Champlain's Dream

by David Hackett Fischer

  7. CWB 1:231.

  8. For Champlain’s association with these three men—Pierre Jeannin (1540–1622?), Nicolas Brûlart, marquis de Sillery (1544–1624), and Charles II de Cossé-Brissac (ca. 1550–1621)—see CWB 1:3; 2:243, 257; on the men themselves, also see Pierre Saumaise, Éloge sur la vie de Pierre Janin (Dijon, 1623); Henri Ballande, “Rebelle et conseiller de trois souverains: le président Jeannin (1542–1643) (Paris, 1981); L. E. Bois, Le Chevalier Noël Brûlart de Sillery, Étude Biographique, nouvelle édition corrigée (Québec, 1871); the entire text of the latter book is online in OurRoots/NosRacines.ca; this was the son of Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery; see also Pierre Cossé, Les Brissac et l’histoire (Grasset, 1973); and Cossé, Les Brissac (Farquelle, 1952).

  9. CWB 3:320.

  10. CWB 3:320–21; Guy Binot, another man of Saintonge, observed that de Mons was drawn to Acadia as “plus méridional, située sur la même latitude que sa Saintonge natale.” Cf. Pierre Dugua de Mons, 65.

  11. Samuel E. Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (New York, 1972), 35.

  12. Elizabeth Jones, Gentlemen and Jesuits: Quests for Glory and Adventure in the Early Days of New France (Toronto, 1986), 19.

  13. Ernest H. Wilkins, “Arcadia in America,” APS Proceedings 101 (1957) 4–30; Carl O. Sauer, Seventeenth Century North America (Berkeley, 1980), 77; Andrew H. Clark, Acadia: The Geography of Nova Scotia to 1760 (Madison, 1968), 71n.

  14. The commission is published in Morse, ed., Pierre Du Gua, sieur de Monts, 4–6.

  15. De Mons, “Articles proposed Nov. 6, 1603,” in Collection de manuscripts contenant lettres, mémoires et autres documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France, 1:40–43.

  16. Reply to Articles proposed Nov. 6, 1603, Ibid.1:40–43.

  17. “Commission of 8 Nov. 160–3;” “Remonstrances par le sieur de Mons, 18 déc. 1603, Bibliothèque Nationale, Dupuy vol. 318, 107–108r; for discussion, Binot, Pierre Dugua de Mons, 65–67; Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 78–83; Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (Montreal, 1963) 2: 9–11.

  18. Binot, Pierre Dugua de Mons, 68.

  19. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men (New York, 1986). In the huge literature on the American founding fathers, nobody has brought out the linkage between their hard experience and high ideals. To these two generations one might add the circles that formed around Elizabeth I in England and Henri IV in France.

  20. Documents dated 17 January and 25 January, 1604, in Henri Harrisse, Notes pour servir à l’histoire, à la bibliographie, et à la cartographie de la Nouvelle-France et des pays adjacents, 1545–1700 (Paris, 1872), 280–82; and Édouard Gosselin, Nouvelles glanes historiques normandes puisées exclusivement dans des documents inédits (Rouen, 1873), 21–23; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:14.

  21. “The Two Monopolies of Monts,” H. P. Biggar, The Early Trading Companies of New France (1937, rpt. Clifton, N.J., 1937), 51–55; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:14–15; Contract of Feb. 19, 1604, in Gosselin, Nouvelles glanes, 24–29; Binot, Pierre Dugua de Mons, 81–82; Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 85–93; “Association de Samuel Georges et Jean Macain à la compagnie de Pierre du Gua, sieur de Mons,” Feb. 10, 1604, and related documents of the same date, in Robert Le Blant et René Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents sur Champlain et son époque (Ottawa, 1967) 1:80–85.

  22. CWB 3:323.

  23. Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 105; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:63, 465, 486; Marc Lescarbot, History of New France (Toronto, 1907), 3:231.

  24. Adrien Huguet, Jean de Poutrincourt, Fondateur de Port-Royal en Acadie; Vice-Roi du Canada, 1557–1615: campagnes, voyages et aventures d’un colonisateur sous Henri IV (Amiens and Paris, 1932), 154–72. The title is inaccurate; Poutrincourt was never viceroy of Canada or New France, but this book is still the most comprehensive study of Poutrincourt.

  25. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:27, 228; Champlain, CWB 1:234, 277, 391; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:24. This Boullay or Boullet should not be confused with Eustache Boullé, the future brother-in-law of Champlain, who was prominent in later voyages. Cf. Biggar, who is mistaken in CWB 1:247n; and Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:24n, who puts it right.

  26. Charles Bréard and Paul Bréard, Documents relatifs à la Marine Normande et à ses armements aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Rouen, 1889), 56, 102; CWB 1:230, 276n, 363; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:227, 253; Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons (n.p., 1999), 123.

  27. The most complete list appears on Champlain’s sketch of the Isle Sainte-Croix. Scattered references in Champlain and Lescarbot. For the sieur Ralluau see CWB 1:239 passim.

  28. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:24; CWB 1:246–47.

  29. Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 98.

  30. CWB 1:233; 3:321.

  31. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:34, 36.

  32. A procuration of Pierre du Gua [sieur de Monts] for Mathieu de Coste, described as “nègre” or “naigre.” De Monts had contracted for his services with Nicolas de Bauquemare, merchant of Rouen; see Declaration of Nicolas de Bauquemare for le nègre Mathieu de Coste for services “de Canada Cadie et ailleurs … Canada, Acadie, et Nouvelle France;” Le Blant and Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents, 105–06, 194, 195, 203, 212, 235, 388. For his kidnapping and ransom see Morse, ed., Pierre du Gua, Sieur de Monts, 51; and Le Blant and Baudry, Nouveaux documents 1:196. Morison garbled the name as “d’Acosta” and wrote contemptuously that he “had somehow managed to learn the Indian languages and … caused his master so much trouble,” (p. xxvi).

  33. CWB 1:253–54, 275; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:232, 242–44, 247; 3:45, 130.

  34. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:25; CWB 3:327; Gabriel Sagard, Histoire du Canada (1636) 1:9.

  35. Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 103.

  36. Jean Liebel found much primary material in the manuscript port records of Honfleur and other records in the departmental archives of Calvados, 8E 6517 folio 6Or; 6566 folio 149r; 6666, folio 106v, 184v, r; 6517 folio 302r; 335r; 5520 folio 318, 342; 6666 f. 184v, 185r, 196r, 197v, T96v; 6517, f335r, 107v, 184v recto; all in Pierre Dugua sieur de Mons, 95–108. He also found a source for the relationship of tonnage to length in Père Fournier, S.J. Hydrographie, contenant la théorie et la pratique de toutes les parties de la navigation (Paris, 1643), a chapter on “Architecture navale,” 16–43.

  37. Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 100.

  38. CWB 1:238–39; Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 127.

  39. At least four accounts of this voyage survive: one in Champlain’s Voyages published in 1613, CWB 1:234–36; another in Champlain’s Voyages of 1632, CWB 3:321–25; a third by Lescarbot (who was not aboard, but talked with Poutrincourt and others) in History of New France 2:227–31; and an anonymous essay in Le Mercure François, volume for 1608 (1611) 294; reprinted in Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 8 (1902) 2:172. See also new material in Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 108–12.

  Champlain wrote in his first account that the date of departure was April 7, 1604. Lescarbot and the Mercure François made it March 7. Champlain’s editor, H. P. Biggar, believed that Lescarbot and the Mercure François were correct and Champlain was mistaken, a judgment repeated by other scholars. But Champlain was right about the date and Lescarbot was mistaken. Evidence has turned up in court records that merchants were still signing on passengers as late as March 17, 1604, and that Don-de-Dieu was still at Honfleur until 24 March, then sailed on that date for Le Havre and joined La Bonne-Renommée which had been there since at least March 17, 1604. See Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 98, 104.

  40. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:301.

  41. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:228.

  42. CWB 1:234; 3:321.

  43. CWB 1:236n; Nicolas Denys, The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (Acadia), ed. William F. Ganong (Toronto, 1
908), 147n, a bilingual edition published by the Champlain Society.

  44. CWB 1:235; 3:322. Biggar did not believe that it could be so, but Champlain had made even faster crossings. In 1615 he sailed from Honfleur on April 24 (he wrote August by mistake) and reached Tadoussac on May 24. He did it again in 1618, from Honfleur on May 24 to Tadoussac on June 24. See Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 110.

  45. CWB. The chart was published at Paris in 1613. It is reprinted with a modern chart in CWB I:236.f.

  46. Sheila Chambers et al., Historic LaHave River Valley: images of Our Past (Halifax, 2004); Joan Dawson, “History,” www.fortpointmuseum.com/history.asp.

  47. Silas Tertius Rand, Legends of the Micmacs, Wellesley Philological Publications (New York and London, 1894), 225–26; cf Nicolas Denys, Acadia, 323. The 400th Anniversary celebrations at Sainte—Croix sponsored with the endorsement of the National Park Service in 2004 asserted that Mi’kmaq Indians thought Champlain’s ships were great white birds. This is complete humbug. The long history of maritime activity on the North Atlantic coast has left archaeological evidence. Peter Pope writes that “translucent chert from Ramah Bay in northern Labrador has a wide distribution in pre-contact sites along the eastern littoral of North America as far south as Long Island Sound.” Cf. Peter Pope, The Many Landfalls of John Cabot (Toronto, 1997), 152.

  48. CWB 1:237. Champlain’s estimate of five leagues from La Hève to Rossignol (today called Liverpool) was mistaken; eight leagues would be more accurate. A similar account is in Lescarbot, 2:229. A third account by Pont-Gravé, dated 24 Oct. 1604, is in Bréard and Bréard, Documents relatifs à la Marine Normande. All confirm the accuracy of Champlain’s accounts. Owners of the seized ship brought suit, and after four years of litigation a settlement was reached. De Mons and his associates, “moved by pity and compassion,” made a gift of 900 livres but kept the furs. For the litigation that followed in France, and its outcome, see “Procuration donnée par les bourgeois du navire La Levrette….” March 26, 1608, and “Transaction de Pierre Dugua, Samuel Georges et leurs associés, avec les bourgeois havrais du navire La Levrette,” April 4, 1608, in Le Blant and Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents, 1:166–67, 169–72. For more detail about La Levrette, see Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Monts, 112–13. He estimates a figure of 500 livres for the payment to Rossignol and the owners of Levrette, which differs from other sources.

  49. A version of this oral tradition was published in Mike Parker, Guides to the North Woods: Hunting and Fishing Tales from Nova Scotia 1860–1960 (Halifax, 1990), 95–96, from which these quotations are taken.

  50. We know this story from a happy conjunction of sources. Oral legends of the Mi’kmaq and Métis people of Acadia interlock perfectly with the narratives of Champlain, Marc Lescarbot, François Pont-Gravé, and French court documents. These elements came together four centuries later, August 22, 2004, when we heard the legends again from Matthew Verge on a beautiful late summer day in the harbor where they took place. Many thanks to Matthew Verge for lending a copy of Mike Parker’s book, and for taking the time to talk with us on our visit to Liverpool in the summer of 2004.

  51. CWB 1:237–38, 251, 3:332; 6:233; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:229.

  52. CWB 1:239.

  53. Ibid. 1:239–40.

  54. Ibid. 1:241–43.

  55. Ibid. 1:243.

  56. Ibid. 1:247–49.

  57. Ibid. 1:250–51.

  58. For Jean Ralluau, see CWB 1:239, 267, 280, 388, 456; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 1:22, 26, 30, 52, 70, 174, 482; Le Blant et Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents 1: xii, xxiv, 212, 225, 317–18, passim.

  59. CWB 1:255n.

  60. Ibid. 1:256.

  61. Ibid. 1:256.

  62. Ibid. 1: 258–59.

  63. Ibid. 1:261–63.

  64. Ibid. 1:265–68.

  65. Ibid. 1:269.

  66. Still a leading study is William F. Ganong, Champlain’s Island (1902, expanded edition, Saint John, 2003), 122–139, 74–77; it examines the eyewitness accounts by Champlain and Lescarbot who visited the island shortly after it was abandoned. Ganong’s research confirms the accuracy of both accounts. Another study is Edwin A. Garrett IV, “L’île Sainte-Croix—St. Croix Island,” ms., 2007, with thanks to the author for a copy of his manuscript.

  67. CWB 1:302.

  68. Champlain tells us that they reached the Saint John River on June 24, 1604, St. John’s Day. They sailed through the reversing falls but “not farther,” which required two tides, then explored islands to the south, went hunting, then continued south to the Sainte-Croix River, and up the river to Sainte-Croix. This would have required at least two days after June 24, perhaps three or four. On that basis, we might estimate the date of arrival at Sainte-Croix as between June 26 and June 28. The date of June 24, 1604, given for the “choice of Ste. Croix,” in the excellent chronology of Litalien and Vaugeois, Champlain, 365, is not possible. Morison’s date of “mid-June” is mistaken in Champlain, 41. Liebel has it about right at June 26, 1604, in Pierre Dugua, sieur de Monts, 121.

  69. CWB 1:275.

  70. Ibid. 1:277.

  71. Ibid. 1:274–75.

  72. Ibid. 1:277; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:255; Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 124; Ganong, Champlain’s Island, 90.

  73. CWB 1:277–78; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:255; Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, 124; Ganong, Champlain’s Island, 64–78.

  74. CWB 1:275–77; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:255.

  75. Ganong writes from close study of the island, “the engraver probably used a crude though approximately accurate sketch by Champlain, and from this drew his attractive picture. CWB 1:275–79. A survey of archaeology done on Sainte-Croix Island appears in Gretchen Fearn Faulkner, “A History of Archeological Investigation on St. Croix,” unpub. paper, University of Maine, 1982; a copy is in the library of the Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine.

  The first major project was done as early as 1796–97 by Loyalist settlers in New Brunswick, who wanted to determine that this was in fact the Sainte-Croix River and that their land grants were safe north of the river. Thomas Wright, surveyor general of Prince Edward Island, made a survey of the island and found that the foundations of the settlement closely matched plans and descriptions that Champlain had published. For a discussion see Ganong, Champlain’s Island, 122–39, 74–77.

  Many amateur digs followed in the nineteenth century, and also several projects by professional archaeologists in the twentieth century. One project, led by Wendell Hadlock, was described in his “Narrative Report on Preliminary Exploration at St. Croix Island, Dec. 4, 1950,” and see also J. C. Harrington, “Preliminary Archeological Excavations at St. Croix Island, Maine,” January 30, 1951.

  Another study followed in the late 1960s. Its leader, Jacob W. Gruber, reported his results in “The French Settlement on St. Croix Island, Maine, Excavations for the National Park Service, 1968–69,” ms. report, 1970; and “Champlain’s Dead: The Cemetery at St. Croix,” Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa.

  More work was done in the 1990s. See Thomas A. J. Crist, “Biocultural Response to Scurvy: An Example from Ste. Croix Island, New France, 1604–05,” unpub. paper, 1995; and Eric S. Johnson “Archeological Overview and Assessment of the Saint Croix Island International Historic Site, Calais, Maine,” University of Massachusetts Archeological Service, Amherst, Mass., 1996.

  The largest project was a set of re-excavations and analyses in 2003–05, led by Dr. Steven Pendry and Lee Terzis. Their results are in process of publication at the time of this writing. Each of these studies was progressively more refined, but the ground was also increasingly more disturbed. The reports and many physical artifacts are in the Library of Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine; and at the North Atlantic Regional Office of the National Park Service, in Boston, Massachusetts.

  76. Jean Grove, The Little Ice Age (Routledge, 1988), a work of scholarship; Brian Fagan, L
ittle Ice Age, is a lively essay; annual climate series have been constructed by Hal Fritts at the University of Arizona.

  77. Thomas A. J. Crist, Marcella H. Sorg, Robert Larocque, and Molly H. Crist, “Champlain’s Cemetery: Skeletal Analysis of the First Acadians, Saint Croix Island International Historic Site, Calais, Maine,” prepared for the United States National Park Service, Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine; ms. Utica College, Utica, N.Y., 2005.

  78. The most striking evidence are CT scans of a French colonist, performed by Dr. John Benson, director of medical imaging at Mount Desert Hospital, Bar Harbor, Maine, June 26, 2003. The results were reported by Dr. Benson in a paper presented to the Radiological Society of North America, Nov. 29, 2004. Films and reports are on file in the library of Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island, Maine. The autopsied skull was reexcavated by a group led by Dr. Steven Pendry in June 2003, and analyzed by a joint Canadian-American team of forensic anthropologists led by Dr. Thomas Crist and Dr. Molly Crist of Utica College, Dr. Marcella Sorg, Maine State Forensic Anthropologist, and Physical Anthropologist Dr. Robert Larocque of Université Laval, Quebec. See Thomas A. Crist and Marcella H. Sorg, “‘We Opened several of them to determine the Causes of their Illness:’ Samuel de Champlain and the New World’s First Adult Autopsy, L’île Sainte Croix, 1604–1605,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Dallas, Texas, 2004.

  79. Kenneth J. Carpenter, The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C (Cambridge, 1986), 11.

  80. Champlain counted thirty-five dead; Lescarbot reported thirty-six deaths. Cf. CWB 1:204–05; Lescarbot, History of New France, 2:258; Pierre Biard, Relations of 1616, Jesuit Relations, 3:52–53.

  81. Kenneth J. Carpenter, The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C (Cambridge, 1986), 230–33 reviews the evidence on this question, both from experiments by polar explorers such as Stefansson, and from nutritional studies of ascorbic acid in fresh meat in Eskimo diet, as well as in other sources available in North America such as licorice root, mountain sorrel, and angelica.