In the fall of 1608, Champlain worried about the Montagnais, and watched as something terrible began to happen to them. All of their hunts ran short. The eel season was shorter than usual. The beaver hunt failed mainly because of a very wet fall. In high water the hunters could not get to the beaver lodges. The Montagnais reported to Champlain that “they did not take many beavers because the waters were too high, on account of the rivers overflowing.”
These small snowshoes were made for a Montagnais child. Champlain was fascinated by this hunting nation’s adaptation to a hard environment, but he was deeply saddened by its extreme suff ering in 1608–09, when the winter hunts failed.
The wet fall was followed by a long dry winter with very little snow. The moose hunt failed—the third hunting failure in a row for the Montagnais. Champlain observed: “All these tribes suffer so much from hunger that sometimes they are obliged to live on certain shell-fish, and to eat their dogs and skins with which they clothed themselves.”86 The crisis came in February of 1609. Montagnais families began to appear on the south side of the St. Lawrence, across from Champlain’s habitation. The river was high and the current strong, and great floes of ice were tumbling downriver. The Montagnais called to the French for assistance, and in desperation launched their canoes into the turbulent stream. Their fragile vessels were caught by the ice, and “broken into a thousand pieces.” The French watched as men, women, and children, weakened from hunger, fell into the water, clinging to ice floes. Suddenly the current drove the ice ashore and they leaped to safety. Champlain wrote that “they came to our settlement so emaciated and worn out that they look like skeletons.”87
He gave them bread and beans, and bark to build their huts. Some were so hungry that they seized the rotten carcasses of a dog and a sow that the French had set out as carrion, and ate the putrid flesh half cooked. “When they have food,” he wrote, “they lay nothing by, but eat and make good cheer continuously day and night, and after that they starve to death.” He observed the misery of the Montagnais with great sadness, and their swings from exaltation to deep depression and despair. The instability of their life and chronic insecurity took a terrible toll. Champlain wrote that they were in “great dread of their enemies,” and hardly ever slept quietly. They were “afflicted by terrible dreams that haunted them.”88
As the winter grew worse, the French also began to suffer. They had plenty of bread and beans and some supplies of salted fish and meat, but not much else. In late November, the French settlers began to fall ill with severe symptoms that Champlain described as “dysentery.” The Indians were also afflicted. Champlain wrote, “in my opinion,” it came from “having eaten badly cooked eels.” So severe was this “dysentery” that it killed many Frenchmen, including the locksmith Natel, who had saved Champlain’s life.89
In midwinter, the survivors came down with scurvy. For three months, they had some success in keeping it at bay, perhaps by hunting and fishing in late fall and early winter, which brought supplies of fresh meat that many explorers have found to possess antiscorbutic properties, and possibly by eating roots and husks that offered a source of vitamin C. But in February they began to run out of whatever had protected them. Champlain wrote that “the scurvy began very late in February, and lasted till the middle of April.” It took a terrible toll. Champlain ordered the surgeon Bonnerme to do autopsies, “to see if they were affected like those in other settlements. The same conditions were found.” Then the surgeon himself fell severely ill, and died of the same cause. Champlain wrote, “All this gave us much trouble, on account of the difficulty we had in nursing the sick.” Altogether seven Frenchmen died of scurvy, and thirteen of dysentery.90
After four months of suffering, spring at last arrived. A harbinger was the first run of fish in the St. Lawrence River. Vast numbers of shad swam upstream—more than anyone could possibly eat, and the French discovered a culinary delight in a vast abundance of shad roe, with a bit of French bacon for flavor. The last pockets of snow melted away, and the countryside turned green again. Only a small remnant of the colonists came through the winter. Champlain wrote that of twenty-eight habitants, eight remained alive, and “half of the living were very ill.” But the settlement at Quebec had survived—to face another challenge.
12.
IROQUOIA
At War With the Mohawk, 1609–10
They were sick and tired of the wars they have had with one another for more than fifty years…. They have spoken to me about it many times, and have often asked my advice, which was that they should make peace with one another, and we would assist them.
—Champlain on Indian Wars1
ON JUNE 5, 1609, Champlain’s Indian allies reported a sail on the St. Lawrence River, heading upstream toward Quebec. The settlers ran to the water’s edge and saw a small shallop with a big French ensign flying bravely from her masthead. She worked her way past the Île d’Orléans, turned inward to the landing, and a young French captain sprang ashore. He introduced himself as the sieur Claude Godet des Maretz, a high-spirited nobleman from the province of Perche, and another son-in-law of the prolific Pont-Gravé. With him were master Pierre Chauvin de la Pierre, pilot Jean Routier, and a crew of French matelots, who began to unload provisions.2
The handful of survivors rejoiced in their arrival. They were relieved to hear that Pont-Gravé was in Tadoussac, with men and supplies to replace their heavy losses through the winter. “This news made me happy,” Champlain wrote with his usual understatement. “It brought the relief that we had hoped.” Instantly he flew into action. Godet des Maretz was asked to take over as acting commander at Quebec. Champlain commandeered the shallop and sailed downstream as fast as the wind and current could carry him.3
In Tadoussac harbor he met Pont-Gravé and heard the latest news from France. It was very mixed. As expected, the company’s one-year monopoly of the fur trade had not been renewed and a swarm of free traders was expected on the river. The investors had raised money for supplies and settlers, but only enough to increase the population at Quebec to sixteen for the next winter, a dangerously small number. The sieur de Mons also sent a small detachment of soldiers to keep order in the settlement.4
Then came the bad news. Pont-Gravé delivered a private letter from de Mons. Champlain tore open the seal and was shocked to read its tidings. He was to be relieved of command! De Mons ordered him to return to France in the fall of 1609 and report on Quebec. Pont-Gravé was instructed to work at Tadoussac through the summer, and take command in Quebec through the following winter. The letter fell on Champlain like a blow. What did it mean? After Duval’s conspiracy and the execution of the ringleader, had de Mons lost confidence in his young lieutenant? Or did he merely mean to rotate his leaders and give him a well-earned leave? Either way, Champlain was to be replaced.5
Other leaders would have been shattered by this news. Some might have resigned on the spot, but Champlain responded in a different way. He was still in command, and could not return to France until the trading ships went home at the end of the summer. In the meantime he decided to center his thoughts on the next several months.
Champlain had a very large purpose in mind. During the winter, when the settlement at Quebec was near collapse, he had made an ambitious plan for the next season. A major threat to his design for New France was incessant warfare among Indian nations in the St. Lawrence Valley. Much of it pitted the Iroquois League, and especially the Mohawk nation, against the Algonquin and Montagnais to the north, the Huron to the west, and the Etchemin to the east.6 The consequences of this endemic warfare were profoundly hostile to Champlain’s vision for North America. As long as it continued, there could be no peace in the St. Lawrence Valley, no security for trade, and no hope for his dream of American Indians and Europeans living together in peace.
Champlain proposed to deal with the problem in several ways. He believed that a major cause of war was fear, and his remedy was to seek peace through diplomacy. To that end he built alliance
s among the Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron, and other nations in Acadia and Norumbega. But a major problem remained with the Iroquois League, the Mohawk in particular. One historian of the Iroquois observes that by the start of the seventeenth century they were “at odds with all their neighbors—Algonquin and Huron to the north, Mahican on the east, and Susquehannock to the south.” Many Indian nations in the northeast were at war with some of their neighbors; the Iroquois were at war with nearly all of theirs. They had a reputation for skill in war, among many warrior nations. And they were also known for cruelty, in a very cruel world.7
In 1608, Champlain had promised to aid the Indian nations of the St. Lawrence Valley when they were attacked by the Iroquois. At the same time, he was aware that the Iroquois were victims as well as aggressors, and he sent peace feelers to them through a captive woman of the Mohawk nation whom he had protected in Quebec with that purpose in mind. These overtures went nowhere. Mohawk war parties continued to attack the St. Lawrence Indians.8
Champlain’s sketch of an Indian ally “showing the dress of these people when going to war,” and the “way they arm themselves,” with a bow in one hand and a war club in the other. He often showed Indian women with paddle and papoose, and wrote that Algonquins and Montagnais “both great nations,” appeared much the same that way.
By the spring of 1609, Champlain had come to the conclusion that peace could be achieved only by concerted military action against the Mohawk. He did not intend a war of conquest. Rather, he was thinking of one or two sharp blows by a coalition of Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron, with French support. The object was to deter Mohawk attacks by raising the cost of raiding to the north. In that way Champlain hoped to break the cycle of violence and bring peace to the great valley.9
At the same time, Champlain also hoped to expand trading relations with many Indian nations, not primarily for trade itself but for a larger purpose. He thought of trade as an instrument of peace. American Indians also shared that belief. Ethnographer Bruce Trigger writes that “in historical times, all neigh boring tribes either were at war or traded with one another.” Historian William Fenton quotes an Indian who said, “Trade and peace we take to be the same thing.”10
Champlain was determined to move forward with this plan in the spring of 1609, despite his heavy losses. After a cruel winter, he commanded a grand total of four able-bodied survivors in Quebec, but Pont-Gravé had brought more men. When the two French leaders met at Tadoussac on June 7, Champlain laid out a bold plan for “certain explorations in the interior,” and made clear his intention to enter “the Iroquois country,” with “our allies the Montagnais.” Both men knew that this plan would mean a fight with some of the most formidable warriors in North America. It was an act of breathtaking audacity, considering the small size of Champlain’s force. But what Champlain lacked in mass, he made up in acceleration. He also had the arquebus, and the Mohawk did not. The sieur de Mons had sent him a few good men who were trained in the use of that difficult weapon. Champlain also had many Indian allies, with hundreds of warriors.
Pont-Gravé listened to the proposal and gave his full support. These two old shipmates were always able to work together. They agreed that Champlain would take a shallop and twenty men—a large number for exploration, but very small for a military campaign against the Mohawk nation. He would gain the numbers that he needed from Indian allies in the St. Lawrence Valley.11 Champlain hurried back to the shallop. “I left Tadoussac at once,” he wrote, “and went back to Quebec.” For two weeks the crew of the shallop were busy ferrying men and supplies for the settlement and for the mission to the country of the Iroquois.12
On June 18, 1609, all was ready. Champlain left Quebec with his twenty men, and pointed the bow of his shallop upstream. A large body of Montagnais warriors followed in their canoes. From the start he combined boldness with prudence—the secret of his long career. “As for the river,” he wrote, “it is dangerous in many places, on account of the shoals and rocks which lie in it.” The shallop sailed slowly against the strong spring current, and he kept leadsmen constantly at work, sounding the depth of the river. Champlain probably rigged a crow’s nest for himself and studied the river with close attention. He discovered its main channel on the south side, about a mile from shore.13
The great river never ceased to fascinate Champlain. Beyond the narrows of Quebec, he wrote, “it begins to broaden, in some places to a league or a league and a half [three to five miles] across. The banks of the river were very handsome … the countryside becomes more and more beautiful as you advance … covered with great high forests.” He sampled the soil and found it deep, soft, and fertile. When he worked ashore, some of the crew went fishing and caught “great varieties of fish, both those we have in France, and others we do not have.” The best were saved as specimens for the king’s collection. The rest went into the pot.14
Indian canoes were adapted to local conditions. This seventeenth-century manuscript shows an Inuit sealskin kayak with a covered deck, and birchbark canoes of the Montagnais (lower St. Lawrence), Têtes-de-Boule (St. Maurice River), Amiakoues (Ottawa), and Algonquin (upper St. Lawrence). The Iroquois made big, heavy elm canoes.
Thirty miles upstream from Quebec, Champlain came to a place that he called Sainte-Croix, and he found two or three hundred Indians, mostly Huron and Algonquin of the Petite-Nation, who were coming down the river to meet him. They were interested in Champlain, and were thinking about the possibility of going with him to the “country of the Iroquois,” but they were not sure about this extraordinary Frenchman, and they wanted to know more.15
Champlain went ashore and presented himself to two leading chiefs: Iroquet of the Algonquin Petite-Nation and Ochasteguin of the Arendarhonon Huron. What followed was a meeting that combined spontaneity and ritual in high degree. The French and Indian leaders exchanged visits and smoked ceremonial pipes together. Champlain explained his plan to enter the Iroquois country, and left the two Indian leaders to talk it over. They did so, and returned his visit. The two Algonquin and Huron leaders came out to Champlain’s shallop in the river and climbed aboard, while hundreds of Indian warriors gathered along the water’s edge and watched intently. Many had never seen a European before.16
On board the shallop, more words were spoken. The two chiefs brought out their pipes again and began “smoking and meditating” in silence. Suddenly they stood up, turned to the warriors on the riverbank, and shouted that Champlain had come to help them against their blood-enemies. The chiefs proposed that everyone should sail downstream to Quebec.
The Indians wanted very much to observe Champlain himself and judge the strength of his vital spirit, which the Huron called orenda. They believed that all natural things had orenda in different degrees. It was a form of spiritual power that could be used for good and evil. Good hunters had strong orenda, more so than the animals they killed. Great warriors had very strong orenda. An important question for Iroquet and Ochasteguin was about the quality of Champlain’s orenda. Was it strong? Was it good?17
The chiefs made a surprising request. They asked Champlain to order the firing of arquebuses. It was done, and the Indians responded with “loud shouts of astonishment.” One ethnohistorian has written of the Indian belief that “orenda can reside in an object, and clearly guns had power.”18 After the firing of the weapons, Champlain made a speech, urging the Indians to observe that he and his companions came as warriors, not traders. They brought weapons, not trade goods. With a broad gesture of hospitality, he invited all the Indians to visit Quebec as his guest. It was an act of extravagant generosity—and a splendid display of orenda.19
All parties quickly agreed, and off they went downstream to Quebec. Together they made a brave sight on the beautiful river: Champlain and the French in their shallop with their arquebuses, burnished armor, plumed helmets, feathered hats, bright ensigns, streaming banners, and all the panoply of European warfare. Around them were Indians of many nations, three or four hundred Mon
tagnais, Algonquin, and Huron in an armada of more than a hundred war canoes. Some of the canoes were stained in bright colors. Others were marked with vivid symbols of enemies killed and scalped.20
When they reached Quebec, Champlain sent an urgent message to Pont-Gravé at Tadoussac, urging him to come quickly with all the strength he could muster and as much food as he could spare. A few days later Pont-Gravé appeared with two shallops “filled with men.” Everyone joined in a large feast and five or six days of ritual dancing. Every element of this event was a test of Champlain’s orenda. He and Pont-Gravé were well aware that rituals were centrally important in these affairs, so they stinted at nothing. The tone of Champlain’s account suggests that these two gregarious French leaders vastly enjoyed themselves and delighted in the bonhomie of their Indian allies.21
After the dancing was done, the French and Indians departed together from Quebec on June 28, 1609. Two French shallops were now filled with heavily armed men, and many canoes were crowded with hundreds of Indian warriors. Champlain was pleased with the numbers, but he worried about the calendar. Time was getting away from him. By July 1, they were only thirty miles upstream at the place called Sainte-Croix. Pont-Gravé could not stay much longer. He was running a trading post at Tadoussac, and Quebec had to be protected. At Sainte-Croix the French leaders had a conference. They agreed that Pont-Gravé should go back to Tadoussac, and some of the soldiers should return to Quebec.22
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