A-2: Samuel de Champlain-notes for History

The following are notes taken from...

Champlain's mission was clear; it was to explore the country called New France, examine its waterways and then choose a site for a large trading factory.

Champlain sailed from Honfleur on the fifteenth of March, 1603, and prepared to follow the route that Jacques Cartier had opened up in 1535.

He then sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as Hochelaga (the site of Montreal.) Nothing was to be seen of the Amerindian people and village which Cartier had visited, and Sault St. Louis (the Lachine Rapids) still seemed impassable. However, Champlain learned from his guides that above the rapids there were three great lakes (Erie, Huron and Ontario) to be explored.

From 1604 to 1607, the search went on for a suitable permanent site for them. It led to the establishment of a short-lived settlement at Port Royal (Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.)

The three years stay in Acadia allowed him plenty of time for exploration, description and map-making. He journeyed almost 1,500 kilometres along the Atlantic coast from Maine as far as southernmost Cape Cod.

In 1608, Champlain proposed a return to the valley of the St. Lawrence, specifically to Stadacona, which he called Quebec. In his opinion, nowhere else was so suitable for the fur trade and as a starting point from which to search for the elusive route to China

Champlain also explored the Iroquois River (now called the Richelieu), which led him on the fourteenth of July, 1609, to the lake which would later bear his name. Like the traders who had preceded him, he sided with the Hurons, Algonquins and Montaignais against the Iroquois. This intervention in local politics was ultimately responsible for the warlike relations that were to pit the Iroquois against the French for generations.

Even more important, he succeeded in penetrating beyond the Lachine Rapids, becoming the first European (apart from Étienne Brûlé) to start exploring the St. Lawrence and its tributaries as a route towards the interior of the continent. Champlain was so convinced that it was the route to the Orient that in 1612 he obtained a commission to "search for a free passage by which to reach the country called China." Like most of the explorers who followed after him, he could not carry out his mission without the support of the Amerindian population.

In the years that followed, he devoted all his efforts to founding a French colony in the St. Lawrence valley. The keystone of his project was the settlement at Quebec

When it capitulated to the English Kirke brothers in 1629, Champlain returned to France, where he lobbied incessantly for the cause of New France. He finally returned to Canada on the twenty-second of May, 1633. At the time of his death at Quebec on the twenty-fifth of December, 1635, there were one hundred and fifty French men and women living in the colony.

The Kirke brothers were privateers (licensed prirates working for the King of England). They sized the Tadoussac (upriver from Quebec) and cut the little settlement off. When supply ships were sent from France (not expecting the Kirkes) they sized the ships, supplies (including cannons) and 600 prisoners. They demanded Chaplain to surrender. He didn't and the Kirke brothers sailed back to England and left Quebec to starve. They returned the following summer and Champlain gave in. They took him as a prisoner back to England.
- What's even more interesting is that four years later King Charles of England was short on cash and so in 1632 gave the colonies of Acadia and Quebec back to France for a lump sum payment. - post by racree

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