Jacques Cartier (1491-1557)

French explorer and navigator

Sources

Early Career. Born in 1491, Jacques Cartier was a French mariner who sailed out of the port city of St. Malo. His early life remains a mystery, although we know he undertook voyages of exploration to Newfoundland and Brazil during the early decades of the sixteenth century. His success on those trips brought him to the attention King Francis I of France, who hoped to discover either New World wealth or a passage to the Far East. Francis consequently subsidized two exploratory trips by Cartier to North America in the mid 1530s.

First Voyage. Cartier’s first voyage to mainland North America took place in 1534. After crossing the Atlantic and charting the western shore of Newfoundland, he sailed into Chaleur Bay, where he met a party of Micmac Indians in canoes. Already experienced in the fur trade, the Micmacs eagerly swapped their beaver skins for French manufactured goods such as kettles and knives. Later, in Gaspé Bay, Cartier encountered members of the Stadacona tribe, who had traveled down the St. Lawrence River to fish. Cartier initially enjoyed warm relations with the Stadaconans and their leader, Donnacona, but soon upset the Indians by erecting a cross on land the tribe regarded as its own. The Frenchman further antagonized the Stadaconans by kidnapping Donnacona’s two sons, Taignoagny and Domagaya, so that they could learn French and serve as interpreters on his next voyage. While these heavy-handed and offensive acts angered Donnacona, his desire for trade and need for allies in the Stadaconans’ struggle with the powerful Micmacs compelled him to tolerate the French actions.

Second Voyage. Cartier’s second voyage to mainland North America engendered even greater hostility between the French and the Stadaconans. Sailing in 1535, he had Taignoagny and Domagaya guide him up the St. Lawrence River to the Stadaconans’ village near the site of present-day Quebec. Happy that Cartier had returned with Donnacona’s sons, the Stadaconans welcomed the French warmly and treated them as close allies. Conflicting aims and cultural differences, however, soon resulted in animosity between the Europeans and Stadaconans. Much of this hostility stemmed from Donnacona’s desire to establish an exclusive trading relationship that would allow his tribe to monopolize the fur trade in the St. Lawrence valley. Cartier’s insistence on traveling upriver to visit the rival Hochelaga Indians consequently angered the Stadaconan headman greatly. The Indians’ tendency to carry off items in accordance with their belief that unused articles were free for the taking, along with Cartier’s construction of a small fort on tribal land and the outbreak of a deadly disease among the Stadaconans further poisoned relations and left the two sides on the brink of hostilities. Even Cartier’s departure generated ill will because of his decision to kidnap Donnacona and nine other Native Americans in hopes that a new Stadaconan leader would be more favorably disposed to the French. None of the abducted Indians ever returned to their native land.

Third Voyage. While relations had become increasingly antagonistic during Cartier’s first two visits, the French and the Stadaconans had managed to avoid outright hostilities. Such was not the case when Cartier returned to the St. Lawrence valley in 1541 under orders from Viceroy Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval to establish a permanent trading settlement. Sailing up-river past the Stadaconan villages, Cartier founded the fortified colony of Charlesbourg-Royal on a hill overlooking the St. Lawrence River. At first the Indians traded with the French settlement. Cartier’s appropriation of Stadaconan territory, his failure to return the Native Americans he had taken in 1536, and his decision to deny the tribe a trading monopoly infuriated the Stadaconans, however, and led them to war with the French. Concluding that Charlesbourg-Royal was too strong for a frontal assault, the Stadaconans opted for an Indian-style war of attrition in which they ambushed Frenchmen foraging for food or firewood. Their strategy proved highly effective: during the winter of 1541–1542, they killed thirty-five of Cartier’s men. Along with Roberval’s failure to arrive with reinforcements, unending Indian hostility persuaded Cartier to abandon Charlesbourg-Royal in June 1542.

France-Roy. Just a month after Cartier departed, Roberval sailed up the St. Lawrence with 150 new colonists and established a fortified hilltop colony called France-Roy near the site of Charlesbourg-Royal. The new French settlement did not face Stadaconan attacks because Roberval kept his men from antagonizing the Indians and because his colony was larger and better armed than Cartier’s. Much of the Indians’ earlier animosity toward Cartier, moreover, was personal in nature. Continued cold relations with the Indians nonetheless helped persuade Roberval to abandon France-Roy in the spring of 1543.

Temporary End. Unlike Hernando de Soto, neither Cartier nor Roberval ventured to North America expressly looking for conflict with the Indians. They hoped, rather, to avoid hostilities with the Native Americans while they established trading relations and searched for valuable mineral deposits. Sharp cultural differences, French appropriation of lands that the Indians regarded as their own, trade disputes, individual acts of depredation, and the French habit of kidnapping Native Americans nonetheless ensured that, good intentions aside, they ended up warring with the Stadaconans. Such conflicts proved especially costly for the French because they were not strong enough to establish colonies in North America in the face of Indian hostility. France, in fact, was to mount no further attempt to colonize the St. Lawrence valley until after 1600. Once again, therefore, the Indians of North America proved themselves able to defeat a sizable, well-supported European invasion.

Sources

Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660, 2 volumes (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1976);

Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 4: History of Indian-White Relations (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1988).