In the great courts of England and France almost 500 years ago, the name of Spain was spoken with fear and envy. Spain had done the unthinkable. With just a few horses, some small cannon and a dozen muskets, her soldiers had conquered a new world empire of 10 million people.
The Aztecs had been slaughtered in the name of glory and profit. We came here to serve God and the King, one of the conquistadors wrote, and also to get rich. Inside the treasure house of the Aztec emperor, the Spaniards found gold and jewels beyond imagining. The sight of all that wealth dumbfounded us. I felt certain that there could not be a store like it in the whole world.
Within a few decades, the riches of the New World helped make King Philip II of Spain the most powerful monarch in Europe. Spain's enemies, men like Sir Walter Raleigh, were mad with envy. How many kingdoms he hath endangered!
He beginneth again like a storm to threaten shipwreck to us all. It is his Indian gold that disturbeth all the nations of Europe. England and France dream of their own empires of gold. The race for North America is on. It is an era of daring, of pathfinders and pirates.
Those who dream of a fabled route to China and gamble on a bonanza of gold under the Arctic ice. The search for wealth will draw them ever deeper into the continent. Exploring the great river that unlocks its secrets.
A search that leads to new alliances with the Aboriginal people. And deadly new conflicts. A search that will lay the foundations of the first great city on the continent. And produce the forebears of a new people in the new world.
For years, the stories have made the rounds in the taverns of England's seaports. Tales of lost cities in the New World stocked with silver and pearl, and pieces of gold as big as a man's fist. There are other stories, too. Of a mysterious passage through North America, a shortcut through the Arctic ice to the riches of the Orient. All that is needed is a sailor with the courage and skill to find it.
Martin Frobisher has been dreaming of such a voyage for 15 years. Frobisher is a first-rate seaman with a shady past. He is, one compatriot said, a gentleman born, a mariner by profession, and a pirate by inclination.
Frobisher has made a good living plundering Spanish and French ships along the coasts of Europe. Piracy had also earned him a jail term in the Tower of London. Now, finding the Northwest Passage will be his redemption.
I vow to make a sacrifice unto God of this life, rather than return home without the discovery of Cathay. It is still the only thing left undone, whereby a notable mind might be made famous and remarkable. In the spring of 1576, Frobisher is chosen to lead a small band of men into unknown northern waters, searching for a passage to the Orient. The expedition makes its way through howling storms and treacherous fields of ice, then finally reaches a wide, open waterway framed by headlands on both sides. As shipmate George Best records, Frobisher is completely fooled.
The land on his right, sailing westward. He judged to be the continent of Asia, and there to be divided from the firm of America, which lieth upon the left hand. Frobisher is certain he has found the fabled Northwest Passage. He's also found something else.
Frobisher perceived a number of small things fleeting in the sea far off, which he perceived to be porpoises or seals or some kind of strange fish. But coming closer, he discovered them to be men in small boats made of leather. They are Inuit paddling their kayaks out to meet Frobisher's ship.
Frobisher orders five crewmen to go ashore with the Inuit to find high ground and scout the territory. It is the last any Englishman ever sees of them. Frobisher searches the area, but they've vanished.
Distraught and angry, he lures another Inuit man in his kayak to the side of his ship. Knowing well how they greatly delighted in our toys, and especially the bells, he rang a pretty low bell, making wise that they would give him that same that would come and fetch it. He let the bell fall and caught the man fast, and plucked him with his main force, boat and all, into the bark, out of the sea. Frobisher's Inuit captive is not only a hostage, but also a crucial piece of evidence.
Proof for his supporters back in England that he has actually seen the northern reaches of the New World. Before departing, almost as an afterthought, he orders his men to look around for other souvenirs of their arctic voyage. One brought a piece of a black stone, which by weight seemed to be some sort of metal, mineral. This was a thing of no account in the judgment of the captain at the first sight, and yet, for novelty, it was kept, in respect to the place from whence it came. But that little lump of stone will trigger one of the most spectacular treasure hunts in history.
Frobisher arrives back in London in the fall of 1576 to a hero's welcome. His apparent discovery of a northwest passage is heralded as a breakthrough. As for that lump of stone he has brought home, two different assayers declare it worthless. But a third insists it contains something special. It was brought to certain gold finders in London who indeed found it to hold gold, and that very richly for the quantity.
Whereupon preparations were made for a new voyage, and the captain more specially directed for the searching more of this gold ore than for the searching any further of the passage. Queen Elizabeth orders Frobisher to go back as soon as possible and claim his discovery for England. She names it Meta Incognita, of Limits Unknown. The next spring, Frobisher returns to Baffin Island.
His men erect a pillar of rocks, and he formally takes possession of the land. Nearby, they find an abandoned Inuit camp. Scattered on the snow are shreds of European clothing. Frobisher takes this as proof that the five men who disappeared the summer before have been murdered by the Inuit.
When they come to the next encampment, a fierce battle erupts between the English sailors and the Inuit hunters. Frobisher calls the place Bloody Point. By the time Frobisher gets back to England this time, gold fever has taken hold.
Many of the wealthiest families in England eagerly put up the money to finance a massive mining expedition. The Queen herself invests nearly 4,000 pounds in the venture. In 1578, the largest Arctic expedition in history set sail. 15 ships with 400 men, including 150 Cornish miners.
All that summer, Frobisher's men dig up the Black Rocks. George Best is sure the barren shores of Frobisher's Strait contain infinite riches. They found such plenty of black ore, that if the goodness might answer the great plenty thereof, it might reasonably suffice all the gold gluttons of the world.
There is no doubt this will make our country rich and happy. And of these prosperous beginnings will grow hereafter, I hope, most happy endings. By summer's end, the miners have dug up 1,200 tons of ore, enough to stuff the holds of every ship in the fleet.
But George Best's hope for happy endings is never realized. Once the cargo arrives back in England, the truth begins to emerge. For the next five years, the investors try in vain to extract anything of value from those tons of rock. It is all worthless.
And in the end, they turn on Frobisher. If any evil success should happen in the work of the ore, wish God forbid, the same are to be laid on Captain Frobisher. He is so full of lying talk as no man may credit anything that he doth speak.
Frobisher's boldness, his great skill in navigation, his coolness in the face of danger, all are forgotten. He is forced to take up his former occupation of piracy. As for the ore he has brought home from the New World, it is used ...as landfill to patch the roadways in the county of Kent. Equally frustrating, the body of water that Frobisher thought was the Northwest Passage turns out to be a dead end, a bay on the eastern shore of Baffin Island.
The English will not find their El Dorado in the north. They will be forced to search for riches elsewhere in the New World. For more than a century, Newfoundland has been for England the most alluring prospect in the New World.
Despite its inhospitable climate and unyielding soil, the island has one fabulous resource. The codfish is pure gold in European markets. And by 1610, a fleet of 200 English ships comes annually to the Grand Banks to fill their holds. But other countries also come to reap the riches of the sea.
The French, the Spanish and the Basques. It is only a matter of time before someone attempts a permanent settlement, and John Guy wants the English to be first. Certain merchants of London and Bristol, having used the fishing trade of Newfoundland, and being confident that the same is habitable in winter, these merchants desire to have leave with a few men fitting for plantation.
And if it so fall out that this plantation succeed, these places for fishing might forever become secure for our nation. Fishermen of many countries have been building temporary camps on Newfoundland for decades. But every fall when the fishing season is over, the camps are abandoned. The English reason that if someone can just survive the winter, that country can dominate the fishery.
John Guy's 39 colonists are the first Englishmen to build a permanent settlement in the land that would become Canada. They seem to find the perfect spot, a place called Cooper's Cove in Conception Bay. This harbor is preferred by me to begin our plantation, for the goodness of the harbor, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and many other circumstances are most available to draw inhabitants to it.
There wanteth nothing to make a flourishing country but cattle and the industry of men. And work the colony does. Within a year, the face of Cooper's Cove is transformed. They raise half a dozen sturdy buildings, launch a small fleet of fishing boats, and establish a factory for salting and shipping the codfish. John Guy even sends out a search party hoping to form a trade deal with the Beothuk Indians.
For 30 days, the search party explores the bays and coves of the island. Finally, they spot a campfire at the end of Trinity Bay. Guy's men meet with the Beothuk, and that night they share food and drink together.
They hope it might lead to a trading partnership. But in the morning, the Beothuk are gone. Guy's colony will never make con- contact with them again. By now the colony faces more pressing problems.
Pirates have begun to ply the waters around Newfoundland and their attacks are wreaking havoc with the fishing fleets. John Guy's colony is forced to build and arm a barricade around the settlement. But nothing they build can protect them from the harsh reality of their third winter in Newfoundland. Colonist Henry Crote sends the unhappy news back to England. This winter hath been very hard, and there hath died above seventy of our goats, and many of our pigs, and all our cattle except one.
And we had at one time more than half of our company very sick and lame. Eight of the colonists do not survive that winter, and spring brings no reason for new hope. The crops are failing, and the early prospect of finding minerals has proven empty.
Even the wealth of the fishery can't prevent the colony from losing money, and John Guy cannot convince his investors back in England to stay the course. It is to be feared that it will never go well, so long as so ungrateful a person and so stony-hearted a penny father is at the helm. They care not though it fall to the ground.
John Guy returns to England in disappointment in the summer of 1613. Without his leadership, the colony slowly dwindles and dies. Soon, English colonies will take root, but not here. South, along the eastern seaboard, in Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York.
But in the northern half of the continent, the race to settle will be won by the French, first at Port Royal, and then far inland along the great river that unlocks the continent. If the commerce that shaped Canada's future began anywhere, it is here, at Tadoussac, on the St. Lawrence River. Ever since Cartier's time, French and Basque fishermen have been trading furs with the Montagnier Indians.
At first, it is only a sideline. But by the early 17th century, the profits are turning out to be spectacular. The Canadian furs are thick and shiny, good enough to command the highest prices in Europe. One of the French adventurers at Tadoussac in the summer of 1608 is a former soldier turned explorer and mapmaker. His name is Samuel de Champlain.
Champlain's backers order him to find a new location away from the competition. The country is fine and level, and the soil better than in any place I had seen, with extensive woods. Along the shores, one would think the trees had been planted as ornaments. He comes up with a bold but simple plan.
Go beyond Tadoussac into the little-known lands farther west, build a new trading post, and spend the winter... When spring comes, the Indians of the interior will bring their furs to Champlain first. In July, he sets off along the river with a hundred men and stops at a place he has seen once before. I looked for a proper place for our settlement, but I could find nothing more suitable or better situated than the Point of Quebec, so called by the natives, which was covered with nut trees. I at once employ a part of our workmen in cutting them down to make a site for our settlement.
Champlain's men quickly build a storehouse and three fortified buildings. But his competitors will not allow themselves to be bypassed so easily. There is a traitor in Champlain's little band, the locksmith Jean Duval.
The Basque bribe Duval, order him to murder Champlain and hand over Quebec to them. At the last minute, Champlain discovers the plot. He has been a soldier and knows how to handle mutineers. To serve as an example, Jean Duval was hanged and strangled, and his head put on the end of a pike and set up in the highest point of our fort. As summer comes to an end, most of Champlain's men return to France.
Only 27 remain with him to face the Canadian winter. It comes almost without warning, but Champlain has already spent three winters in a... and thinks he knows the worst. The cold was more extreme than in France and lasted much longer. You don't know this country unless you spent winter there.
There are six months of winter in this country. Champlain is sure his men have everything they might need. All those who were with me were well clad, slept in good beds, and were kept warm and well fed. While Champlain works on his maps, his men wait and wait.
Among them, a surgeon, Bonnerm, and a man named Latai. The youngest is Etienne Brulé, just 16. Champlain considers him a son and calls him my boy. As the weeks passed, they dream of the world they have left behind. In France that winter, the laws of fashion rule.
And they decree that every gentleman must have a beaver hat. The finest hats cost four times what one of Champlain's men earns in a year. Philip Stubbs watches as the trend reaches England.
Every man does wear of these hats, for he is of no account or estimation among men, if he have not a hat. As the fashions are rare and strange, so is the stuff from which their hats are made. The most curious are those made of a certain kind of fine hair. These they call beavers.
But the pursuit of fashion has its price. Europe's insatiable demand for beaver skins claims its first victims at Quebec. It's February 1609. The scurvy began very late.
The sickness attacks those who take great care of themselves. ...great care of themselves as much as the most wretched. Eighteen were struck down with it, and of these, ten died.
Bonherme, the surgeon, is dying. Champlain himself is struck down. It appears that winter will achieve what the Basque have failed to do.
Destroy Champlain's outpost. Their suffering drags on for months. But finally, spring comes. And with it, fresh food and hope.
It is a remarkable thing that two or three phantoms of snow and ice on the river should all be melted in less than 12 days. On the 8th of April, the air was still rather cold. Some of those who were ill with the scurvy got better. On the 5th of June, there arrived at our settlement a ship, which gave me much joy and relief.
Of our company, now only eight of the 28 remained, and half of these were ailing. Just eight men left, sick and exhausted, barely alive. No one realizes they have staked a claim that will resound for centuries.
But Canada belongs to someone else. The French need allies and teachers if they are to unlock the secrets of this land. There is much to learn. Champlain and his handful of Frenchmen have entered a complex and volatile world that is not theirs. But the native peoples of Canada are prepared to tolerate these strange new arrivals, as long as they are useful.
The Montagnier and the Algonquin have already been trading with the French for ten years. They are allies of the powerful Huron, who live near the Great Lakes. Together they control the territory north of the St. Lawrence. To the south live their traditional enemies, the Iroquois, a confederation of five nations.
For now, the Iroquois are cut out of the trade with the Europeans. In the summer of 1609, Champlain learns a basic lesson about doing business in North America. No trade without a military alliance.
Champlain already knows the Algonquin chief Iroquette, who introduces him to a new partner, the Huron chief Uchitaguan. They urge him to go to war with them against the Iroquois. I promised to help them in their wars. Both to engage them the more to love us, and also to help my enterprises and explorations, which could only be carried out with their help. Realizing he can do nothing without Indian allies, Champlain agrees.
And so a war party of 300 Indians and nine Frenchmen sets off from Quebec at the end of June. For a month they head south through lands no European has ever seen. But as they travel deeper into Iroquois territory, many in the party turn back.
Only 60 Indians remain now, along with three Frenchmen. At Ticonderoga Point, they finally meet the enemy. On the night of July 30th, the two sides prepare for battle.
The whole night was spent in dances and songs on both sides, with many insults. Our side telling the Iroquois that they would see such deeds of arms as they had never seen. At dawn, they come face to face with 200 Iroquois warriors. Our Indians told me that those who had the big headdresses were the chiefs, and that there were only three of them, whom you could recognize by these feathers, which were larger than those of their companions. I was to do what I could to kill them.
Our Indians called me with loud cries. They divided into two groups, made way for me and put me ahead. As soon as they caught sight of me, halted and stared at me. When I saw them make a move to draw their bows upon us, I took aim with my arquebus and fired straight at one of the three chiefs.
I had put four bullets into my arquebuse. As soon as our people saw this shot so favorable for them, they began to shout loudly. Meanwhile, the arrows flew thick on both sides. The Iroquois were much astonished that two men should have been killed so quickly. This frightened them greatly.
As I was reloading my arquebuse, one of my companions fired a shot. Seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage. and took flight into the depths of the forest.
The Alliance is sealed in blood. Champlain has passed his first test. We all separated with great declarations of mutual friendship. They asked me if I would not go to their country and help them like a brother. I promised them.
The French are now partners in a great alliance, but they have also made the five nations of the Iroquois their mortal enemies. For almost a century to come, they will pay the price. A great network of lakes and rivers, the arteries of the continent, links Quebec to the land of the Huron.
It takes a month of travel to reach a tranquil valley by the shores of a great lake. This is Huronia. The first Frenchman to go there is just 18 years old.
Etienne Brulé is one of the survivors of the terrible winter of 1609. A year later, Champlain sends him to the Huron in exchange for one of their young men. This is another building block of their alliance. I was forced to stay all winter, waiting for company and escort. I took this opportunity to explore the country and to visit the neighboring tribes.
Brule is welcomed, taught the Huron language and way of life. His most important task is to convince the Huron to bring their beaver skins to the trading post at Quebec each spring. After having spent some time with these savages, I determined to withdraw to our settlement.
And taking leave of them, I promised to introduce them to the French. I would return as soon as I could. Etienne Brule's commercial mission is a success, but he will return from Huronia a different man. On the 13th of June, 200 Indians brought back Etienne Brulé, who came back dressed like an Indian. He was well pleased with the treatment he had received.
He explained to me all that he had seen during the winter and what he had learned from them. He had learned their language very well. Other young men follow him.
Duvernay, Desmarais, Jean-Nicolas. Guided by their Indian allies, they travel through the lakes and rivers, learning more about the lands to the west. The trading system of the Huron and the French now reaches into the heart of the continent.
Before long, the little outcasts of the Huron and the French post at Quebec is receiving 15,000 beaver skins a year. The Indians are satisfied too. A Montagnier boasts that trade makes them wealthy and more powerful.
The beaver does everything perfectly well for us. It makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives. In short, it makes everything.
In 1615, Champlain visits Huronia, discovering a complex and fascinating society. In this extent of country, there are 18 villages, which may amount to 30,000 souls. Their lodges are covered with tree bark. And at the end of these cabins is a space where they keep their Indian corn.
In one such cabin, there could be as much as 12 fires and 24 families. As he comes to know the Huron better, Champlain decides they can be more than commercial and military allies. I realized that it would be a great sin if I did not devise some means of bringing them to the knowledge of God.
To attain this end, I looked for some good friars with zeal for the glory of God. The Recolins are the first to bring word of the Christian God into the Canadian forest. One of them, Gabriel Sagar, is astonished by the Huron reaction to the French.
They have such a horror of the beard that sometimes when they try and insult us, they call us sesco enrante, that is to say bearded. Moreover, they think it makes people more ugly and weakens their intelligence. Thus, these good folk think of us as very unintelligent by comparison with themselves.
And at every moment, and on the slightest occasion, they say to you, tayondion, that is to say, you have no sense. Sagar is also scandalized by the conduct of his French countrymen. Trade and religion do not go together well.
Most of the blame for the interference was on the part of the French. Their immoral lifestyle aside, most among them did not want us to convert any Indian. They were afraid it might disrupt the beaver trade.
One and only reason for their journey. Oh my god. My blood runs cold when I think that a beaver pelt meant more to them than the salvation of a people. After ten years, Quebec remains a tiny isolated outpost.
Scarcely 50 people who make their living from the fur trade. There is only one family of settlers. Louis Hébert, his wife Marie Rollet and their three children.
But Champlain has much bigger ideas. He realizes there is more to Canada than fur. So to attract investors and more settlers, he draws up a glowing account of its potential. Everywhere he looks, Champlain sees ways for men and women to make a good living here. Wood from the mighty forests, minerals from the soil, fertile land for crops, inexhaustible supplies of fish from the rivers, lakes and oceans.
And all that on top of the wealth from the fur trade. The traffic and trade in furs is not to be scorned. Martin, beaver, fox, lynx, moose and deer robes are commodities from which one can derive at present more than 400,000 livres.
But he predicts the other resources will be worth ten times more. Five million livres a year. Samuel de Champlain crosses the Atlantic 20 times to promote his plan for a full-fledged colony.
It takes ten years before he succeeds. But eventually, he catches the ear of one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, the Cardinal and Duke de Richelieu. The fur trade is most attractive, as it does not require the use of any money. All it requires are goods such as holsters, scissors, knives, needles, fobs, hat bands or any other kind of dry goods.
Richelieu recruits 100 investors at 3,000 livres apiece. This is the company of 100 associates. Champlain becomes the Cardinal's personal lieutenant. The new company assembles a fleet of ten ships carrying 400 settlers, livestock and provisions, but they will never reach the settlement of Quebec. France and England are now at war.
Two English privateers, the Kirk brothers, intercept the French convoy near Tadoussac. Champlain, who is running out of food and has no reinforcements, is forced to surrender Quebec. Louis Kirk landed some 150 armed men and proceeded to take possession of the settlement. He advanced to the fort to remove me from my quarters.
He had the English flag hoisted on one of the bastions, ordered the drums to beat to assemble the soldiers, and had a salute fired, a signal of rejoicing. For Champlain, it is the end of 20 years'work. He returns to France. Repercussions from the loss of Quebec are felt in Huronia. Etienne Brule, Champlain's favourite, has betrayed him by going to work for the English interlopers.
He has a falling out with the Huron. They torture Brule to death. The English hold Quebec for three years. When the war ends, it is given back to France for a million livres.
But before they leave, the Kirks destroy everything. Samuel de Champlain is now 63 years old. He returns to Quebec at Cardinal Richelieu's orders and starts from scratch once again. In the next two years, Champlain sees his colony reborn. On Christmas Day, 1635, the tough old soldier dies quietly.
The man who almost single-handedly established France in North America leaves no descendants. For the next 30 years, Champlain's colony will welcome new immigrants, face old enemies, and unwittingly help destroy its closest ally. The French bring new and strange things to the new world.
Mystics and missionaries bring word of their god. Unknowingly, they also bring disease and demoralization. It leads to the destruction of their closest allies and a war that almost destroys the colony itself. Yet New France will survive and a new people will be born. I don't know what the country of the Huron is, but I do know that I would rather go there than to an earthly paradise.
It is not fitting that everyone should know how much heavenly light one finds in the thick darkness of this barbarism. We would have too many persons wishing to come here. They were called soldiers of Christ. The Jesuit missionaries were spread over half the earth.
Now they plan to bring the word of the Christian God to the 25,000 souls of Huronia. The fathers whom God shall call to the holy mission of the human. your aunts, ought to exercise careful foresight in regard to all the hardships, annoyances, and perils that must be encountered. For leaving a highly civilized community, you fall into the hands of barbarous people who care but little for your philosophy or your theology, and utterly despise you. The Huron have their own gods and aren't interested.
The Champlain had insisted, no black robes, no trade. The first Jesuits, like Jean de Brebeuf, have trouble even reaching the Huronia. The Hurons would have been very willing to take some Frenchmen who were well armed, but they did not want these long ropes who carried no guns. They only wanted to take three. Two young Frenchmen and one of ours.
We promise we will paddle, we give presents, we insist as much as we can. The Hurons will not take any more. It is a meeting of two different worlds, two alien cultures. The Jesuits find it hard to give up their European ways. For want of a table and household utensils, we eat on the ground.
We have neither salt, oil... Fruits, bread, nor wine except what we keep for the mass. Our bed is made with a piece of bark upon which we put a blanket. We have no sheets to speak of. The smoke fills the whole cabin and spoils everything that we keep.
At night we have no other light, except that of the fire in the cabin, which permits us to recite our breviary. As more Jesuits arrive, they build permanent missions in Huronia, the biggest at Sainte-Marie. They bring young Frenchmen with them as servants, including 16-year-old Charles Lemoine and Pierre Boucher, only 15. Boucher is fascinated by the Huron beliefs.
They believe in the immortality of the soul, and that after death it goes to a beautiful country. They have a number of fables that they relate. They have knowledge of spirits and are great aversion to sorcerers.
They are very superstitious and have faith in their dreams. This is what gives the most trouble to the Jesuit fathers who try to instruct them. There are few conversions, but each one is carefully recorded.
Every year, the Jesuit Superior in Quebec issues a report on their activities. The relation of the most remarkable events in the missions of the Company of Jesus in New France. It is a compelling account of their triumphs and tribulations.
I learned on a bit of bark that the demons in Heronia were let loose. And we're powerfully opposing our plans. Turning it all over in my mind, I found myself amazed at the greatness of God. For the bloodier a battle is, the nobler the victory, and the more glorious the triumph.
News of the Jesuits missionary work among the Huron, translated into Latin, Italian and German, reaches devout Catholics all over Europe. I learned through my eyes and my ears how France was on fire for us, and how the upper countries of the savages were nothing but ice. I read on one side that the great of the earth were giving us their hearts for heaven, and that the small of the world, thus I call those who know not God, held us in abhorrence. The Jesuit stories of suffering and salvation in the dark forests of the new world have a dizzying effect.
The order they inspire will soon bring a new group of immigrants to New France. The Mystics. For decades, France has been wracked by religious warfare between Catholics and Protestants.
By the 1620s, the Catholic forces have finally won a decisive victory. It is time to proclaim the triumph of the one true faith. An evangelical revival sweeps through the court.
For Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII, it is a sacred duty to bring the word of God to the pagans of the New World. The Jesuit relations makes their fervor burn all the brighter. In the city of Tours, one of those who hears God's call is Marie Gouillard. She is a 32 year old widow with a 13 year old son and she is about to give up everything for her faith. One morning in 1631, my son came with me, resigned to our separation.
Walking with me, he made no mention of his affliction, but I could see the tears in his eyes. I felt my soul being torn out of me. that I was being bent in two, but I allowed no emotion, as God was dearer to me, and leaving him to his hands, I laughed as I bade him farewell. She entrusts young Claude to her sister and enters the Ursuline convent, where she takes the name Marie de l'Incarnation. After years of prayer and meditation, a mystical vision comes to her. She is certain it is the voice of God decreeing her destiny.
There were great spaces, and in these spaces, a church enveloped in mists. From the place in which we were, There was a road to go down. It was exceedingly dangerous because of having terrible rocks on one side and awful and unguarded precipices on the other. The afflicted place I had seen was New France.
I felt a very great inward attraction in that direction and an order to go there to build a house for Jesus. Mary, I was in consequence so keenly possessed that I gave my consent to our Lord. Spring of 1639, Marie de l'Incarnation obeys the mystical command and departs for New France.
She will never see her son again. But the letters she sends him over the next 33 years become a vivid account of the colony's trials and successes. Marie is accompanied by other nuns and a wealthy patron, Madame Chauvigny de la Peltrie. They are at sea for three months.
I barely slept during the entire crossing. The pangs of my aching head were so severe that short of dying they could not have been worse. All aboard were ill due to the constant tempests. May God be blessed for the mercies he bestowed upon me during that time.
August 1st, 1639, their ship, the Saint-Joseph, arrives at Quebec. They are the first women missionaries in North America. As this holy band left the ship, they fell on their knees, thanked the God of heaven, and kissed the soil. All gazed in silence at this spectacle.
From a floating prison, we're seen issuing these virgins consecrated to God. There are others whose vision inspires them to make their way to the forests of Canada. One group, the Society of Notre-Dame de Montréal, plans to establish a holy city in the depths of the wilderness. But their scheme gets no support from the Jesuits in Quebec, nor from Governor Montmagny. The design of this company is so absurd that the best name for it would be the Foolish Enterprise.
The group is led by a 30-year-old soldier, Paul Chomadie de Maisonneuve, and he refuses to take no for an answer. Sir, as it has been decided by the company which sent me that I should go to Montreal, my honor is at stake, and you will agree that I must go there to establish a colony, even if every tree on that island were to turn into an Iroquois. The chief supporter of the project is a wealthy tax collector, Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière.
The purpose of the Montreal Associates is to work solely for the glory of God and for the salvation of the savages. We plan to build houses only for a few French families, tradesmen, young married couples, and other countries. savages who will wish to live there.
They purchase the island of Montreal, where no European has yet settled. Jeanne Mance, a nurse, and around 50 settlers are recruited to make this far-fetched dream a reality. For 20 years they labor, but never achieve their goal. De Maisonneuve is recalled to France, and almost all of the others drift away.
Only Jeanne Mance remains in the colony. Montreal will live on, but not as a holy city. First, the alliance between the Huron and the French serves both well.
But by the 1630s, the presence of white men in Huronia is beginning to have tragic consequences. Young Pierre Boucher is disgusted by the French traders who traffic in alcohol. All these savages who are close to the Europeans become drunkards.
And this causes great harm to our people. For many who were good Christians have now recanted. The Jesuit priests have done everything they can to prevent this evil. But there is worse. The French unwittingly bring diseases that are unknown in the new world.
Smallpox, measles, influenza, and the Huron are devastated. The 75,000 who were there when Champlain arrived, at least half die. It is the black robes that make us die by their spells.
They lodged in a certain village where everyone was well. Well, as soon as they were established there, everyone was dead. They visited the cabins in other villages, and only those they did not enter were free of mortality and sickness. If they are not promptly put to death, they will ruin the country.
The Jesuits witness the suffering of the Huron, but cannot see their own part in it. They doggedly continue to baptize converts, most of whom are now already dying. The Huron nation is demoralized, divided, and angry. I will never allow that my wife be baptized.
I abhor your faith and I curse your God. The stones have come flying over our heads. The crosses have been pulled down and uprooted. Hatchets and firebrands lifted against us.
Blows given with clubs and blood shed. The elders, far from repressing the acts of violence and stopping the blows of those who fell upon us, have encouraged them to do worse. While the Huron hold the Jesuits responsible, Father Jean de Brebeuf can only see the ineffable will of God.
We are perhaps about to shed our blood and sacrifice our lives in the service of our good master, Jesus Christ. It seems he is willing to accept this sacrifice from me for the expiation of my great and innumerable sins. If he wishes that at this hour we should die, oh, fortunate hour for us.
If God grants me the grace to go to heaven, I will pray for the poor Huron. But the unfortunate Huron will need more than prayers. The Iroquois realize their old Huron enemy is gravely weakened and see a chance they have long been waiting for.
A chance for revenge and control of the fur trade. In 1649 they attack. Huronia is destroyed. The Jesuits Daniel, Jog, Lallement and Brebeuf are put to death.
The Iroquois victory is complete. Only a thousand Hurons survive. Some flee to the West and the converts go into exile with the Jesuits near Quebec. Since they have embraced the faith and adored the cross of Jesus Christ. He has given them as their lot a portion of that cross, having made them a prey to miseries, torments, and cruel deaths.
In a word, they are a people wiped off of the face of the earth. My brother, your eyes deceive you when you look upon us. You believe that you see living men, while we are but specters, the souls of the departed.
The alliance between the French and the Huron was one of the wonders of the New World. At first, the French depended utterly on their powerful Indian allies. But European weapons, brandy, disease and religion have changed all that.
It takes just 40 years for a great nation to be destroyed. The Iroquois come like foxes through the woods. They attack like lions.
They take flight like birds. They would pass before Quebec in broad noonday, and no one could pursue them nor recover the prisoners. Once the Huron are destroyed, the Iroquois take aim at the Huron's former allies. For 15 years, the French colony is under siege. Pierre Boucher, now a merchant and governor of Trois-Rivières, describes the atmosphere.
They can set up an ambush anywhere. A small bush can conceal six or seven of these barbarians. We are always in fear that some unfortunate man not be able to work in safety if he wanders off the least distance.
A woman lives in constant fear that her husband, who has gone off to work in the morning, will be killed or captured, and that she will never see him again. Raids, deaths, the taking of prisoners, all meant to win mastery over their French rivals. And with no support from France, the merchants and settlers are on their own. For a year, the warehouse in Montreal has not bought a single beaver skin from the savages. At Trois-Rivières, the little revenue that has accrued has been used to fortify the place, the enemy being expected there.
In the Quebec warehouse, there is nothing but poverty. Marie de l'Incarnation fears that the French experiment in North America is over. There are not enough forces in all the country to resist them.
If France fails us, then we must shortly either leave or die. If the enemy continues in his conquests and victories, there will be nothing for the French to do here. In desperation, the settlers send Pierre Boucher to France to plead their case.
Young Louis XIV has just become king. He decides not to give up new France without a fight. The Iroquois are the perpetual and inconsolable enemies of the colony. As an appropriate remedy, I have resolved to wage war against them in their own lands to exterminate them completely.
In the early summer of 1665, the people of Quebec see a glorious sight. The arrival of 1,200 French soldiers cracked troops to defend the city. ...offend against the Iroquois attacks.
The prayers have been answered. Jesuit superior Francois Le Mercier has been here for 30 years, but this is the best summer yet. On the 17th and 19th of June, there arrived at Quebec two ships with four companies of the Carignan-Salière regiment.
On the 30th, there appeared in the distance two sails which filled us with joy. It is impossible to express the satisfaction of all people. The King does more than send soldiers.
Since the beginning, the French settlement on the St. Lawrence has been a privately run trading operation. Now, Louis XIV makes it a royal colony of France under his direct control. He sends out some of his best men to administer the new colony and make it grow. Marie de l'Incarnation believes the colony has been saved.
The ships have all arrived, bringing us the rest of the army, along with the most eminent persons whom the King has sent to the aid of the country. They feared they would all perish in the storms they braved on their voyage. We are helping them to understand that this is a holy war, where the only things that matter are the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Soon after the soldiers arrive, their commander, the Marquis de Salières, is ordered to build defense works along the Richelieu River, the main Iroquois invasion route. The mission begins badly. I was ordered to set out with seven companies to build a fort at the mouth of Lake Champlain, without a carpenter, nor any other skilled workmen, and with very few tools.
I arrived there with 350 men, many of whom were sick with the stomach flu caused by the heavy rains and cold, and who were also heel-cloth, barefoot, and had no pots to cook their salt pork or to make soup. But by the time winter sets in, the soldiers have managed to build three rudimentary forts. Now they are given a new assignment.
The new governor is Daniel de Remy de Corcel, 39 years old and impulsive and reckless aristocrat. This is his first winter in Canada, and he decides that January is the ideal moment to launch a campaign against the Iroquois. The Marquis de Salières is dismayed, but obeys his orders. I saw all things ill-disposed. The soldiers having no snowshoes, very few axes, a single blanket, and having only one pair of moccasins and stockings.
When I saw all this, I said to the captains that it would require one of God's miracles for any good to come of this. Some of them replied that Monsieur le Gouverneur did as he pleased and took advice from no one. For a month, 500 soldiers and 200 Canadian volunteers struggle through the forest, searching for the Iroquois. Captain Tapie de Montey records the grim results.
During this expedition, which we undertook in January, we lost 400 men who dropped dead from the cold. We had set out on foot to take an enemy village by surprise, but we failed because our guides died of cold along the way. Only a hundred soldiers survive.
When they finally stumble on the little outpost of Schenectady, it is the English settlers there who save their lives. The regiment has not fought a single battle, nor killed a single Iroquois. The governor's invasion is a disaster.
The next autumn, the French are ready to invade Iroquois territory once again. This time, they assemble a massive force. 600 soldiers, 600 Canadian militia, and 100 Indians.
When they reach the Iroquois villages south of the Great Lakes, the warriors have already fled. The French then issue a grim warning of what the five nations of the Iroquois can expect if the war continues. No battles are fought, but the Scorched Earth campaign is a triumph for new friends. There is certainly something extraordinary in this whole business.
For if the Iroquois had held their ground, they would have made much trouble. But this rout has reduced them to the most desperate humiliation. A strange victory it may have been, but cause for celebration are the same. The French show of force convinces the Iroquois to sign a peace treaty that will last for 20 years.
Since the king has had... the kindness to extend his care to this country by sending the regiment of Carignan, we have witnessed great changes in Canada. And we can say that it is no longer the country of frost and arctic. that people used to talk about as a disgrace, but it is now a true new France.
The soldiers now expect to return to France, but Louis XIV has other plans. He offers large estates, seigneuries to officers who will remain in New France, and smaller plots of land to the ordinary soldiers. 400 take up the offer, including Pierre de Sorel, Antoine Picot de Contrecourt, and François Jaret de Verchères. The fur trade outpost is becoming a new society.
It isn't only the arrival of French soldiers in Quebec that makes the summer of 1665 memorable. There are all sorts of marvelous new sights, signs of new hope. On the 16th. July, the ships have arrived bringing some horses with which the king intends to supply this country.
Our savages, who had never seen any, view them with admiration and were astonished that the moose of France, for so they named them, were so tractable and so obedient to man's every wish. One of the new arrivals is Jean Talon, the King's intendant. His job is to administer and build up the colony.
Monsieur Talon made it evident to us at the outset that the King loves this country and has great plans for its development. By his personal qualities, he makes us already taste the sweetness of a governance so guided by reason. In Versailles, King Louis XIV has decided on an important role for his colony on the St. Lawrence.
Louis is only 27 years old, but he dreams of being the most powerful monarch on earth, dominating the great powers of Europe, Holland, England, Spain and Portugal. He launches a commercial war against them on every continent, including North America. Jean-Baptiste Colbert is the mastermind.
The King has formed companies which, like armies, attack them everywhere. And as the major part of this commerce involves our colonies abroad, we believe it is necessary to maintain, protect and reinforce those which are already established. Talon is Colbert's man in New France. A month after arriving, he already realizes that this out-of-the-way little colony can be very useful.
I believe that Canada has never been looked upon as it should be. In 15 years, there will be enough overabundance to supply the West Indies. I don't say this lightly, and I express this opinion after having closely examined the strength of the Earth.
Just one thing is missing. People. I was baptized at Saint-Gervais de Paris and raised by my mother until I was 13 in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
I had to flee to escape from the rages of my own brother, who no longer respected in me the sacred rights of nature, religion, or the law. For one so young, Marie-Claude Chamois has known terrible sadness. She was born to a well-off Paris family, but fled her home in 1669. Her first place of refuge was the Salpêtrière Hospital, a shelter for abandoned women, poor children, and the mentally ill.
A year later, her life is turned upside down once more. I was chosen to join a number of others who were to go to America and I preferred to renounce my homeland and take a perilous voyage to a new world rather than beg my mother's help. I resigned myself to silence, far from my own country, without friends, without help, without parents, condemned to a perpetual exile. Accompanied by a group of other girls, Marie-Claude Chamois leaves France in 1670 for the New World.
In all, 1,000 young women are sent to New France at the King's expense over a period of seven years. They are poor, abandoned, with no future in France. People call them les Fides Rois, the king's daughters.
The hundred girls sent over by the King this year have only just arrived and already they're almost all accommodated. He will send another 200 next year and even more in the years following. It is an amazing thing to see how the country is becoming populated and multiplying.
Soon after her arrival, Marie-Claude Chamois marries François Frigon, known as the Spaniard. She is 14 years old. Isabelle Huppert marries Louis Bolduc of the Carignan-Salière regiment.
Anne Perrault marries Pierre Blais. In 1665, the seigniory of Neuville near Quebec was virtually uninhabited. Two years later, 40 newly married couples live there, including 37 filles du roi.
There are rumors that some of the girls have been prostitutes in France, but Pierre Boucher insists otherwise. It is not true that this sort of women come here. And those who say this are greatly mistaken.
If by chance there are a few who come who are discovered or during the crossing behaved badly, they are sent back to France. It is hard to live a scandalous life in such a small colony. What these young women have in common is their poverty and their fertility. Jean Talon takes extraordinary steps to encourage them to bear children. All inhabitants having 10 living children born of a lawful marriage will be paid a pension of 300 pounds a year, and for those having 12, 400 pounds.
Furthermore, all boys who will marry at the age of 20 years or less and to girls of 16 years and less will be paid 20 pounds each on their wedding day. Marie-Claude Chamois and François Frigan now live at Bascon, close to Quebec. They eventually have seven children, the ancestors of every Frigan in North America. Jean Talon has ambitious plans.
He dreams of a strong and prosperous new France. The projects he launches give new hope to the old pioneers, the Jesuits Le Mercier and Marie de l'Incarnation. He is having a covered market built in Quebec, and a brewery, and a tannery, because of the great number of animals in this country. These industries have never been attempted before in Canada, but if they succeed, they will greatly reduce the enormous expense of having everything brought over from France.
And they will provide the makings of a great country that in time will make the merchants rich. If the course of events in the future corresponds to that of the past two years, we will no longer recognize Canada and shall see our forests changing into towns and provinces which may someday resemble those of France. But the colony is desperately short of workers. Pierre Boucher, who came to Canada as a young servant, is now a merchant and a seigneur, looking for employees of his own. All poor people would be better off here than in France, provided they are not lazy.
They will not lack for work and they will not be able to say, as they do in France, that they have to scrounge for a living, because no one has worked for them. Most of the men who come to New France are engagés, indentured servants. An employer, a farmer, a religious order or a merchant, pays for their transportation from France. During the life of his contract, usually three years, the engagé is bound to his employer. He can't become a citizen, get involved in the fur trade, or marry.
His labor can be bought and sold without his consent. Discipline is harsh. A runaway can be flogged in public, put in shackles, branded, or hanged. During Talon's regime, about a thousand engagés come to New France. Only half of them stay once their contracts are over.
The rest get on the first ship back to France. Talon and Colbert try to stop the exodus. If things continue in this manner, the colony will not get stronger.
Despite the trouble you have taken to increase the population, Many people have gone back this year. His Majesty believes that this is extremely disruptive, and he therefore forbids that any Frenchman be allowed to return to his kingdom unless those who seek permission to do so have a wife and children and considerable property in the colony. The Engagé who remains might begin with little more than the shirt on his back, but he is now his own master, with a future in a new land. 15,000 French people came to New France between 1608 and the end of the century.
Only 3,400 remained here. They are the pioneers of Canada. There are a great number of poor folk in this country. When a family first settles here, it takes them two or three years before they have enough to feed themselves, not to mention the clothing, furniture and...
And a thousand and one little things necessary to maintain a proper household. But after these difficulties are passed, they are able to live more comfortably. And if they manage their affairs well, they can in time become wealthy, or at least as wealthy as is possible in such a new country. In 1672, New France's brief run of good fortune seems about to end.
That spring, Marie de l'Incarnation dies at Quebec, but not before sending one last message to her abandoned son. Tell him, she said, that I am carrying him with me in my heart. The Jesuit François Le Mercier is sent to Martinique.
Jean Talon, the intendant, is recalled to France before his great projects can be realized. Europe is at war and France can no longer spare any men for her far-off colony. The first wave of French immigration to America is over.
Three generations will be born here before the next. But they turn out to be enough for the little colony on the St. Lawrence. There are only 4,000 Canadiens, but they have established a solid foothold in the new world.
Pierre Boucher and Charles Lemoine, the soldiers and the Fidurois, all have found their home. Now they will embark on a great adventure. The conquest of a continent.
It will bring new alliances and new battles with the aboriginal peoples. And a rising tide of conflict with an imperial rival that will threaten the very survival of new friends. Thanks for watching! Thanks for watching! Thanks for watching!