Jacques Cartier 🗺⛵️ WORLD EXPLORERS 🌎👩🏽‍🚀

Jacques Cartier. Jacques Cartier, U.K., slash K.R.J. slash Cartier, also U.S., slash K.R.J., K.R.J. slash Cartier, Cartier, French, Quebec French, Breton, Jacques Carter, Dec. 31, 1491, Sept. 1, 1557, was a Breton explorer who claimed what is now Canada for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the shores of the St. Lawrence River, which he named the country of Canada's, after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Statacona, Quebec City, and at Hoshelaga, Montreal Island. Early Life. Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Malo, the port on the northeast coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine de Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness. First Voyage, 1534. In 1534, two years after the Duchy of Brittany was formally united with France in the Edict of Union, Cartier was introduced to King Francis I by Jean Levinor, Bishop of Saint-Malo and Abbot of Mont Saint-Michel, at the Manoir de Brion. The king had previously invited, although not formally commissioned, the Florentine explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano to explore the eastern coast of North America on behalf of France in 1524. Levinor cited voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as proof of Cartier's ability to lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World. On April 20, 1534, Cartier set sail under a commission from the king, hoping to discover a western passage to the wealthy markets of Asia. In the words of the commission, he was to discover certain islands and lands where it is said that a great quantity of gold and other precious things are to be found. It took him 20 days to sail across the ocean. Starting on May 10 of that year, he explored parts of Newfoundland, areas that now comprise the Canadian Atlantic provinces and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. During one stop at Ile Oiseau, Islands of the Birds, now the Roche Oiseau Federal Bird Sanctuary, northeast of Bryan Island in the Magdalene Islands, his crews slaughtered around 1,000 birds, most of them great auks, extinct since 1852. . Cartier's first two encounters with aboriginal peoples in Canada on the north side of Chaleur Bay, most likely the Micmac, were brief, some trading occurred. His third encounter took place on the shores of Gaspé Bay with a party of St. Lawrence Iroquoians, where on July 24, he planted a cross to claim the land for France. The 10-meter cross bearing the words Long Live the King of France took possession of the territory in the name of the king. The change in mood was a clear indication that the Iroquoians understood Cartier's actions. Here he kidnapped the two sons of their captain. Cartier wrote that they later told him this region where they were captured, Gaspé, was called by them Hongwado. The natives' captain at last agreed that they could be taken, under the condition that they return with European goods to trade. Cartier returned to France in September 1534, sure that he had reached an Asian land. Second Voyage, 1535-1536 Jacques Cartier set sail for a second voyage on May 19 of the following year with three ships, 110 men, and his two Iroquoian captives. Reaching the St. Lawrence, he sailed upriver for the first time, and reached the Iroquoian capital of Staticona, where Chief Donicona ruled. Cartier left his main ships in a harbor close to Staticona, and used his smallest ship to continue on to Hoshelaga, now Montreal, arriving on October 2, 1535. Hoshelaga was far more impressive than the small and squalid village of Staticona, and a crowd of over a thousand came to the river edge to greet the Frenchmen. The site of their arrival has been confidently identified as the beginning of the St. Maurice, where the bridge named after him now stands. The expedition could proceed no further, as the river was blocked by rapids. So certain was Cartier that the river was the Northwest Passage and that the rapids were all that was preventing him from sailing to China, that the rapids and the town that eventually grew up near them came to be named after the French word for China-Louisiana-Chine, the Lachine Rapids and the town of Lachine, Quebec. After spending two days among the people of Hoshelaga, Cartier returned to Staticona on October 11. It is not known exactly when he decided to spend the winter of 1535 to 1536 in Staticona, and it was by then too late to return to France. Cartier and his men prepared for the winter by strengthening their fort, stacking firewood, and salting down game and fish. From mid-November 1535 to mid-April 1536, the French fleet lay frozen solid at the mouth of the St. Charles River, under the Rock of Quebec. Ice was over a fathom, 1.8 meters thick on the river, with snow 4 feet, 1.2 meters, deep ashore. To add to the misery, Scurvy broke out, first among the Iroquoians, and then among the French. Cartier estimated the number of dead Iroquoians at 50. On a visit by Domaguya to the French fort, Cartier inquired and learned from him that a concoction made from a tree known as anetta, probably spruce beer, or arborvitae, would cure Scurvy. This remedy likely saved the expedition from destruction, allowing 85 Frenchmen to survive the winter. In his journal, Cartier states that by mid-February, out of 110 that we were, not 10 were well enough to help the others, a pitiful thing to see. The Frenchmen used up the bark of an entire tree in a week on the cure, and the dramatic results prompted Cartier to proclaim it a godsend, and a miracle. Ready to return to France in early May 1536, Cartier decided to kidnap Chief Donacona and take him to France, so that he might personally tell the tale of a country further north, called the Kingdom of Saugonay, said to be full of gold, rubies and other treasures. After an arduous trip down the St. Lawrence and a three-week Atlantic crossing, Cartier and his men arrived in Saint Malo on July 15, 1536, concluding the second, 14-month voyage, which was to be Cartier's most profitable. Third Voyage, 1541-1542. On October 17, 1540, Francis ordered the navigator Jacques Cartier to return to Canada to lend weight to a colonization project of which he would be captain general. However, January 15, 1541, saw Cartier supplanted by Jean-François de La Roque de Roberval, a Huguenot courtier and friend of the king named as the first lieutenant general of French Canada. Roberval was to lead the expedition, with Cartier as his chief navigator. While Roberval waited for artillery and supplies, he gave permission to Cartier to sail on ahead with his ships. On May 23, 1541, Cartier departed Saint Malo on his third voyage with five ships. This time, any thought of finding a passage to the Orient was forgotten. The goals were now to find the kingdom of Sauganay and its riches, and to establish a permanent settlement along the Saint Lawrence River. Anchoring at Stadicona, Cartier again met the Iroquoians, but found their show of joy and their numbers worrisome, and decided not to build his settlement there. Sailing a few kilometers upriver to a spot he had previously observed, he decided to settle on the site of present-day Cap Rouge, Quebec. The convicts and other colonists were landed, the cattle that had survived three months aboard ship were turned loose, earth was broken for a kitchen garden, and seeds of cabbage, turnip, and lettuce were planted.A fortified settlement was thus created and was named Charlebourg Royal. Another fort was also built on the cliff overlooking the settlement, for added protection. The men also began collecting what they believed to be diamonds and gold, but which upon return to France were discovered to be merely quartz crystals and iron pyrites, respectively, which gave rise to a French expression, Faux-comme les diamants du Canada, as false as Canadian diamonds. Two of the ships were sent on their journey home with some of these minerals on September 2nd. Having set tasks for everyone, Cartier left with the longboats for a reconnaissance in search of Sauganay on September 7th. Having reached Hachalaga, he was prevented by bad weather and the numerous rapids from continuing up to the Ottawa River. Returning to Charlebourg Royal, Cartier found the situation ominous. The Iroquoians no longer made friendly visits or peddled fish and game, but prowled about in a sinister manner. No records exist about the winter of 1541-1542 and the information must be cleaned from the few details provided by returning sailors.It seems the natives attacked and killed about 35 settlers before the Frenchmen could retreat behind their fortifications. Even though scurvy was cured through the native remedy, Thuja occidentalis infusion, the impression left is of a general misery, and of Cartier's growing conviction that he had insufficient manpower either to protect his base or to go in search of the Sauganay kingdom. Cartier left for France in early June 1542, encountering Roberville and his ships along the Newfoundland coast, at about the time Roberville marooned Marguerite de Laroque. Despite Roberville's insistence that he accompany him back to Sauganay, Cartier slipped off under the cover of darkness and continued on to France, still convinced his vessels contained a wealth of gold and diamonds. He arrived there in October, in what proved to be his last voyage. Meanwhile, Roberville took command at Charlebourg Royal, but it was abandoned in 1543 after disease, foul weather and hostile natives drove the would-be settlers to despair. Later life Cartier spent the rest of his life in Saint-Malo in his nearby estate, where he often was useful as an interpreter in Portuguese. He died at age 65 on September 1, 1557, during an epidemic, possibly of typhus, though many sources list his cause of death as unknown. Cartier is interred in Saint-Malo Cathedral. No permanent European settlements were made in Canada before 1605, when Samuel Champlain founded Port Royal in present-day Victoria Beach just outside Annapolis Royal. Having already located the entrance to the Saint-Lawrence on his first voyage, he now opened up the greatest waterway for the European penetration of North America. He produced an intelligent estimate of the resources of Canada, both natural and human, albeit with a considerable exaggeration of its mineral wealth. While some of his actions toward the Saint-Lawrence Iroquoians were dishonorable, he did try at times to establish friendship with them and other native peoples living along the Saint-Lawrence River, an indispensable preliminary to French settlement in their lands. Cartier was the first to document the name Canada to designate the territory on the shores of the Saint-Lawrence River. The name is derived from the Huron-Iroquois word kanada, or village, which was incorrectly interpreted as the native term for the newly discovered land. Cartier used the name to describe Staticona, the surrounding land and the river itself. And Cartier named Canadians the inhabitants, Iroquoians, he had seen there. Thereafter the name Canada was used to designate the small French colony on these shores, and the French colonists were called Canadians, until the mid-19th century, when the name started to be applied to the loyalist colonies on the Great Lakes and later to all of British North America. In this way Cartier is not strictly the European discoverer of Canada as this country is from sea to sea. Eastern parts had previously been visited by the Norse, as well as Basque, Galician and Breton fishermen, and perhaps the Corduroyal brothers and John Cabot, in addition of course to the natives who first inhabited the territory. Cartier's particular contribution to the discovery of Canada is as the first European to penetrate the continent, and more precisely the interior eastern region along the Saint-Lawrence River. His explorations consolidated France's claim of the territory that would later be colonized as New France, and his third voyage produced the first documented European attempt at settling North America since that of Lucas Vosquez de Aon in 1526-27. Cartier's professional abilities can be easily ascertained. Considering that Cartier made three voyages of exploration in dangerous and hitherto unknown waters without losing a ship, and that he entered and departed some 50 undiscovered harbors without serious mishap, he may be considered one of the most conscientious explorers of the period. Cartier was also one of the first to formally acknowledge that the New World was a separate landmass from Europe-Asia. Rediscovery of Cartier's First Colony. On August 18, 2006, Quebec Premier Jean Thierry announced that Canadian archaeologists had discovered the precise location of Cartier's . The colony was built at the confluence of the Rivière du Cap Rouge with the Saint-Lawrence River and is based on the discovery of burnt wooden timber remains that had been dated to the mid-16th century, and a fragment of a decorative ice-toriado plate manufactured in Fianca, Italy, between 1540 and 1550, that could only have belonged to a member of the French aristocracy in the colony. Most probably this was the seer de Roberville, who replaced Cartier as the leader of the settlement. This colony was the first known European settlement in modern-day Canada since the circa 1000 AD L'Anse aux Meadows Viking village in northern Newfoundland. Its rediscovery has been hailed by archaeologists as the most important find in Canada since the L'Anse aux Meadows rediscovery. Ships. Monuments, remembrances and other art. Jacques Cartier Island, located on the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador in the town of Carpoon, is said to have been named by Jacques Cartier himself on one of his voyages through the Strait of Bellisle during the 1530s. Popular References. The FR Banque Jacques Cartier existed, and printed banknotes, between 1861 and 1899 in Lower Canada, then Quebec. It was folded into the FR Banque Provinciale du Canada, and later still the National Bank of Canada. In 2005, Cartier's was named one of the 100 most important books in Canadian history by the Literary Review of Canada. Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip referenced Jacques Cartier in their 1992 song Looking for a Place to Happen. The song deals with the subject of European encroachment in the New World and the eventual annexation of indigenous lands in North America.