Cartier, Jacques
1491–1557

A mariner from Saint-Malo in Brittany, France, Jacques Cartier had probably visited Brazil and Newfoundland before receiving a commission from King François I (1494–1547) in 1534 to undertake a voyage in search of treasure and a sea route to Asia. Following the established routes of French fishermen, Cartier sailed west to Newfoundland and then entered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. He was consistently suspicious of the natives he encountered, referring to them as "wild and savage folk" and firing on them when they approached to trade.

Cartier's most important encounter occurred at Gaspé, where some Iroquoians from the Saint Lawrence River, led by Donnacona (d. ca. 1539), had established a summer fishing camp. Cartier's men erected a cross there with the king's coat of arms and gave presents to the Indians. The latter appeared to object strenuously to the captain's attempt to claim their land. Cartier attempted to assure them that his aims were friendly and then kidnapped two of Donnacona's sons before setting sail for France with them on board.

A new expedition set out in 1535 with the two Iroquoian boys pressed into service as interpreters and guides. They showed Cartier the entrance to the great river and led him up to their village, Stadacona, on the site of present-day Quebec City. Donnacona's people seemed intent on cementing an alliance and trade connection with the French; they actively discouraged them from further explorations that might undermine their own exclusive access to European goods. Brushing aside objections, Cartier took his men upstream in small boats to visit the large town of Hochelaga on the site of Montreal. Returning to Stadacona, the French built a fort and prepared to wait until spring.

The winter of 1535 to 1536 turned out to be cold beyond anything they could imagine; scurvy set in, and one by one the crew succumbed to the disease until Donnacona's son showed them how to brew an effective remedy from white cedar. Through this time of hunger and disease, Cartier remained suspicious of the Indians, ordering his men to go armed at all times, much to the consternation of his hosts. On leaving Stadacona in the spring, he took the precaution of seizing the two boys once again, along with Donnacona and a handful of others; hostages, guides, and living museum exhibits, the captive Iroquoians might have been useful to a future expedition had any of them survived.

Cartier did not return to Canada until 1541, when a third voyage was launched, much more ambitious than the others. Five ships carrying fifteen hundred men took part, and they came equipped to establish a French settlement colony. For obvious reasons, Cartier chose a site some distance to the west of Stadacona and ordered his men to fortify their settlement against the increasingly hostile natives of the country. The next spring, Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval (ca. 1500–1560), arrived to take charge of the colony and Cartier hastily deserted, carrying to France a cargo of worthless stones he thought were diamonds. The subsequent history of the colony, obscurely documented, appears to have been short and disastrous. The French would only return sixty years later to the country on which Cartier had bestowed the name Canada.

see also Empire, French; European Explorations in North America

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Braudel, Fernand, ed. Le monde de Jacques Cartier: L'aventure au XVIe siècle. Montreal: Libre-expression, 1984.

Cook, Ramsay, ed. The Voyages of Jacques Cartier. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.

Gagnon, François Marc. Jacques Cartier et la découverte du Nouveau Monde. Quebec: Musée du Québec 1984.

Trudel, Marcel. "Cartier, Jacques." Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 1, 154-172. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966.

Trudel, Marcel. The Beginnings of New France, 1524–1663. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973.