Chapter 9: Coureurs des Bois. c1595–1640.

Warring factions of Catholics and Huguenots maintained a sanguinary state of affairs in France. Dying in January 1589, Catherine de Medici avoided the heartbreak of watching the collapse of the Valois dynasty and burying her last surviving son, King Henry III (1574-1589). Seven months after the death of his mother, encamped with his army outside Paris, Henry received a Dominican friar who claimed to have information so vital that only the king should hear it. Whispering mouth to ear, the fanatical Friar drew a knife from his tunic and dealt Henry III a fatal blow to the abdomen. Catherine’s legacy continued to shape France through her daughter with Henry II, Margaret of Valois, whom she had married to a Huguenot prince, Henry of Navarre – now crowned Henry IV (1589-1610). The first of France's Bourbon monarchs, the new king hoped to pacify his kingdom by renouncing his Protestant faith for Catholicism, reputedly saying, “Paris is well worth a mass.” But he did not forsake those of his former faith. In 1598 he issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted religious toleration to Huguenots and concluded the French Wars of Religion. The following year, amid accusations of infidelity and sterility, Henry divorced Margaret and promptly married her Florentine cousin, Marie de Medici.1 With France resurgent under his rule, Henry IV turned an eye to New France.2 In 1599 he granted a monopoly of the fur trade in New France to Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit and Francois Grave du Pont – two merchant sea captains of Huguenot background. They established a base in the Gulf of St Lawrence, but quarreled over the direction of the business, and both men soon returned to France.3 In 1603, shortly after Tonnetuit died, du Pont returned to New France with his nephew – a skilled geographer named Samuel de Champlain. Like King Henry, Champlain had Huguenot heritage but declared himself a Catholic. Granted the honorary title of Royal Geographer, Champlain would produce valuable charts of the St Lawrence Basin and write favorable reports of the land and its people. He also recorded the names of two regional tribes with distinct customs, dress, and language: one called the “Irocois,” or IROQUOIS; and another the “Algoumequin,” or ALGONQUIN. These tribes were among the first the French 1The threat of French incursions, whether Catholic or Huguenot, continued to shape the Portuguese settlement of Brazil. On January 1, 1590, Cristovao de Barros dedicated SAO CRISTOVAO to St Christopher, intending the city to be a bulwark against French forays into northeastern Brazil. And the high traffic of French corsairs off the northeast cape compelled Portuguese officials to fortify a new settlement on Christmas Day, 1599, christened NATAL. It was the last city founded in the 16th century. 2In 1598 Troilus de Mesgouez, an erratic colonial promoter, tried to settle a windswept isle in the North Atlantic long called “Sand” or SABLE Island. Paying homage to the royal house of Henry IV, Mesgouez restyled the island “Bourbon.” He recruited dozens of colonists, many of them beggars and criminals, and shipped them to an island abounding in sand, but devoid of stone, timber, or arable soil. Over the coming years, colonists robbed, murdered, and cannibalized each other; less than a dozen made it back to France. Bourbon Island, deserted again, reclaimed its old name of Sable Island. 3Chauvin and du Pont built a base overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence called TADOUSSAC – an Indian name meaning breasts, referring to a symmetrical pair of nearby mounds. While Chauvin was content to limit his operations to Tadoussac, du Pont hoped to build more strategic posts inland. He surveyed one site, at a confluence of rivers debouching into the St Lawrence, that he called TROIS RIVIERES – Three Rivers. But he found an even more promising site between Tadoussac and Trois Rivieres, where the Gulf of St Lawrence narrows to become the mouth of the St Lawrence River. Du Pont recorded the descriptive Indian name for the site at the narrows as “Quebecq” or QUEBEC. encountered in the region, and their names were extended to two distinct language groups now known as Iroquoian and Algonquian. In 1603 King Henry IV granted a monopoly of trade and colonization in New France between the 40th and 46th parallels to a loyal Huguenot veteran of the Wars of Religion, Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts. Having financed Tonnetuit and du Pont, de Monts had already sailed to Canada under their leadership. Now, in 1604, de Monts led 80 men across the Atlantic, including du Pont, Champlain, a Huguenot minister, and two Catholic priests. The clerics would settle many religious debates with fistfights, and Champlain confessed he did not know which faith had the better fighter. In May 1604, the French sighted the Acadian mainland, which Englishmen now claimed as “the Maine.” On the 24th of that month, while Catholics onboard celebrated the feast of John the Baptist, their ships reached the mouth of a broad and powerful stream. Champlain’s record of the river’s naming hints at the nuances of faith onboard, as he wrote, “we named the river St John, because it was on this saint's day that we arrived there.” But Protestants were loath to honor saints, so when Champlain wrote “we,” he must have been among the Catholics on board who, en masse, baptized the ST JOHN River. Sailing south along the coastline, the expedition sighted a river whose outflow increased near its mouth with the entry of two tributaries at cross-angles. From the river's transverse form, it was named for the Holy Cross: ST CROIX. It proved a shrewd choice of religious names, for the cross remained common to Catholics and Protestants alike, and its invocation served to unify the colonists' efforts. Indeed, Champlain credited the name to the colony's Protestant leader, “This place was named by Sieur de Monts the island of St Croix.” Here, de Monts commenced a French settlement. In early September, de Monts sent Champlain with a dozen men and two Indian guides to reconnoiter the coast. The party proceeded south skirting the mainland decked with forests of oak, pine, ash, and maple. Offshore, Frenchmen saw a mountainous island whose bare rocky summits lacked vegetation. Here, Champlain took direct credit for providing it with a name, “I named it isle des Monts Desert.” The original French name, punning on the Sieur de Monts, was later Anglicized as MOUNT DESERT Island. The French charted scores of isles, some just a few feet of rock protruding above water’s surface and others towering above sea-level. Southwest of Mount Desert Island, Champlain charted another island – rising some 550 feet above sea-level – which he described as the High Island or ISLE AU HAUT. As Champlain ventured south, he met more tribes of Algonquian speakers as canoes of Indians came alongside the French patache. As a gesture of goodwill, Frenchmen offered biscuits, tobacco, and other trifles to Indians; Indians returned the favor by gifting Frenchmen fresh fish and guiding them to a bountiful local river. Champlain transcribed the river’s Indian name, and thus the name of local Indians, as “Pentagoet” – now PENOBSCOT; the Algonquian name probably meant at down sloping rocks and as Champlain travelled upstream, he remarked upon the steep projecting rocks of the river’s banks. After Champlain exchanged more gifts with the tribe’s chief, Indians guided him to another key waterway. Broad and calm at its mouth, Algonquian speakers called it the still body of large water. Champlain transcribed this name as “Quinibequy” though posterity would adopt the spelling of KENNEBEC. Returning to St Croix in early October, Champlain’s party prepared for the looming winter. Confined to an island with no freshwater spring, surrounded by tides of ice drift, thirsty colonists drank filthy water and melted snow. The French celebrated Christmas with their cherished Spanish wine – the only alcohol they had that didn’t freeze. Snowed in, and lacking fresh food, colonists began succumbing to scurvy and other maladies; half the colony would not survive the winter. Survivors buried the Protestant minister and one Catholic priest in a common grave – wondering if they could now lie peacefully together. With the onset of spring, the French launched further explorations of the mainland. In summer, Champlain and de Monts arrived at the mouth of another coastal waterway, which Champlain reported as “Chouacoet.” The name corresponds to another Algonquian term loosely translated as land at the river mouth, now spelled SACO. With a new winter approaching, de Monts relocated the colony from St Croix Island to the Acadian mainland. 4 With this settlement, the French established a foothold on the continent. To maintain morale, Champlain proposed a new order of chivalry for the colonists of New France: “L’Ordre de Bon Temps,” The Order of Good Cheer. Each man took turns presiding over the order, leading the daily hunt to provide the best cuisine for fellow members. With Indian snowshoes, or raquettes, French hunters strode swiftly across the snows, bringing in fish and poultry, and new delicacies like moose and caribou. Wine and music kept French spirits in good cheer. In 1607, whilst the French shivered in Acadia and the English starved in Jamestown, another colony of English folk settled in Maine. Under the aegis of the Virginia Company of Plymouth, better known as the Plymouth Company, the English still claimed the land as part of “Northern Virginia.” Led by George Popham, English colonists landed near the mouth of a river called “Sagadehock,” an Algonquian term probably meaning mouth of a river, now spelled SAGADAHOC. The original name referred to the mouth of the Kennebec; linguistically, however, Sagadohoc is closely related to Saco. Over the bitter winter of 1607-08, in which the Kennebec froze, the Sagadohoc colony lost just one life – that of George Popham. Leadership then fell to Walter Raleigh’s nephew, Raleigh Gilbert. Unable to discover any mineral wealth, or barter any wares of worth from local Indians, Gilbert became restless. Upon receiving word from England that he had come into his inheritance, he lost all interest in the venture. In the first English ship crafted from Maine’s timber – christened the Virginia of Sagadohoc – Gilbert sailed back to England. Facing another freezing winter, and fearing French attacks, English colonists followed him home. The French, meantime, subsisted in North America. Stripped of his monopoly on the fur trade, de Monts returned to France – entrusting the fate of the colony to Champlain. In 1608, drawing on knowledge from his uncle, du Pont, Champlain urged three ships of colonists into the broad Gulf of St Lawrence and to the narrowing mouth of the St Lawrence River. On the cliffs overlooking the narrows – where a small fort with a few cannons could control access to and from the interior – Champlain formally founded the city of Quebec. After another bitter winter killed dozens of French colonists, only Champlain and eight men were left to man the fort. Their survival hinged upon alliances built with local Algonquian tribes and with another tribe that Champlain called the “Bon Iroquois,” the Good Iroquois. These alliances required the French, with their superior weaponry, to assist their allies in campaigns against enemy tribes. In 1609, Champlain accompanied a war party south of the St Lawrence 4The French dedicated their new Acadian settlement to the unifying kingship of Henry IV, “Port Royal.” Though intended as a temporary base rather than a permanent city, the site has been occupied ever since. into the territory of the “Mauvais Iroquois,” the Bad Iroquois, otherwise known as the Iroquois Confederacy. On the narrows of a long and slender lake, the smoke and thunder of French arquebuses sent enemy warriors fleeing. The victorious Good Iroquois took one Bad Iroquois captive, whom they subjected to a long and slow torture – burning his skin, extracting his fingernails, mutilating his body. Sickened by the ordeal, Champlain finally put an end to the suffering with a fatal shot from his arquebus. Holding the field, Champlain described a lake larger than any in Western Europe. In his published account he wrote, “The spot where the attack was made is in latitude 43 degrees and some minutes, and the lake was called Lake Champlain.” Champlain did not specify who called the lake CHAMPLAIN, but the list of candidates cannot be long. It was the largest lake yet discovered in America, but Frenchmen would soon discover five inland seas – each of which dwarfed Lake Champlain. Champlain described the pleasant, fertile shores of Lake Champlain, depopulated by internecine Indian wars. He heard reports of monstrous fish in its waters and observed one “with a snout two feet and a half long, and a double row of very sharp and dangerous teeth.” He also described several large islands in the lake, the largest of which Frenchmen would call Big Island: GRAND ISLE. In the vicinity of Lake Champlain, Samuel Champlain learned of another group of Algonquian-speaking Indians whom he called “Abenaquioicts” – Abenakis – whose name survives as ABENAKI. The Abenaki later joined a larger league of Indians called the Wabanaki Confederacy, whose territory encompassed almost the entirety of French Acadia. The tribal names of Abenaki and Wabanaki both derive from their name for Acadia, People of the East or the Dawnlight. In 1610, a Catholic fanatic climbed into the royal coach of Henry IV and plunged a knife into the king’s chest. The assassination brought to the throne Henry's young son Louis XIII (1610-1643), placed under the regency of his mother, Marie de Medici. With the young king’s two predecessors fatally stabbed, the royal family was pleased to see a new item of cutlery at the sumptuous Louvre Palace: the dull-edge table knife; officially, it was introduced to prevent uncouth guests picking food from their teeth with the old knife points. Practical, but harmless, the table knife became a staple of royal palaces across Europe. 5 Back in France in 1610, Champlain petitioned Marie de Medici to provide royal assistance to New France; the queen-regent rebuffed his requests. If the colony were to survive, Champlain would need to capitalize on the expansion of the fur trade. While in Paris, the 43 year-old Champlain signed a marriage contract with a 12-year-old girl, Helene Boulle, daughter of King Louis’ secretary. With a marriage contract forbidding him from cohabitating with his 5* In 1610 astronomer Galileo spied four moons of Jupiter and named them the Medici Stars, “Medicea Sidera,” after the ruling dynasty in his native Florence. In France, Marie de Medici – still mourning the loss of Henry IV – urged her Medici cousins and Galileo to name new stars for French monarchs; her requests were rebuffed. One of Galileo’s rivals, Simon Marius, proposed that the moons of planet Jupiter should bear names related to the Roman God Jupiter. The largest moon he named GANYMEDE, after a boy abducted by Jupiter to serve as the cup bearer of the gods. The next three moons he named for princesses raped by Jupiter: CALLISTO, IO, and EUROPA. wife for two years, Champlain returned to North America alone.6 Other French colonizers sailed to South America.7 Despite a provisional ban on settlement west of Montreal, the French pushed deep into the heart of the continent through licensed agents and illegal fur traders, called forest runners or “coureurs des bois.” Etienne Brule, the most resourceful of coureurs de bois, had first arrived in Quebec in 1608 – a teenage boy among eight men who survived the first winter. He soon became Champlain’s most trusted protege, escorting him on expeditions up the St Lawrence. In 1610, with Champlain's blessing, Brule sojourned with the Good Iroquois. Led deep into the interior, Brule lived freely among the Good Iroquois, exploring the vast lake lapping their territory and the surrounding forests of pine, maple, and birch. When Champlain saw him again in 1611, he remarked, “I also saw my French boy, who came dressed like an Indian. He was well pleased with the treatment received from the Indians…” Indeed, the young Frenchman had embraced Indian clothes, customs, diet, and language, acquiring a lifelong respect for the Good Iroquois. Many French Canadians turned up their noses, calling the same tribe “huron,” derived from an old French word meaning ruffian, and implying barbarity, and perhaps suggested by the tribesmen’s bristling haircuts; in lieu of the tribe’s native name, the French fastened this term of derision to Lake HURON. The earliest French transcription of the tribe’s Iroquoian name was “Houandate,” which appears in later forms such as WYANDOT, WYANDOTTE, and GUYANDOTTE. Brule returned to live among the Wyandotte and four years would pass before his next meeting with Champlain. In those years, Brule became an expert frontiersman, fur trader, and warrior. He also became a skilled translator but, since he was illiterate, he left no written record of Indian names or descriptions; his nonpareil knowledge of the interior had to be communicated verbally, in infrequent meetings with fellow French coureurs or missionaries. In 1615 Brule accompanied a dozen Good Iroquois south to rendezvous with an army under Champlain. Champlain had hoped to mass an army of 2,500 for an attack against the Bad Iroquois but could muster no more than 1000. Brule offered to gather more recruits from friendly Iroquoian speakers further south. Taking a detour around the dangerous ground of their enemies, Brule’s Wyandotte coasted the shores of another glittering sheet of water, not yet seen by any white man; his Wyandotte companions called it ONTARIO. The Iroquoian name, which appeared on maps decades later, is usually translated as Beautiful Lake. 8 Detouring to avoid the Bad Iroquois, Brule skirted another great lake emptying into Ontario. Living around the southeastern shores was an Iroquoian-speaking people whose name French Jesuits later transcribed in forms like “Rhiierrhonons” and “Eriehronon.” Stripped of the generic people, “hronon,” the tribal name signified cherry trees, groves of which grew around 6In honor of his teenage wife, Champlain christened an island neighboring Montreal, “Sainte Helene” or SAINT HELEN’S Island. 7Despite failures on the southeast coast of Brazil in the 16th century, the French now attempted to occupy the north coast. In 1612 French traders established a fortified post called “Saint Louis,” honoring the canonized French King Louis IX, as well the current king, Louis XIII. Within a few years, Portuguese authorities expelled the Frenchmen and restyled St Louis, SAO LUIS. To forestall further French occupation of Brazil’s northern coast, the Portuguese founded another city at the mouth of the Amazon, “Santa Maria de Belem,” St Mary of Bethlehem, now simply Bethlehem, BELEM; although honoring the Biblical birthplace of Jesus, the name also referenced the Belem district of Lisbon, from which many Portuguese mariners embarked. 8Travelling between Lake Huron and Lake Ontario in 1615, Champlain noted ancient Indian weirs, where fish could effectively be fenced off by trees planted in water. Champlain reported the Iroquoian name of “Tkaronto,” meaning trees standing in water. The name shifted south to the shores of Lake Ontario as TORONTO. the southern shores of Lake ERIE. With the Good Iroquois to the north, and the Bad Iroquois to the west, the Erie Indians attempted to remain neutral in the Iroquois Wars. But soon after French cartographers affixed their name to the lake, the Erie were all but obliterated in a final battle with the Bad Iroquois that left blood running knee deep. Caught in the bloodlust between the Good Iroquois and the Bad Iroquois, and refusing to ally themselves with either France or Britain, were other Iroquoian-speakers known as the “Neutrals.” In 1615 Brule probably met a Neutral clan living near the junction of Lakes Ontario and Erie that Jesuits later called “Onguiarahronon.” This name may be read as People, “hronon,” at the neck “Onguiara.” The neck referred to the channel of water between the two lakes, now spelled NIAGARA. Though Brule may have seen the spectacular falls in the Niagara River, no Frenchmen left a written description of them until the mid-17th century, by which time the tribe had already been annihilated in the Iroquois Wars. From among the Susquehannocks Brule raised an additional 500 men for Champlain’s 1615 campaign, but they arrived two days too late. Champlain had already launched a precipitous attack on a Bad Iroquois stronghold, receiving two arrow wounds for his efforts, before ordering a retreat. Arriving in the aftermath, Brule was captured by the Bad Iroquois and tied to a stake to be tortured. His captors began tearing out his beard and fingernails when a sudden storm swept across the clear sky. Convinced that Brule was a powerful man, protected by supernatural forces, the Bad Iroquois promptly released him. In 1615, after a three-year engagement, Marie de Medici oversaw the marriage of her 14 year-old son, King Louis XIII, to the 14-year-old Princess Anne of Austria, daughter of the Spanish king, Philip III. Their teenage union helped defer another war between France and Spain. As King Louis came of age, he cast off his mother’s influence and exiled her from Paris; after a series of intrigues, and attempted coups, he consented to her return. Overseeing the embellishment of Luxembourg Palace, Marie patronized artists from across Europe, including Nicolas Poussin, Orazio Gentilleschi, and Peter Paul Rubens – who painted 24 enormous paintings called the Marie de Medici Cycle. Political power shifted to Cardinal Richelieu, known as the “Eminence Rouge” for his cardinal red robes; and Pere Joseph, known as the “Eminence Gris,” for his grey Capuchin gown. Under the tutelage of these two clerics, King Louis directed a new round of persecution against Huguenots in France and reminded Jesuits and Recollet Franciscans of their duty to entrench Catholicism in New France. Richelieu agreed with Champlain that, to increase the colonial population, French colonists should be encouraged to marry baptized Indian women.9 Though Champlain made regular trips between France and New France, not until 1620 did his wife join him in the colony. Now in her 20s, Helene earnestly studied the local Iroquoian and Algonquian dialects and instructed Indian children in the Catholic catechism. But she rarely left Quebec and was often isolated during her husband’s extended absences. In 1624 she returned to France forever. With profits from the fur trade, Brule returned to France several times in the 1620s and even bought a house in Paris. But he preferred an uninhibited life in the wild lands of New France, venturing deeper and deeper into the interior, exploring the western waterways for a fabled passage to the Pacific. In 1622 or 1623 he made the furthest penetration yet into the continent, and later recounted his exploration to a Recollet missionary, Gabriel Sagard. Beyond 9A river rising in the northern waters of Lake Champlain and flowing to the St Lawrence was soon christened RICHELIEU. Lake Huron, he reported, “there is another very large lake which empties into it by a waterfall…” No name was provided for this large lake; it was specified only in relation to Lake Huron. Following Brule’s description, the French soon deduced that the lake lay at a higher altitude than any other, and that it was also more northerly. In brief, it was the Upper Lake: SUPERIOR. Since it proved to be the largest of all American lakes – and the largest freshwater lake in the world – many later observers inferred that the name referred to its superior dimensions. Brule was probably the first European to see four of the five greatest lakes in the Americas; he may have even sighted the fifth. And he must have heard a collective name for the lakes. Fluent in the Wyandotte language, he would have understood first that Ontario could signify either beautiful lake or great lake – for in the Wyandotte parlance the two concepts were entwined; and secondly, that when his Wyandotte companions spoke of “Ontario,” they were not referring to one great lake but to four of the five great lakes; excluding only Lake Superior. In his ever-more irregular contact with Champlain, fellow coureurs, and Jesuits, Brule may have been the first white man to voice the Wyandotte description of “Grands Lacs” or GREAT LAKES. After two decades in savage lands, Brule’s morality and loyalties were scarcely Christian or French or Indian. Although he married a bourgeois French woman, he fathered several illegitimate children with Indian women. His behavior outraged missionaries, with Sagard describing him as, “very vicious in character and much addicted to women.” He may have even betrayed his old mentor, Champlain. In the late 1620s, with England and France embroiled in another war, Brule was accused of aiding English privateers in their advance on Quebec. Champlain, alongside his ailing uncle du Pont, manned Quebec’s walls until 1629, when supplies of food and gunpowder were exhausted. After surrendering the fort city, Champlain was taken to England and held captive for several years while French diplomats negotiated an end to hostilities and the return of New France. Du Pont was never seen again. Returning to Canada in 1633, Champlain strove to rebuild French defenses and Indian alliances. Brule, suspected a traitor, could not be found. The Good Iroquois soon reported his death. Accusing Brule of conspiring with the Bad Iroquois, his old Wyandotte friends had subjected him to a slow death by torture – a process usually reserved for enemy warriors – and then cannibalized his body. In lieu of Brule, Champlain sent another young coureur to conclude a peace treaty with Algonquian-speaking Indians west of the Great Lakes, Jean Nicolet. Like Brule, Nicolet had spent years living among the western Indians, including one tribe whom Champlain knew as the “Cheveux Releves” or Standing Hair. Nicolet, who studied their language, understood the tribe’s name as “Outaouan,” the OTTAWA. Although concentrated in and around Lake Huron, many later migrated further northeast.10 Embarking from Lake Huron in the summer of 1634, guided by Wyandottes and Ottawas, Nicolet bypassed the passage to Lake Superior and continued west through a strait, across the northern waters of a fifth great lake, and onto a bay inset in its western shores. A contemporary summary in the Jesuit Relations describes Nicolet’s entrance in the west, carrying a pistol in each hand and wearing “a grand robe of China damask, all strewn with flowers and birds of many colors.” At the approach of the flamboyant foreigner, firing his pistols in the air, local Indians 10 By the late 17th century, the Ottawa Indians had settled deeper into Canadian territory, around a tributary river of the St Lawrence called OTTAWA. fled into the forest. When they returned, they came in such numbers that Nicolet could not count them. Holding thousands in awe, Nicolet concluded the desired treaty. The bay where Nicolet beached his canoe was for decades thence known as the “Baie des Puants” or the Bay of Stinkers. The name may be traced to a tribe whom Nicolet met in the area and recorded as the “Oinipigou”; this Algonquian term, applied by outside tribes, meant people of the stinking water. Later, the name “Ouinipigou” was attached to a lake south of the Bay of Stinkers: WINNEBAGO.11 Nicolet encountered other tribes beyond the lake’s western shores, including the “Maroumine,” whose name still designates regional rivers in forms such as MENOMINEE, MENOMONEE, and MENOMONIE. He mentioned the “Rasaouakoueton,” more accurately commencing with an “M,” as in MASCOUTIN, MASCOUTAH and MUSCATINE. And the “Pouutouatami,” a tribal name more commonly spelled POTAWATOMI; closely related to the Ottawa tribe, the Potawatomi spawned many placenames containing the word Ottawa: POTTAWATOMIE and POTTAWATTAMIE.12 Procuring information about other tribes in the region, Nicolet heard a name he reported as “Eriniouai” – the earliest attempt to transcribe ILLINOIS. The Illinois were not a single tribe but many confederated tribes, sharing common customs and a common tongue; indeed, “Illinois” may be traced to a term meaning Common Speaker. Although Nicolet never entered the territory of the Illinois Indians, he understood them to be a dominant force in the west. Since Nicolet provided no name for the great lake he is credited with discovering, French cartographers called it “Lac des Illinois.” This name prevailed on maps for decades, before the tribal name was fixed instead on the Illinois River and the surrounding country. Another proud and pugnacious tribe of whom Nicolet heard, but did not encounter, also entered recorded history. In his conversations with Indians living west of the Great Lakes, Nicolet heard about their enemies living further west, and recorded their name as “Naduesiu,” the SIOUX. A wide-ranging nation, dominating the western prairies, the Sioux found many places on the map. A major North American language group, distinct from Iroquoian and Algonquian, was later called Siouan. East of the Mississippi, for example, tent-dwelling Algonquian speakers called their homes wigwams; west of the great river, Siouan speakers called their tents teepees. On Christmas day, 1635, two months after suffering a debilitating stroke, Champlain died. De facto governor of New France for almost 30 years, he had nurtured its nascent colonial settlements and presided over a period of intense exploration, redrawing the maps from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Superior. His childless widow Helene renounced her rights to his inheritance and became an Ursuline nun. Champlain’s successors lacked his impetus to map the inland, with many colonial promoters looking elsewhere.13 Nicolet, who soon signed a marriage contract with Champlain’s 11-year-old goddaughter, might have furthered his mentor’s legacy in the west had he survived. 11 A related name further north is WINNIPEG, also in reference to the dirty water of the river. 12 Nicolet met dozens of tribes based north of the Great Lakes, several of whose names remain prominent on the maps of Canada: the “Assinpour,” later ASSINIBOINE; and the “Oumisagai,” later MISSISSAUGA. 13 In the mid-1620s, Pierre Belain d’Esnambuc established a French colony on the island of St Kitts, founding the capital on sheltered Low Land he called BASSETERRE. French claims to the island were soon contested by the English and the Spanish. In 1635, d’Esnambuc led French settlers to Martinique, and in the name of his patron, St Peter, established SAINT-PIERRE. In the same year, French colonists began arriving on Guadeloupe; the island’s two halves, joined by a narrow isthmus, were soon designated the Big Land, GRAND TERRE, and another Low Land, BASSE-TERRE. But in 1642, upon learning that the Good Iroquois were preparing another long and torturous ordeal for a Bad Iroquois captive, he set out against the St Lawrence current hoping to halt the murderous ritual. Caught in a storm that overturned his canoe, Nicolet drowned in the St Lawrence River.14 14 Repeatedly thwarted by the Portuguese in Brazil, the French finally planted a settlement on the northwestern frontiers of Brazil, in the land of Guyana, or Guiana. In 1643 they established a capital called CAYENNE, on a river of the same name; like Guiana, Guyana, and Guayana – Cayenne may be traced to a native term meaning Land of Many Waters. Exploiting the land’s fertility, the French established plantations cultivating sugarcane, indigo, and cayenne pepper. By the 1660s, they had established a permanent presence in FRENCH GUIANA.