Explorations in Acadia, 1603-1607
In the closing years of the sixteenth century the spirit of French
expansion, which had remained so strangely inactive for nearly three
generations, once again began to manifest itself. The Sieur de La Roche,
another Breton nobleman, the merchant traders, Pontgrave of St. Malo and
Chauvin of Honfleur, came forward one after the other with plans for
colonizing the unknown land. Unhappily these plans were not easily matured
into stern realities. The ambitious project of La Roche came to grief on
the barren sands of Sable Island. The adventurous merchants, for their
part, obtained a monopoly of the trade and for a few years exploited the
rich peltry regions of the St. Lawrence, but they made no serious attempts
at actual settlement. Finally they lost the monopoly, which passed in 1603
to the Sieur de Chastes, a royal favorite and commandant at Dieppe.
It is at this point that Samuel Champlain first becomes associated
with the pioneer history of New France. Given the opportunity to sail with
an expedition which De Chastes sent out in 1603, Champlain gladly accepted
and from this time to the end of his days he never relaxed his
whole-souled interest in the design to establish a French dominion in
these western lands. With his accession to the ranks of the voyageurs real
progress in the field of colonization was for the first time assured.
Champlain encountered many setbacks during his initial years as a
colonizer, but he persevered to the end. When he had finished his work,
France had obtained a footing in the St. Lawrence valley which was not
shaken for nearly a hundred and fifty years.
Champlain was born in 1567 at the seaport of Brouage, on the Bay of
Biscay, so that he was only thirty-six years of age when he set out on his
first voyage to America. His forbears belonged to the lesser gentry of
Saintonge, and from them he inherited a roving strain. Long before
reaching middle manhood he had learned to face dangers, both as a soldier
in the wars of the League and as a sailor to the Spanish Main. With a love
of adventure he combined rare powers of description, so much so that the
narrative of his early voyages to this region had attracted the King's
attention and had won for him the title of royal geographer. His ideas
were bold and clear; he had an inflexible will and great patience in
battling with discouragements. Possessing these qualities, Champlain was
in every way fitted to become the founder of New France.
The expedition of 1603 proceeded to the St. Lawrence, where some of
the party landed at the mouth of the Saguenay to trade with the Indians.
The remainder, including Champlain, made their way up the river to the
Indian village at Hochelaga, which they now found in ruins, savage warfare
having turned the place into a solitude. Champlain busied himself with
some study of the country's resources and the customs of the aborigines;
but on the whole the prospects of the St. Lawrence valley did not move the
explorers to enthusiasm. Descending the great river again, they rejoined
their comrades at the Saguenay, and, taking their cargoes of furs aboard,
the whole party sailed back to France in the autumn. There they found that
De Chastes, the sponsor for their enterprise, had died during their
absence.
The death of De Chastes upset matters badly, for with it the trade
monopoly had lapsed. But things were promptly set right again by a royal
act which granted the monopoly anew. This time it went to the Sieur de
Monts, a prominent Huguenot nobleman, then governor of Pons, with whom
Champlain was on friendly terms. To quiet the clamors of rival traders,
however, it was stipulated that Monts should organize a company and should
be bound to take into his enterprise any who might wish to associate
themselves with him. The company, in return for its trading monopoly, was
to transport to the new domains at least one hundred settlers each year.
Little difficulty was encountered in organizing the company, since
various merchants of St. Malo, Honfleur, Rouen, and Rochelle were eager to
take shares. Preparations for sending out an expedition on a much larger
scale than on any previous occasion were soon under way, and in 1604 two
well-equipped vessels set forth. One of them went to the old trading-post
at the Saguenay; the other went southward to the regions of Acadia. On
board the latter were De Monts himself, Champlain as chief geographer, and
a young adventurer from the ranks of the "noblesse", Biencourt de
Poutrincourt. The personnel of this expedition was excellent: it contained
no convicts; most of its members were artisans and sturdy yeomen. Rounding
the tip of the Nova Scotian peninsula, these vessels came to anchor in the
haven of Port Royal, now Annapolis. Not satisfied with the prospects
there, however, they coasted around the Bay of Fundy, and finally reached
the island in Passamaquoddy Bay which they named St. Croix. Here on June
25, 1604, the party decided to found their settlement. Work on the
buildings was at once commenced, and soon the little colony was safely
housed. In the autumn Poutrincourt was dispatched with one vessel and a
crew back to France, while Champlain and the rest prepared to spend the
winter in their new island home.
The choice of St. Croix as a location proved singularly unfortunate;
the winter was long and severe, and the preparations that had been made
were soon found to be inadequate. Once more there were sufferings such as
Cartier and his men had undergone during the terrible winter of 1534-1535
at Quebec. There were no brooks or springs close at hand, and no fresh
water except such as could be had by melting snow. The storehouse had no
cellar, and in consequence the vegetables froze, so that the company was
reduced to salted meat as the chief staple of diet. Scurvy ravaged the
camp, and before the snows melted nearly two-fifths of the party had died.
Not until June, moreover, did a vessel arrive from France with, fresh
stores and more colonists.
The experience of this first winter must have indeed "produced
discontent," as Champlain rather mildly expressed it, but it did not impel
De Monts to abandon his plans. St. Croix, however, was given up and, after
a futile search for a better location on the New England coast, the colony
moved across the bay to Port Royal, where the buildings were
reconstructed. In the autumn De Monts went back to France, leaving
Champlain, Pontgrave, and forty-three others to spend the winter of
1605-1606 in Acadia. During this hibernation the fates were far more kind.
The season proved milder, the bitter lessons of the previous season had
not gone unlearned, and scurvy did not make serious headway. But when June
came and De Monts had not returned from France with fresh supplies, there
was general discouragement; so much so that plans for the entire
abandonment of the place were on the eve of being carried out when a large
vessel rounded the point on its way into the Basin. Aboard were
Poutrincourt and Marc Lescarbot, together with more settlers and supplies.
Lescarbot was a Parisian lawyer in search of adventure, a man who combined
wit with wisdom, one of the pleasantest figures in the annals of American
colonization. He was destined to gain a place in literary history as the
interesting chronicler of this little colony's all-too-brief existence.
These arrivals put new heart into the men, and they set to work sowing
grain and vegetables, which grew in such abundance that the storehouses
were filled to their capacity. The ensuing winter found the company with
an ample store of everything. The season of ice and snow passed quickly,
thanks largely to Champlain's successful endeavor to keep the colonists in
good health and spirits by exercise, by variety in diet, and by divers
gaieties under the auspices of his "Ordre de Bon Temps", a spontaneous
social organization created for the purpose of banishing cares and worries
from the little settlement. It seemed as though the colony had been
established to stay.
But with the spring of 1607 came news which quickly put an end to
all this optimism. Rival merchants had been clamoring against the monopoly
of the De Monts company. Despite the fact that De Monts was a Huguenot and
thus a shining target for the shafts of bigotry, these protests had for
three years failed to move the King; but now they had gained their point,
and the monopoly had come to an end. This meant that there would be no
more ships with settlers or supplies. As the colony could not yet hope to
exist on its own resources, there was no alternative but to abandon the
site and return to France, and this the whole party reluctantly proceeded
to do.
On arrival in France the affairs of the company were wound up, and
De Monts found himself a heavy loser. He was not yet ready to quit the
game, however, and Champlain with the aid of Pontgrave was able to
convince him that a new venture in the St. Lawrence region might yield
profits even without the protection of a monopoly. Thus out of misfortune
and failure arose the plans which led to the founding of a permanent
outpost of empire at Quebec.
Back to: French Exploration of America
