Samuel de Champlain sometimes called Samuel Champlain in English documents was born at Brouage, in the Saintonge province of Western France, about Between and , he made 12 stays in North America. He was an indefatigable explorer — and an assistant to other explorers — in the quest for an overland route across America to the Pacific, and onwards to the riches of the Orient. But a fire in the 17th century completely destroyed the town records of Brouage, where the young Champlain was believed to have spent his childhood.
However, by the time he undertook his voyages of discovery and exploration to Canada, he had definitely converted to Catholicism. On this basis, several historians have deduced that Champlain must have been born around But things were to take a different turn in the spring of when Jean-Marie Germe, a French genealogist, was examining the archives of the Protestant parish of Saint Yon de La Rochelle.
What Mr. Certainly the document is difficult to read; the letters often have to be deciphered as much from their context, as from their appearance. Moreover, in that era the rules of spelling were flexible, to say the least.
The different spellings used for the family name of the child and his father can be explained by the fact these names had perhaps previously been written down only rarely.
A standard spelling had possibly not yet been adopted. What are the chances of finding another baptismal certificate dating from this era where the names are identical to those we find in other historical documents?
The chances are in fact very small indeed. However, even though the family names of Chapeleau and Champlain are similar, this small difference — understandable as it may be — cautions us not to jump to conclusions. Although the probability is slight, it is still possible that this document has nothing to do with our Samuel de Champlain.
If we are indeed looking at the baptismal certificate of our Samuel de Champlain, we can now say for certain that he was born into a Protestant family, most probably during the summer of But unless there is another discovery to equal the one made by Mr.
In this spring of Champlain set out again for New France, this time with his wife aged c. The construction lasted all autumn and all winter. Champlain allowed the clerks, who were growing anxious, to continue trading meanwhile. Parleys were held with both parties, but in the meantime it was ascertained that the king was allowing both companies to trade for that year.
On 18 Aug. In the report that Le Baillif presented to the king, we find repeated the same arguments put forward by Champlain in , including the reference to the route to Asia. Shortly after this general meeting, about which Champlain does not utter a word in his writings, the first ordinances were published at Quebec, 21 Sept.
The texts of this first legislation in New France have not been found. As a legislator, Champlain applied himself also to playing a political role among the natives. The Indians, persuaded by Champlain to settle and till the land, began to clear ground near Quebec in the spring of In addition, in June, Champlain received a visit from some Iroquois who had come for peace parleys; he convinced his allies of the advantages of peace, and got them to send four of their men to the Iroquois country; he continued his efforts towards pacification when in July , at the mouth of the Richelieu, he smoothed out a quarrel between some Hurons and Algonkins, and pardoned an Indian guilty of having killed some Frenchmen.
The material progress of the colony also concerned him. During the winter of —24, he drew up plans for a new Habitation, collected the materials, and had the timber cut and hauled in.
He laid the first stone on 6 May On 1 October he landed at Dieppe, and from there went to Saint-Germain to make a report to the king. On 15 Feb. This last objective seems to have interested Champlain less and less, or else he no longer had the leisure to concern himself with it.
After staying a year and a half in France, Champlain sailed again, 15 April He was at Quebec on 5 July, finding there the Jesuits who had arrived the previous year at the invitation of the Recollets. For those attending to cattle-raising and hay-making, he personally supervised the construction of a habitation at the Cap Tourmente: two main buildings and a stable after the Normandy style.
It was in also that Cardinal Richelieu, after suppressing the post of admiral and securing the resignation of the viceroy de Ventadour, took New France under his immediate supervision.
At the beginning of , Champlain noted an event of some importance. It was discovered early in July that the English had pillaged the Cap Tourmente habitation; then, on the tenth, some Basques brought Champlain a summons from the Kirke brothers. Quebec was in a very bad way; each person was restricted to seven ounces of peas a day, and there remained only 50 pounds of gunpowder. Quebec found itself reduced to stark necessity. This time Champlain could not put up a false front.
He was forced to hand over Quebec, after obtaining the best terms of capitulation he could. On 24 July he left Quebec. The English refused to believe it. Champlain reached Tadoussac on 1 August, and he had to make a lengthy stay there. Travelling on board an English ship, Champlain reached London on 29 October.
He went immediately to the French ambassador and pointed out to him that the capture of Quebec had taken place two months after the signing of peace; he presented the original of the capitulation, some reports, and a map of Canada this map has not been traced.
At the beginning of December he was back in France, after an absence of three and a half years. He met the members of the company, Richelieu, and the king himself, and urged them to hasten the restitution of New France. What did he do during this three-year stay in France, besides make moves to hasten the restitution of the colony? He is known to have been at Brouage on 27 Sept. On 13 Feb. During he published the Voyages de la Nouvelle-France , dedicated to Richelieu. This work contains an historical retrospect from , his own voyages of —29, and an account of what occurred in Champlain reappeared at Quebec 22 May , after an absence of nearly four years.
On 15 Aug. He wrote to him again, 18 Aug. He might have added that he had just sent Jean Nicollet on a mission of peace and discovery amongst the tribes bordering on the Great Lakes. In his health declined rapidly, which no doubt explains why, without any intimation of what had happened at Quebec at the beginning of the winter, Paris named a successor to Champlain in the person of Charles Huault de Montmagny, 15 Jan. In October Champlain had been stricken with paralysis.
It was then that Champlain, in a gesture typical of that period, and forgetful of the agreements already entered into with his wife, appointed the Virgin Mary his heiress, thus leaving his furniture and his share in the company to the church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Recouvrance. This will, confirmed in Paris in , was to be annulled two years later on the petition of a first cousin, Marie Camaret.
Champlain was then buried temporarily in an unmarked grave, to be transferred later probably in , after Montmagny had enlarged the church to a chapel built as an annex to the church, and called first the chapel of Monsieur le Gouverneur, and afterwards the chapel of Champlain. It was destroyed by a fire in , at the same time as the church and residence of the Jesuits, and was immediately rebuilt, but nothing more was heard of it after , and apparently in it no longer existed.
As a consequence of the work done on the basement in , any further possibility of tracing the remains of Champlain seems to have vanished. Champlain wrote a great deal, but his works, which are extensive and abound in detail, reveal nothing of his private life.
He kept silent about his background, his conversion if he was born a Protestant , his marriage, and his wife. Once only does he speak to us, briefly, about an illness that he had undergone. On the other hand, his writings are almost the only source of information about the development of his career; from to , the only facts we know about Champlain are those he has told us himself.
Under these conditions it is difficult to construct an image of Champlain that conforms to reality. From his written work we can deduce some dominant characteristics. First, a physical trait: a healthy, robust, resilient nature. He seems never to have suffered from scurvy, either in Acadia or at Quebec; the long sea voyages from on, he crossed the Atlantic 21 times , the hazardous expeditions, the sojourns among the natives do not appear to have affected him at all; he was indomitable, and ran any kind of risk to win prestige for himself for example, he shot the Lachine Rapids in a canoe.
His health and energy were reflected in his moral qualities. Eager to see everything, to know everything, he was always out to make discoveries, whether it was a matter of examining a harbour, studying a type of soil or a tribe, or looking for a mine. He was observant; it was while stalking a strange bird that he lost his way in the forests of the Huron country.
He moved doggedly towards his goal; when de Monts withdrew, it was Champlain who, despite the most odious vexations, resisted those merchants who opposed every attempt at colonization.
One would consequently expect to find in him an unbending man, hard towards others. On the contrary, he was jovial, a lover of good food and drink, the founder of the Order of Good Cheer. He behaved towards the natives with the greatest amiability, making them laugh continually, forgiving their offences in circumstances which surprise us.
He preferred winning them over to punishing them. This kindliness was not however to prevent him from letting fly a few shafts when necessary as he did against Lescarbot , or from manoeuvring skilfully in order to apply a policy of domination. He prevailed upon the natives to adopt as their chief only a person who had been chosen by the French. Champlain was a religious man.
His zeal was revealed when in , for example, the Recollets came to New France. It was also revealed in his writings, but here it is important to make distinctions. We must first set aside the dedications that cannot be by Champlain, because of their style and it is in one of these dedications that the salvation of a soul is placed above the conquest of an empire. We must then distinguish between the early works and the last one. The writings of —19 offer nothing distinctive from the religious point of view; besides, the Champlain of Acadia, concerned chiefly with discovering mines, had nothing of the apostle about him, and in the absence of a priest during the winter —7, it was not he who was chosen to teach the catechism, but Lescarbot.
Champlain was no mystic. He was a man of action, a geographer and ethnographer, who recounted what he had done and seen as one composes a work of information.
Certainly one can regret that Champlain did not take care to describe for us society as it was in the early days of New France, its mentality and institutions, and this is the more regrettable because for the first 15 years of Quebec he is our only source of enlightenment. But he has left us, written with many technical details and sometimes in a picturesque style, a geographic inventory of Acadia, the St.
What was Champlain trying to do? By putting together phrases gathered at random, and insisting on his liking for gardening, some have sought to see in Champlain the founder of an agricultural colony. One could just as well, by the same unsound procedure, make of Champlain a man entirely dedicated to looking for mines!
It is in this setting of large-scale commerce, and not in an agricultural setting, that Champlain is, before Talon, our first great colonizer. Champlain was a man of ever-reviving plans: in Acadia, he hoped to discover several mines and the route to Asia; in the St. Lawrence, he wanted also to find the route to Asia, and to set up at Quebec a customs post between Europe and China; he had planned to build a habitation at Montreal; he wanted to move the Algonkins of Allumette Island and even the Hurons into the St.
Champlain and the few survivors received fresh supplies in April In June, he set off on an expedition, accompanied by two Frenchmen and a party of Wendat Huron , Algonquin and Montagnais. The group reached a great lake, which would be named in his honour see Lake Champlain. In late July, they encountered a party of Haudenosaunee Iroquois at Ticonderoga. According to historian Marcel Trudel, Champlain killed two men during the engagement.
Not long after, he sailed to France, leaving Pierre Chavin in command of Quebec. Champlain returned the following spring. Champlain vowed to make Quebec the centre of a powerful colony. However, he was opposed by the various merchant companies that employed him. It was more profitable for them to be involved only in the fur trade. The capital of the fledgling colony of New France was also taken by the English in Champlain was taken prisoner and sent to England.
Appointed lieutenant by Cardinal Richelieu, Champlain returned to Quebec in He was able to see the promising beginnings of the colony he had planned. He was paralyzed in the fall of due to a stroke. He died on Christmas Day that year. Champlain developed a vast trade network by forming and consolidating alliances with the Montagnais of the St.
These alliances obliged Champlain to support his allies in their wars against the Iroquois , whose territory was to the south of Lake Ontario and into present-day New York. He participated in military campaigns in on Lake Champlain , in near Sorel and in in Iroquois territory. Injured in the third expedition, he was forced to spend the winter of —16 in Huronia. He took advantage of this time to explore the Lake Huron region. He also developed cordial relations with other nations, notably the Odawa and the Nipissing.
See also Indigenous-French Relations. Champlain left behind a considerable body of writing, largely relating to his voyages. The most important editions of his work are the ones prepared by C. Biggar — It includes a list of place names not found on the map as well as unpublished explanations. It presents everything known about North America at that time.
Exploring the Explorers: Samuel de Champlain Teacher guide for multidisciplinary student investigations into the life of explorer Samuel de Champlain and his role in Canadian history.
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