13. René Baudry, “Quelques documents nouveaux sur Nicolas Denys,” RHAF 9 (1955), 14–30; Denys, Acadia.
14. Joan Dawson, “Colonists or Birds of Passage? A Glimpse of the Inhabitants of LaHave, 1632–1636,” NSHR 9 (1989), 42–61.
15. Robert Le Blant, “La Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France et la Restitution de l’Acadie (1627–1636),” Revue d’Histoire des Colonies, 126 (1955) 71–93; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 3.1:54.
16. Denys, Acadia, 147.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 149; Brenda Dunn, A History of Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal, 1605–1800 (Halifax, 2004), 13.
19. A historical museum stands today on Fort Point, with many treasures and some manuscripts that tell the story of this founding.
20. Marcel Delafosse, “La Rochelle et le Canada au XVIIe siècle,” RHAF 4 (1951), 469–511. Delafosse lists ships sailing from 1632.
21. Azarie Couillard-Després, “Aux sources de l’histoire de l’Acadie,” MSRC 3rd ser. 27 (1933) 63–81; Candide de Nant, Pages glorieuses de l’épopée: une mission Capucine en Acadie (Montreal, 1927), 91.
22. John G. Reid, Maine and New Scotland: Marginal Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (Toronto, 1981); MacDonald, Fortune and la Tour: 46–47.
23. John G. Reid, “The Scots Crown and the Restitution of Port Royal, 1629–1632,” Acadiensis 6 (1977), 106–77; Dunn, Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal, 15, citing Brigitta Wallace, “The Scots Fort: A Reassessment of its Location,” mss, Parks Canada Atlantic Service Centre, 1994, not seen.
24. Dunn, Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal, 15–16; Dawson, “Colonists or Birds of Passage,” 42–61.
25. Razilly to Marc Lescarbot, Aug. 16, 1634, BN 13,343:349–50; a copy was in the Fort Port Museum, LaHave, when we visited there.
26. Denys, Acadia, 149–52.
27. George MacBeath, “Jean Thomas,” and “Bernard Marot,” DCB; René Baudry, “Nicolas Le Creux du Breuil,” DCB; Candide de Nant, Pages glorieuses (Montreal, 1927).
28. Geneviève Massignon, Les parlers français d’Acadie, 2 vols. (Paris, n.p. [1962?]) 1:19.
29. Denys, Acadia, 124, 146–52; the historian is Ganong, Acadia, 124n.
30. Massignon, Les parlers français d’Acadie 1:19; a parish study by Rameau de Saint-Père is in Une colonie féodale en Amérique: 1604–1881, 2 vols. (Paris and Montreal, 1889) 2:322.
31. The best study is a grand thèse at the Sorbonne by Geneviève Massignon, a linguistic historian who was interested in the roots of Acadian and Quebec speech. She examined the origins of the Acadian population in census data of 1671, 1707, and 1938 and compared her results with evidence for Quebec and the St. Lawrence Valley. See Massignon, Les parlers français d’Acadie, 1:42–75, with a summary on pp. 74–75.
32. Massignon, Les parlers français d’Acadie 2:741; Yves Cormier, Dictionnaire du français acadien (Quebec, 1999), with an excellent bibliography, 381–426; see also Louise Péonnet et al., Atlas linguistique du vocabulaire maritime acadien (Quebec, 1998); Pascal Poirier, Glossaire (1953, 1977, 1993); idem, Le parler franco-acadien et ses origines (Quebec, 1928).
33. Cormier, Dictionniare ue français acadien, 30.
34. These examples are drawn from Cormier, Dictionnaire du français acadien; Poirier, Glossaire; and Poirer, Le parler franco-acadien et ses origines (Quebec, 1928).
35. A comparative table comes from the careful work of Geneviève Massignon, Les Parlers Français d’Acadie 2:741.
36. Andrew Hill Clark, Acadia: The Geography of Nova Scotia to 1760 (Madison, 1968), 158; Yves Cormier, Les aboiteaux en Acadie: hier et aujourd’hui (Moncton, 1990), 19; Françoise Marie Perrot, “Relation de la Provence d’Acadie,” LAC; on tidal meadows see Denis, Acadia, 118.
37. Denys, Acadia, 138–39.
38. Dunn, Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal, 17.
39. Cormier, Les aboiteaux en Acadie, 30–31.
40. Denys, Acadia, 123.
41. Clark, Acadia, 360.
42. Bernard V. LeBlanc and Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc, “La culture matérielle traditionelle en Acadie,” in L’Acadie des Maritimes ed. Jean Daigle (Moncton, 1993), 601–48, with an excellent essay on vernacular architecture, 627–42. For primary accounts of early Acadian buildings see Champlain, CWB 1:373; Marc Lescarbot, History of New France, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1907), 2:514; Gargas, “Mon Séjour de l’Acadie, 1687–88,” in William Inglis Morse ed., Acadiensia Nova, 1598–1779 (London, 1935) 1:179; Baron de Lahontan, New Voyages to North America ed. R. G. Thwaites (1905) 1:330–32; accounts of Meneval in 1688, Clark, Acadia, 138; Sieur de Dièreville, Relation du Voyage de Port Royal de l’Acadie, 1699–1700 (Toronto, Champlain Society, 1993).%
For archaeological evidence see Andrée Crépeau and Brenda Dunn, The Melanson Settlement: An Acadian Farming Community (ca. 1664–1755), Canadian Parks Research Bulletin 250 (Ottawa, 1986); David J. Christianson, Bellisle 1983: Excavations of a Pre-Expulsion Acadian Site, Curatorial Report 48 (Halifax, Nova Scotia Museum, 1984); Marc C. Lavoie, Bellisle Nova Scotia, 1680–1755: Acadian Material Life and Economy, Curatorial Report 65 (Halifax, Nova Scotia Museum, 1988).%
For a general discussion see Clarence Lebreton, The Acadians in the Maritimes (Moncton, 1982); Naomi Griffiths, The Acadians: Creation of a People (Toronto, 1973); Rameau de Saint-Père, Une colonie féodale; J. Rodolphe Bourque, Social and Architectural Aspects of Acadians in New Brunswick (Fredericton, 1971).
43. For the maison madrier see the description of the house of Louis Allain, in LeBlanc and LeBlanc, “La culture matérielle,” 630.
44. Peter Moogk, La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada: A Cultural History (East Lansing, 2000), 270.
45. On hydraulic systems and power see Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, 1957, 1963).
46. Moogk, La Nouvelle France, 270.
47. Clark, Acadia, 387.
48. Massignon, Les parlers français 1:31, 36.
49. Clark, Acadia, 361, 89, 95, 128, 377, passim.
24. TROIS-RIVIÈRES
1. Paul Le Jeune, “Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France en l’année 1633 …” (Paris, 1634), Jesuit Relations, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland, 1896–1901) 5:211.
2. Alexander Ross, The Red River Settlement: Its Rise, Progress and Present State (London, 1856), 252.
3. Le Jeune, “Relation” (1634), Jesuit Relations 5:206; [Champlain], “Relation du Voyage du Sieur de Champlain en Canada,” 1633, Mercure François 19 (1633), 803–67 at 838; rpt. in Lucien Campeau, Monumenta Novae Franciae (Quebec, 1967) 2: 350–97.
4. Jesuit Relations 7:225.
5. Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (Montreal, 1979) 3.1:130, 136, 137, 138.
6. DCB, “Laviolette;” Jesuit Relations 4: 261, 2:52; Benjamin Sulte, Histoire des Canadiens-Français, 1608–1880, 8 vols. (Montreal, 1882–84) 2: 48–54; idem, Histoire de la ville des Trois-Rivières (Montreal, 1870); Album de l’histoire des Trois-Rivières (Montreal, 1881); Campeau, Monumenta 2:66, 731.
7. The word had been brought to France by soldiers in the Crusades, and later by diplomats whom Francis had sent to Suleiman the Magnificent. Its Arabic and Akkadian origins are stressed in Le Grand Robert, s.v., “truchement,” and Alain Rey et al., Dictionnaire historique de la langue française (2006), s.v., “truchement.” For a variant theory of the Turkish root, see Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, The Story of French (New York, 2006), 100.
8. More than two dozen French truchements appear by name in this chapter, and several dozen more in other descriptions quoted below, plus many Indian interpreters.
9. “Commençoit à se licentier en la vie des Anglois [sic].” This was Champlain’s comment on an Indian truchement, Louis le Sauvage. CWB 6:101–02.
10. Campeau, “Bruslé,” in Monumenta 2:808–09, which corrects earlier writing on the basis of new research. See also Bruce Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” Reconsidered (Montreal, 1985, 1994), 177, 182, 194–997, 202, 246, 320, 326, 331, along with much material on Br
ûlé and the Indians. Indispensable are Champlain’s accounts in CWB 2:138–42; 3:36, 213; 4:213–66; 5:100n; 6:98–102, and passim; also materials in Jesuit Relations; Consul Willshire Butterfield, History of Brulé’s Discoveries and Explorations, 1610–1626 (Cleveland, 1898), 12–19, has been superseded by new research, but its appended documents are still very useful.
11. CWB 2:139, 142; Bruce G. Trigger, Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal, 1976, 1987), 261–62. Trigger writes, “Champlain did not explain, and probably never knew why Iroquet and Ochasteguin arranged this complicated exchange.” (262). Champlain’s account, with its explicit references to Iroquet, the “Algoumequins,” “the tribe of the Ochateguins, and the negotiations among them, suggests that he understood very well the complexity of these relationships. Cf. Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 262; CWB 2:142.
12. CWB 2:188; 3:213. Part of this description is from Morris Bishop, Champlain: The Life of Fortitude, 175.
13. CWB 3: 36, 53, 58, 213–26. For the trip to Lake Superior see Gabriel Sagard, Le Grand voyage au pays des Huron (Paris, 1632) and Campeau, Monumenta 2:808–09; Conrad E. Heidenreich, “Explorations and Mapping of Champlain, 1603–1632,” Cartographica (1976), 27–28; Trigger thinks that they passed through the Neutral Nation, keeping clear of the Iroquois. They had to pass through the country of the Iroquois, had a fight on the way, won it, and reached the village of Carantoüan with its eight hundred warriors well fortified with “high and strong palisades, firmly tied and joined together.” They were too late and missed Champlain by two days. They then returned and Brûlé had to stay there for the autumn and winter. He employed himself in exploring the country, visiting the tribes and territories near the place, and making his way along a river [Susquehanna?] with “many powerful and warlike tribes.” He followed the river “to the sea, past islands and coasts near them, which were inhabited by several tribes and numerous savage peoples, who nevertheless are well disposed and love the French nation above all others.”
14. CWB 3:225.
15. CWB 5: 97, 100, 132.
16. Campeau, Monumenta, 808–09.
17. CWB 5:128; André Vachon, DCB, s.v. “Marsolet;” Jesuit Relations 4:206–14; 5:112.
18. CWB 5:63; 1:108.
19. CWB 6:99–100.
20. Ibid.
21. Trigger favors the political hypothesis on very little evidence, and suspects Captain Aenons, of whom more in the appendix, Historiography. See Children of Aataentsic, 473–76.
22. Gabriel Sagard, Histoire du Canada et voyages que les frères mineurs recollects y ont faicts pour la conversion des infidèles depuis l’an 1615 (Paris, 1636; rpt. Librairie Tross, 4 vols. Paris, 1866), 368–70, 397–404, 621–29, 1228, 1249.
23. Le Jeune, “Relation” 1633, Jesuit Relations 4:206–14, 5:112.
24. For biographies see Émile Ducharme, “Olivier le Tardif,” ASGCF Mémoires 12 (1961), 4–20; Amédée Gosselin, “Olivier le Tardif, juge-prévôt de Beaupré,” RSCT, ser. 3, 17 (1923) 1–16; Marcel Trudel, DCB, s.v. “Le Tardif;” Chrestien Le Clercq, Premier établissement de la foy dans la Nouvelle-France, 2 vols. (1691), ed. John Gilmary Shea (New York, 1881) 1:161–74; C.-H. Laverdière, Oeuvres de Champlain (Quebec, 1870), 1042, 1113, 1228; Campeau, Monumenta 2:838; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 3.1: 122; Jesuit Relations 5: 288n.
25. Jesuit Relations 5:202; CWB 5: 95, 209; 6:62–63, May 10, 1623, Aug. 25, 1626.
26. Le Jeune, “Relation” (1633), Jesuit Relations 5:203, 288; Campeau, Monumenta 2:452; Campeau, “Olivier Letardif,” Monumenta 2:838; Le Clercq, Premier établissement 1:161–74.
27. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:149; 3.1:49, 117, 122, 149, 151, 160, 163, 178, 182–83, 191, 194.
28. René Blémus, Jean Nicollet en Nouvelle France: un Normand à la découverte des Grands Lacs canadiens (1598–1642) (Cherbourg, 1988), 120–25.
29. On Nicollet’s arrival in New France, conflicting dates appear in the sources. Barthélemy Vimont wrote that Nicollet came to New France in the year 1618 … was sent to winter with the island Algonquins, in order to learn their language,” and “tarried with them two years” (Jesuit Relations 23:276–78). But a legal document survives in which Jean Nicollet, son of Thomas Nicollet, was present when a piece of land was sold at Hainneville near Cherbourg on May 10, 1619 (Nicollet Mss, LAC.) Trudel concludes that Nicollet’s “definitive arrival in Canada could not have been before 1619.” It is also possible that Nicollet could have come earlier to New France and returned briefly in 1619. See also Jesuit Relations 8: 247, 257, 267, 295; 23:274–82; Sagard, Histoire du Canada (1866), 194.
30. Vimont in Jesuit Relations 23:276–78.
31. On January 18, 1642, Madeleine-Euphrosine was the godmother of an Indian at the Ursulines in Quebec. On November 21, 1642, she married Jean Leblanc, dit Lecourt, and had at least five children. On February 22, 1663, she remarried Elie Dusceau dit Lafleur, and had four more children. See Marcel Trudel, “Jean Nicollet dans le Lac Supérieur et non dans le Lac Michigan,” RHAF 34 (1980) 186n.
32. [Champlain], “Relation du Voyage,” Mercure François 19 (1633) 803–67; rpt. in Campeau, Monumenta 2:370; see Campeau’s note, 370n.
33. Champlain wrote: “On June 20, a shallop arrived from Sainte-Croix which gave us news of the arrival of forty canoes, which were the Bésérévis [his name for the Nipissing], and with them a French interpreter whom the Sieur de Caën had sent the previous year [1632] to encourage the Indians to come for trade, and he asked the sieur de Champlain to come quickly to Sainte-Croix, desiring to see him. He immediately ordered a shallop to be prepared, in which he embarked and arrived the same day at Sainte-Croix.” This text is from Champlain’s own account, in his “Relation du Voyage,” 370. The French interpreter is not named. Campeau concluded that “this interpreter was most probably Jean Nicollet,” (370n). This document has not been discussed in the controversy over Nicollet’s great journey that followed.
34. For Nicollet’s presence in Quebec see [Champlain] “Relation du Voyage,” 372, 387n; confirmed also in Le Jeune’s “Relation” (1633); also in Campeau, Monumenta, 405, 460.
35. In the Jesuit Relations they were also called Ouinipigous. The Ottawa told Champlain that the Puan could be reached by following the north shore of Lake Huron. For a discussion, see Heidenreich, Explorations and Mapping of Champlain, 95.
36. They are so labeled in a version of Champlain’s 1616 map, as completed by Pierre Duval in 1653 and reproduced in Heidenreich, Explorations and Mapping of Samuel de Champlain, plates 85, 114; plates 6, 9.
37. Champlain’s map of 1632 locates the Puan on the north shore of Lake Superior. Marcel Trudel, a Canadian historian, shares that view. See Marcel Trudel, “Jean Nicollet dans le Lac Supérieur,” 188–89.
38. Most scholars agree that Nicollet made this journey and that it was an extremely important event in the history of New France and North America. But they are not of one mind about the details of Nicollet’s trip. One interpretation was worked out by John Gilmary Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York, 1953) and developed by Benjamin Sulte, Mélanges d’Histoire et de Littérature (Ottawa, 1876); and Consul W. Butterfield, History of the Discovery of the North-West by John Nicolet (Cincinnati, 1881). Shea believed that Nicollet went west to Lake Michigan, found his way to Green Bay and the Fox River, and met the Winnebago people in what is now Wisconsin. Historians with strong ties to Minnesota and Michigan insist that this account is mistaken and that Nicollet journeyed to their states. Also at issue are questions about when Nicollet made the journey, who sent him, whom he met, and what the consequences have been. See Clifford P. Wilson, “Where Did Nicollet Go?” Minnesota History 27 (1946), 216–20; and Harry Dever, “The Nicolet Myth,” Michigan History 50 (1966) 318–22; Trudel developed these ideas in “Jean Nicollet dans le Lac Supérieur et non dans le Lac Michigan,” 183–96; on line at www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/library/articles/nicolet.htm. A helpful overview of the subject is publis
hed in Jerrold C. Rodesch, “Jean Nicolet,” Voyageur: The Historical Review of Brown County and Northeast Wisconsin (Spring 1984), 4–8.%
Another generation of interpretation appears in Robert L. Hall, “Rethinking Jean Nicollet’s Route to the Ho-Chucks in 1634,” and Michael McCafferty, “Where did Jean Nicollet meet the Winnebago in 1634? A Critique of Robert L. Hall’s ‘Rethinking Nicollet’s Route’” Ontario History 96 (2004), 170–82; with corrections in Ontario History 96 (2005).%
My judgment is that Trudel and others are correct about the early part of Nicollet’s journey, but that linguistic evidence confirms a visit to the country of the Winnebago. It is also possible that he followed the north shore of Lake Huron to its apex, crossed by canoe to the other side of the lake at its narrow neck, visited Lake Michigan as far as the Winnebago country, and than returned north to Sault Ste. Marie and explored part of the shore of Lake Superior. This interpretation may give the optimal fit to the evidence. If so, warring local historians of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois may each have a part of the answer, and they could dwell together in peace and truth on the basis of a third hypothesis.
39. Vimont, in Jesuit Relations 23:275–79.
40. CWB 2:217.
41. Benjamin Sulte, “Les interprètes du temps de Champlain,” RSCT ser 1, 1 (1882–83), 53.
42. CWB 2: 201–3, 205–06.
43. DCB, s.v. “Hertel;” Jesuit Relations 4: 24; 8:37; 9:33.
44. Ibid. 9:33, 57, 305; C.-H. Laverdière, Oeuvres de Champlain (Quebec, 1870) 6:58.
45. Campeau, Monumenta 2:141.
46. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 3.1:xxxvi, 44, 160, 176, 190; Campeau, Monumenta 2:108n.
47. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 3.1:40; CWB 1: 108; 6:108.
48. Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 3.1:23.
49. Campeau, Monumenta 2: 825, 168, 172, 174; Sagard, Histoire du Canada (Tross) 4:880–92; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 3.1:22.
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