spent alone, or in
company with Father Joseph Le Caron (one of the Recollet
missionaries), visiting the Algonkin and Huron tribes in the region
east of Lake Huron. He has left this description of the modern country
of Simcoe, the home, three hundred years ago, of the long-vanished
Hurons[30]; and gives us the following particulars of their home
life. The Huron country was a pleasant land, most of it cleared of
forest. It contained eighteen villages, six of which were enclosed and
fortified by palisades of wood in triple rows, bound together, on the
top of which were galleries provided with stores of stones, and
birch-bark buckets of water; the stones to throw at an enemy, and the
water to extinguish any fire which might be put to the palisades.
These eighteen villages contained about two thousand warriors, and
about thirty thousand people in all. The houses were in the shape of
tunnels, and were thatched with the bark of trees. Each lodge or house
would be about 120 feet long, more or less, and 36 feet wide, with a
10-foot passage-way through the middle from one end to the other. On
either side of the tunnel were placed benches 4 feet high, on which
the people slept in summer in order to avoid the annoyance of the
fleas which swarmed in these habitations. In winter time they slept on
the ground on mats near the fire. In the summer the cabins were filled
with stocks of wood to dry and be ready for burning in winter. At the
end of each of these long houses was a space in which the Indian corn
was preserved in great casks made of the bark of trees. Inside the
long houses pieces of wood were suspended from the roof, on to which
were fastened the clothes, provisions, and other things of the
inmates, to keep them from the attacks of the mice which swarmed in
these villages. Each hut might be inhabited by twenty-four families,
who would maintain twelve fires. The smoke, having no proper means of
egress except at either end of the long dwelling, and through the
chinks of the roof, so injured their eyes during the winter season
that many people lost their sight as they grew old.
[Footnote 30: They were almost completely exterminated by the Iroquois
confederacy between thirty and forty years after Champlain's visit.]
"Their life", writes Champlain, "is a miserable one in comparison
with our own, but they are happy amongst themselves, not having
experienced anything better, nor imagining that anything more
excellent could be found."
These Amerindians ordinarily ate two meals a day, and although
Champlain and his men fasted all through Lent, "in order to influence
them by our example", that was one of the practices they did _not_
copy from the French.
The Hurons of this period painted their faces black and red, mixing
the colours with oil made from sunflower seed, or with bears' fat. The
hair was carefully combed and oiled, and sometimes dyed a reddish
colour; it might be worn long or short, or only on one side of the
head. The women usually dressed theirs in one long plait. Sometimes it
was done up into a knot at the back of the head, bound with eelskin.
The men were usually dressed in deerskin breeches, with gaiters of
soft leather. The shoes ("Moccasins") were made of the skin of deer,
bears, or beavers. In addition to this the men in cold weather wore a
great cloak. The edges of these cloaks would often be decorated with
bands of brown and red colour alternating with strips of a
whitish-blue, and ornamented with bands of porcupine quills. These,
which were originally white or grey in colour, had been previously
dyed a fine scarlet with colouring matter from the root of the
bed-straw (_Galium tinctorum_). The women were loaded with necklaces
of violet or white shell beads, bracelets, ear-rings, and great
strings of beads falling below the waist. Sometimes they would have
plates of leather studded with shell beads and hanging over the back.
[Illustration: SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN; ALEXANDER HENRY THE ELDER]
In 1616 Champlain returned to France, but visited Quebec in 1617 and
1618. During the years spent at Quebec, which followed his
explorations of 1616, he was greatly impeded in his work of
consolidating Canada as a French colony by the religious strife
between the Catholics and Huguenots, and the narrow-minded greed of
the Chartered company of fur-trading merchants for whom he worked. But
in 1620 he came back to Canada as Lieutenant-Governor (bringing his
wife with him), and after attending to the settlement of a violent
commercial dispute between fur-trading companies he tried to compose
the quarrel between the Iroquois and the Algonkins, and brought about
a truce which lasted till 1627.
In 1628 came the first English attack on Canada. A French fleet was
defeated and captured in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in the
following year Champlain, having been obliged to surrender Quebec (he
had only sixteen soldiers as a garrison, owing to lack of food),
voyaged to England more or less as a prisoner of state in the summer
of 1629. He found, on arriving there, that the cession of Quebec was
null and void, peace having been concluded between Britain and France
two months before the cession. Charles I remained true to his compact
with Louis XIII, and Quebec and Nova Scotia were restored to French
keeping. In 1633 Champlain returned to Canada as Governor, bringing
with him a considerable number of French colonists. _It is from 1633
that the real French colonization of Canada begins_: hitherto there
had been only one family of settlers in the fixed sense of the word;
the other Frenchmen were fur traders, soldiers, and missionaries. But
Champlain only lived two years after his triumphant return, and died
at Quebec on Christmas Day, 1635.
His character has been so well summed up by Dr. S.E. Dawson, in his
admirable book on the _Story of the St. Lawrence Basin_, that I cannot
do better than quote his words:
"Champlain was as much at home in the brilliant court of France as in
a wigwam on a Canadian lake, as patient and politic with a wild band
of savages on Lake Huron as with a crowd of grasping traders in St.
Malo or Dieppe. Always calm, always unselfish, always depending on
God, in whom he believed and trusted, and thinking of France, which he
loved, this single-hearted man resolutely followed the path of his
duty under all circumstances; never looking for ease or asking for
profit, loved by the wild people of the forest, respected by the
courtiers of the king, and trusted by the close-fisted merchants of
the maritime cities of France."