How did the French presence in North America differ from that of the English?

As we turn to the French explorers, let us repeat the litany of hardships that explorers encountered—intense cold, disease and death, unknown hazards and uncharted routes, Indians who might be friend or foe, and other Europeans who might be friend or foe. For Europeans, North America would be a "hard-won achievement," writes historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman. "At times it almost seemed as if the land itself was actively hostile to European lifeways."* With this in mind, we select three accounts of French expeditions in the St. Lawrence and Mississippi River regions:

• JACQUES CARTIER explored the northeast part of the continent intending to find the elusive passage to the Orient. Sailing west of Newfoundland he "discovered" the St. Lawrence River and explored the region in three voyages between 1535 and 1541. He met several Iroquoian tribal groups, establishing friendly relationships, though cautious on both sides. He did not find a route to China; indeed the large sea described to him by the Indians—"there was never man heard of that found out the end thereof"—was probably Lake Ontario.

  In this selection from the account of his second voyage (perhaps written by one of the sailors), Cartier sails to the welcoming Iroquois village of Hochelaga (later Montreal). While in winter quarters near another Indian village, the crew becomes incapacitated with scurvy and the debilitating cold (for Europeans) of northern winters. (On the last page you will find a selection from Cartier's dictionary of the Indians' language.)

  [Author undetermined, Brief récit, & succincte narration de la navigation . . . , 1545]


• SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN was the quintessential explorer. While aptly credited as the founder of Quebec in 1608, he spent little time there, leaving the small fortified post to others and heading further into the Canadian woodlands, where he functioned as the quintessential diplomat. Unlike the Spanish who brutally dominated the Indians for imperial gain, the French negotiated and traded with them, primarily for furs. But it was inevitable that alliances with some Indian groups would make the French foes of others. In this selection, Champlain and nine French soldiers join the Huron in an attack on the Iroquois ("discovering" Lake Champlain in the process). The Iroquois are initially shocked by the French use of firearms, yet within a few years the Iroquois would develop their own cache of modern guns through trade and raids.
  [Champlain, Journal of 1608]


• JACQUES MARQUETTE & LOUIS JOLIET were sent to explore the Mississippi River in 1673 and answer two questions: Was the Mississippi the long-sought water passage to the Pacific Ocean? Were the fabled kingdoms of Quivira and Theguaio real? They are able to answer the first (no), but not the second. They encounter friendly Illinois Indians and unfriendly mosquitoes, describe "monster" fish (catfish) and "wild cattle" (buffalo). Reaching the Arkansas River, they realize they are risking capture by the nearby Spaniards and decide to turn back and return to their post on Lake Michigan. Joliet's journals of the expedition were lost, so we read several selections from Marquette's account.
  [Marquette, 1673 expedition journal, publ. in Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 59, 1899]