CHAPTER IV

FRENCH COLONIZATION

1515-1759

It seemed as if Spain was to have what she wished-the monopoly of America; but meanwhile other nations of Europe were carrying out rival plans. Before the death of Columbus, Breton fishermen had found their way to the Grand Banks, and they have continued to visit them ever since. Fish constituted an important food for the people of France and England, so numerous were the fast days, and British fishermen frequented the banks quite as freely as those from France. It was not until after the accession of Francis I., in 1515, however, that the French government took an active interest in America. Francis laughed at the pretensions of Spain and Portugal to monopolize Asia and America; he asked for father Adam's will in proof that Spain and Portugal were named as sole heirs to the New World. Evidently America was not to consist of New Spain only. The fishing interests were sufficient to provoke a contest for a share of the new found lands.

In 1523, Francis gave his approval to the cruise of Verrazano, a bold navigator, who, after the manner of the times, had gone in search of a fleet of Spanish galleons laden with Mexican gold, and had succeeded in capturing an immense treasure. The royal favor seems to have changed Verrazano into a French explorer. He sailed along the coast from New Hampshire to Carolina, claiming the country for France. Jacques Cartier, in 1535, sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as the site of Montreal, where he found an Iroquois village. This was the beginning of the French occupation of North America. Twenty-five years passed, but France did nothing in colonization. Her wasteful religious wars absorbed all her energies. One immediate effect of these wars was the effort of many Huguenots to leave

France and find peace and quiet in America. It would have been better for New France had they been allowed to go freely. The great admiral Coligny, a leader among the Huguenots, conceived a scheme for their colonization in the New World, and in 1562 a settlement was begun under Jean Ribau in Florida. This was about the time that St. Augustine was planned by the Spanish. For three years there were signs of prosperity, when suddenly Menendez, of whom we have already heard, surprised and exterminated the settlement. Some seven hundred men, women, and children were butchered, and chiefly because they were Huguenots. The French government was hostile to them and on secret terms with Spain respecting them, so that it made no effort to bring Menendez to justice. But justice came. Dominique de Gourgues, a wealthy private gentleman, secretly sent an expedition to revenge his countrymen. In 1568, the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine was surprised and destroyed. "I do this not as to Spaniards but as to assassins," were the words which De Gourgues burned on boards placed above the heads of the dead Spaniards. And Menendez found the notice two years later. The destruction of two colonies on the same place illustrates the character of the times, when rival nations contended for supremacy in the American wilderness. France made no further effort to colonize Florida, and it remained a part of New Spain.

In the year when Santa Fé was founded, the religious wars in France ceased, and Frenchmen began to think of America again. The fur trade attracted them, and they planned to secure its monopoly, just as the Spanish planned to monopolize the American output of gold and silver. In 1603, the French government empowered De Monts to colonize North America anywhere from New York Bay to Cape Breton. Henry IV. granted him a monopoly of the fur trade within these limits, and from the Atlantic to the South Sea. The scheme was visionary and unsuccessful, though two years later (1605) a permanent French settlement, the first in America, was made at Port Royal, in Nova Scotia. Of this settlement, one of De Monts's associates, Prontrincourt, was a founder. Another associate, Samuel de Cham

1608]

FRENCH EXPLORERS

27

plain, in 1608, began a settlement at Quebec. This was the beginning of Canada. Champlain was a type of man wholly different from previous, and nearly all later, explorers in America. He may be called the first scientific explorer of the New World. He mapped his course and recorded his observations so well that his journal would now serve as a guide-book through the regions he visited. He was interested in the physical features and in the plants and animals of the country, and made drawings of much that he saw. The lake that bears his name was his discovery; so too were Lake Ontario and Lake Huron, and many great streams. On foot he explored most of the country from the Kennebec River to the Straits of Macki

He spent twenty-seven years in Canada, and saw it become the home of several flourishing French settlements. He cultivated the friendship of the Indians, and had great influence over them. During his time, the French entered into friendly relations with the great tribes of the Northwest and secured the monopoly of the fur trade. Most of these tribes became hunters for the French, and brought vast quantities of furs to Quebec and Montreal.

Among all these tribes the Jesuit Fathers sought to establish missions. They penetrated the Indian towns, lived with the savages, bore unparalleled hardships, ministered to the wretched, instilled the teachings of Christianity into the minds of any who would give them a hearing, and thought no danger or sacrifice great enough to deter them from carrying on their work. The Indian world was their parish. Wherever they went they made keen observation of all they saw, and reported to their superior in France in a remarkable series of letters called the Jesuit Relations. They carefully mapped the scenes of their labors; they journeyed all over the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi; they discovered all the important lakes and tributary streams of the great valley. Thus it came about that New France was the best mapped portion of the New World. Although the fathers served so faithfully, most of them met violent deaths at the hands of the savages whom they had come to help.

Unwittingly, Champlain had offended a foe so powerful

that the enmity he stirred up proved at last one of the chief causes of the overthrow of New France. For centuries before his coming, a feud had raged between two great divisions of the Indian tribes-the Algonquins, who lived principally north of the Great Lakes, and the Iroquois, also called the Five Nations, who lived south of them, and whose cruel hand was felt as far south as Florida and as far west as the Platte River. At the time of Champlain's arrival, the Algonquins were the less formidable, although a thoroughly organized league, after the manner of Indian organization. Champlain made peace with them when he found the St. Lawrence, and entering into offensive and defensive alliance, was welcomed as a powerful and timely ally. Ignorant of the ancient feud, and also of the power of the Five Nations, he readily joined in an expedition against them, his Algonquin allies trusting that with the help of his terrible firearms they might at last annihilate their foes. Near Ticonderoga, in 1609, Champlain met and defeated the Five Nations. Here was the home of the terrible Mohawks, but they fled at the sound and the destruction made by the French guns. From this time the Five Nations hated the French as they hated their more ancient foes.

As matters turned out a century and a half later, Champlain's defeat of the Mohawks was one of the important events in American history.

While he was defeating them at Ticonderoga, the English were settling Jamestown and the Dutch were laying the foundations of New Amsterdam, later to become an English town. As the English extended their colonies and were brought in contact with the Indians, they discovered that the whole country east of the Mississippi was under the control of the Five Nations, and furthermore, that these were foes of the French. An alliance soon followed. During the whole history of New France, covering a century and a half (1603-1763), the Five Nations continued to be implacable enemies of the French, and were a barrier preventing the extension of New France. over New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. But down the Mississippi Valley the French passed without

1759]

CHAMPLAIN

29

serious hindrance, save from the Spanish whom they met in what are now Missouri and Louisiana.

The portion of the United States once in New France. comprises the region from the Alleghany Mountains to the Missouri River and from the Lake of the Woods to the Gulf of Mexico, or nearly one fourth of the Union. Within this area, there remain many evidences of French exploration, but few of their occupation. French names of rivers, lakes, and valleys, and a few towns survive. Along the Ohio they planted plates of pewter, with suitable inscriptions, claiming the country. Their headquarters were at Quebec and Montreal, but their forts were scattered over the Mississippi Valley at strategic points. They were bound to become one of the chief disputants for the control of America. Evidence of their once powerful ascendency is abundant in Louisiana, as attested there by land titles, laws, and to some extent by the manners, customs, and language of the people. When the French had explored Louisiana, they attempted to hold it as a part of New France. This brought on the French and Indian war (1756-63). But France and England were really at war for America from 1608 till the fall of Quebec, in 1759.