Champlain also studied the flora and fauna of Huronia. Like many hunters, he loved animals, birds, and plants. While on a hunt, he wrote: “[I observed] a certain bird which seemed to me peculiar, with a beak almost like that of a parrot, as big as a hen, yellow all over, except for its red head and blue wings, which made short successive flights like a partridge. My desire to kill it made me chase it from tree to tree for a very long time, until it flew away in good earnest.”
He tried to retrace his steps but could not find the Huron hunting party, and soon he was completely lost in a trackless forest. He had no compass or map, and for three days no sun. But he was armed, and killed a few birds, and cooked them over a fire. Finally he found his way. Champlain did not tell us how, but he appears to have adopted the old Indian method of following watercourses downstream, which took him to a lake where he was able to locate the hunting party. The Huron were appalled, and required him always to take a compass and a skilled Indian guide, “who knew so well how to find a place whence he had set out, that it was a strange and marvelous thing to see.”65
The Huron invited Champlain to join their communal deer hunts in October 1615. He sketched their skillful methods of driving large numbers of deer into pens and trapping others with snares. He respected their skill as hunters and their mastery of collective effort.
Champlain was amazed by the stamina of the Indian hunters. On the return to their villages, he carried a weight of twenty pounds, which with his other equipment soon exhausted him, and probably did nothing good for his wounded knee. He observed that the Huron carried loads of a hundred pounds without apparent strain over very long distances and at a rapid pace. Few Europeans matched their powers of endurance.66
Champlain traveled widely in Huronia. He described the larger region as “almost an island which the great River of St. Lawrence surrounds, passing through several lakes of great size on the shore of which live many nations speaking different languages, having fixed places of residence, given to cultivation of the earth, but with different manners and customs, and some better than others.”67
Champlain also visited other nations nearby. He especially liked to stay with the Cheveux-Relevés, who were among his favorites of all the many Indian nations. He visited the western Algonquin, and persuaded the Huron to take him to the Petun or Tobacco nation. Champlain also wanted to make a journey to the Neutral nation, as they were called, but the Huron did not agree. Perhaps they worried that a French alliance with the Neutral might weaken their position and even open negotiations with the Iroquois. Possibly they feared that some mishap might befall Champlain. Whatever the reason, the Huron kept him away from the Neutral nation. Blocked in that way, Champlain went in the opposite direction. He visited the Nipissing and built another alliance.
One day Champlain came back from a visit to the Nipissing and found big trouble among his allies. The Petite nation of the Algonquin and their chief Iroquet were wintering with the Huron as was their custom, and exchanging furs for food. The Huron had given them an Iroquois captive, “expecting that Iroquet would exercise on this prisoner the vengeance customary among them.” Iroquet took a liking to the captive, found him to be a good hunter, treated him as a son, and set him at liberty.
The Huron were very angry, and sent a warrior to kill the prisoner, which was done in the presence of the headmen of the Algonquin Petite nation, who were doubly outraged by the murder and the breach of manners, and killed the killer. Now it was the turn of the Huron to be insulted. They took up arms, surrounded the Algonquin village, and attacked. Iroquet was wounded by two arrows, and his lodges were looted. The Algonquin were greatly outnumbered and agreed to pay fifty wampum belts, a hundred fathoms of wampum, many axes and kettles, and two female prisoners. It was a great price to pay, and it brought no peace. The two nations were full of rage against each other, each nourishing a sense of injustice.
At that point two Hurons from Cahiagué asked Champlain to intervene and reconcile the angry parties. Champlain acted quickly and with great tact. He sent his interpreter, probably Thomas Godefroy, to collect the facts, being careful “not to go myself, so as not to give suspicion to either party.” Then he brought together the “leading chiefs” and “elder men” of both sides, and they agreed to accept Champlain’s role as arbitrator. He told them that “the best course was for all to make peace and remain friends,” and that they had dealt with each other in ways “unworthy of reasonable men, but should rather be left to brute beasts.” Peace was restored.68
In a village that he called Carmaron, Champlain had another encounter. He was sleeping in a crowded lodge and found himself assaulted by fleas, “which were in great number and a torment to us.” Champlain rose from his bed in the middle of the night and walked outside into the darkness of the sleeping village. In Huronia, young women and men did that for a very different purpose—not to escape the fleas but to catch a mate. They made a custom of midnight trysts, which were an important part of trial marriages in their culture. It was thought perfectly proper for nubile young women to have experimental unions with many men, sometimes twenty or more, before settling down with one of them. This was a rational custom of what might be called informed choice, but it was very far from Champlain’s folkways.
As he walked alone in the sleeping village, a young woman approached and offered herself to him. Probably she assumed that he was abroad for that reason. Why else would a single man be wandering alone through a Huron village in the middle of the night? Champlain was shocked. “I declined with thanks,” he said, “sending her away with gentle remonstrances,” and he returned to the fleas.
In this encounter, the young Indian woman was keeping one code, and Champlain another. One wonders which of them was more surprised. Many young Frenchmen were delighted to embrace these bold and free young women. Others went a different way—Catholic priests, Indian shamans, and Champlain. He was a soldier and a man of the world who acted like a holy man. It was so unusual that Indians and Europeans talked about him with amazement and admiration in his lifetime and afterward. Among the Indians, his abstinence added to his orenda, or spiritual power.69
Champlain’s impression of the Huron was in many ways very positive. He greatly admired their agriculture and huge fisheries, marveled at their skill in hunting, and came to form high respect for their woodcraft. As before with many other nations, he found these Indians to be the equal of Europeans in their intelligence, and superior in physical strength and the proportion of their bodies. He thought that they excelled Europeans in courage and stamina. “All of these people,” he wrote, “are of a very cheerful disposition although many among them are of a sad and saturnine complexion. They are well proportioned in body; the men big and well shaped, as also the women and girls are pleasing and pretty, both in figures, faces and complexion…. Some of the women are very powerful and of extraordinary height.”70
Champlain’s sketch of a Huron girl adorned with strings of wampum. He wrote that they were “well shaped, strong, and robust … many pleasing and pretty in figure, complexion, and face, everything in proportion.” He wrote, “After night comes, the young women run about from one lodge to another, as do the young men who possess them when it seems good to both, but with no violence, leaving the choice entirely to the young woman.”
In Champlain’s thinking, the many good qualities of American Indians were countered by three great negatives: ni foi, ni loi, ni roi; no faith, no law, no king. He and other French leaders in his circle believed that the Indians had souls, which were denied by some Europeans. Champlain agreed with his good friend Paul Le Jeune who wrote: “I believe that all souls are made of the same stock, and they do not differ substantially…. Their soul is a naturally fertile soil, but it is loaded down with all the evils that a land abandoned since the birth of the world can produce.” Champlain believed that the Indians had nothing like the universal faith of the Christian religion.71 He added, “It is a great misfortune that so many poor creatures should live and di
e without any knowledge of God, and even without any religion or law, whether divine, political or civil.”72 He was interested in their beliefs, studied their ideas of spirits, and talked with their shamans. From this he concluded that in a Christian sense, “they adore and believe in no God nor in any such thing, but live like brute beasts (bestes bruttes).”73
Linked to the absence of faith and universal religion, in his sense, was the absence of law. “As for their laws,” he wrote, “I did not see that they have any, nor anything approaching them; as indeed is the case, inasmuch as there is no correction, punishment or censure of evil-doers except by way of revenge, rendering evil for evil, not as a matter of law but through passion, engendering wars and quarrels which exist among them most of the time.”74 He understood their custom as lex talionis, the law of retaliation, which punished one wrong by the commission of another. In Champlain’s thinking, this rule of conduct was not truly an idea of law, which for him was a principle of right, grounded in an idea of universal justice and equity: lex equitatis.
In the absence of what he believed to be loi et foi, true law and true faith, Champlain regarded the ethics of Indian culture as primitive and inhumane. The leading example was the treatment of prisoners, who were condemned to suffer unimaginably in horrible rituals of sadistic savagery. Some of these helpless victims had done nothing wrong, and yet were wronged themselves in retribution for similar acts that had been committed by others. Champlain regarded this custom of lex talionis as one that betrayed the absence of true law, which rested on an idea of universal right—not a wrong for a wrong.75
Champlain also believed that the culture of North American Indians lacked the authority of kingship and the discipline of subordination. He disapproved of the way that Indian children were raised, with a latitude of indulgent liberty that created young people “so bad and perverse in disposition that they often strike their mothers, and some of the more ill-tempered strike their fathers when they have gained strength and power, that is, if father or mother do something they dislike, which is a kind of curse that God sends them.”76
He also disapproved of the way Indian warriors treated women and compelled them to “serve as mules.” And “as to the men,” he wrote, “they do nothing but hunt deer and other animals, fish, build lodges and go on the war path. Having done this, they visit other nations to trade and exchange, and on their return do not cease from feasting and dancing, with which they entertain one another, and afterwards they go to sleep, which is their finest exertion.”77
In the late twentieth century, some ethnographers have severely chastised Champlain for these attitudes. They have criticized him for being uncomprehending of Indian culture, and ethnocentric in his judgments. It is true that Champlain had a strong and abiding Christian faith, a deep belief in an idea of law as the rule of universal right, and an allegiance to kingship and subordination. At the same time, he was deeply interested in the ways of the Indians, lived with them for long periods, traveled with them, and fought beside them in three campaigns. He knew intimately the Etchemin and Mi’kmaq, Montagnais and Algonquin, Huron, and many other Indian nations. He understood their complex politics and their way of war.
There were limits to his understanding. He was not fluent in Indian languages and worked through interpreters on important occasions, though he could communicate directly in pidgin speech, as he often did. His understanding of Indian groups was incomplete and sometimes erroneous. But he deeply respected the Indians, admired their character, and wrote that “their spirit was not as savage as their customs.” Champlain also believed that Indians could become Christians and learn to live by an idea of law as universal right. At the same time they would remain Indians, and their unique culture should preserve its integrity. Champlain believed that people are capable of complex identities. He knew that it was possible to be Huron and Christian at the same time. Also he thought it was possible for the French to be faithful to their ways and respectful of others.
Here again, in Champlain’s winter among the Huron we see his grand design for New France, as a vision of Indians and French living close to one another, preserving the best of their cultures, guided by principles of universal faith, and respectful of universal law. Champlain was indeed ethnocentric in some of his attitudes, but his thinking was more generous and large-spirited than some of the judgments that have been made against him.
CHAMPLAIN’S NATIVE BROUAGE, IN THE PROVINCE OF SAINTONGE
Samuel Champlain (1570?–1635) was raised in the flourishing small seaport of Brouage, seen here in an aerial photograph. Today it lies more than a mile inland from the Gulf of Saintonge, with the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. In Champlain’s youth, the busy town was crowded with people from many nations. He grew accustomed to diversity and was consumed with curiosity about the world. The sea became his school, and his father (a ship captain) was his teacher. The surrounding province of Saintonge was a borderland between different French regions, economies, cultures, and languages. It produced leaders such as Champlain and the sieur de Mons who learned to work with others unlike themselves. (A1)
THE WARS OF RELIGION IN FRANCE, 1562–1598
François Dubois, “Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day,” is a chronicle of horror in Champlain’s world. In one day, August 24, 1572, Catholics killed thousands of Protestants in Paris. France suffered nine civil wars of religion in four decades, with deaths reckoned in millions and atrocities beyond description. In that era of cruelty and violence, Henri IV (1553–1610) became king of France in 1589. Baptized a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism (three times), defeated his many rivals in heavy fighting, united the people of France, and in 1598 established a new regime that was dedicated to humanity, peace, and tolerance. Champlain became a soldier in the royal army, served in the largest religious war, and made Henri’s purposes his own. (A2)
FROBISHER AND CHAMPLAIN
In 1594, Champlain soldiered with Martin Frobisher, an English seaman with a reputation for courage and cruelty. They had a common interest in the exploration of America, but did it in very different ways. This portrait shows Frobisher with the world at his elbow, pointing a pistol toward the artist, who gave his subject a hard eye and an angry look. (A3)
TWO APPROACHES TO AMERICA
Frobisher treated the Indians with brutality. In 1577, he trapped and killed many Inuits, seized an older woman, and stripped off her clothing “to see if she were cloven footed.” He did not think of her as a human being. John White’s scene of this “Skirmish at Bloody Point” was a celebration of violence. Champlain’s approach would be far removed from Frobisher’s. (A4)
CHAMPLAIN’S MISSION TO NEW SPAIN
After the wars of religion, Champlain visited New Spain in 1599. This image from Georg Hoefnagel’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum shows his Spanish shipmates—seamen in bright clothing called bizarria, soldiers with weapons in hand, an owner paying wages, and highly skilled officers who taught Champlain much about navigation and the new world. (A5)
CHAMPLAIN’S DRAWINGS OF SPANISH BRUTALITY TO THE INDIANS
In New Spain, Champlain was deeply interested in American Indians and African slaves. He talked with them at every opportunity and was shocked by Spanish cruelty and exploitation. For his report to the king, he painted this image of Indians burned alive by the Inquisition. (A6)
CHAMPLAIN’S OUTRAGE AT RELIGIOUS CRUELTY
Another of Champlain’s paintings showed Indians being beaten for not attending Mass. This pious French Catholic was most deeply offended by atrocities committed in the name of Christ by Spanish priests with the blessing of the Church. (A7)
THE LOUVRE’S GRAND GALERIE
On his return to France in 1601, Champlain reported to the king and received a pension “to keep me near his person.” He worked in the basement of the Louvre, which Henri IV made into a Center of Study by scientists, humanists, artisans, and cartographers. A friend described Champlain as a “royal geographer,” one of many in
the Louvre. (A8)
A BALL IN THE COURT OF HENRI IV
For Champlain the court was also a school of manners, where he studied the art of pleasing others. Some of his most important work for America was done as a courtier in France, where he became highly skilled at the art of politics in a complex monarchy. (A9)
CATHOLIC ST. MALO WITH ITS GREAT CATHEDRAL
In 1602–03, Champlain’s interest began to center on North America. He visited the Breton port of St. Malo, and worked closely with Malouin captains such as François Gravé, sieur DuPont (Pont-Gravé to his friends), who had much experience of the new world. (A10)
THE PROTESTANT FORTRESS OF LA ROCHELLE
Champlain worked with the Protestant merchants of La Rochelle and Catholics in Honfleur and Dieppe, who had a long acquaintance with North America. He began to develop a “grand dessein” for New France in a spirit of tolerance and humanity similar to the policies of Henri IV and different from Catholic New Spain and Calvinist New England. (A11)
TREATISES ON NAVIGATION IN CHAMPLAIN’S ERA
Champlain also worked with ships’ chandlers in Dieppe. He mastered the science of navigation and studied works such as Wagenaer’s Mariner’s Mirrour in its first English edition (1588?), and Pedro de Medina’s Regimiento de Navegacion (1543, 1595). Champlain also wrote his own treatise about the duty of a mariner and the art of leadership in large causes (1632). (A12)
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