Praise for
CHAMPLAIN’S DREAM
International Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book
A Globe and Mail Best Book
“This book is the product of Fischer’s exhaustive efforts to put a human face on the legendary Father of New France…. Reviewers have described Champlain’s Dream as the definitive biography of one of the greatest explorers of all time, and it’s impossible to disagree…. [Fischer] succeeds brilliantly in analyzing the man and his motives…. Fischer has succeeded with a balanced and insightful exploration of the internal geography of a larger-than-life figure.”
— The Chronicle Herald (Halifax)
“Champlain’s Dream is a masterpiece…. The work is extraordinarily well researched and the research and reference material is largely included in this edition for those who wish to delve further into the story. This is the new standard by which one must consider and study the birth and development of New France.”
— Canada History Book Reviews
“A timely new biography … Champlain’s Dream puts flesh and bones on the enigmatic figure who played a seminal role in the development of our half of North America. It’s no small accomplishment to add something to the Champlain story, which has been told by many others…. Champlain’s Dream puts this epic story in context, complete with intricate shading, sounds, and smells, not to mention reproductions of Champlain’s maps and drawings. The delights are in the details…. Champlain’s Dream is a worthy addition to [Champlain’s] legacy.”
— The Gazette
“As ruminative as it is action-filled…. What Mr. Fischer has really done is to sketch a character whose virtues—prodigious curiosity, respect for other cultures, a sense of fairness—he considered exemplary.”
— Wall Street Journal
“A highly readable biography of Samuel de Champlain…. An absorbing portrait of the man and his world.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“[An] absorbing and widely lauded new biography…. [Champlain’s Dream] was written with the general reader in mind. It represents an effort to find common ground between two formerly competing historical approaches: the so-called great man focus and a more grassroots, socio-economic perspective.”
—Toronto Star
“This biography of Champlain is the most complete that I know about. He was a mysterious, compelling figure who was at once an explorer, ethnographer, navigator, diplomat, and soldier but above all a man of courage and determination. Envisioning a world in which different peoples and races could live and mix together, his actions prefigured a new model for society. Professor Fischer has given us a truly fascinating book about a person who highly deserves this recognition.”
—Denis Vaugeois, co-editor of Champlain: The Birth of French America and co-author of Mapping a Continent: Historical Atlas of North America, 1492–1814
“The definitive biography.”
— Denver Post
“With Fischer’s Champlain’s Dream, all earlier biographies, except a few of the latest French ones, no longer serve any useful purpose. This is a massive, scholarly work, logically organized and clearly written as befits a Pulitzer Prize—winning historian…. As Fischer explores Champlain’s life, he weaves the broad connecting theme that led to the title of the book…. Champlain’s overarching ‘dream’ was that he ‘envisioned a new world as a place where people of different cultures could live together in amity and concord.’ It was his ‘principled leadership’ in bringing natives and French together that enabled him to lay the foundations for this ‘dream.’ Champlain was not an introspective person. He never expressed this ideal as cogent proposal in any section of his books, which is why most biographers have missed it, but a thorough reading of his writings demonstrates that Fischer is right.”
—Conrad Heidenreich, The Globe and Mail
“Champlain’s Dream offers a wholly new portrait of the explorer, soldier, and sailor who was crucial to the creation of Canada.”
— Maclean’s
“The career of historian David Hackett Fischer is an encouraging thing to contemplate: he just keeps getting better with every book he writes…. In each successive book, his narrative drive is stronger, more supple, and more assured—and so it’s not surprising that his latest, Champlain’s Dream, is his best to date…. Right from its start, the reader is gripped by Fischer’s passion for his subject…. This is far and away the finest, most engrossing biography of Champlain ever written in English.”
—Open Letters, A Monthly Arts and Literature Review
“David Hackett Fischer … has the merit to place the work of the colonizer in the context of a civil conflict…. The Catholic Champlain embodies, in the eyes of the American historian, the tolerance dear to his king Henri IV, a Protestant convert to Catholicism but promoter in France of religious concord. He had the sensibility necessary to become the pioneer of an original North American geopolitical system.”
—Michel Lapierre, Le Devoir
“Fischer provides a splendid example not only of historical narration, but also of the ways historians can use stories of ‘great men’ not as triumphal panegyrics but, rather, as prisms through which much else can be seen.”
—Nathan Greenfield, The Times Literary Supplement
“A totally new … biography of the founder of the city of Quebec…. The title, Champlain’s Dream … accurately reflects the author’s thesis. Our man distinguished himself from adventurers by his vision of a new world founded on respect.”
—Raymond Giroux, Le Soleil
“Is there a finer student of American history writing today than David Hackett Fischer? If so, I don’t know who it would be…. Even when he writes books of doorstop heft … This plain, unadorned style is never dry or boring, in part because he so often sprinkles intriguing ideas into the narrative.”
—The New York Times Sunday Book Review
“This is an incredibly in-depth biography full of rich detail and painstaking research…. The illustrations and maps (many drawn by Champlain himself) are both helpful and visually appealing…. The book is indeed a mighty tome, but one that will contribute immensely to the knowledge of a noteworthy Canadian.”
— Quill & Quire
“A book every Canadian should own. Fischer is a real historian—someone who knows how to go into archives and squeeze them, and doesn’t push his luck when he’s found a solid insight…. He draws out the intricate webs of sympathies and antipathies between Champlain and the tribes of New France, and shows how men and women on both sides, exhausted by decades of pointless violence, were able to find, in their traditions, a glimpse of a common future of peace and prosperity. [Champlain] was the only explorer of new worlds, French, Spanish, Dutch, or English, who possessed such a vision of tolerance and integration. And it is a vision worth preserving.”
— National Post
“A comprehensive, exhaustively researched, yet always lively biography. Besides narrating a life it also, as its title suggests, tells the story of Champlain’s vision for North America, which, Fischer maintains, was one of tolerance and humanity and remains worthy of admiration today.”
— The Boston Globe
“David Hackett Fischer is in that ethereal category of biographers who can climb into the soul of his subject, look out of that individual’s eyes, and report back on what he sees…. [Fischer] delivers a marvellous read with Champlain’s Dream. His research is prodigious, and so is his writing talent…. Fischer has made Champlain wonderfully human—and that is the greatest compliment a biographer can earn.”
— Calgary Herald
ALSO BY DAVID HACKETT FISCHER
Liberty and Freedom
Washington’s Cross
ing
Bound Away
The Great Wave
Paul Revere’s Ride
Albion’s Seed
Growing Old in America
Historians’ Fallacies
The Revolution of American Conservatism
David Hackett Fischer is University Professor and Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. He has also taught at the University of Washington, Harvard University, and Oxford University where he was Harmsworth Professor of American History, and Fellow of Queen’s College. The recipient of many prizes for his teaching and writing, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History for Washington’s Crossing.
To my father, John Henry Fischer, on his 98th birthday
For the continuing gift of his wisdom and judgment.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
In Search of Champlain
A LEADER IN THE MAKING
A Child of Brouage
Two Men of Saintonge
Henri IV and Champlain
A Soldier in Brittany, 1594–98
A Spy in New Spain, 1599–1601
EXPLORER OF ACADIA
Geographer in the Louvre, 1602
Tadoussac, 1603
Sainte-Croix, 1604–05
Norumbega, 1604–06
Port-Royal, 1605–07
FOUNDER OF QUEBEC
Quebec, 1608–09
Iroquoia, 1609–10
Marie de Medici, 1610–11
Transatlantic Trials, 1611–15
Huronia, 1615–16
BUILDER OF NEW FRANCE
The Court of Louis XIII, 1616–19
A Framework for New France, 1620–24
The Cardinal’s Ring, 1625–27
New France Lost, 1628–29
New France Regained, 1629–32
FATHER OF FRENCH CANADA
Realizing the Dream, 1632–35
The Peopling of Quebec, 1632–35
The Cradle of Acadia, 1632–35
Trois-Rivières, 1634–35
Champlain’s Last Labor, 1635
CONCLUSION
A Leader’s Long Reach
MEMORIES OF CHAMPLAIN
Images and Interpretations, 1608–2008
APPENDIXES
A. Champlain’s Birth Date
B. Champlain’s Voyages: A Chronology
C. Champlain’s Brief Discours: Problems of Accuracy and Authenticity
D. Champlain’s Published Writings: A Question of Authorship
E. Champlain’s Traitté de la Marine: An Essay on Leadership
F. Another Self-Portrait?
G. Champlain’s Superiors: Viceroys and Generals of New France
H. Trading Companies and Monopolies in New France, 1588–1635
I. Indian Nations in Champlain’s World, 1603–35
J. The Battle with the Mohawk in 1609: Where Did it Happen?
K. The Attack on the Iroquois Fort in 1615: Which Fort? What Nation?
L. Champlain’s Favored Firearm: The Arquebuse à Rouet
M. Champlain’s Ships and Boats
N. Champlain’s Weights and Measures
O. Champlain’s Money
P. Champlain’s Calendars
Notes
Bibliography
Map Sources
Art Credits
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
In Search of Champlain
His activities, which were revealed mainly through his writings, were always surrounded by a certain degree of mystery.
—Raymonde Litalien, 20041
AN OLD FRENCH engraving survives from the early seventeenth century. It is a battle-print, at first glance like many others in European print shops. We look again, and discover that it shows a battle in North America, fought between Indian nations four centuries ago. The caption reads in old French, “Deffaite des Yroquois au Lac de Champlain,” the “Defeat of the Iroquois at Lake Champlain,” July 30, 1609.2
On one side we see sixty Huron, Algonquin, and Montagnais warriors. On the other are two hundred Iroquois of the Mohawk nation. They meet in an open field beside the lake. The smaller force is attacking boldly, though outnumbered three to one. The Mohawk have sallied from a log fort to meet them. By reputation they are among the most formidable warriors in North America. They have the advantage of numbers and position, and yet the caption tells us that the smaller force won the fight.3
The print offers an explanation in the presence of a small figure who stands alone at the center of the battle. His dress reveals that he is a French soldier and a man of rank. He wears half-armor of high quality: a well-fitted cuirass on his upper body, and protective britches of the latest design with light steel plates on his thighs.4 His helmet is no ordinary morion, or crude iron pot of the kind that we associate with Spanish conquistadors and English colonists. It is an elegant example of what the French call a casque bourgignon, a Burgundian helmet of distinctive design that was the choice of kings and noblemen—a handsome, high-crowned helmet with a comb and helm forged from a single piece of metal.5 Above the helmet is a large plume of white feathers called a panache—the origin of our modern word. Its color identifies the wearer as a captain in the service of Henri IV, first Bourbon king of France. Its size marks it as a badge of courage worn to make its wearer visible in battle.6
“Deffaite des Yroquois au Lac de Champlain,” appeared in his Voyages (1613). The engraver (probably David Pelletier) introduced small errors, but Marc Lescarbot confirmed the accuracy of Champlain’s account from other sources, including one of the arquebusiers (upper center).
This French captain is not a big man. Even with his panache, the Indians appear half a head taller. But he has a striking presence, and in the middle of a wild mêlée he stands still and quiet, firmly in command of himself. His back is straight as a ramrod. His muscular legs are splayed apart and firmly planted to bear the weight of a weapon which he holds at full length. It is not a conventional matchlock, as historians have written, but a complex and very costly arquebuse à rouet, a wheel-lock arquebus. It was the first self-igniting shoulder weapon that did not require a burning match, and could fire as many as four balls in a single shot.7
The text with this engraving tells us that the French captain has already fired his arquebus and brought down two Mohawk chiefs and a third warrior, who lie on the ground before him. He aims his weapon at a fourth Mohawk, and we see the captain fire again in a cloud of white smoke. On the far side of the battlefield, half-hidden in the American forest, two French arquebusiers emerge from the trees. They kneel and fire their weapons into the flank of the dense Iroquois formation.8
We look back at the French captain and catch a glimpse of his face. He has a high forehead, arched brows, eyes set wide apart, a straight nose turned up at the tip, a fashionable mustache, and a beard trimmed like that of his king, Henri IV. The key below the print gives us his name, the “sieur de Champlain.”9
This very small image from the Voyages of 1613 is the only likeness of Champlain that is known to survive from his own time. The original figure is less than one inch high, but its small details reveal many things about the man himself. His great panache was of the sort made by royal plumassières at the court of Henry IV. The Burgundian helmet was of a type that appears in equestrian portraits of kings and noblemen. The arquebuse à rouet was an advanced model of a very costly weapon. This is the image of an officer of high standing, with the resources of a great state behind him. It is also a self-portrait which offers other clues to the elusive man who drew it.
This small image is the only authentic likeness of Samuel de Champlain that is known to survive from his own time. It is also a self-portrait, and its technique tells us other things about the man who drew it. A French scholar observes that “its style is that of a man of action, direct, natural, naive, biased toward exact description, toward the concrete and the useful.” This is art without a hint of artifice. It tells a story in a straightforward way. At
the same time, it expresses the artist’s pride in his acts, and confidence in his purposes. It also points up a paradox in what we know about him. It describes his actions in detail, but the man himself is covered in armor, and his face is partly hidden by his own hand.10
Other images of Champlain would be invented after the fact. Many years later, when he was recognized as the father of New France, he was thought to require a proper portrait. Artists and sculptors were quick to supply a growing market. Few faces in modern history have been reinvented so often and from so little evidence. All these images are fictions. The most widely reproduced was a fraud, detected many years ago and still used more frequently than any other.11
Historians also contributed many word-portraits of Champlain, and no two are alike. His biographer Morris Bishop asserted from little evidence that “Champlain was, in fact, a lean ascetic type, dry and dark, probably rather under than over normal size … This southern origin is indication enough of dark hair and black eyes.”12 Another biographer, Samuel Eliot Morison, wrote from no evidence whatever: “As one who has lived with Champlain for many years, I may be permitted to give my own idea of him. A well-built man of medium stature, blond and bearded, a natural leader who inspired loyalty and commanded obedience.”13 A third author, Heather Hudak, represented him with bright red hair, a black panache and chartreuse britches.14 Playwright Michael Hollingsworth described Champlain as prematurely gray, as well he might have been, and an anonymous engraver gave him snow-white hair. Champlain’s biographies, like his portraits, show the same wealth of invention and poverty of fact.15
Champlain himself was largely responsible for that. He wrote thousands of pages about what he did, but only a few words about who he was. His published works are extraordinary for an extreme reticence about his origins, inner thoughts, private life, and personal feelings. Rarely has an author written so much and revealed so little about himself. These were not casual omissions, but studied silences. Here again, as in the old battle-print, Champlain was hidden by his own hand. He was silent and even secretive about the most fundamental facts of his life. He never mentioned his age. His birth date is uncertain. Little information survives about his family, and not a word about his schooling. He was raised in an age of faith, but we do not know if he was baptized Protestant or Catholic.
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