THE DISCOVERERS, EARLY
MISSIONARIES, AND EXPLORERS
To most English readers
of our native literature the work of the French discoverers and
explorers of Canada, of the Jesuit and Recollet missionaries, and of the
later French-Canadian writers, must, in large measure, be a sealed book.
This must be matter for regret, as much of it is of the highest order of
interest, while its later portions are almost unsurpassed in literary
attractiveness. Fortunately, and to a remarkable extent, Francis
Parkman, the American historian, has made the French period of Canadian
history a special field of work; and in his series of brilliant
narratives of "France in the New World," the English reader of early
Canadian annals has a record of the epoch so scholarly and fascinating
that he can have little occasion to regret his inability to peruse any
portion of the literature of French Canada which has not yet been
translated into the English tongue. We can note this only in passing,
and add that any Canadian who is unfamiliar with the works of Mr.
Parkman has little idea of the elements of romance that enter into the
annals, ecclesiastical and civil, of Canada; nor can he be said to have
really tasted of the charm of history, when it is narrated by a graphic
and picturesque, as well as by a trustworthy and painstaking, writer.
Canadian literature can
hardly be said to begin prior to the founding of the Catholic missions
in Canada in the days of Champlain. From this period both the civil and
the ecclesiastical history of the country date. Previous to that time,
however, under the impulse given to the search for a shorter, western
passage to India in the reign of the French monarch, Francis I., several
notable voyages to the New World were undertaken, and some account of
these ought here to be given ; but this, we regret, our limited space
forbids. We can permit ourselves but the barest reference to the voyages
of Jacques Cartier, undertaken between the years 1534 and 1552, and
refer those who feel an interest in the subject of early exploration to
the valuable publications of the Hakluyt Society, and, particularly, to
Volume IV. of Justin Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America
"—a work which is now being sumptuously issued in Boston, and this
special volume of which deals exhaustively with "French Exploration and
Settlement in North America." In this volume will be found a number of
critical essays of the highest interest on the discoverers and founders
of Canada, and on the relations of the Catholic Church with the Indians.
Jacques Cartier made at least three voyages to Canada, in the first of
which (A.D. 1534) he took possession of the country for the French King.
In the -following year he again left the port of St. Malo for the New
World, the objects of his enterprise, according to the terms of his
commission, being discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the
native tribes. In this voyage he disclosed to the ken of the Old World
our noble St. Lawrence, and proceeding up its waters, reached Stadacona
(Quebec), and Hochelaga (Montreal). A third voyage, in connection with
the Sieur de Roberval, a Picardy gentleman, was undertaken in 1540, with
the design of planting a colony in Acadia; but this expedition, like
those that preceded it, was barren of practical results, save that it
gave to literature the earliest authentic record of discovery in the
region now embraced in the wide domain of Canada. The narrative of
Cartier's first voyage was issued, in French, from the press of Ramusio,
at Venice, in 1536. In 1580 an English translation appeared, which was
adopted by Hakluyt and printed in his Navigations, in the year 1600. The
account of his second voyage came out in Paris in 1545; but of his third
expedition, in concert with Roberval, we have only a fragment preserved
by Hakluyt, which brings the narrative down to 1541. In 1598 another
account of Cartier's first voyage, in French, appeared at Rouen, and was
reprinted at Quebec, in "Voyages de decouverte au Canada," 1534-1552,
issued in 1843 under the direction of the Quebec Literary and Historial
Society. Beyond the discovery of the country, and the intermittent trade
in fish and fur which it opened up, France profited little from
Cartier's voyages. Nor is there much in his narratives as a contribution
to literature, save numberless curiosity-exciting facts, told to his St.
Malo townsmen with the truth and directness of a simple-minded but
courageous sailor.
"He told them of the
Algonquin braves—the hunters of the wild, Of how the Indian mother in
the forest rocks her child ; Of how, poor souls, they fancy in every
living thing A spirit good or evil, that claims their worshipping; Of
how they brought their sick and maimed for him to breathe upon, And of
the wonders wrought for them through the Gospel of St. John.
"He told them of the
river whose mighty current gave Its freshness for a hundred leagues to
Ocean's briny wave ; He told them of the glorious scene presented to his
sight, What time he reared the cross and crown on Hoclielaga's height;
And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key, And they
welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils o'er the sea."
With the coming of
Champlain the day dawned upon French colonization and missionary
enterprise. Within the space of a generation (1603-1635) Uhamplain's
eager, ardent mind, his intense religious zeal, and his restless spirit
of discovery, made Canada, till now a veritable terra incognita, known
to the outer world; while he gave to the colony he planted and fostered
his earnest, watchful care and the benefit of his every thought. With
him came the Sieur de Monts, a Huguenot who had rendered services to
Henry IV. during the wars of the League, and for which he was rewarded
by grants of land in Acadia, with the title of Lieutenant-General. At
the same period there also came to Acadia, Pontgrave, a merchant of St.
Malo, and with him Poutrincourt, a French nobleman, who wished to escape
from the turbulent politics of Europe and settle in a land unvexed by
religious strife. Champlain eagerly entered upon his explorations, first
on the scene of the Acadian colony, then on the St. Lawrence and its
tributaries, in the ascent of one of which he discovered the lake which
bears his name. Afterwards he ascended the Ottawa and crossed to the
country of the Hurons, and, with the latter as allies, made his
disastrous raid into the lair of the Iroquois and brought upon the
ill-starred colony which he founded at Quebec the sleepless hate of that
powerful Confederacy.
The chronicling of
these and other events occurring in New France during the early years of
the 17th century, with - some account of the labours of the R6collet and
Jesuit missionaries, we happily owe to Champlain, the chief personage in
the drama of the times, and to Marc Lescar-bot, a lawyer and man of good
parts, who was intimately associated with De Monts and Poutrincourt in
the Acadian Colony. The literary fruit of the period is embodied in
Champlain's voluminous narratives, of which there are many editions in
French, and at least one good edition in English; and in Lescarbot's "
Histoire de la Nouvelle France," the latter of which gives a vivid
picture of life at Port Royal among the Canadian " Knights of the Round
Table." The .narrative of Champlain's first voyage, entitled "Des
Sauvages, ou, Yoyage de Samuel Champlain, de Rrouage," appeared in Paris
in 1604, the year after the expedition was undertaken. In 1613, a second
volume, profusely illustrated, was issued in the French capital,
embracing the events which had occurred from 1603 to that date. The
volume is full of interesting matter concerning the native tribes, which
were as yet uncontaminated by intercourse with the scum of French
prisons and other hybrid classes sent out as colonists by order of the
French Court. Replete with interest is it also in regard to the
geography of the northern portions of the continent, particularly in the
region of the Bay of Fundy, including the coast line of the Maritime
Provinces and New England. A third volume was published in 1619, which
was twice re-issued in Champlain's lifetime, and, with some additions,
it again appeared in 1632. Of his complete writings, a collected
Canadian edition, in French, was published in Quebec, in 1870, in six
volumes, quarto, under the editorship of the accomplished Abbe Laverdi&re.
This Canadian reprint is creditable to native scholarship, being
carefully edited, with luminous notes from the original text in the
Bibliotheque Imperiale at Paris. To French-Canadian industry and
research are we also indebted for many interesting monographs on the
subject of Champlain and his administration, in the country he so
faithfully served, and which has the honour of holding his dust. L'Abbe
Ferland's " Histoire du Canada," contains an excellent summary of
Champlain's labours; though, for English readers, Miles's "Canada under
the French Regime," Heriot's "History of Canada," and, especially,
Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World," should be consulted.
The best English translation of Champlain's complete voyages, however,
is that issued in three small quarto volumes, in 1878-82, for the Prince
Society, of Boston, by Dr. C. Pomeroy Otis, with an elaborate memoir by
the Be v. E. F. Slafter, M.A.
The limits of this
brief sketch necessitate our dealing very briefly with the remainder of
the French writers of this period. Contemporary with Champlain, and
familiar with his work, are the two authors, Marc Lescarbot and Gabriel
Sagard, who have made important contributions to the literature of the
era. Lescarbot's work deals with the Nova Scotian colony under De Monts,
and Sagard's with the tribe and country of the Hurons. Not much is known
of Lescarbot, beyond the fact that he was born at Yervins about the year
1580, and was a lawyer, having an extensive practice in Paris, which he
abandoned in 1604 to take part with De Monts, the Lieutenant-General of
Acadia, and again with Poutrincourt, in 1606-7, in the French colony on
the St. Croix river, Bay of Fundy. Three important works of his are
extant, the chief of which is an " Histoire de la Nouvelle France,"
first published in Paris in 1609, and to which was-appended a collection
of verse, written also by Lescarbot, entitled " Les Muses de la Nouvelle
France." Charlevoix, a later high authority, speaks of Lescarbot's
narrative as " sincere, well-informed, sensible, and impartial." The
author was [a man of much vivacity of manner, and has given us a
delightful insight into the habits and mode of life of the short-lived
Acadian colony. His verses, which were the first effort to woo the Muses
in Canada, are bright and polished, and among them is a poem written to
commemorate a battle between Membertou, a local Indian chief, and some
neighbouring savages. Another of his productions is a work on the "
Conversion of the Indians," with an account of Poutrincourt's voyage to
the country in 1610. Father Sagard's works also deal with missionary
effort among the Indians. He was a member of the R6collet fraternity, of
whose missions in the Huron country, from 1615 to 1629, he is partly the
historian. His work, though diffuse, is rich in details of Indian life
and customs: it is entitled "Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons," and
has not been translated into English. It appeared in Paris first in
1632, and again, in an enlarged form, in 1636, and to both editions is
appended a dictionary of the Huron language which Sagard prepared.
We now come to the most
important work of the period, the account of the ecclesiastical history
of Canada embraced in the famous "Jesuit Relations," a work which has
not been translated into English, but the good things in which have been
extracted and elaborated by the historian Park-man. The full title of
the work is " Relations des Jesuites, contenant ce qui s'est pass6 de
plus remarquable dans les Missions des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus
dans la Nouvelle France." The edition of the Relations in current use in
Canada is one in three portly volumes printed at Quebec in 1858 by order
of the government of the Province. The narratives, which are marked by
much simplicity of style, extend from the year 1632, with a few prior
fragments, to the year 1679; and in no other contemporary source can we
look: for so intimate a knowledge of the religious history of the
period, full as it is of thrilling incidents and the record of a zeal
and devotion unmatched in the annals of missionary enterprise. The field
of the first Jesuit mission, founded in 1611, was at Port Royal, Acadia,
though this was temporary in its character. The next mission was on the
St. Lawrence, under the Recollets, a reformed branch of the Franciscan
order, who came to the country with Champlain in 1615. The Recollets at
once extended their field into the home of the Hurons, and in 1625
called to their aid in their evangelizing labours the Jesuits, to whom
we are indebted for the long series of interesting Relations,
transmitted annually from the scattered fields of their work to the head
of their order at Quebec, and from there forwarded to France for
publication. As we have said, these Relations have not been translated
from the French ; the English reader is therefore referred for an
account of them to Justin Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of
America," to the valuable contributions of Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan to the
New York Historical Society, and to the writings of Mr. Parkman. In
Canadian sources, there are also interesting papers on the missions
contributed to the Canadian Monthly by Dr. W. II. Withrow, and by Mr.
Martin J. Griffin, of the Parliamentary Library at Ottawa. The reader
will find an account of the Huron Missions by the present writer in
Picturesque Canada, in the section on the "Georgian Bay and the Muskoka
Lakes."
One other important
narrative of the religious history of the colonies of France in the New
World which remains to be noticed, is Father Christian Le Clerq's "Etablissement
de la Foi," published in France in 1691, in two volumes, 12mo. This work
has been translated, under the title of " Establishment of the Faith,"
by Dr. J. G. Shea, of New York, where it was published with a memoir in
two volumes, 8vo, in 1881. Le Clerq, who was a Recollet, and
antagonistic to the Jesuits, came to Quebec from France in 1675, and
found the field of his missionary labours in the Gasp6 region. The
Jesuits are bitterly satirized by Le Clerq in his work. Another work
called forth by the Jesuit missions in Canada is the "Mceurs des
Sauvages Ameriquains," by Father Lafitau, and published in Paris in
1724. The author lived long among the Iroquois and made a close study of
that warlike tribe. His book is held in high estimation by collectors,
though it is rather overlaid with a theory of the Tartar origin of the
red race.
Belonging also to this
period are the narratives of the discoveries of Father Louis Hennepin,
who gives the first account in history of the Falls of Niagara, and who
was associated for a time with the Chevalier de la Salle in his
explorations in the West. Hennepin's "Canadian Discoveries and Voyages"
appeared at Utrecht, in 1697-8, and an earlier work, on the French
colony in Louisiana, was issued in Paris, in 1683. An English
translation of the latter, by Dr. John Gilmary Shea, an indefatigable
student of the early annals of the continent, appeared in New York, in
1880. Baron La Hontan's " New Voyages in America," first published at La
Haye, in 1703, is another notable, though unreliable, contribution to
the literature of discovery and travel in New France. The Baron, a young
Gascon, and a favourite of Frontenac, came to Canada in 1683, and was
the bearer of the Governor's despatches to Paris, conveying an account
of Phipp's failure before Quebec, in 1690. Parkman, in his " Frontenac
and his Times," characterizes La Hontan as a mendacious historian ; and
adds, that he was " a man in advance of his time, for he had the
caustic, sceptical, and 'mocking spirit, which, a century later, marked
the approach of the great Revolution."
La Salle in his
life-time left no record in literature of his important discoveries in
the West; but, though much is shrouded in obscurity, rich materials are
extant upon which many interesting volumes have been written. The chief
of these are Mr. Parkman's "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great
West," and the "Life of La Salle," by Dr. Jared Spark, who has also
written on the explorations of La Salle's sometime co-labourer, Father
Marquette. In the French language, M. Pierre Margry, the present learned
Assistant Custodian of the Archives of Marine and Colonies in Paris, has
shed the fullest light on La Salle's history ; though that writer's
claim for La Salle, of the honour of discovering the Mississippi, with
other statements made in his book, have been actively combated. The
chief of M. Margry's collections, which are considered of good
authority, is entitled "Memoire envoy6 en 1693 sur la decouverte du
Mississippi et des nations voisines par le Sieur de la Salle, en 1678,
et depuis sa mort par le Sieur de Tonti." The Chevalier Tonti was
governor of the Fort of St. Louis, in the Illinois river, during
Frontenac's regime, and took an active part in promoting the objects La
Salle had in view in his explorations in the Gulf of Mexico, in the
vicinity of which La Salle, in 1690, met a woful death.
The latest writer who
belongs to this period of Canadian history, in point of ability,
industry, and research, ranks admittedly the first. This is the Jesuit
Father, Pierre FranQois Xavier de Charlevoix, who came to Canada to
inspect the Jesuit Missions in the year 1720, and personally travelled
through the country from Acadia to the Gulf of Mexico. His narrative,
which is in six volumes, 12mo, did not appear in France until 1744: it
is entitled "Histoire et description G6nerale de la Nouvelle France,
avec le Journal Historique d'un Voyage fait par l'ordre du Roi." His
work, it has been remarked, is commensurate with his opportunities: his
faults and errors were those of his order. "Access," says Dr. Shea, " to
State papers and the archives of the religious order to which he
belonged, experience and skill as a practised writer, a clear head and
an ability to analyze, arrange, and describe, well fitted him for his
work." Another good authority remarks, "that in all the high qualities
requisite for a great historian, Charlevoix has no superior: he left no
subject relating to the history of the affairs of his wonderful order in
America untouched; and as the missions of the Company of Jesus among the
Indians were the principal purpose of the Fathers in both of the
Americas, the curiosity of Charlevoix permeated every accessible square
mile of their surface to learn the habits, the customs, and the secrets
of the life of the strange people his brethren sought to subdue to the
influence of the Cross." |