Champlain argued that a leader must be prévoyant, a word that has no exact equivalent in modern English. His idea of prévoyance was different from foresight in its common meaning. It is not a power to foresee the future. To the contrary, prevoyance was the ability to prepare for the unexpected in a world of danger and uncertainty. It was about learning to make sound judgments on the basis of imperfect knowledge. Mainly it is about taking a broad view in projects of large purpose, and about thinking for the long run. All these elements were important parts of Champlain’s leadership—so much so that this idea of prevoyance appeared even in the first sentence of his will and testament.12
Champlain’s idea of leadership was also an ethical idea. “Above all,” he wrote, a good leader “keeps his word in any agreement; for anyone who does not keep his word is looked upon as a coward, and forfeits his honor and reputation, however valiant a fighter he may be, and no confidence is ever placed in him.”13 He believed that leadership was about treating other people with humanity. He wrote that a leader “should be liberal according to his opportunities, and courteous even to his enemies, granting them all the rights to which they are entitled. Moreover, he should not practice cruelty or vengeance, like those who are accustomed to inhumane acts, and show themselves to be barbarians (barbares) rather than Christians, but if on the contrary he makes use of his success with courtesy and moderation, he will be esteemed by all, even by his enemies, who will pay him all honor and respect.”14
Champlain’s greatest achievement was not his career as an explorer, or his success as a founder of colonies. His largest contribution was the success of his principled leadership in the cause of humanity. That is what made him a world figure in modern history. It is his legacy to us all.
MEMORIES OF CHAMPLAIN
Images and Interpretations, 1608–2008
Let the past show us its physiognomies. Yes! It’s time for statues! The books have spoken. Let the chisel do its work!
—Benjamin Sulte, 18841
IN FOUR CENTURIES, many claims have been made on the memory of Samuel de Champlain. To search library catalogues under his name is to find hundreds of books and articles in French and English. To scan the web for “Champlain” is to turn up six million Google pages, mostly on the man himself and things that were named for him. The books include many volumes for young readers (some very charming), a scattering of mystery novels and Harlequin romances (some incredibly bizarre), occasional works of poetry and drama, promotional literature, books of religious devotion, editions of Champlain’s works, monographs in many disciplines, and many major works of historical scholarship. Taken together, sixteen generations of scribbling about Champlain appear at first sight to confirm the old cliché that every generation writes its own history. This endless whirl of interpretation might also seem to support arguments for the relativity of historical knowledge.
But to look again is to find another pattern that is more interesting, and less clearly understood. Scholars do not merely rewrite history. They revise and improve it. They add new discoveries, correct old errors, deepen understanding, and enlarge the spirit of inquiry. Every serious book about Champlain, however flawed, has contributed something to what we know about the man himself, his world, and our own. To study this literature is to find a continuing growth of historical knowledge, through many generations of research.2
Champlain’s French Contemporaries: Lescarbot and Others
The first published historical writings about Champlain were written by men who served with him in New France. The most prolific author was Marc Lescarbot (1560/70?–1641), a gifted writer with a classical education. He was a lawyer in Paris who had trouble in the courts and came to Acadia in 1606 “to flee a corrupt world.” Lescarbot was in New France for only a year, then returned to Paris in 1607 and published an Histoire de la Nouvelle-France in 1609. The book was a success, with an English translation in the same year, another in German, and four French editions by 1618. It was followed by other works, among them La Conversion des sauvages (1610) and Relation dernière de ce qui s’est passé au voyage du sieur de Poutrincourt en la Nouvelle France depuis 20 mois ença (1612).3
Lescarbot’s early writings about Champlain were positive, even adulatory. While they were working together in New France, Lescarbot wrote a sonnet celebrating Champlain’s leadership in his “belle entreprise”:
TO SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN
Sonnet
CHAMPLAIN, I have long seen that your leisure
Is employed persistently and without respite …
And if you accomplish your beautiful enterprise,
One cannot estimate how much glory will one day
Accrue to your name which already everyone prizes.4
But then they had a falling out. In one brief passage of his History of New France, Lescarbot mocked Champlain for “credulity” in writing about the Indian spirit Gougou as the Devil himself. He also plagiarized Champlain’s Des Sauvages and, in the words of one editor, “made a sad hash of it.”5 Champlain in his next book mocked Lescarbot, writing that the farthest his critic had traveled in New France was to cross the Bay of Fundy to Sainte-Croix. This response outraged Lescarbot. In later editions of his work, he removed some favorable references to Champlain and sniped at him in small ways. It was a petty authors’ quarrel, unworthy of these two large-spirited men.6
But even as that feud continued, later editions of Lescarbot’s history drew on new sources. He confirmed the accuracy of Champlain’s accounts of the disaster at Sainte-Croix, the happy story of Port-Royal, the founding of Quebec, and explorations of North America. Lescarbot supported Champlain’s claim to have founded the Ordre de Bon Temps. From his own sources, he corroborated Champlain’s account of Duval’s conspiracy and the battle on Lake Champlain in 1609, even to the incredible first shot.
Lescarbot also substantiated Champlain’s account of events in France, including his relations with Henri IV, the sieur de Mons, President Jeannin and the American circle, the struggles with the trading companies, and politics at court. Even after their quarrel, both men were devoted to the cause of New France. They shared many of the same humanistic values, and wrote of the Indians with deep interest and respect. In all these ways, Lescarbot documented Champlain’s grand design for New France, and confirmed the main lines of its history.7
Other French contemporaries also wrote secular accounts of Champlain’s activities. Some were primary documents such as Charles Daniel’s Voyage à la Nouvelle France (1619). Others were secondary works, including Pierre Victor Palma Cayet’s Chronologie septenaire (1605) and Jacques-Auguste de Thou’s Histoire universelle depuis 1543 jusq’en 1607. De Thou copied freely from Champlain and Lescarbot, and wrote that he much preferred Champlain’s work. The most important journal of the period, Le Mercure François, published pieces on New France, and anonymous works by Champlain himself. All confirmed the main lines of Champlain’s Voyages and enlarged upon them.8
Indian Memories of Champlain
Native Americans also held Champlain in high esteem. In general the Huron cherished the memory of his acts and made a legend of his virtues. In the spring of 1636, they called at Quebec to express their sadness on his death and “made some presents to cause ‘our French’ to dry their tears and more easily swallow the sorrow that they had suffered on the death of Monsieur de Champlain.”9 As we have noted, Champlain also became a legendary figure in Algonquian oral traditions such as Na-Nà-Ma-Kee’s tale, which was preserved among the Fox and Sac nations in the Mississippi Valley. Stories were passed down by the Mi’kmaq in eastern Nova Scotia.10 Montagnais oral traditions preserved the memory of good relations with French settlers and the “chief of the French” in the early years, followed by growing trouble in later generations, such as in the memory of Na-Nà-Ma-Kee.11
An exception to this pattern was noted by Father Paul Le Jeune, who wrote that “a certain Algonquin, a very evil man, reported to [the Huron] last year that the late monsieur de Champlain, of happy
memory, had told a captain of the Montagnais, just before giving up his soul, that he would take away with him the whole country of the Huron.” This story blamed Champlain’s spirit for having started the epidemics that ravaged the Indian nations of the St. Lawrence Valley. The account was attributed to Indian sorcerers, and to one man in particular—a Huron of the northern Attignawantan called Captain Aenon, who took the lead in torturing Iroquois captives and was thought “chiefly responsible” for the murder of Étienne Brûlé. But in general, Champlain’s reputation remained high among the Indian nations after his death.12
The Jesuit Relations: “Monsieur de Champlain of happy memory”
Every year the Jesuit fathers in New France were required to make full reports to their superiors. These extraordinary documents were published in Paris and have been reissued in two major scholarly editions. Today they are a treasure for historians. The Jesuits made frequent reference to Champlain during his lifetime and for many years afterward. The fullest accounts were those of Father Paul Le Jeune, head of the Jesuit mission during Champlain’s acting governorship. They could not have been more positive. Le Jeune described Champlain’s breadth of achievement, his success in working with the Indians, his devotion to the welfare of New France, his lack of self-seeking, his selfless support for settler-families, and his high standing among them. Most of all, the Jesuits celebrated Champlain’s faith and piety. They also portrayed a leader of great ability.
When Jesuit missionaries in the Huron country learned of Champlain’s death in 1635, they responded by renewing their vows in thanks to God for the gift of his leadership. Father Le Mercier wrote, “We could not do too much for a person of his merit, who had done and suffered so much for New France, for the welfare of which he seemed to have sacrificed all his means, yea, even his own life…. His memory will be forever honorable.”13
For many years, the Jesuits held up their memory of Champlain as an example for leaders who followed. Their interpretation made a striking contrast to their judgments on other lay leaders in New France. One declared, “Would to God that all the French who first came to this country had been like him; we should not so often have to blush for them before our Indians.”14
The Jesuit Relations started the hagiography of Champlain. Secular historians have mocked this hagiographic tradition, but they are its unwitting heirs. A Benedictine scholar, David Knowles, studied Champlain’s Catholic contemporaries, the Bollandists who compiled the Acta Sanctorum, and the Maurists who gathered the patristic texts. He found that these great hagiographers were pioneers of critical scholarship in their attempts to distinguish true saints from imposters, and genuine miracles from bogus claims. That combination of Christian faith and rigorous scholarship was strong among the Jesuits, who were good scholars and great admirers of Champlain. They constructed an interpretation that would persist through many generations.15
Récollet Historians: Sagard and Le Clercq
The Récollet brothers also wrote histories of New France. The best known was Gabriel Sagard (born circa 1590–95), a lay brother in this Franciscan order who took the name of Théodat (God given). Sagard was a delightful character. He loved all humanity except an Englishman, cherished God’s animal creatures, and made a pet of a baby muskrat that lived in the folds of his Franciscan robe. In the spring of 1623 he came to Canada and lived among the Huron as a missionary. The following year he visited the lower St. Lawrence Valley and got to know the Montagnais and Mi’kmaq. Then he went back to France and published two books. The first was called Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons (1632). The second, an expansion of the first, was his Histoire du Canada (1636).16
Sagard was an excellent naturalist, a gifted linguist, and a very good ethnographer. He studied Indian languages before he came to America, observed the customs of the Huron with keen attention and warm affection, described their culture, and even recorded their music. He did not write in the secular spirit of a modern anthropologist but studied the native people of North America as a way of understanding God’s purposes in the world. Sagard was a man of faith, and his primary purpose was to convert the Hurons to Christianity. He also worked within a strong moral philosophy, and noted the vices of the Huron—sadistic cruelty to enemies, the practice of torture and cannibalism, and incessant gambling, even with their wives as stakes. At the same time he observed their virtues as a people who were “faithful to their oaths” and had “a punctilious sense of justice” within the framework of their own culture.17
Sagard’s most enduring contribution was the extraordinary depth of his descriptions of the Huron people—their country and culture, economy and polity, society and history. He plagiarized freely from Champlain without credit, made a few sparse but very favorable references to him, and contributed bits and pieces of information about him. But in general he amplified Champlain’s account of Huronia and highly praised his character.
Another Récollet historian, two generations after Sagard, was Christian Le Clercq (1641—post-1700), a missionary who worked in Gaspésie and Acadia from 1675 to 1687. He published books on the history of missionary enterprise in New France and on his own work among the Indians of Gaspé.18 Le Clercq talked with many people who knew Champlain. He praised his “untiring” devotion to the founding of New France and the care with which he “forgot nothing to sustain his enterprise, in spite of all obstacles which he met at every step.” Le Clercq also spoke highly of Champlain’s attempts to settle French families in Quebec, his attention to the Indians, and his support of Récollet missions. The villains of Le Clercq’s account were the trading companies. He wrote, “Monsieur de Champlain, who had himself first formed that Company, had tried in vain during his stay in France to open their eyes and to appeal to honor and conscience.”19 Le Clercq made a contribution by his access to the records of the Récollets, and by publishing manuscript material from their archives. He made errors on events before he came to New France, but added useful information from his own experience. On the subject of Champlain the judgments of these Récollet writers were as positive as those of the Jesuits, even though the two orders differed on other subjects.20
Champlain in the Age of Reason: Charlevoix
In the eighteenth century, writers who were part of the Enlightenment brought a new perspective to the study of Champlain. A pivotal figure was Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682–1761), a Jesuit scholar of noble birth who had a broad interest in world history. In 1704, while still a student at the College Louis-le-Grand in Paris, he acted as a dormitory prefect for Voltaire, who remembered him as a great scholar and a good man, though “a bit longwinded.” The next year he taught at the Jesuit College in Quebec, traveled widely through the colony, returned to France and began to write global history, with three volumes on the history of Jesuits in Japan.21
In 1722 Charlevoix was sent back to New France with instructions to explore the continent and find a passage to Asia. The result was one of the epic journeys in American history. With two canoes and eight voyageurs he went up the St. Lawrence Valley to the Great Lakes, then down the Mississippi to Louisiana. He made his way east to Florida, was shipwrecked in the Keys, returned to New Orleans in a row boat, traveled through the Caribbean, and finally sailed home to France. Charlevoix failed to find a way to China, but he wrote a classic travel book, followed by a history of New France, and other studies of Haiti and the Jesuit regime in Paraguay.22
The first chapters of Charlevoix’s Travels were a running commentary on Champlain’s works, with much attention to their accounts of Indian ways, and their descriptions of flora and fauna. Charlevoix praised him as the founder of Quebec, and condemned the weakness and irresolution of his successors. He was very positive about Champlain, writing that “he won the goodwill of all, and spared himself in nothing [and] daily invented something new for the public good.”23
Charlevoix himself had faced many of Champlain’s challenges. Working from his own experience and from historical records, he was the first writer to brin
g out the full range of Champlain’s activities and the power of his mind: “He had good sense, much penetration, very upright views, and no man was ever more skilled in adopting a course in the most complicated affairs.” Charlevoix wrote: “What all admired most in him was his constancy in following up his enterprises; his firmness in the greatest dangers; a courage proof against the most unforeseen reverses and disappointments; ardent and disinterested patriotism; a heart tender and compassionate for the unhappy, and more attentive to the interests of his friends than his own; a high sense of honor, and great probity…. We find in him a faithful and sincere historian, an attentively observant traveler, a judicious writer, a good mathematician, and an able mariner. But what crowns all these good qualities is the fact that in his life, as well as his writings, he shows himself always a truly Christian man.”24
Charlevoix defended Champlain against Lescarbot, but praised both men for their humanity toward the Indians. He criticized Champlain for his campaigns against the Iroquois, with whom he “unfortunately embroiled himself on behalf of his allies.” But he added, “We must … do Mr. de Champlain the justice to say, that his intention was solely to humble the Iroquois, in order to succeed in uniting all the nations of Canada to our alliance by a solid peace, and that it is not his fault if circumstances which he could not foresee turned events quite differently from what he had believed.” Charlevoix noted that hostilities between the Iroquois and their northern neighbors had been endemic before Champlain arrived, but he observed that Champlain involved himself in this long war in ways “that did not serve our true interests.” He also criticized Champlain for allowing men such as Brûlé to move freely among the Indians.25
Champlain's Dream Page 63