Champlain's Dream

by David Hackett Fischer

  Champlain also studied the Spanish system of security against interlopers on Santo Domingo, and discovered a secret network of coast watchers, African slaves who watched for foreign vessels, with a promise of emancipation if they discovered an intruder. Champlain reported, “These negroes will go a hundred and fifty leagues on foot, night and day, to give such notice and acquire their liberty.”63

  Commodore Urdayre’s Spanish squadron departed from Santo Domingo with San Julian, and sailed south and west on a course for Vera Cruz. Champlain wrote that they “coasted the island of Cuba on the south side, where the land is rather high,” and he made an accurate description of that arid shore, with the Sierra Maestra rising behind it.64 They sailed past the pale green waters of Guantanamo Bay and continued due west through “some small islands called the Caymans.” They stopped there for a day, and once again Champlain managed to explore two of them. He accurately described the flora and fauna, and was fascinated by the enormous flocks of birds, and the big iguanas that are still in residence.65

  From the Caymans they continued west across the Sound of Campeche toward the coast of Mexico. Their course took them through a tricky channel, edged with dangerous shoals. “The leadline must always be in hand, when passing through this channel,” Champlain wrote. One of their small pataches foundered there, “without our being able to learn the cause.” In mid-passage, Champlain wrote, his ship lay to for a few hours and the crew went fishing. They brought up large quantities of a beautiful fish he had never seen before, “the size of a dory, of a red color and very good if eaten fresh.” This was an accurate description of the red snapper that abound in these waters. Champlain greatly admired its flavor. He noted that this fish was not suited for salting and keeping, but it brought fresh food for the crew, always important to the health and spirits of the ship’s company. He observed that experienced Spanish captains were careful to seize opportunities for fresh water, fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish. From much experience they were more successful than north Europeans in controlling dietary illnesses such as scurvy, which they called the English or Dutch disease. Here again, Champlain learned from them, and acted on their example throughout his career.66

  After a voyage of eight days, they reached the coast of Mexico and steered for the port of St. Jean de Luz.67 It was an extraordinary place, an island about half a mile off the coast, also known as San Juan de Ulúa. In Champlain’s time it was, in his words, “the first port of New Spain, where the king’s galleons gathered every year to carry their cargos of silver and gold, pearls and precious stones and cochineal.”68

  The site was chosen for security rather than convenience. It was surrounded by shoals, and very difficult to approach by land or sea. Spanish authorities turned the entire island into a fortress. Treasure galleons moored directly to heavy bronze rings set in massive stone walls—not a comfortable berth. Champlain wrote, “The ships are so crowded together that when the wind comes from the north, the most dangerous quarter, the vessels grind against one another, though they are moored fore and aft.” Around the fort a seaborne town grew up, with strange houses rising on piles above the shallows.69

  On the mainland, fifteen miles along the coast, was Vera Cruz, the terminus of a great road that led to Mexico City about two hundred miles distant. Champlain wanted very much to go there. An opportunity presented itself when Commodore Urdayre sent two officers to Mexico City with orders to arrange the shipment of silver to the squadron. The commander of this mission was Captain Jeronomino de Vallebrera, master of San Julian. Champlain tells us that Urdayre gave him permission to go along, and he remained “an entire month in Mexico.” Spanish documents confirmed the journey as 39 days long, without mentioning Champlain.70

  Champlain was fascinated by what he saw of Mexico. Nearly half of his written account is devoted to this trip. His journey took him through dense tropical forests near the coast, “filled with the most beautiful trees that one could hope to imagine,” and birds of bright plumage. The road continued through “great plains, stretching as far as the eye can see, and covered with immense herds of horses, mules, oxen, cattle, sheep and goats, which have pastures always fresh in every season, there being no winter.” He marveled at the fertility of the Mexican soil, which yielded two crops of grain each year, and orchards that were “never bare of fruit.” He saw grapes as big as plums, and other fruits and vegetables in proportion. Altogether, he wrote, “it is not possible to see or to desire a more beautiful country.”71

  Much of Champlain’s account was devoted to the flora, which fascinated him. He described accurately the major fruits and vegetables and field crops. Still more amazing to him were the fauna. He could scarcely believe the strange creatures that he observed: rattlesnakes, fireflies, hermit crabs, llamas from Peru, crocodiles thirty feet long “and very dangerous,” and turtles “of marvellous size, such that two horses would have enough to do to drag one of them.”72

  Like many naturalists of his era, Champlain was interested in describing “true wonders” that he discovered. Always there was a tension between what was true and what was wonderful. Behind his approach was an expanding interest in truth-seeking and truth-telling—an attitude that was fundamental to the history of science in Champlain’s generation. We may observe this search for true wonders at work when Champlain heard reports in Mexico of dragons of strange shape, having a head like an eagle, wings like a bat, a body like a lizard, large feet, and a scaly tail. He carefully reported what he had heard, but made clear that he had not seen it with his own eyes.73 In the same spirit he also described the legendary Quezal bird, which was said to have no feet at all, and spent all its life flying. Champlain wrote cautiously, “I have only seen one, which our general bought for 150 crowns.” He was aware that Mexican entrepreneurs had a flourishing business in amputating the feet from dead birds and selling the remains to credulous visitors. Champlain hedged his account of these true wonders, as he would later do in Canada, but he reported what he heard.74

  As Champlain made his way into the highlands of Mexico, he found that the natural wonders of the countryside were nothing compared with the marvels of Mexico City, “which I had not believed could be so superbly built of handsome temples and fine houses.” He had no idea of its size before he saw it, and estimated the population at 12,000 or 15,000 Spaniards plus six times that number of Indians—about 100,000 altogether.

  As his travels continued, Champlain became more sympathetic to the native people of Mexico. He described them as fully equal to Europeans in intellect, and wrote that they “are of a melancholy disposition, but nevertheless have a very quick intelligence.”75 He was appalled by the treatment they received from Spanish conquerors. Champlain noted a widespread pattern of tyranny, cruelty, and exploitation throughout the Spanish dominions. He reported that the silver mines of Mexico were worked by forced labor, as were the pearl fisheries, the construction of cities, the manning of galleys, and many industries. Champlain attributed this regime directly to the king of Spain, who “reserved the right of employing in them a great number of slaves, to get from the mines, for his profit, as much as they can; and he draws besides the tenth part of all that lessees get, so that these mines can produce a very good revenue to the king of Spain.”76

  Champlain was even more horrified by the system of religious tyranny that the Spanish imposed upon the Indians. He wrote that the king of Spain, “at the commencement of his conquests, had established the Inquisition among them, and enslaved them or put them cruelly to death in such great numbers, that the mere account of it arouses compassion.”77 Champlain strongly favored the spread of Christianity in the new world, but not by cruelty and violence. He reported that the Indians were so outraged by their treatment that they made war against the Spaniards, and killed and ate them. So strong was the resistance of the Indians that “the Spaniards were constrained to take away the Inquisition, and allow them more personal liberty, granting them a milder and more tolerable rule of life.”

  But
even in this more moderate regime, Champlain reported that Indians who did not attend mass were beaten severely by Catholic priests and given “thirty or forty blows with a stick outside the church before all the people. This is the system adopted to keep them in the faith, in which they live partly from fear of being beaten.” Champlain’s horror at this system appeared not only in his text but also in his vivid illustrations of Indians being burned by Catholic inquisitors and beaten at the church door for not attending mass.78

  Champlain’s account of Mexico contained many errors. Some things were kept secret from him. He could not discover the location of the silver mines and was not allowed to go near them. He did not understand the source of cochineal, an enormously valuable scarlet dye that was guarded as a state secret in Spanish America. Champlain mistakenly believed that it came from a plant; perhaps he was deliberately misled by Spanish informants. He also confused cacao with the maguey, or agave. But altogether he was a very keen observer, and what he saw had a deep impact on his thinking. Champlain’s visit to New Spain would be fundamental to his career in New France.79 It turned his thoughts to another idea of empire, where Indians and Europeans could live together in a different spirit.

  After returning from Mexico, Champlain’s squadron remained for a time at St. Jean de Luz. He reported that he seized another opportunity and “embarked in a patache that was going to Porto Bello, 400 or 500 leagues distant,” near the Isthmus of Panama. “I found a very bad land indeed,” he wrote, “this place of Porto Bello being the most evil and unhealthy residence in the world.” He described a climate of constant rain and extreme heat, and a country so unhealthy that the “greater part of the newly arrived soldiers or sailors die.” He noted the excellent harbor, guarded by two strong castles, but also reported a way to attack it by an unguarded approach.80

  Champlain was interested in the Isthmus of Panama, but it appears from his account that he did not explore it. Perhaps he was forbidden to do so. Gold and silver from Peru and Bolivia were brought by sea to the Pacific coast of Panama, and then carried by mule across the Isthmus to Porto Bello. Champlain observed, “If an enemy of the king of Spain held the said Porto Bello, he could prevent anything from leaving Peru, except with great difficulty and risk, and with more expense than profit.”81

  Champlain was quick to see the potential for a canal across the Isthmus, and a passage to the “South Sea.” He reckoned that the canal needed only to be four leagues in length to connect two rivers. He underestimated the distance and made an error in his account, writing that one of these rivers flowed through Porto Bello when in fact it went through Colon. Otherwise, his description was accurate.82

  Champlain’s patache hastened back to St. Jean de Luz, where the great ships in the squadron were careened on the shore, and their hulls were repaired in preparation for the long voyage home. This was a heavy labor for hard-worked crews, who had to unload each ship, work her ashore, and haul her on her beam ends with block and tackle until her bottom was exposed. Then came the work of scraping and cleaning the hull to remove the heavy growth of weed and barnacles that reduced the ship’s speed and threatened the integrity of her planking. Champlain wrote that the work was finished in fifteen days and Commodore Urdayre’s squadron made ready to sail for Havana, where the treasure ships assembled for their return to Spain.83

  It was well that the Spaniards had repaired their ships. As they made their way into the Caribbean Sea, they ran headlong into a huge storm such as Champlain had never met before. “A hurricane from the north caught us with such fury, that we were all lost,” he wrote. The San Julian began to leak again, more dangerously than ever. “Our ship made so much water, that we thought we could not escape this peril,” Champlain remembered. “If we took half an hour’s rest, without pumping out the water, we were obliged to work for two hours without ceasing.”84

  The ships lost sight of each other, and San Julians pilot had no idea where he was. Luckily they met a small vessel and were warned that they were sailing into danger. It was a miraculous deliverance. “Had we not met with a patache which set us on our course again,” Champlain wrote, “we should have gone to our destruction on the coast of Campeche … our pilot had completely lost his reckoning, but by God’s grace who sent this patache across our path, we made our way to Havana.”85 There they found Don Francisco Coloma, who had arrived safely with his galleons from Cartagena by July 27. The storm-beaten ships of Urdayre’s squadron straggled into Havana harbor during the days of August.86

  At this point, Champlain’s narrative became very thin and incomplete. After the hurricane, by his own account, he was in Spanish territory from August of 1599 to the spring of 1601. His Brief Discours covers this period of twenty-one months in only three pages. By comparison, he gave thirty-six pages to his travels from January to August in 1599—a period of seven months. His sketchy account of the later period was rushed and grossly incomplete. Unlike the bulk of his Brief Discours, these last three pages do not match information from other sources. We know from documents in Spanish archives that Don Francisco Coloma surveyed the battered San Julian, judged her to be unfit for sea, and sold her in Havana. Her officers were reassigned to other vessels in the fleet. Champlain’s narrative makes no reference to San Julian’s fate, and mentions no other ship by name.87 He does tell us that he made another voyage from Havana to Cartegena in South America, with a passport from Coloma, who allowed him free access to that magnificent port. He was there a month and a half, and returned to Cuba in December 1599. “I returned to Havana to find our general [Coloma], who gave me a very good reception, for having viewed by his commandement the places where I had been.”88

  En route from Mexico to Cuba, Champlain’s fleet was nearly destroyed by a hurricane, and almost wrecked on the treacherous coast of Campeche. His shattered ship, the San Julian, barely survived, and was condemned in Havana, but Champlain’s sense of mission grew stronger with every test.

  Champlain tells us that he remained in Cuba for another four months, explored the island, and admired the town and harbor of Havana, “one of the finest I have seen in all the Indies.” He studied its fortifications and the great iron chain across the narrow entrance to keep enemies at bay. Once again he was deeply interested in Indians and African slaves, and described in brutal detail the slave rancheros who hunted livestock with hooked lances, hamstrung the animals, skinned their hides, and left the carcasses to be eaten by wild dogs. It was another dark image of life in the Spanish empire.89

  That period of four months in Cuba took him to the spring of 1600. Some scholars suggest that he visited Florida. Champlain added a brief account of its resources, terrain, soil, and vegetation in only a few sentences, but they were accurate and very revealing of his own purposes. Champlain described Florida as “one of the best countries that could have been desired, for it is very fertile if it were cultivated, but the king of Spain takes no account of it because there are in it no mines of gold and silver.” As always he studied the new world mainly as a place for permanent settlement, and he was contemptuous of Spanish purposes. He was also deeply interested in the Indians of Florida, and wrote of the “great numbers of savages who make war against the Spaniards.” He described the fort at St. Augustine, and his description of natural features had the feel of an eyewitness account.90

  In the spring of 1600, Champlain tells us, “the whole fleet of the Indies” gathered in Havana’s huge harbor “from all parts” of the Spanish empire. He sailed home with it, probably leaving in the same season. He reported an uneventful trip, north through the strait between Florida and Cuba, past the Bahamas, where he mistook the long mass of Andros Island for San Domingo. They sailed north with the prevailing winds to the latitude of Bermuda (about 32 degrees), then east at about 39 degrees to the Azores, with their high sugar-loaf peaks that are visible for many miles at sea. He marveled at the storms around Bermuda, with “waves as high as mountains,” and was fascinated by the flying fish and their enemies the sharks. They stee
red for home through waters infested with privateers, and captured two English ships, “fitted out for war.” At last they arrived in Cadiz Bay, probably on August 11, 1600.91

  Champlain went to visit his uncle Captain Provençal, who was living at Cadiz in the house of a Spanish friend named António de Villa. The old Captain was very ill, and Champlain decided to move in and look after him. Captain Provençal’s commercial affairs were in disarray, and he asked his nephew to take them in hand. It was a big job. Official papers in Spanish archives give us some idea of what Champlain had to deal with. There was the matter of a trading ship of 150 tons and “merchandise from the vessel” that had been left with associates at the village of San Sebastian, near Vizcaya on the northeastern coast of Spain, very far from Cadiz in the extreme southwest.92

  Captain Provençal thought he was owed money by Spanish officials for the charter of San Julian, and for the cargo and supplies that had been in her hold. There were investments in various parts of Spain, and real estate in France as well. It was all a great tangle. Champlain probably had to travel on many commercial errands. He was still at this task on June 26, 1601, when Captain Provençal lay on his deathbed. The dying man summoned a large circle of friends and neighbors, and dictated a new will that made Champlain his heir.

  The will was drawn in Spanish, and recorded under the name of Guillermon Elena. It left a large estate to Champlain. The tone of the document tells us much about them both. The dying man wrote, “I say that I have very much love and bequeath to the Frenchman, Samuel Zamplen [sic], born at Brouage in the province with the name Santonze, that he is my heir, for much good work he did for me in my illness, and he came when I needed him.” The captain added that he made Champlain his heir “also for the great love I feel for being married to his aunt, his mother’s sister and also for other reasons and for the just respect I have for him; this moves me to prove for all of these reasons of my own free will and in the greatest way that I can give, and I know that I do thank him with a donation of as much as is necessary for the said Samuel Zamplen.”