CHAMPLAIN.
“There are few chapters in history so full of romantic
interest, so compelling in their demands for sympathy and
admiration, as the record of the century and a half that began
with the wooden fortress of Champlain under the bluff at
Quebec, and ended with the fall of Montcalm on the Heights of
Abraham.”
—HON. ELIHU ROOT.
CHAMPLAIN AND THE GREAT LAKES.
On the Bay of Biscay, on the west coast of France, and not very far from
Rochelle, there is a small village now some miles from the sea, but
which in the days of Cartier and for some years after was a flourishing
seaport. This is called Brouage, and is almost a deserted village to-day,
the sea having receded and the railway passed it by. The great salt
marshes are still there to remind one of the time when cargoes of salt
were shipped from this harbour, and where ships, then considered great,
found safe anchorage.
In this seaport, with its face to the great mysterious Western land,
young Samuel de Champlain, son of a sea captain, grew up during the
stirring times of civil war in France. When a boy of nine[5] his city was
captured by Henry of Navarre, who, after years of struggle, during which
were many mighty deeds of valour, finally overcame his enemies, entered
Paris in triumph, and was crowned King of France. Indeed, the struggle
was so long that Champlain grew up sufficiently to be accounted a gallant
officer in Henry’s army.
When peace was declared and the country had settled down, Champlain in
his love for adventure entered the service of the King of Spain, and made
trips to the West Indies, going inland in America even to the city of
Mexico.
On his return he made a report to the King of France, concerning this
Western land, in the hope that his own country might once more send
expeditions of discovery. In this report he says: “One might judge if the
territory four leagues in extent, lying between Panama and the river were
cut through, he could pass from the South Sea to that on the other side,
and thus shorten the route by more than fifteen hundred leagues. From
Panama to Magellan would make an island and from Panama to the Newlands
(Newfoundland) would make another, so that the whole of America would be
in two islands.”
Three hundred years afterwards this was done, and by the people of a
country then undiscovered, and supplies from the Pacific Coast of that
great nation passed through that canal to help the cause of the France
which Champlain loved and served so well.
During the years of civil strife in France, the exploration of the
Western world was being pushed forward by the merchant adventurers of
England, and especially of Spain. Spies from the court of Spain watched
every port and sent home the news of prospective sailings so that these
rivals might be intercepted and America be preserved for Spain.
But now that peace was established enterprising mariners of the northern
seaports of France remembered the expeditions of Cartier, and so the
governor of Dieppe induced Champlain to undertake a voyage to New France.
They left that port in March, 1603, and after coasting along the shores
of Newfoundland, Anticosti and Cape Breton, sailed up the St. Lawrence
and anchored at Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay. Thence Champlain
made a journey up the great river to Hochelaga, which in Cartier’s time
was a flourishing town. Now all was deserted and nothing remained of what
had been a great Indian community. Gathering up what furs they could,
Champlain and his party sailed for home, which they reached in September.
This was a journey of inspection, spying out the land, and the King
was so impressed by Champlain’s account that he gave his patronage to
a larger expedition. This was under the command of Sieur de Monts, a
nobleman, with Champlain as the King’s geographer, and was sent out in
the hope that a colony might be established, and so actual possession of
New France might be maintained against European nations who were claiming
parts of the New World.
De Monts became the first Lieutenant-Governor of New France, and with
nobles, soldiers, priests, and peasants, about 120 in all, his little
fleet discovered and entered the harbour and river of St. John on the
24th of June, 1604, exactly to the day one hundred and seven years
after the discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot; and there on the island
of St. Croix (Holy Cross) established a colony, the only settlement of
Europeans north of Florida. It was an exceptionally severe winter and the
colonists suffered almost as much as Cartier’s men so many years before
at Quebec.
In the spring Champlain set out to find some place for the settlement
which might have a more congenial climate. Although he went south and
passed the islands at the mouth of what is now the harbour of Portland,
Maine, and even entered the harbour of Boston, he returned to Port Royal
in Nova Scotia, the situation of which had appealed to him, and there the
colony moved.
It was a prosperous settlement, and it is of interest in these days of
grain growing, hydro-power development and ship building in Canada to
know that these settlers raised the first wheat grown in America; here
was used the first wheel to turn a millstone upon this continent; and in
this harbour in 1606 the first Canadian vessel was built.
The position on the sea, with fertile soil and great forests near by, was
very attractive, and perhaps is best described by Longfellow centuries
afterwards:
“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
To-day in its loneliness it reminds one of Brouage and it is difficult to
think that it has been the most besieged city in America.
But it was when Champlain came back from France in 1608, after a year’s
absence from the colony, that our great interest begins, for then he
determined to press inland and re-assert the sovereignty claimed for
France by Cartier. The bold headland where Cartier had spent the winter
had attracted his attention upon his previous voyage, and so he founded
there in 1608 a town, really the capital of New France, and to it he gave
the native Algonquin name, “Quebec,” which means “the narrowing of the
stream.”
In the following year he went up the St. Lawrence, and finding a party
of Huron and Algonquin Indians about to set out on an expedition against
their great enemy, the Iroquois, who were encroaching upon Algonquin
territory near what is now Lake Champlain, he joined with them, thinking
thereby to establish friendly and profitable relations with such
powerful tribes. The result was that he made the fighting Iroquois the
everlasting and unrelenting enemies, not only of himself but of France.
This was one of the great fights of history, full of meaning in the after
years of Canadian life. When the Algonquins came within fighting distance
of their adversaries they opened ranks, and Champlain, steel armour on
breast and thighs, a plumed helmet on his head, a sword at his side, and
a musket in his hands, stepped out to the front, and for the first time
the Indians saw the death-dealing firearms of the white man.[6]
In his own words:
“I looked at them and they looked at me. When I saw them getting ready to
shoot their arrows at us, I levelled my arquebus which I had loaded with
four balls and aimed straight at one of the chiefs. The shot brought down
two and wounded another.”
This day of fateful beginnings was two months before Hudson discovered
the river that bears his name and eleven years before the Pilgrim
Fathers landed upon the stern and rock-bound coast of America. One of our
own poets, Bliss Carman, pictures the setting out of the expedition:
“On such a day three hundred years ago
By toilsome trails, and slow,
But with the adventurer’s spirit all aflame
The great discoverer came
Finding another Indies that he guessed
To reward his darling quest
And fill the wonder-volume of Romance,
The sailor of Little Brouage, the founder of New France,
Sturdy, sagacious, plain
Samuel de Champlain.”
During the next few years Champlain crossed the sea almost annually and
arranged for the development of the fur trade, for which he established a
post on the site of the ancient Hochelaga and where Montreal now stands.
Then he resumed his search for the great “Western Sea” which lured on
these early adventurers, or some outlet through the great continent to
the fabled land beyond; and in 1613 he followed up the waterway of the
St. Lawrence by going up the Ottawa beyond where now is the capital of
the Dominion of Canada. His journey really began when he left the end
of the island of Montreal at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and
the Ottawa, where St. Anne de Bellevue now stands and where, many years
after, Tom Moore, the famous Irish poet, lived for a short time and wrote
the Canadian Boat Song.[7]
He soon came back, his information having proved unreliable, and he
returned to France to make his report on the fur trade and the state
of the country. He set sail again in 1615 for New France, having with
him four Franciscan Fathers called Récollet friars from the convent in
Brouage, who were anxious to convert to Christianity the savages of this
great new world of which Champlain had told them.
He stayed but a short time at Quebec as he wished to follow up a party
of Huron and Algonquin Indians who had gone up the Ottawa to gather the
tribes for a raid against the Iroquois. With them went Father Le Caron,
one of the Récollets who had come out from Brouage with Champlain.
[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE WARRIORS
The advance party of a Mohawk war expedition has returned to Theonondiogo
(Two Noses), the Mohawk capital (1634). They have brought with them two
Mahikan Indian captives from the vicinity of Skanehtade (Albany).
One prisoner in defiance has thrown down his burden and his captor is
about to strike him when a chief woman of the village coming up the steep
hill interposes by holding up a string of white ransom wampum saving the
captive from death. Another warrior examines the bag of booty dropped by
the prisoner. To the right near the stockade wall is seen a Mohawk war
chief in full regalia leading a captive Mahikan, who bends beneath his
burden. In the background is a figure calling the rest of the warriors to
the hilltop council.
The scene is laid on the hill overlooking the ancient Mohawk site of Two
Noses, just above the present village of Sprakers in the Mohawk valley,
and the observer is looking north toward the foothills of the Adirondacks.
The purpose of this group is to illustrate (1) the treatment of
prisoners, (2) the authority of the Iroquois woman, (3) the difference
between the Mohawks and the Hudson river Mahikans, (4) an Iroquois
village with its stockade wall, (5) a typical Mohawk valley landscape in
Indian times.]
Accompanied by Etienne Brulé, his interpreter, a brave and skilful
woodsman, Champlain’s party went up the Ottawa, crossed over the divide
from the Upper Ottawa and launched their canoes on Lake Nipissing. Thence
they paddled down the French River into Lake Huron. One can imagine the
joy of Champlain when he saw this great body of water stretching away
beyond his vision and which he christened Mer Douce (Fresh Water Sea).
This was the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man,
and Champlain, with Le Caron and Brulé, were the first white men to sail
on its waters.
Down the shore they went for more than a hundred miles until the Indians
came to the outlet of a well-known trail leading into the heart of the
territory of the Hurons, to the palisaded town of Otoucha. This part of
the country had many permanent Indian villages whose inhabitants were
more agricultural than those in the east, and Champlain was greatly
impressed with the fields of maize and pumpkins and sun flowers. Here he
found Le Caron, who had preceded him on the journey, and on August 12th,
1615, the first mass, the first religious service in what was afterwards
known as Upper Canada, was celebrated in what is now the township of
Tiny, near Penetanguishene, in the county of Simcoe. This event was
commemorated three hundred years later by the Archbishop of Toronto, who
celebrated mass as nearly as possible on the same spot, and to mark which
a monument has been erected.
The Indians gathered up their warriors and started southward. When the
expedition reached Lake Simcoe, Brulé left Champlain that he might go
directly south and persuade an Indian tribe who lived in that part of the
country west and south of where Buffalo now stands, to join them against
the Iroquois. Brulé paddled up the Holland river, crossed over the height
of land and thence down the Humber river until he came to its mouth where
the city of Toronto now stands. He was the first white man who saw Lake
Ontario; and this was some five years before the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers.
Champlain in the meantime crossed Lake Simcoe, portaged to Balsam Lake,
thence through the Otonabee River, Rice Lake, and the Trent River, into
Lake Ontario, which he too saw for the first time, and with his Huron
companions crossed over to the country of the Iroquois. The raid was a
failure, and Champlain, himself wounded, returned with the retreating
Hurons and spent the winter with them in Huronia on the Georgian Bay.
The remaining years of Champlain’s life were spent in trying to build up
this little colony[8] in a vast country and reconciling the conflicting
elements in it. The most important event was the capture of Quebec in
1629 by an English fleet under Sir David Kirke, a descendant of French
Huguenots who had taken refuge in England. Those were times when news
travelled slowly, and much to their mutual surprise it was found that a
peace had already been signed between England and France, and so Quebec
was restored to France in 1632 and Champlain, who had been taken to
England as a prisoner, was released and restored to his governorship.
But his spirit was failing, and on Christmas Day, 1635, one hundred years
after Cartier had first sailed up to the great rock at the narrowing of
the stream, this brave soldier, resourceful general, and true gentleman,
passed away in the country which he loved and in the city he had founded.