Samuel de Champlain

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Samuel de Champlain : biography

August 13, 1574 – December 25, 1635

Champlain is also memorialized as the "Father of New France" and "Acadia", and many places, streets, and structures in northeastern North America bear his name, or have monuments established in his memory. The most notable of these is Lake Champlain, which straddles the border between northern New York and Vermont, extending slightly across the border into Canada. In 1609 he led an expedition up the Richelieu River and explored a long, narrow lake situated between the Green Mountains of present-day Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of present-day New York; he named the lake after himself as the first European to map and describe it.

Notes

Marriage

One route Champlain may have chosen to improve his access to the court of the regent was his decision to enter into marriage with the twelve-year-old Hélène Boullé. She was the daughter of Nicolas Boullé, a man charged with carrying out royal decisions at court. The marriage contract was signed on December 27, 1610 in presence of Dugua, who had dealt with the father (a Protestant like him), and the couple was married three days later. The terms of the contract called for the marriage to be consummated two years later.Fischer, pp. 287-288

Champlain’s marriage was initially quite troubled, as Hélène rebelled when she was told to join him in August 1613. Their relationship, while it apparently lacked any physical connection, recovered and was apparently good for many years.Fischer, pp. 313-316 Hélène lived in Quebec for several years,Fischer, pp. 374-5 but returned to Paris and eventually decided to enter a convent. The couple had no children, although Champlain did adopt three Montagnais girls named Faith, Hope, and Charity in the winter of 1627-28.Fischer, pp. 399-400

Founding of Quebec City

In the spring of 1608, Dugua wanted Champlain to start a new French colony on the shores of the St. Lawrence. Dugua equipped, at his own expense, a fleet of three ships with workers, that left the French port of Honfleur. The main ship, called the Don-de-Dieu (the Gift of God), was commanded by Champlain. Another ship, the Lévrier (the Hunt Dog), was commanded by his friend Du Pont. The small group of male settlers arrived at Tadoussac on the lower St. Lawrence in June. Because of the dangerous strength of the Saguenay River ending there, they left the ships and continued up the "Big River" in small boats bringing the men and the materials.Only at his last arrival (in 1633), Champlain did not leave the ships at Tadoussac but sailed them directly to Quebec City.

On July 3, 1608, Champlain landed at the "point of Quebec" and set about fortifying the area by the erection of three main wooden buildings, each two stories tall, that he collectively called the "Habitation", with a wooden stockade and a moat wide surrounding them. This was the very beginning of Quebec City. Gardening, exploring, and fortifying this place became great passions of Champlain for the rest of his life.

In the 1620s, the Habitation at Quebec was mainly a store for the Compagnie des Marchands (Traders Company), and Champlain lived in the wooden Fort Saint Louis newly built up the hill (south from the present-day Château Frontenac Hotel), near the only two houses built by the two settler families (the ones of Louis Hébert and Guillaume Couillard, his son-in-law).

Early travels

In 1598, his uncle-in-law, a navigator whose ship Saint-Julien was chartered to transport Spanish troops to Cadiz pursuant to the Treaty of Vervins, gave Champlain the opportunity to accompany him. After a difficult passage, he spent some time in Cadiz before his uncle, whose ship was then chartered to accompany a large Spanish fleet to the West Indies, again offered him a place on the ship. His uncle, who gave command of the ship to Jeronimo de Vallebrera, instructed the young Champlain to watch over the ship.Vaugeois, p. 87 This journey lasted two years, and gave Champlain the opportunity to see or hear about Spanish holdings from the Caribbean to Mexico City. Along the way he took detailed notes, and wrote an illustrated report on what he learned on this trip, and gave this secret report to King Henry,Three different handwritten copies of this report still exist. One of them is at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. who rewarded Champlain with an annual pension. This report was published for the first time in 1870, by Laverdière, as Brief Discours des Choses plus remarquables que Sammuel Champlain de Brouage a reconneues aux Indes Occidentalles au voiage qu’il en a faict en icettes en l’année 1599 et en l’année 1601, comme ensuite (and in English as Narrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico 1599–1602). The authenticity of this account as a work written by Champlain has frequently been questioned, due to inaccuracies and discrepancies with other sources on a number of points; however, recent scholarship indicates that the work probably was authored by Champlain.For a detailed treatment of claims against Champlain’s authorship, see the chapter by François-Marc Gagnon in Vaugeois, pp. 84ff. Fischer, pp. 586ff, also addresses these claims, and accepts Champlain’s authorship.