Page images
PDF
EPUB

Samuel de Champlain was commissioned as General Lieutenant of Canada, by Henry IV., and set sail from Honfleur, March 15, 1603. In May he dropped anchor in the river St. Lawrence, up which he sailed as far as Cartier had ascended on the occasion of his first voyage, and after examining the shore with care, returned to France, where he published a book entitled Des Sauvages. In 1605, he sailed a second time under a new patron, who accompanied him. The patron, de Monts, was not of the stuff of which pioneers are made, and finding the northern climate too severe, the expedition sailed to the southward. Champlain explored the coast of the Continent as far as Cape Cod, and returned in 1607, the year that Jamestown was founded.

In 1608, he sailed for the third time for the St. Lawrence, which he navigated as far as the site of Quebec, which he selected as a favorite site for a town, and named from an Indian word meaning "narrows.' (Kepek: it is closed.) Under his wise direction the town grew, houses were built, fields were cultivated, and the traffic in furs was increased. The year after his arrival, war broke out between the Hurons and other tribes of Indians, and the Iroquois, and Champlain determined to take the part of the Hurons, as he considered the Iroquois dangerous to his colony. He accompanied the Hurons to the lake which now bears his name, where he used his gun with such effect as to kill two chiefs of the Iroquois and cause the remainder to flee. He went to France to spend the following winter, but returned for his fourth visit, in the spring of 1610. Before reaching Quebec, he gathered a force of sixty Indians of the Montagnez

VOYAGE OF CHAMPLAIN.

119

tribe, to go against the Iroquois, whom he encountered at the lake as before. His allies were this time defeated, and he, being wounded by an arrow, was obliged to return to France.

Champlain made his fifth voyage in 1612, coming as leutenant-governor, and spent several years in explor ing the country, going up the Ottawa River in the hope of finding an entrance to Hudson's Bay, which had been discovered two years before by Hendrick Hudson, on the voyage that cost him his life. fought against the Iroquois and with the Hurons, and, in 1615, invited some Jesuit missionaries to come to teach them both Christianity, but he did little to establish his own colonies.

He

Returning to France, Champlain made his sixth voyage, in 1620, coming this time with the title of governor, and bringing his family with him. He was authorized to fortify his settlements. In 1627, France and Spain formed an alliance against England, and "it fell out that they themselves were surprised by an attack from England." As a part of the general movement, Quebec was attacked, and forced to capitulate, but the treaty of St. Germain, in 1632, restored it to France and gave Governor Champlain freedom to carry out his plans to establish his colony on a better foundation than ever. He did not live long after this, but he was able before his death, which occurred in 1635, to found a college in Quebec, to bring over more missionaries and to begin the training of the young Indians in the French language and the arts of civilization. He said that the salvation of one soul is of more importance than the foundation of an empire, and acted upon the saying. He did what he consid

ered the best for his colonies, without regard to personal interest, not endeavoring merely to build up a fortune, as too many of the American pioneers had, and he is rightly called the Father of French colonization in Canada. In these enterprises of the French, we find the origin of subsequent strife between the English and French; for the grants made to the explorers of the two nations by their respective sovereigns, in many cases, covered the same territory. Jacques Marquette was sent to Canada as missionary

[graphic][merged small]

of the Jesuits, in 1666, but after learning the Indian language, he started for the Lake Superior region, in 1668, where he founded a mission at Sault Sainte Marie, and then built a chapel, in 1671, at Mackinaw. Reaching still further towards the "South Sea," he determined, in 1669, to explore the valley of the Mississipppi, of which he had heard. It was not until 1673, that he was able to accomplish his desire, when he accompanied a party under Louis Jolliet, sent out by Frontenac, the governor of Canada, to find the mouth of the great river. He went as missionary, and Jolliet was himself a member of the order of Jesuits.

MARQUETTE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

121

They followed the Wisconsin River to its junction with the Mississippi, and then descended that river to a point below the mouth of the Arkansas, whence they retraced their steps, passing up the Illinois, instead of the Wisconsin, to Green Bay, thinking that they had obtained a sufficiently clear notion of the course of the stream. They had journeyed some twenty-five hundred miles through the wilderness. Jolliet went alone to Quebec. Marquette never reached his mission alive. He was detained at Green Bay a year by illness, and in October, 1674, set out for Kaskaskia, where he had promised to preach to the Indians, though cold and illness caused him more delay, and he did not get to Kaskaskia until April, 1675. Increasing feebleness made him desire to return to Mackinaw, and he started on the journey, only to die on the banks of a river that now bears his name, on the east shore of Lake Michigan.

La Salle is another of the martyrs to the enthusiastic desire to reach China by the western route. A native of Rouen, France, he was educated by the Jesuits (having renounced his inheritance before entering their seminary), but inflamed by the story of the Western World, he resolved to give himself up to its exploration. In 1667, he sailed for New France, where he engaged in the fur trade, finally obtaining a grant which included the exclusive traffic with the "Five Nations" of New York. His grant included the fort on the site of the town of Kingston, then called Frontenac, after Louis, Count de Frontenac, one of the governors of Canada.

As Columbus had been influenced by the stories of his predecessors, and by the romances of the olden

time, so now La Salle was incited to complete the work of Jolliet by the stories that were told him of the great river. He read of the heroic confidence of Columbus in his own plans; he listened to the Indians who told him of the Ohio, and he was roused to action. He went to France, and so successfully interested the ministers in his schemes, that the monopoly of the trade in buffalo skins was given

[graphic][merged small]

him, and in 1678, he returned to Frontenac to prosecute his design. His preparations were not completed until late in the summer of 1679, and he then set out, only to encounter disaster, and to return on foot and almost alone. He left a portion of his colony on the banks of the Illinois, sent a party to explore the upper Mississippi, and set out on his desolate march of fifteen hundred miles through the wilderness, in the early spring of 1680.

It was not until February, 1682, that he was back

« PreviousContinue »