Champlain's Dream

by David Hackett Fischer

  44. CWB 2:257–58.

  45. Ibid. 2:258.

  46. Ibid. 2:249–50.

  47. Ibid. 2:251.

  48. Ibid. 2:251, 255.

  49. Ibid. 2:252.

  50. Ibid. 2:252.

  51. Ibid. 2:252–54.

  52. Ibid. 2:255.

  53. Ibid. 2:255–56.

  54. Ibid. 2:261.

  55. Ibid. 2:263.

  56. Ibid. 2:262–64.

  57. These Algonquin were known also as the Kinounchepirini. They lived near the Ottawa River south of Allumette Island. See notes in Laverdière, Oeuvres de Champlain and also Biggar’s commentary in CWB 2:264–65.

  58. CWB 2:271–72.

  59. Ibid. 2:274–75. For Champlain’s astrolabe, see H. Scadding, The Astrolabe of Samuel Champlain (Toronto, 1880); C. MacNamara, “Champlain’s Astrolabe,” Canadian Field Naturalist 33 (1919), 103–09; Jean-Pierre Chrestien, “Champlain’s Astrolabe,” Litalien and Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America (Montreal, 2004), 351–53.

  60. CWB 2:276.

  61. Ibid. 2:274–76.

  62. Ibid. 2:278.

  63. Ibid. 2:297.

  64. CWB 2:255–58, 287–305, 307. Other scholars have suggested that Vignau was an innocent victim of Tessoüat, and that the Kichesperini Algonquin wanted to keep Champlain from making contact with the Nipissing. This may be true, but Champlain had deep doubts about Vignau long before he talked with Tessoüat. Compare Trigger, Natives and Newcomers, 179; CWB 2:255.

  65. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:206.

  66. The major documents dated Nov. 14, 15, and 20, 1613, are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, NAF, 9269, and are cited by Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:206n; also the Letters Patent, Dec. 14, 1613, were read ca. 1901, by Biggar in the Archives of the Parlement de Rouen, and are quoted in Early Trading Companies of New France, 94; see also Trudel, idem, 2:205–06; Morison, Champlain, 147; Laverdière, Oeuvres de Champlain, 3:326; Robert Le Blant and Marcel Delafosse, “Les Rochelais dans la vallée du Saint Laurent (1599–1618),” RHAF 3 (1956), 333–63.

  67. CWB 3:23; Biggar, Early Trading Companies, 96–97.

  68. Biggar, Early Trading Companies, 94.

  69. Morison, Champlain, 133.

  70. C. E. Heidenreich, Explorations and Mapping of Samuel de Champlain, 1603–1632 (Toronto, 1976), 79–82.

  71. For an excellent discussion see Denis Vaugeois, “Seeking Champlain,” The Beaver, special 400th anniversary Collector’s Issue, (Winnipeg, 2008), 34; Raymonde Litalien, Jean-François Palomino, and Denis Vaugeois, Mapping a Continent: Historical Atlas of North America, 1492–1814 (Montreal, 2007), 82–89, 111–13; and Litalien and Vaugeois, eds., Champlain, 294, 301, 319–20.

  72. CWB 2:222–23; Morison, Champlain, 134; Heidenreich, Explorations and Mapping, 104.

  73. Ibid. 3:16; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:210; Gabriel Sagard, Histoire du Canada … depuis l’an 1615 (ed. Tross, 1865) 1:24–42.

  74. CWB 3:17.

  75. Ibid. 3:18.

  76. “furtivement absentée et desrobée,” in “Exhérédation de Hélène Boullé….” Jan. 10, 1614; “testament de Marguerite Alix,” Feb. 14, 1614; and “Revocation” May 23, 1636, in Le Blant and Baudry eds., Nouveaux documents, 330–35.

  77. Champlain, “Testament,” ANF Minutier central, Minutes de Fleffé 62:138; reproduced in the Digital ArchivesCanadaFrance.com; see also Robert Le Blant, “Le Testament de Samuel Champlain,” RHAF 17 (1963), 269–86.

  15. HURONIA

  1. Henry Percival Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 6 vols. and a portfolio of maps and drawings (CWB), (Toronto, 1922–36, reprinted 1971) 3:65.

  2. Ibid. 3:23.

  3. Ibid. 3:22.

  4. Alain Rey et al., eds., Le Grand Robert de la langue française (Paris, 2001) 5:977, s.v. “porteparole,” meanings 1 and especially 2: “a person who transmits words and thoughts from one group to another, and mediates among them.”

  5. CWB 3:23.

  6. Charles Bréard and Paul Bréard, Documents relatifs à la Marine Normande et ses armements aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Rouen, 1889), 124, 127–28 passim; CWB 3:24.

  7. Ibid., 127–28.

  8. CWB 3:24.

  9. For further discussion, see David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom (New York and Oxford, 2006), 1–13, 712, 714, 716–24.

  10. CWB 3:23–24.

  11. Genesis: 39. William Tyndale’s translation in the Tyndale Bible, quoted in R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926, N.Y., 1954), 164. In the King James version it becomes “And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.”

  12. CWB 3:24–25.

  13. Ibid. 3:27.

  14. Ibid. 3:26.

  15. Ibid. 3:27.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid. 3:31.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid. 3:31–32.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid. 3:32, 35.

  22. Ibid. 3:34; Chrestien Le Clercq, Premier établissement de la foy dans la Nouvelle-France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1691) 1:62–65.

  23. CWB 3:35.

  24. C. E. Heidenreich, Explorations and Mapping of Samuel de Champlain, 1603–1632 (Toronto, 1976), 23.

  25. CWB 3:34–36.

  26. Ibid. 3:38–39.

  27. Ibid. 3:45–46.

  28. Ibid. 3:43–45.

  29. Ibid. 3:48.

  30. Ibid. 3:51.

  31. Ibid. 3:48–56; Gabriel Sagard, The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons (Paris, 1632, ed. Wrong, 1939), 76; C. E. Heidenreich, Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians (1600–1650) (Toronto, 1971), 34–36.

  32. CWB 3:50–53; the fullest study is Heidenreich, Huronia, 168–99.

  33. CWB 3:49–50; Sagard, Long Journey, 150; Heidenreich, Huronia, 79–80.

  34. CWB 3:53.

  35. The name that Champlain used—Entouhonoron or Antouhonoron—derived from Onon-taeerhonon, the Huron name for the Onondaga; CWB 3:54–55; 4:244n, 283; 5:230; 6:249–50; Morris Bishop, Champlain: The Life of Fortitude (New York, 1948, 1963), 356; James W. Bradley, Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois: Accommodating Change, 1500–1650 (Syracuse, 1987); James A. Tuck, Onondaga Iroquois Prehistory: A Study in Settlement Archaeology (Syracuse, 1990); Dennis Connors, Onondaga: Portrait of a Native People (Syracuse, 1986). For another view, entirely mistaken, of the Onondaga as “a beaten people … on the defensive deep in their own forests,” see George Hunt, The Wars of the Iroquois (1940, Madison, Wisc., 1960), 24, 161.

  36. Champlain and Sagard left eyewitness accounts of Cahiagué. Archaeologists have added much detail about this extraordinary place from excavations at the Warminster site, which many but not all scholars believe to have been Cahiagué. Cf. CWB 3:49, 53, 56, 94; 4:240, 244, 247; Sagard, Long Journey, 92; T. F. McIlwraith, “Archaeological Work in Huronia, 1946: Excavations near Warminster,” CHR 27 (1946), 394–401; idem, “On the Location of Cahiagué,” TRSC ser. 3, 41 (1947) ii: 99–102.11; J. N. Emerson, “Cahiagué,” mimeo (Orillia: University of Toronto Archaeological Field School, 1961); J. G. Cruickshank and C. E. Heidenreich, “Pedological Investigations at the Huron Indian Village of Cahiagué,” Canadian Geographer 13 (1969), 34–46; Bruce Trigger, Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal, 1976, 1987 ed.), 302–5; W. R. Fitzgerald, “Is the Warminster Site Champlain’s Cahiagué?” Ontario Archaeology 45 (1986), 3–7. Some archaeologists believe that Champlain may have doubled the number of lodges, but by their estimate it was still a very large town, with as many as 3,000 inhabitants. If Champlain was right (and he may well have been), the population could have been as large as 6,000.

  37. CWB 3:5; Le Jeune, “Relation” (1636), Jesuit Relations 9:260–61.

  38. CWB 3:55.

  39. Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (Montreal, 1963–79) 2:219.

  40. CWB 3:61.

  41. Ibid. 3:61.

  42. Ibid. 3:62.

  43. Ibid. 3:59–62. C
hamplain’s account of the march is clear in a general way, but doubtful in some of its details. A reconstruction and map of Champlain’s route appears in Elizabeth Metz, Sainte Marie among the Iroquois, 3rd edition (Syracuse, 1995), 41. The best account is in Bishop, Champlain, 230–32. Samuel E. Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (New York, 1972), 155–57, tried to follow the route by air but was mistaken in Champlain’s destination. Still useful is O. H. Marshall, “Champlain’s Expedition of 1615,” Historical Writings of the late Orasmus H. Marshall (Albany, 1887), 101ff.

  44. CWB 3:63.

  45. Bishop, Champlain, 231–32; James W. Bradley, Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois: Accommodating Change (1500–1655) (Syracuse, 1987), 113.

  46. CWB 3:65.

  47. Le Jeune, “Relation” (1636) 9:258–61, Champlain did not mention this episode in his account, but Le Jeune made a record of it, and observed that “they have some reason or rather excuse for treating their enemies this way, for the Iroquois are still more rabid when they get hold of them.” He added, “These proud spirits … will not submit to any yoke.”

  48. On the fort’s location, historians have long disagreed. The best archaeological evidence now points to Lake Onondaga. For details and discussion see appendix K.

  49. CWB 3:67.

  50. Ibid. 3:73.

  51. Ibid. 3:72–73; 4:260.

  52. Ibid. 3:73–75; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:219, 222.

  53. CWB 3:76.

  54. Ibid. 3:72; O. H. Marshall, “Champlain’s Expedition of 1615,” 43–66.

  55. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:222–23.

  56. Bruce Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” Reconsidered (Montreal, 1985), 309.

  57. José António Brandao, Your Fyre Shall Burn No More: Iroquois Policy toward New France and its Native Allies to 1701 (1997, Lincoln, Neb., 2000), 93–98.

  58. William N. Fenton, The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Federacy (Norman, Okla., 1998), 243–44.

  59. CWB 3:76–77.

  60. Ibid. 3:78–79.

  61. Ibid. 3:80–81.

  62. Ibid. 3:114.

  63. Elisabeth Tooker, Ethnographie des Hurons, 1615–1649 (Montreal, 1987), 4–7, and much more, in a very interesting three-way comparison with Sagard.

  64. CWB 3:81–83.

  65. Ibid. 3:83–91.

  66. Ibid. 3:81–83, 91–95.

  67. Ibid. 3:115–16.

  68. Ibid. 3:106, 109.

  69. Ibid. 3:47, 138–40; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 300, 367–68, 388, 718–19.

  70. CWB 3:136.

  71. Le Jeune, “Relation” (1634), Jesuit Relations 6:228–35.

  72. CWB 3:52; 145.

  73. Ibid. 3:148–49.

  74. Ibid. 3:143.

  75. Ibid. 3:52.

  76. Ibid. 3:142.

  77. Ibid. 3:137.

  16. THE COURT OF LOUIS XIII

  1. Henry Percival Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 6 vols. and a portfolio of maps and drawings (CWB), (Toronto, 1922–36, reprinted 1971) 4:339.

  2. Ibid. 3:173–75; 4:338; other accounts in Gabriel Sagard, Histoire du Canada et voyages que les Frères Mineurs recollects y ont faicts pour la conversion des infidèles depuis l’an 1615 (first edition Paris, 1636; reprint edition, Tross 1866), 1:44; Chrestien Le Clercq, Premier établissement de la foy dans la Nouvelle-France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1691)1:101; Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France, vol. 2 (Montreal, 1966) 2:238.

  3. CWB 4:339; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:238–39; le duc d’Aumale, Histoire des princes de Condé pendant les XVIe et XVIIe siècles 8 vols. (Paris, 1855–96) 2:222–348; 3:483–664.

  4. Champlain writes that this “certain personage” applied to the sieur de Beaumont, master of requests, who was a friend of the maréchal de Thémines. Thémines advised him to ask for the post of “King’s lieutenant in New France, during the detention of my Lord the Prince [of Condé]. And this he obtained from the Queen Mother, the Regent.” Cf. CWB 4:340; and Trudel’s interpretation, HNF 2:240–41.

  5. CWB 4:340, 345.

  6. Adrian 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), 427–44, with a manuscript account of the fight at Méry-sur-Seine, 513–20.

  7. Victor-Louis Tapié, France in the Age of Louis XIII and Richelieu (Paris, 1952, 1957, tr. Cambridge, 1974, 1984), 77.

  8. D’Aumale, Histoire des princes de Condé, 2:222–348; 3:483–664; A. Lloyd Moote, Louis 9. XIII, the Just (Berkeley, 1989), 86–87.

  9. Tapié, France in the Age of Louis XIII, 77.

  10. Ibid., 91.

  11. Moote, Louis XIII, 187–89, 283, 282.

  12. CWB 4:345; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:241.

  13. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:241; Henry Percival Biggar, The Early Trading Companies of New France: A Contribution to the History of Commerce and Discovery in North America (Toronto, 1901, 1937; rpt. Clifton, N.J., 1972), 107.

  14. CWB 4:342.

  15. Ibid. 4:340–41.

  16. Ibid. 4:342.

  17. Ibid. 4:343.

  18. Ibid. 4:344.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Captain Morel had commanded Bonne-Renommée on the voyage of 1604; see Lescarbot, History of New France 2:227; CWB 1:234n.

  21. Some historians, including Morris Bishop, doubted that Champlain went to New France at all in 1617 but missed several of Champlain’s clear statements to that effect. For primary evidence see CWB 3:209–10; 4:343–45; Le Clercq, Premier établissement de la foy, 1:104–05; Sagard, Histoire du Canada, 1:34–41; for discussion see Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:241n.

  22. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:242.

  23. Charles Bréard and Paul Bréard, Documents relatifs à la Marine Normande et ses armements aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles pour le Canada, l’Afrique, les Antilles, le Brésil et les Indes (Rouen, 1889), 129; Le Clercq, Premier établissement de la foy, 1:105. On Hébert’s emigration with his family, Lucien Campeau makes it April 11, 1617. I think it was March 11 of the same year, but he may be correct, in which case Champlain’s departure is misdated in his Voyages. Cf. Monumenta Novae Franciae 1:670.

  24. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:474, 468.

  25. All this comes not only from Champlain’s account but from the Récollet fathers and from the family itself. The fullest account is Le Caron, Au Roy sur la Nouvelle France (pamphlet n.p. 1626); also Le Clerq, Premier établissement de la foy 1:104–05; and Sagard, Histoire du Canada 1:45–46.

  26. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:502–03.

  27. Ibid. 2:234–36, 324–27, 489–91.

  28. Ibid. 2:103, 167, 173, 238, 245, 273, passim; in Champlain’s works he appears as Sieur Du Parc, 2:117, 146–47; 3:182.

  29. CWB 4:344.

  30. Contract for employment of Isabel Terrier signed by Samuel de Champlain, Richard Terrier, Hélène Boullé, and two others. Étienne Charavay, Documents inédits sur Samuel de Champlain (Paris, 1875), 4–5; rpt. in CWB 2:324–25.

  31. CWB 2:339.

  32. Ibid. 2:341.

  33. Champlain to the Chamber of Commerce, n.d. ca. 1617–18; text in CWB 2:339–45.

  34. CWB 2:326.

  35. Ibid. 2:326–37.

  36. Ibid. 2:327.

  37. Ibid. 2:329.

  38. Ibid. 2:329.

  39. Champlain to the King and Lords of his Council, text in CWB 2:326–39.

  40. CWB 4:365.

  41. “De Par le Roy, March 12, 1618,” signed Louis, and below, “Potier.” CWB 4:365.

  42. CWB 3:177–78.

  43. Ibid. 3:203–11.

  44. Ibid. 3:180, 203.

  45. Ibid. 3:181–213.

  46. Ibid. 3:181.

  47. Ibid. 3:191.

  48. Ibid. 2:201.

  49. Ibid. 3:191.

/>   50. Ibid. 3:210.

  51. Ibid. 3:213.

  52. Ibid. 3:208.

  53. Ibid. 4:227.

  54. Ibid. 4:227, 210–11.

  55. Ibid. 3:229–30.

  56. This new address appears in legal documents dated March 15, 1619, Feb. 23, 1620, in Robert Le Blant and René Baudry, Nouveaux documents sur Champlain et son époque (1560–1662) (Ottawa, 1967) 1:374, 397; earlier, Champlain had lived on the rue du Marché in the Marais-Temple area, which was closer to Louvre. See Moote, Louis XIII, 282; CWB 5:138.

  57. François Moureau, “Les Amérindiens dans le ballets de Cour à l’époque de Champlain,” Litalien and Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America (Montreal, 2004), 43; Paul Lacroix, Ballets et mascarades de Cour sous Henri IV et Louis XIII, 6 vols. (Geneva, 1868–70) spans the period from 1581 to 1652. Wonderful images are reproduced in Litalien and Vaugeois, Champlain.

  58. Moureau, “Les Amérindiens dans les Ballets de Cour,” 43–49.

  59. Ibid. 43.

  60. Ibid. 45.

  61. Ibid. 41.

  62. CWB 3:5–6.

  63. Ibid. 4:3.

  64. Ibid. 3:4.

  65. Samuel E. Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (New York, 1972), 174.

  66. CWB 4:350.

  67. Ibid. 4:350–51.

  68. Ibid. 4:351.

  69. Ibid. 4:352.

  70. Ibid. 4:357.

  71. Ibid.

  72. Ibid. 4:361.

  73. Ibid. 4:363.

  74. Ibid. 4:366.

  75. Ibid.

  76. Ibid.

  17. A FRAMEWORK FOR NEW FRANCE

  1. Louis [XIII] to Champlain, May 7, 1620, signed Louis and Brûlart, rpt. in Henry Percival Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 6 vols. and a portfolio of maps and drawings (CWB), (Toronto, 1922–36, reprinted 1971) 4:370–71.

  2. CWB 5:60, 72.

  3. For the purposes of Louis XIII, see A. Lloyd Moote, Louis XIII, the Just (Berkeley, 1989), xi, 13–15, passim.

  4. Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (Montreal, 1966) 2:264; Mercure François (1619) 6:334–40.

  5. Champlain, CWB 4:367–68; Trudel found the record of the sale for 10,000 écus or crowns, plus another thousand for interest. Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:264; citing Bibliothèque nationale Fonds français 16738, soc 143:4. Viceroy Montmorency is not to be confused with Admiral Charles de Montmorency, to whom Champlain dedicated his first book and for whom he named Montmorency Falls.