74 Student’s Encyclopedia of Great American Writers
a new trading post and solicited native guides to assist in his exploration of the Ottawa River. He founded the site for Montreal, which would not have year-round settlement until 1642. In terms of his plans for northwestern exploration, Champlain received approval from the council of Huron, Algonquin, and Montagnais to continue establishing fur trading posts in the Ottawa region during his next trip. Unlike his long and dangerous voyage to Canada, Champlain had a rather quick return trip to France. His return to his wife, however, was significantly delayed until late in 1611 because of injuries sustained when a horse fell on him. After his convalescence, Champlain took the next 18 months to write and publish Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois, capitaine ordinaire pour le roy en la marine. French colonizer Pierre Dugua de Monts and Champlain were able to convince Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé, to serve as the titular head of their Canadian enterprise, serving as viceroy of New France. Although securing Condé to help promote their voyages was helpful, it also introduced new partners, merchants who launched a rather scathing attack against Champlain. They called him nothing more than a painter and characterized his multiple journeys to New France as mere attempts to puff up his ego and gain public notoriety. Despite their insults, Champlain sailed to New France again, this time as the deputy to the viceroy. Champlain’s anxieties about the English appeared in the form of a tale of a wrecked English ship and a young survivor who had joined the natives. Champlain heard this tale from Nicolas de Vignau, a sailor whom Champlain had exchanged with the Algonquin for a boy of the same tribe whom Champlain had baptized as Savignon. Vignau’s story seemed plausible, especially since there had been stories about Henry Hudson, who was in James Bay during the previous winter. When Champlain arrived at Muskrat Lake and met Chief Nibachis, he soon learned that Vignau had never left their village during the previous winter and thus could never have reached Hudson Bay and seen John Hudson, the explorer’s son. That Champlain traveled so far on the word of Vignau speaks
to the pressure Champlain must have faced to claim the region before it could be declared the territory of the ever-encroaching English. Indeed, he planted a white cedar cross on the Lower Allumette River to leave some sign of his presence and then returned to France. He had realized that he would not achieve his goal of reaching Hudson Bay. Just as before, his time in France was largely spent in garnering support for his venture in New France. To that end, he wrote and published La Quatrième voyage de sr. de Champlain in Paris in 1614. A new society, called La Compagnie de Canada, was created in November 1613 to ensure the continued success of Champlain’s efforts; members promised to pay de Condé a horse valued at 1,000 écus each year, and to fi nance Champlain. In exchange, they would enjoy an 11-year monopoly on fur trade along the St. Lawrence River, and six families would settle there to establish a permanent claim on the territory. Another tactic Champlain undertook to ensure France’s stronghold in the region was to return in 1615 with a group of Franciscan monks intent upon converting the native population. A third element of colonization was maintaining good relations with the Huron, Algonquin, and Montagnais through engaged warfare against the Iroquois. When they reached Iroquois territory by Lake Oneida, their attack was not as successful as their previous one. Champlain was wounded in the knee and leg. The tribe they thought were going to assist them in their attack, their new allies the Andaste, never appeared. Champlain spent the next four months recuperating from his injury among the Huron. He writes of their use of sweat lodges for medicinal purposes and of the sexual promiscuity prior to marriage he witnessed among the younger population. It is quite likely that Champlain focused on these particular aspects of Huron culture because, in his estimation, the absence of civilization that these practices indicated necessitated the presence of additional missionaries. In the memoir he drew up and presented to Louis XIII and to the Paris Chamber of Commerce, Champlain warns against the English and Dutch efforts to colonize North America; he