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155 Chapter 4 French Sources 4.0 Explorers, Traders and Truchements We might always wonder about when the first meeting between a Petun and a European actually took place. Could there have been some Petun travellers in the St.LawrenceValley visiting with St.Lawrence Iroquoians when Jacques Cartier first entered that river in 1534, or later when he attempted to establish a settlement at Cap Rouge in 1543? Might a Petun have found himself along the eastern seaboard of today’s United States of America when early explorations took place there? History is silent on the subject. We do know, however, that Samuel de Champlain, sometimes described as the father of New France, was the first to leave a record of his brief sojourn among the Petun.We also know that he was not the first Frenchman to set foot in the Petun Country; that claim belongs to one of a small group of young men who had been sent to live among various First Nations in order to learn their languages and their customs: the truchements or interpreters.Missionaries,with their particular objectives,were the next group of Europeans to attempt to influence the Petun on their soil and they left voluminous records. Successive waves of Europeans arrived with particular objectives and had markedly different impacts on the way of life of the Petun. Each shared some of the information about their experiences and the new knowledge they had acquired among the Petun, and each left a different kind of record about the First Nations they had encountered. This information is of great value in understanding the dynamic world of the Petun between their arrival in the Petun Country and their ultimate and final departure from that land. However, a critical assessment of each source is an absolute necessity in order to distinguish the myriad of facts viewed through the great lenses of subjectivity from the interpretations and biases of their authors. 4.1 Samuel de Champlain Champlain came to the St. Lawrence for the first time in 1603 with the François Gravé Du Pont expedition, seemingly as a paid observer. He also received a pension for earlier military service. Du Pont held a monopoly from King Henri IV since 1599 and had attempted to establish a colony at the mouth of the Saguenay River. In 1603, Du Pont was in command at Tadoussac (Trudel 1966d: 345). From information provided by Natives at the Hochelaga rapids, Champlain “made an amazing reconstruction of the network of the Great Lakes (including Niagara Falls)…but he allowed himself to be persuaded that the Asian Sea was not far away.” At the time, Champlain preferred Acadia for settlement and was part of the Pierre du Gua de Monts expedition there in 1604-1607, acting as geographer and cartographer. In 1607, de Monts 156 FRENCH SOURCES lost his trading privilege and the colony returned to France (Trudel 1966c: 188-189), but de Monts returned to the St. Lawrence with Champlain, whose job it was to found a post at Quebec from which to explore (MacBeath 1966: 292-294).This he did in 1608, to free the St. LawrenceValley from Iroquois attack and to protect the French traders atTadoussac downstream (Trigger 1994: 48). In 1609, 1610, and 1615, he provoked and participated in attacks on the Iroquois. In 1611,after observing that the unregulated trade with the Natives on the St.Lawrence between competing French ships was being“ruined through the greed of gain,”Champlain returned to France to plea for controls and regulations to be imposed at the highest level, the King. His persuasive argument was successful.The new King, Louis XIII, appointed his uncle Charles de Bourbon, the Comte de Soissons, as Lieutenant-General of the distant colony. He in turn appointed Champlain his lieutenant in New France.Within weeks of these events, the Comte died, and his nephew, Henri II de Bourbon, the third Prince de Condé, was appointed his successor.The Prince assumed the titleViceroy of New France (JR 2: 296n24), confirmed Champlain’s appointment, “commended and approved” Champlain’s plan to take Récollet Fathers to New France,and may have contributed toward the cost (Biggar 1901: 86-88; Champlain 1925: 241-245; 1929: 15, 20-21; 1932: 219, 223; Lanctot 1963 1: 107).The trading company paid the prince a stipend for his services. Accompanying his appointment, in 1612 Champlain received a commission outlining his duties, extensive powers and responsibilities in New France; in effect, his personal mandate...

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