PROCEED 

Samuel de Champlain is born in France, Southwest of Rochfort in 1567.

His father (and grandfathers) are all great sailors.

At 20 he joins the army and serves until 1598. 

In 1599 he goes to sea on a French trading ship and makes lots of trips to the West Indies, Mexico, and Panama, returning to France in 1601 to write a book about his trips. 

In 1603, Champlain sails across the Atlantic and explores the St. Lawrence River down to Lachine Rapids for King Louis XIII. 

Champlain sails to the New World again in 1604 and explores the coast as a geographer and a cartographer for Pierre du Guast Sieur de Monts.

In 1605, Champlain he finds a good harbour at Port Royal.  

He makes two more trips along the coast in search of a better site for another settlement.   Cruising up the coast, they see smoke on the shore.  They approach but see no savages and believe that they have fled.   

The sun sets but they find no harbor for that night because the coast is flat and sandy. 

They keep off and head south, in order to find an anchorage.  They come to a cape on the main land south and further on three or four rather high islands and a large bay.  They anchor until daybreak.

The next day they spot a birch bark canoe containing five or six savages. The savages land the canoe on the beach and begin to dance. 

Sieur de Monts sends Champlain on shore to contact the savages and give each one of them a knife and some biscuit.  This causes them to dance again better than before. 

Champlain draws with crayon, the bay, and the Island Cape.  With the same crayon the savages draw the outline of another bay and place six pebbles at equal distances apart representing as many chiefs and tribes. 

There are a great many vines in the vicinity with green grapes a little larger than peas and many nut-trees, the nuts on which are no larger than musket-balls. The savages say that those inhabiting this country cultivate the land and sow seeds. 

Sailing half a league farther, more savages appear on a rocky point and along the shore dancing as they inform everyone strangers are arriving. 

They make a signal with smoke to show the place of their settlement. 

Sieur de Monts anchors near a little island and sends a canoe with knives and cakes for the savages. The large number of savages indicate that these places are better inhabited than the others the French have seen.

Sieur de Monts sends two or three men in a canoe to each party and gives them knives and paternosters. The savage dance to communicate their gratitude. 

All along the shore there is a great deal of land cleared up and planted with Indian corn. The country is very pleasant and agreeable, and there is no lack of fine trees. 

The canoes are made of a single piece and very liable to turn over if one is not skillful in managing them.  After cutting down, at a cost of much labor and time, the largest and tallest tree they can find, by means of stone hatchets, they remove the bark, and round off the tree except on one side, where they apply fire gradually along its entire length; and sometimes they put red-hot pebble-stones on top. When the fire is too fierce, they extinguish it with a little water, not entirely, but so that the edge of the boat may not be burnt. It being hollowed out as much as they wish, they scrape it all over with stones, which they use instead of knives. 

In September of 1606, Sieur de Monts and Champlain encounter rather bad weather and fogs with little prospect of being able to spend the night under shelter since the locality is not favorable but they find another place to anchor.  

Two hundred savages live in this very pleasant place with its large number of very fine walnut trees, cypresses, sassafras, oaks, ashes, and beeches.   Some of the land is already cleared up, and the savages are constantly making clearings. After cutting down the trees at a distance of three feet from the ground, they burn the branches upon the trunk, and then plant their corn between these stumps, in course of time tearing up also the roots. There are likewise fine meadows. 

The savages are finished their harvest.   Some very fine grapes are just ripe, Brazilian peas, pumpkins, squashes are plentiful and very good roots, which the savages cultivate, have a taste similar to that of chards. The savages make presents of some of these, in exchange for little trifles. 

The chief , Quiouhamenec, and a neighbor of his, Cohouepech, are entertained sumptuously. Champlain gives a coat, to Onemechin, chief of Chouacoet, but he gives it away because he is uneasy in it, and cannot adapt himself to it. 

During the ceremony a savage wounds himself in the foot, and swoons. Many others surround him and sing for some time before touching him. Then they make some motions with their feet and hands, shake his head and breathe upon him and he comes to. The French surgeon dresses his wounds and he goes away in good spirits.

The next day, as they are caulking their shallop, the French discover a number of savages with the intention of doing some mischief to a number of the French who are doing their washing at a little stream. In order to put a good face upon their presence, the savages begin to shout and dance, and advance with their bows, arrows, quivers, and other arms. 

Inasmuch as there is a meadow between them and the French, they began to dance again in a circle, putting all their arms in the middle. When they see Sieur de Poutrincourt in the wood with eight musketeers, they are frightened. Yet they do not stop until they have finished their dance.  Then they withdraw in all directions. 

The French show them demonstrations of gladness, return to launch their shallop and take their departure. The savages entreat them to wait a day, saying that more than two thousand of them are coming. Suspicious, the French are unwilling to stay longer. 

In 1608 Champlain sails to Canada again and establishes Canada's oldest city, Quebec.  

The savages come to traffic in furs.  They come in birch bark canoes, which are from eight to nine paces long, and about a pace or pace and a half broad in their middle, growing narrower toward the two ends strengthened on the inside by little ribs of white cedar. They are so light that a man can easily carry one. When they want to go overland to a river where they have business, they carry them with them. 

In April 1609, Champlain becomes friendly with the Algonquin and Huron Indians living near Quebec. He believes his friendship will prevent Indian attacks on the settlement and that peaceful relations will make it easier to trade furs with the Indians and to explore the country. 

From March to May of 1610 Champlain is ill.

In May and June, Champlain and two French companions join the Algonquin and Huron party of sixty in a raid on the Iroquois.

During the journey south into Iroquois territory he finds a beautiful lake which he names Champlain after himself.

July 30, 1609, the whole night before the fight was spent in dancing and singing, in both camps, with many insults being being exchanged between them. The Huron tell the Iroquois they would see a kind of warfare they had never seen before.

Champlain stands behind the Huron with his musket. His two French companions hide in the woods, waiting for the signal. The Huron tell Champlain that the men with big head-dresses were chiefs.  There were only three of them and their feathers are much larger than those of their companions.  Champlain shoots two chiefs and one of the other Frenchmen shoot the third. The Iroquois, who know nothing about firearms, take to the woods.  Champlain wins the fight and the lasting friendship of the Algonquin and the Huron.  

In 1615 Champlain and Etienne Brule explore the Ottawa River, searching for the northwest passage, Georgia Bay, and Lake Ontario. 

War breaks out between France and England in 1626, and the English begin to attack French settlements in Canada. 

In 1628, an English army cuts off supplies to Quebec and orders Champlain to surrender the fort. The settlers hold out for a year but surrender after they run out of food. 

In 1629 Champlain is captured by the English , held captive in England until peace of Saint-German-en-Laye in1632.

He returns to New France and is governor until he dies in 1635.

ABORT