New World reorder

Why historians have become excited
about Samuel de Champlain

by JULIET WATERS

In 1832, a fallen warrior chief of the Sac and Fox Nations decided to dictate his memoir. According to the Pulitzer Prize winning American historian David Hackett Fischer, The Autobiography of Black Hawk (which is still in print) “was a warning to leaders of all nations against the folly of false pride and blind prejudice.”

But Black Hawk also wanted to share his knowledge of good leaders, so he began his book with a story about two of them. One was an ancestor and war chief who, according to Black Hawk, lived “in the vicinity of Montreal” during the 17th century. The other was a Frenchman who appeared in the St-Lawrence Valley at the same time. “The son of the King of France,” according to Indian legend. The two men became great allies, trade partners and respected each other for many years. The memory of this Frenchman travelled over 1,000 miles, and was preserved orally for close to 100 years.

Black Hawk didn’t remember the Frenchman’s name, but according to Hackett Fischer, only one historical figure matches his description: Samuel de Champlain. “Many stories have been told about first encounters between American Indians and Europeans,” Hackett Fischer writes in Champlain’s Dream. “Few of them are about harmony and peace. The more one reads of these accounts, the more one learns that something extraordinary happened in New France during the early 17th century—something different from what took place in New Spain, New England and New Netherlands.”

This isn’t to say that all the French explorers treated Indians well. Montreal’s other major bridge is named after Jacques Cartier, who repaid the friendly Indians he met by kidnapping their children and bringing them back to France. On his second visit, he kidnapped five Indians, including a chief. Their families never saw them again.

But Champlain was different. “His ideal of humanity was very large,” even when it was “limited in strange, ironic ways…. He had deep flaws and made many enemies, responded badly to criticism, and could be very petty to rivals. But other men who knew this man wrote of him with respect and affection. Even his enemies did so.”

For many reasons, historians have been coming together recently in an effort to give Champlain a greater place in world history. Between 2004 and 2007, five volumes of collected essays have appeared in France, Canada and the U.S. Together, these books have prompted more than 100 new studies.

In part, this is because of a renewed interest in the subject of leadership, but also as a response to political correctness. In the 19th and early 20th century, New World explorers were treated like saints. In the last half of the 20th century they were viewed, often with good reason, as villains. Champlain is the rare one who emerges from scrutiny as a human being we can recognize.

If I’ve been dipping in and out of Champlain’s Dream since its release last fall, it’s not from any lack of fascinating material. Hackett Fischer is a great historical narrator. But the reading schedule of a weekly book columnist makes it hard to give due attention to an 800-page historical masterwork. And this really is a life work packed full of Champlain’s amazing travels, writing and astonishing artwork. Master politician, master illustrator, master adventurer (he made 27 Atlantic crossings), he was a man of tremendous knowledge and vision.

And it turns out that the Indian legend about him may not have been far off. There have always been rumours through history that Champlain was the illegitimate son of King Henry IV, one of the most progressive monarchs of European history. There may never be any actual proof, but Hackett Fischer makes a strong case for the possibility that these rumours were true.

Quebec’s founding father, a philosopher-king’s bastard? It’s obvious Hackett Fischer’s intentions are pure, but I hope he doesn’t sell the movie rights for cheap.

CHAMPLAIN'S DREAM BY DAVID
HACKETT FISHER, KNOPF CANADA,
HC, 834 PP., $37