Samuel de Champlain biography

Dromo's Den

Samuel de Champlain Biography

CHAMPLAIN, Samuel de (1567–1635). A French explorer and colonizer, the founder of Quebec, and the most prominent figure in the early history of New France. He was born at Brouage, in Saintonge, the son of a ship captain; received a careful training in the principles of navigation and cartography; entered the army, and served in Brittany as quartermaster of cavalry under D'Aumont, Saint-Luc, and Brissac. In 1598 he accompanied his uncle, recently appointed pilot general of Spain, when the latter carried home from Blavet the Spanish soldiers who had served in France as allies of the Leaguers, and in January, 1599, he was placed in command of the Saint-Julien, which, with several other vessels, started at that time for the West Indies. After an absence of more than two years, during which he visited various Spanish settlements in America, including Mexico City and New Granada, Champlain returned to France and made a careful report of his observations to Henry IV. This report, entitled Bref discours des choses plus remarquables que Samuel Champlain a reconnu aux Indes Occidentales, remains in manuscript at Dieppe and was not printed in the original until 1870, though an English translation was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1859. In it Champlain suggests the building of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, "by which," he says, "the voyage to the South Sea would be shortened by more than 1500 leagues." In 1603 he accompanied the expedition sent out by Amyar de Chastes to choose a site for a proposed settlement, explored the St. Lawrence to the Lachine Rapids and the Saguenay for 30 or 40 miles, and soon after his return published a small work entitled Des sauvages: ou voyage de Samuel Champlain de Brouage fait en la France Nouvelle, which, together with his other works, has been of the utmost value to historians and gives an especially interesting account of the character and habits of the Indians. In the following year Champlain went to America with De Monts (q.v.), who, on De Chastes's death (1603), had secured the privilege of colonizing Acadia, and during the next three years, in the course of four separate voyages, explored the Bay of Fundy and the New England coast from the mouth of the St. Croix to Vineyard Sound, though he also spent much of his time during this period at the settlement which was established first at St. Croix and afterward at Port Royal, near the present Annapolis, Nova Scotia (q.v.). In 1607 he returned with the discouraged colonists to France, but in 1608 came again to America, this time as Lieutenant Governor (an office which he held until his death), and on July 3 began to lay the foundations of Quebec (q.v.).

In 1609 he accompanied a band of Montagnais, Huron, and Algonquin Indians on an expedition against the Iroquois, discovered the lake which bears his name, and on July 30, near the present Ticonderoga, was instrumental in defeating a band of Mohawks—an event of great historical importance, since it definitely committed France to the policy, probably adopted by Champlain, whereby the French endeavored, by antagonizing the Five Nations, to secure the alliance of the diverse tribes of Canada, while the Iroquois were impelled to unite first with the Dutch and afterward with the English. From 1609 until his death Champlain spent part of almost every year in France, zealously looking after the interests of the colony, and while in Paris in 1610 he married Mademoiselle Hélène Boullé, then only 12 years of age, who, however, did not come to Canada until 1620. In 1610 he again took an active part in a battle with the Iroquois, who had formed a barricade of trees near the Sorel, and in 1611 he established a temporary trading post on the site of the present Montreal. On the reorganization of the government of New France in 1612, he was reappointed Lieutenant Governor under De Soissons, and subsequently held this position under the Prince de Condé, the Duc de Montmorency, the Duc de Ventadour, and Cardinal Richelieu. In 1613, lured by the tales of one Vignau, who claimed to have found a great lake at the sources of the Ottawa and a salt sea not far distant, Champlain proceeded up the Ottawa as far as Allumette Island. Two years later he accompanied a band of Indians, known as "The Great War Party," on an expedition against the Iroquois, and, after a circuitous journey by way of the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing, Georgian Bay, Trent River, and Lake Erie, unsuccessfully attacked the great Seneca fortress, probably near the eastern end of Oneida Lake in New York. This was the last of his expeditions either for war or for exploration, and he passed the rest of his life for the most part in Quebec and in Paris. In 1619 he published a third volume, Voyages et découvertes faites en la Nouvelle France, depuis l'année 1615 jusques à la fin de l'année 1618; and in 1632 he issued his last work, Les voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faites par le Sieur de Champlain Xainctongeois . . . et toutes les découvertes qu'il a faites en ce pais depuis l'an 1603 jusques en l'an 1629, which is in part an abridgment of his three previous works relating to Canada. In July, 1629, he was forced to surrender Quebec to an English fleet under Gervaise Kirke, and, after being detained for some time as a prisoner in England, he went to France, whence, in 1633, he again came to Quebec (New France having been restored by England in the previous year), and there on Christmas Day, 1635, he died.

Bold and intrepid, farseeing and resourceful, tactful in his dealings with his white subordinates and his red allies, born to command, and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of adventure and discovery, he was the real founder of French power in America, and richly earned his title, "The Father of New France." "Of the pioneers of the North American forests," says Parkman, "his name stands foremost on the list. It was he who struck the deepest and boldest strokes into the heart of their pristine barbarism. ... His character belonged partly to the past, partly to the present. The preux chevalier, the crusader, the romance-loving explorer, the curious knowledge-seeking traveler, the practical navigator, all found their share in him. . . . His books mark the man—all for his theme and purpose, nothing for himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every page the palpable impress of truth."

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. V (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 26-27.