Discovering
Michigan: the first hundred years
Prologue – 1628
Samuel de Champlain at his
habitant in Quebec
Samuel leaned his head back
against the cushioned chair that he had brought to the New World all the way from
his home in Paris. The chair was a foiled attempt to convince his young wife
that the home he created in Quebec could be made as comfortable as their home
in Paris. Since she was now living in Paris, it obviously didn’t work, he
reminded himself.
Samuel was
tired. He had spent the day arguing with, first, a delegation of Indians who
wanted gifts of food to ‘make their squaws more comfortable,’ and second, the
two traders who had come to him demanding a license to trade with the Iroquois.
He had been sympathetic to the Indians, but not the traders. He probably should
have given the traders the license they sought – the Iroquois would have killed
them and stolen their goods before the season was over, thus ending that
problem. The situation with the Indians was more complicated; the tiny
settlement of Quebec had no excess food to give the Indians, but he couldn’t
expose the weakened condition of his colony for fear of an Indian attack. It
was an impossible situation.
He grimaced
as his head fell back on the cushion; he had nearly fallen asleep. “Merde,” he whispered to himself, being
careful in case someone was listening. He decided to take a short walk to rouse
his tired body. He liked walking around the promenade that nearly circled the
second story of the building that served as his home, office and central
government building for New France. Many of the boards had come from France,
but there weren’t enough; some boards had to be sawn from logs by Quebec
settlers doing the terribly hard job of standing in a pit pulling the saw down
while another pulled upwards from above. It was the kind of work that was a
sample of the hard life a Quebec settler faced.
Samuel ambled
around the walk carefully studying the rosebushes in the garden below. He had
planted the bushes himself when the home was first built. Buoyed by the walk
and the sight of his flowers, Samuel decided to return to his rooms to work on
the plan that he had begun. It was an important task; he was planning his next
trip home to Paris and he needed to meet with the King and the investors in the
fur trade business. Meeting with the King was the most difficult since Samuel
was not a member of French nobility and the King rarely saw anyone beyond his
closest advisors who were all members of the French aristocracy. Yet it was
important that Samuel report to the King to assure his continued support of New
France. He had given the King previous reports concerning exploration of New
France, especially the upstream lands to the west. Those reports seemed to
interest the King, probably because he dreamed of a vast new territory for
France. Samuel had reported to the King privately first and then published
similar reports. The publications provided a source of income for Samuel that
was important to his well-being since the King never found a reason to elevate Samuel
to the ranks of the nobility and its corresponding financial rewards.
Samuel
searched the pile of papers on his worktable. “Where is Brule’s last report?” he called aloud to his French
servant, now listed as his housekeeper, but in fact served as his personal
assistant. Not hearing any response, Samuel attacked the pile once again. There,
he found it. It was notes taken from his last meeting with Brule, the young
French lad he had commissioned to explore the western reaches of the St.
Lawrence River. He studied the notes for several minutes, then threw the paper
back to the table.
“There is nothing here I can use, nothing I
haven’t already reported,” Samuel said aloud to the empty room. He stood up
and paced the floor, searching for an idea. He paced a long time that night and
then went to bed. Samuel slept fitfully, going over the results from previous
treks to the west, his own and those of his emissaries.
He remembered his first emissary:
he had sent the young lad Etienne Brule to live with a nearby group of Indians.
After Brule began providing valuable reports, he did the same with another
young Frenchman, Jean Nicolet. Furthermore, at the direction of the King
himself, Champlain sent another young Frenchman, Nicolas Marsolet, to live with
and learn the language and customs of the Montagnais Indians near the port
village of Tadoussac. Champlain remembered Marsolet with distaste. He could
never get along with him, perhaps because Marsolet was somehow able to
communicate with the King himself, as Champlain had learned.
Samuel smiled
as he thought about Etienne Brule -- the impetuous, passionate outdoorsman who
had become more Indian than French: He who could command Indians to do his
bidding, he who was as fond of Indian women as he was of any Frenchwoman.
Brule’s
sexual liaisons with Indian maidens was something that Champlain understood and
accepted even though it was anathema to him. Samuel had been faithful to his
wife and had remained so even during their lengthy absences and despite the
Indian custom of offering young women to Frenchmen. Samuel finally slipped off
to sleep remembering Brule as an 18 year-old at Quebec, a naïve young man,
illiterate, completely devoid of any knowledge pertaining to the natives, yet volunteering
to live among ‘les sauvages.’ He had always liked the young man, and his
reports had been especially helpful.
The following
day brought no relief from the burdens of his office for Samuel. Managing the
fur trade was the most important of Samuel’s duties. He was reminded of that at
each trip to France when he had to face the investors who profited handsomely
by the fur he sent to various ports in France. The problems Samuel faced daily
were twofold: serving the needs of French colonists, those settlers who had immigrated
to New France at the urging of the King, and preventing the coureurs de bois,
those illegal fur traders, from wresting all the profits of the trade away from
Samuel’s investors. It was a burdensome undertaking. Only Samuel’s love for the
country, the wild rivers and dark forests of New France, kept him at his post.
Unknown to Samuel,
his job was about to become worse, much worse. Samuel had the first hint of his
new problem from an Indian. The man was paddling up the St. Lawrence River
furiously, he beached his canoe and hurried to the home to report seeing
strange ships on the river. He was unable to report anything further; only that
the ships were strange, unlike anything he had seen which would have been only
French merchant vessels. The mystery was solved two days later when a small
boat appeared at Quebec and a message was sent from the Captain of the boat to,
“Monsieur de Champlain, Commandant a’
Quebec.” The message was a suggestion that the French outpost ought to
surrender, that the English General Kirke had 18 armed ships, had blockaded the
St. Lawrence so that Quebec was completely cut off, and a second time, that
Quebec had better surrender. The note was signed, “Your affectionate servant, David Kirke.”
Champlain
decided to try bluffing. He replied to the surrender document that his outpost
was in no need of succor, that he had plenty of gunpowder, that it was his duty
to God and country to fight to the death. The ruse worked. The ship pushed off
his dock and turned downriver to Tadoussac. Most of the things Samuel said in
his reply were untrue. In fact, the settlement was nearly out of food and there
was only a piddling amount of gunpowder.
The biggest surprise to Champlain was learning that France and England had
declared war on each other.
A long, harsh
winter followed. Samuel used all his talents to manage the supply of food and
distribute it equitably. Hunters were sent out daily to kill game, but the
hunters were so hungry they often consumed most of their kill on the spot
before returning to the settlement. The precarious position of the settlement was
further endangered in July when another English vessel appeared at the harbor
in front of the home demanding surrender. Champlain and his advisers, the
clerics stationed at Quebec, all agreed they had no choice but to capitulate to
the English Captain who had posted a white flag atop his vessel. Champlain also
flew a white flag, replacing the fleur-de-lis. Samuel walked to the promenade
and watched the English ship carefully as men left the ship and climbed on his
dock. He nearly fell to his knees as he saw something he had never expected to
see in his lifetime. There, on the dock in front of him, among several men who
left the English ship was one who was pointing out the home and the adjoining
buildings to the English ship’s Captain. That man was Etienne Brule.
