Samuel de Champlain and Quebec
The Rise of New France
Textbook Notes
If New France rose… it must have
fallen!
 As we know from living in Canada today,
New France did not last: it rose to be
important and then fell
 Most of Canada was settled and its
culture formed by English influences,
except in Quebec and parts of the
Maritimes.
In the year 1600
 Fishing off the Grand Banks is drawing
500 ships per year
 Few sailors come ashore for longer than
to resupply themselves for the return trip
to Europe.
 No one wants to stay and create a
settlement: usually because of the
winter weather.
And then came…
Pierre du Gua de Mont
 King Henry IV did not
want to spend on
settlements, so he gave
a monopoly to de
Monts in fur trading if he
would bring settlers over
to begin establishing a
permanent settlement in
New France
 This would make de
Monts very wealthy!!
De Mont travels to New
France
 In 1604 de Monts came
to New France and
brought a mapmaker
named Samuel de
Champlain who had
been here the year
before.

http://www.civilization.ca/vmnf/explor/champ_e2.html
 They chose to settle
at Ile Ste-Criox in
what is now New
Brunswick in the Bay
of Fundy.
“ It is impossible to know this country without
having wintered here for having arrived in
autumn everything is very pleasant owing to
the woods, the fine landscape, and the good
fishing for cod and other species which are
found. But winter in this country lasts for six
months.”
Samuel de Champlain
 De Mont would not
give up so he moved
the settlement
across the Bay of
Fundy to Port Royal (
Nova Scotia today)
Port Royal
 Du Gua de Monts'
settlement at Port
Royal, Acadia, 1607
Illustration by Francis Back Collection of the Canadian Museum of
Civilization
port r oyal.jpg
order of good cheet in quebec.jpg
 This time they built close to the forest and
winterized the fort.
 They planted vegetables for food in the winter.
 Started the “Order of Good Cheer” to keep
spirits up.
The Order of Good Cheer
 “We spent this winter very pleasantly, and had good fare by
means of the Order of Good Cheer which I established, and
which everybody found beneficial to his health, and more
profitable than all sorts of medicine we might have used.”
Champlain, The Voyages, 1613
Now Champlain became
restless
 Champlain was a
self educated, rough
and ready man of
action
 He bugged de Mont
to let him explore
down the St.
Lawrence river and
North Eastern US
 A tireless promoter
and gifted map
maker (cartographer)
 Because he was so
good, de Mont let
him go.
 Samuel de Champlain
 In 1603, Champlain
mapped much of
sailed up the St.
northeastern North
Lawrence River and the
America and started a
Saguenay River; they
settlement in Quebec.
also explored the Gaspe
Champlain also
Peninsula. He returned
discovered the lake
to France in 1603, and
named for him (Lake
decided to search for a
Champlain, on the
Northwest Passage and
border of northern New
to settle the Gaspe
York state and Vermont,
Peninsula
named in 1609)
 In 1608, Champlain led 32 colonists to settle
Quebec in order to establish it as a fur-trading
center. Only nine colonists survived the first
bitter winter in Quebec, but more settlers
arrived the following summer. The first
habitants.
 See Quebec today
The Fur Trade Post of
Quebec is established
 The word “Quebec” came from
the Algonquin word “Kebec”
which means where the river
narrows.
 It was at the site where
Hocheloga had once stood in the
time of Cartier.
 For reasons not fully understood
the area had been abandoned by
the Iroquois for 50 years.
 Also far down river from Basque
whalers who were causing
trouble at Tadoussac upriver.
Coureurs de Bois
 The “runners of the woods” or Coureurs de
Bois were sent out by Champlain to live among
the native people to explore and learn the
language, customs, and way of life.
 Later these men became the Voyageurs.
 This was done to help with their fur trading
business
 In 1609, Champlain befriended the
Huron Indians and helped them fight the
Iroquois (this battle led to 150 years of
bitterness and hostility between the
Iroquois and the French). It was during
this venture that he discovered Lake
Champlain



In support of his Huron and
Algonkian trading partners, Samuel
de Champlain shot and killed two
Iroquois chiefs in 1609 at
Ticonderoga, near the lake that now
bears his name.
This incident helped touch off a long,
bitter war between the French and
the Iroquois Confederacy.
The Iroquois, like many of North
America’s First Peoples, possessed
a strong military organization and,
through skilful use of ambush and
knowledge of the terrain, nearly
destroyed New France in the first half
of the 1600s.
 In 1613, he again sailed up
the St. Lawrence, and
explored the Ottawa River.
 Two years later, after
returning from France, he
retraced this route and
ventured into what is now
northern New York state and
the eastern Great Lakes
(Georgian Bay of Lake Huron,
and Lake Ontario).
Then came the Kirke Brothers
 Champlain headed the Quebec
settlement for years, until the
English attacked and took the
Fort at Quebec in July, 1629.
Champlain once again returned
to France. After a French-British
peace treaty in 1632, Quebec
was once again French, and
Champlain returned as its
governor (1633). He died from a
stroke on Dec. 25, 1635.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/champlain.s
html
Privateers: sacked Tadoussac and
demanded the surrender of Quebec:
intercepted a supply convoy headed
for Quebec and attempted to starve
them out over the winter.
They surrendered in the Spring and
Champlain was taken prisoner to
England.
England so controlled Quebec for
the next 4 yeas until the English
King sold it back to the French in
1632.