From there they sailed to Mount Desert Island. Champlain, on his last visit, had found its terrain and soil to be unpromising, and its location offered no access to the interior. But the sieur de Mons wanted to study it, and perhaps the restless gentleman-adventurers wished to see the sights.43 They stayed several days at Mount Desert, then sailed to Penobscot Bay and crossed its broad mouth. Three Indians came out in a canoe from the cape now called Owl’s Head, and said that their chief would like to meet the French. Some “conversation” ensued, but no meeting and no tabagie—a common pattern on voyages commanded by the sieur de Mons.
Champlain’s image of this handsome Almouchiquois woman might have been the woman of Panounias, who sailed with him on the coast of Maine, the only female he mentioned as coming on his exploring voyages. She appears on his Carte Géographique, 1612. Her image is also on the title page of the Voyages in 1619.
Suddenly de Mons noticed the time. He had taken two weeks to reach the Penobscot River, which was only two days’ sail from Sainte-Croix. A third of his provisions were gone, and he had not covered the ground of the last cruise. Abruptly he picked up the pace. They left Owl’s Head on July 1, 1605, and made twenty-five leagues in one day to the Kennebec River.44 Here at last they reached the place where the last voyage had ended, and Champlain’s narrative became more detailed. He explored the mouth of the Kennebec, and charted its islands and channels. They met two canoes of Indians who were hunting swans and geese. The French asked the woman of Panounias to “explain the reason of our coming.”45
The Indians offered to take them upstream to meet their chief and led them through an astonishing maze of meandering channels that connect three major rivers in mid-coast Maine: the Kennebec (by the modern city of Bath), the Sheepscot to the east (Wiscasset), and the Androscoggin River to the west (Brunswick). The Indians led the French eastward from the Kennebec through a passage called the Back River, which was easy for a canoe but difficult for a patache.46 They emerged on the Sheepscot River near Wiscasset, and a sagamore they called Manthoumermer came to greet them in a canoe. The woman of Panounias talked with him, and the sagamore “made a speech, in which he expressed pleasure at seeing us, desired to have an alliance with us,” and promised to send word to Indian leaders named Marchin and Sasinou, whom he called “chief of the Kennebec.”
The track of Champlain and the sieur de Mons, July 1–8, 1605.
The sieur de Mons responded with small gifts of hardtack and dried peas, but again there was no tabagie or extended discussion. De Mons did not go ashore as Champlain liked to do. He remained aboard his ship while the Indians came alongside. He seemed uncomfortable in their presence and remained at a distance, unlike Champlain who moved easily among them.47
The Indian guides led the French back through an even more difficult passage to the Kennebec River and what is now Merrymeeting Bay. They were to meet the river chiefs Marchin and Sasinou, but Indian leaders did not show up. Things were not going well with the Indians, and the guides gave them no explanation. De Mons was unable to establish a rapport with them or build a basis for friendship.48
He turned away, sailed down the Kennebec to its mouth, and turned southeast along the coast to “a broad bay in which lie a great many islands,” today’s Casco Bay. Champlain wrote that from a vantage point off the coast, “one sees high mountains to the west,” the White Mountains in New Hampshire. They put in for the night near the present site of Portland. In the morning they continued south, exploring the coast.
On September 10, they came to a bay and small river that Champlain called Choüacoet, today’s Saco. The French crossed the river bar, anchored in a deep pool, and Champlain watched with interest as “many Indians came toward us on the bank of the river and began to dance.” A few hours later their chief Honemechin, arrived with two canoes “and went circling round and round our vessel.” Champlain wrote that he was “good-looking, young and active,” but the French were not able to communicate with him. He was of the Almouchiquois nation, and Champlain observed that their language “differs entirely from that of the Souriquois and Etchemins.” Their Etchemin guide Panounias “could understand only certain words,” and the Almouchiquois woman of Panounias had suddenly disappeared. Champlain does not explain why. Perhaps some misfortune befell this woman, sailing as she was in a small vessel with thirty Frenchmen who were many months from home. Possibly she was weary of the voyage, or wished to visit with her own people. Whatever the reason, she was gone—and just when a translation was most needed.49
Champlain’s map of the Chouacoit (Saco) River. Here the French met the Almouchiquois, a densely settled farming people. The French were unable to talk with them. De Mons was not comfortable with the Indians and moved on. There was no tabagie on the Saco River, as on the Saguenay, St. Lawrence, and Penobscot.
The Saco Indians were different from the nations to the north and east. The name Almouchiquois was not their own. It came from hunting and gathering neighbors to the north, and appears to have meant something like “dogs who raise corn.” Champlain wrote, “they till and cultivate the land, a practice we had not seen previously.” He went ashore and admired fields clean of weeds, with corn planted in small hills three feet apart, and bush beans that twined around the corn, with squash, pumpkins and tobacco. For tools they used “an instrument of a very hard wood in the shape of a spade,” and the shells of horseshoe crabs.50
Champlain also described their “fixed abodes” and stocks of surplus food. He found large stores of nuts that had been harvested the previous year, and vines with “very fine berries.” He observed: “The Indians remain permanently in this place, and have a large wigwam surrounded by palisades on a high bluff. This place is very pleasant and as attractive a spot as one can see everywhere.” But the French could not communicate with them. They were unable to make any alliance with the Saco Indians.51
The French continued south to a “baye longue” between two capes and a long stretch of sand beaches on the present coast of New Hampshire.52 At the end of the day they rounded the southern “Island Cape,” which is today’s Cape Ann. In the gathering darkness they found no anchorage, and kept on through the night under short sail. The next morning they found themselves in Massachusetts Bay, near the present site of Boston. The Indians were welcoming and wanted to trade. The sieur de Mons remained aboard ship and sent Champlain ashore to talk with the Indians. Champlain gave “each a knife,” which “caused them to dance better than ever.”53
Champlain tried to communicate with them, and with signs and sketches he began to have success. He took a piece of charcoal and drew a sketch of the Long Bay and Cape Ann. With gestures he asked the Indians “to show me how the coast trended.” They took the same piece of charcoal and sketched “another bay which they represented as very large. Here they placed six pebbles at equal intervals giving me to understand each marked a chief and a people,” all of the Massachusetts nation. The Indians drew a large stream and small inlet, which are today’s Charles River and Boston’s Back Bay.54
Champlain continued to communicate with the Indians by sign language for several hours. He took a professional interest in their boats, observing that Indians south of Cape Ann used pirogues, or dugouts, made from solid tree trunks by “burning and scraping with stones, which they use in place of knives.” Champlain appears to have tried his hand at steering a dugout, and found it “very liable to upset unless one is very skilled.” One imagines him struggling to stay upright as the Indians looked on with amusement.55
A good feeling was beginning to grow, but de Mons decided to move on. They sailed seven or eight leagues, anchored near an island in Massachusetts Bay, and saw “many columns of smoke along the coast and many Indians who came running to see us.” Champlain was surprised by their numbers and observed, “These places are more populous than the others we have seen.” The French sent a canoe with small gifts of knives and biscuits, but Champlain wrote sadly, “We could not learn the name of their chief because we did no
t understand their language.”56
The following day, July 17, they left Massachusetts Bay without making effective contact. Champlain’s account betrayed an air of growing frustration. They sailed south to Scituate, and on to Brant Point, where more Indians in dugout canoes came to greet them. Champlain wrote that they showed “great signs of joy.” A chief appeared and Champlain understood his name as Honabetha: “We received the chief very kindly and gave him good food.” He reciprocated with “little squashes as big as your fist, which we ate as a salad like cucumbers and they were very good.” After that exchange, communications failed yet again.57 The next day they sailed around a “long cape” now called the Gurnet and entered Plymouth Bay. Once again Champlain remarked on the large number of wigwams and gardens. They passed big Indian dugouts that were returning from cod fishing off the coast. The Indians caught them easily on bone hooks tied with hemp. Here again Champlain wrote that many Indians “treated us kindly,” but they did not meet at length and could not talk together.58
The French headed south toward the great sandy peninsula that they named White Cape; we call it Cape Cod. Champlain described the waters of its bay as very clear, and the cape itself as covered with beautiful woods, “very delightful and pleasant to the eye.”59 The next day, July 20, they sailed around the outer banks of the cape, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Near its elbow, they came to “a bay with wigwams bordering it all around.” They entered a small harbor and found it “a very dangerous port on account of shoals and sandbanks, where we saw breakers on every side,” and a treacherous bar at the harbor’s mouth. Champlain named it Mallebarre, Bad Bar. It is today’s Nauset.
Champlain wrote that Indian “men and women came at us from all sides dancing.” He observed: “All these Indians from the Island Cape (Cape Ann) southward wear no skins or furs except very rarely; their clothes are made from grass and hemp, and barely cover their bodies and come down only to their thighs. The men and women have their privy parts covered by a small skin … the rest of the body is naked.” He thought that they were a beautiful people, and well groomed: “I saw, among other things, a girl with her hair quite neatly done up by means of a skin dyed red and trimmed on the upper part with little shell beads.”60
Mallebarre, now Nauset harbor on Cape Cod. Here again, de Mons was unable to establish a rapport with the Indians. Discomfort gave rise to suspicion, which grew into hostility. Fighting broke out between the French and Indians, and appears on this chart.
The next day, the sieur de Mons “resolved to go and inspect their settlement, and nine or ten of us accompanied him with our arms,” in a manner very different from Champlain’s way. De Mons and his men-at-arms marched about a league along the coast through fields planted in corn which was in flower, about five and a half feet high. The fields were very fertile, and full of tobacco, beans, and squash in great variety. The French helped themselves to the crops without asking permission.61 Perhaps at the urging of de Mons, Champlain asked the Indians by sign language if they had much snow in the winter. The Indians explained by gestures that “the harbor never froze over” and “snow fell to a depth of about a foot.” Champlain noted: “We were unable to ascertain whether the snow lasted a long time. I consider however that the country is temperate and the winter not severe.” The sieur de Mons and his men began to talk among themselves, and “the question was opened whether settlement of Acadia should not begin somewhere to the South.”62
At first the Indians had been friendly, but now the tone began to change. The French had come armed as if for war. They took the Indians’ crops without asking and behaved as if they owned the country. Distrust began to grow. On July 23, 1605, a watering party of French sailors went ashore with large metal pots that were very attractive to the Indians. As the French began to fill them, an Indian ran forward and “snatched one by force.” A sailor gave chase but could not catch him. Other Indians came forward in what the French thought a menacing way. The sailors turned and sprinted toward their ship, “shouting to fire our muskets at the Indians who gathered in large numbers.” Several Indians were visiting aboard the French ship. They “hurled themselves into the sea,” and swam for their lives. The French seized one of them and made him a captive. On the beach, the Indians turned against the sailor whose kettle they had taken, shot a volley of arrows, brought him down, and “finished him with their knives.”63
Champlain was aboard the ship. He rallied the crew and “made haste to go ashore,” weapons in hand. To save the watering party, they laid down covering fire at the Indians. Champlain aimed his weapon and fired. It exploded in his hands and he wrote that it “nearly killed me.” The Indians, “hearing this fusillade, again took to flight.” The French ran in pursuit but found “no likelihood of catching them, for they are as swift afoot as horses.” The watering party was rescued and the dead sailor was buried. He had been a carpenter from Saint-Malo.64
Detail of the fight between de Mons’ men and the Nauset Indians on Cape Cod. Here Indian warriors killed a French carpenter. Champlain led an armed party in a vain attempt to rescue him, as other Indians arrived in strength. The Fench vessel is a two-masted barque.
The Indians gathered in the distance, and the French raised their weapons, but the sieur de Mons “ordered them not to fire, as the murderers had fled.” He also ordered the release of their Indian captive as “he was not to blame.”65 With difficulty de Mons was able to control his men, but here again he could not communicate with the Indians. Anger and distrust continued to grow on both sides. Even Champlain was caught up in it. He wrote, “One must be on one’s guard against these people and mistrust them.” It was a sad day for the French leaders. They mourned the loss of their comrade. Another casualty was Champlain’s dream of harmony with the Indians, which failed totally at Mallebarre.66
The Indians were now openly hostile, and made clear that the French should go. On July 25, 1605, de Mons ordered his men to get underway. They sailed out to sea, keeping well clear of Massachusetts, as signal fires behind them began to send columns of smoke along the coast. They stopped at Saco and again at Kennebec, hoping to find Chief Sassinou, but again he did not appear. They met another Indian named Anassou, bartered furs with him, and they were able to communicate. He brought more bad tidings. Champlain wrote: “He told us that ten leagues from [the Kennebec] there was a ship engaged in the fishery, and that those on board under cover of friendship had killed five Indians from this river. From his description we judged that they were English.” This was George Weymouth’s English ship Archangel. The five Indians had not been killed, but kidnapped with their weapons and canoes.67
The Indians of New England were now on their guard, and with reason. On another voyage to Maine by Martin Pring in 1603, the English brought “two excellent mastiffs.” An English explorer wrote, “When we would be rid of the savages’ company, we would let loose the mastiffs and suddenly with outcries they would flee away.” All this opened an opportunity for the French if they could distinguish themselves from the English, but the misadventure at Mallebarre had blurred that difference.68
De Mons and his weary men made their way back to Sainte-Croix Island. They had achieved none of their goals. The sieur de Mons, for all his spirit of humanity, had not been able to work well with the Indians. He had found several sites for settlement, but the Indians turned against him. Many factors were involved: the language barrier and English predators, to name but two. Another major problem was de Mons’ approach to the Indians. He was insecure among them. To the natives, his distance and discomfort appeared hostile and threatening—more so than he intended. An attitude of humanity alone was not enough.
* * *
A third French voyage to Norumbega followed in 1606, with the sieur de Poutrincourt in command. He was a nobleman of high rank, a soldier of proven courage, a Catholic of deep piety, and a gentleman who treated others with kindness. But he had a weakness as a leader. At critical moments his men did not follow him and refused to obey his orders. It h
ad happened in the fall of 1604 when he commanded the company’s ships on a voyage home to France. They had a rough passage, and in the English Channel were almost wrecked on the Casquets. Poutrincourt ordered the crew to help him “shift the sails.” They refused. A friend of Poutrincourt wrote that “only two or three of them did so.”69
It happened again in September 1606, when Poutrincourt led the third voyage along the coast of New England, once again in search of sites for settlement. He proposed to use a barque of the same size as before, but she was not in good repair. Others warned that the barque was unseaworthy, but Poutrin-court was not one for waiting. He decided to make repairs underway and took along the shipwright Champdoré, several artisans, a “store of planks,” and a shallop.70
Without listening to advice, Poutrincourt decided he would sail west-northwest from Port-Royal to Sainte-Croix Island, and then work his way south. Champlain thought it was “not a wise decision.” He suggested, “It would have been more to the purpose, in my opinion, to cross from where we were to Mallebarre, by the route which we knew, and then to employ the time in exploring to the 40th degree or farther south, revisiting on our return the entire coast at our leisure.” But Poutrincourt’s plan prevailed.71 They sailed on September 5, 1606, and got off to a very slow start. Several stops were needed to repair the leaking barque, and Poutrincourt made a long diversion to Sainte-Croix. They were sixteen days getting to Saco. Champlain wrote, “We lost much time in going over again the discoveries that the sieur de Mons had made.”72
At Saco, Poutrincourt brought together three powerful Indian leaders: the Souriquois chief Messamouet, and the Almouchiquois chiefs Onemechin and Marchin. They had long been blood enemies, and Champlain thought it was not a good idea. When these wily old foes met, the French lost control of events. Messamouet made a speech appealing for peace, and then continued the hostilities in a war of gifts.73 With a dramatic flourish he threw trade goods worth more than 300 crowns into Onemechin’s canoe. Onemechin gave in return gifts of corn, squash, and beans, which Messamouet openly despised as not of equal value. Onemechin released a Souriquois prisoner, but gave the captive to Poutrincourt and not to Messamouet. That gift was taken as an insult, in the way it was given. Tone and gesture were of high importance in that world. The chiefs were now angrier than ever, and they parted with a determination to make war. Champlain watched it go wrong, but Poutrincourt insisted that he alone could speak for the French. Perhaps Champlain could have done no better, but an opportunity was lost.74
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