Quebec City | Jacques Cartier at Amerindian village of Stadacona in 1535-36 | Age of Exploration

Welcome to the History of North America. I'm Marc Vinette. The first known penetration of the interior of the continent through the St. Lawrence River Gateway took place in 1535, when Jacques Cartier returned as leader of a new expedition. Pressing upstream in three small vessels, he reached the Amerindian village of Stadacona, near the present site of the city of Quebec. A little more than 150 miles farther upstream, he reached the end of navigation at a large island in the river. Here, he found another Amerindian village, called Hachalaga, on the site of the present city of Montreal. From the height behind it, to which he gave the name Mont-Real, better known today as Mont-Royal, he could see the foaming Lachine Rapids blocking the way to the upper waters of the St. Lawrence. At Stadacona, Cartier and his followers passed a bitter winter with the help of Chief Donacona. Many of his party died from cold and scurvy before he could set sail for France the following spring. The epic voyages of this titan of history have become legendary and are well worth a close study. With the help of our friends at LibriVox, let's continue this fascinating story. At the time when Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence, a great settlement of the Huron-Iroquois Indians existed at Quebec. Their village was situated below the heights, close to the banks of the St. Charles, a small tributary of the St. Lawrence. Here, the lodges of the tribe gave shelter to many hundred people. Beautiful trees, elm and ash and maple and birch, as fair as the trees of France, adorned the banks of the river and the open spaces of the woods waved with their luxuriant growth of Indian corn. Here were the winter home of the tribe and the wigwam of the chief. From this spot, hunting and fishing parties of Indians descended the great river and wandered as far as the pleasant country of Chelure Bay. Sixty-four years later, when Champlain ascended the St. Lawrence, the settlement and the tribe that formerly occupied the spot had vanished. But in the time of Cartier, the Quebec village, under its native name of Staticona, seems to have been, next to Hoshilega, the most important lodgment of the Huron-Iroquois Indians of the St. Lawrence Valley. As the French navigators wandered on the shores of the island of Orleans, they fell in with a party of the Staticona Indians. These, frightened at the strange faces and unwanted dress of the French, would have taken to flight, but Cartier's two Indians, whose names are recorded as called after them in their own language. Great was the surprise of the natives, not only to hear their own speech, but also to recognize in Taignoigny and Domaguaya, two members of their own tribe. The two guides, so far as we can judge from Cartier's narrative, had come down from the Huron-Iroquois settlements on the St. Lawrence to the Gaspé country, whence Cartier had carried them to France. Their friends now surrounded them with tumultuous expressions of joy, leaping and shouting as if to perform a ceremonial of welcome. Without fear now of the French, they followed them down to their boats, and brought them a plentiful supply of corn and of the great pumpkins that were ripening in their fields. The news of the arrival of the strangers spread at once through the settlement. To see the ships, canoe after canoe came floating down the river. They were filled with men and women eager to welcome their returned kinsmen, and to share in the trinkets which Cartier distributed with a liberal hand. On the next day, the chief of the tribe, the Lord of Canada, as Cartier calls him, Donnacona, by name, visited the French ships. The ceremonial was appropriate to his rank. Twelve canoes filled with Indian warriors appeared upon the stream. As they neared the ships, at a command from Donnacona, all fell back except two, which came close alongside the Amarillon. Donnacona then delivered a powerful and lengthy harangue, accompanied by wondrous gesticulations of body and limbs. The canoes then moved down to the side of the Grand Armine, where Donnacona spoke with Cartier's guides. As the Indians told him of the wonders they had seen in France, he was apparently moved to very transports of joy. Nothing would satisfy him but that Cartier should step down into the canoe that the chief might put his arms about his neck in sign of welcome. Cartier, unable to rival Donnacona's oratory, made up for it by causing the sailors to hand down food and wine to the keen delight of the Indians. This being done, the Waiting only for a favorable tide, the ships left their anchorage, and, sailing past the island of Orleans, cast anchor in the St. Charles River, where it flows into the St. Lawrence near Quebec. The Amarillon was left at anchor out in the St. Lawrence, in readiness for the continuance of the journey, but the two larger vessels were moored at the point where a rivulet, the Lorette, runs into the St. Charles. It was on the left bank of the Lorette that Cartier's fort was presently constructed for his winter occupancy. Some distance across from it, on the other side of the St. Charles, was Statacona itself. Its site cannot be determined with exactitude, but it is generally agreed that it was most likely situated in the space between the present Rue de la Fabrique and the Côté St. Geneviève. The Indians were most friendly when, on September 14, the French had sailed into the St. Charles, Donnacona had again met them, accompanied by 25 canoes filled with his followers. The Indians, by their noisy conduct and strange antics, gave every sign of joy over the arrival of the French. But from the first, Cartier seems to have had his misgivings as to their good faith. He was struck by the fact that his two Indian interpreters, who had rejoined the ranks of their countrymen, seemed now to receive him with a sullen distrust and refused his repeated invitations to re-enter his ships. He asked them whether they were still willing to go on with him to Hochelaga, of which they had told him, and which it was his purpose to visit. The two Indians assented, but their manner was equivocal and inspired Cartier with distrust. The day after this, a great concourse of Indians came again to the river bank to see the strangers. But Donnacona and his immediate followers stood apart under a point of land on the river bank, sullenly watching the movements of the French, who were busied in setting out buoys and harbour marks for their anchorage. Cartier, noticing this, took a few of his sailors, fully armed, and marched straight to The interpreter came forward and entered upon a voluble harangue, telling the French captain that Donnacona was grieved to see him and his men so fully armed, while he and his people bore no weapons in their hands. Cartier told Tyagnogni, who had been in France, that to carry arms was the custom of his country, and that he knew it. Indeed, since Donnacona continued to make gestures of pleasure and friendship, the explorer concluded that the interpreter only, and not the Indian chief, was the cause of the distrust. Yet he narrates that before Donnacona left them, all his people at once with a loud voice cast out three great cries, a horrible thing to hear. The Indian war whoop, if such it was, is certainly not a reassuring sound, but Cartier and Donnacona took leave of one another with repeated assurances of goodwill. The following day, September 16, the Indians came again, about 500 of them, so Cartier tells us, gathered about the ships. Donnacona, with 10 or 12 of the cheapest men of the country, came on board the ships, where Cartier held a great feast for them, and gave them presents in accordance with their rank. Tyagnogni explained to Cartier that Donnacona was grieved that he was going up to Hochelega. The river, said the guide, was of no importance, and the journey was not worthwhile. Cartier's reply to this protest was that he had been commanded by his king to go as far as he could go, but that, after seeing Hochelega, he would come back again. On this Tyagnogni flatly refused to act as guide, and the Indians abruptly left the ship and went ashore. Cartier must indeed have been perplexed, and perhaps alarmed, at the conduct of the Stadacona natives. It was his policy throughout his voyages to deal with the Indians fairly and generously, to avoid all violence towards them, and to content himself with bringing to them the news of the gospel and the visible signs of the greatness of the king of France. The cruelties of the Spanish conquerors of the south were foreign to his nature. The few acts of injustice with which his memory has been charged may easily be excused in the light of the circumstances of his age, but he could not have failed to realize the possibilities of a sudden and murderous onslaught on the part of the Indians, who thus combined a greedy readiness for feasting and presents with a sullen and brooding distrust. Donacona and his people were back again on the Moro, still vainly endeavoring to dissuade the French from their enterprise. They brought with them a great quantity of eels and fish as presents, and danced and sang upon the shore opposite the ships, in token of their friendship. When Cartier and his men came ashore, Donacona made all his people stand back from the beach. He drew in the sand a huge ring, and into this he led the French. Then, selecting from the ranks of his followers, who stood in a great circle watching the ceremony, a little girl of ten years old, he led her into the ring and presented her to Cartier. After her, two little boys were handed over in the same fashion, the assembled Indians rending the air with shouts of exultation. Donacona, in true Indian fashion, improved the occasion with a long harangue, interpreted to mean that the little girl was the niece of the chief, and one of the boys the brother of the interpreter himself, and that the explorer might keep all these children as a gift, if he would promise not to go to Hoshalega. Cartier at once, by signs and speech, offered the children back again, whereupon the other interpreter, Domaguaya, broke in, and said that the children were given in good will, and that Donacona was well content that Cartier should go to Hoshalega. The three poor little children were carried to the boats, the two interpreters wrangling and fighting the while as to what had really been said. But Cartier felt assured that the treachery, if any were contemplated, came only from one of them, Taignoagni. As a great mark of trust, he gave to Donacona two swords, a basin of plain brass, and a ewer, gifts which called forth renewed shouts of joy. Before the assemblage broke up, the chief asked Cartier to cause the ship's cannons to be fired, as he had learned from the two guides that they made such a marvellous noise as was never heard before. Our captain answered, writes Cartier in his narrative, that he was content, and by and by he commanded his men to shoot off twelve cannons into the wood that was hard by the people and the ships, at which noise they were greatly astonished and amazed, for they thought the heaven had fallen upon them, and put themselves to flight, howling, crying, and shrieking, so that it seemed hell was broken loose. Next day the Indians made one more attempt to dissuade Cartier from his journey. Finding that persuasion and oratory were of no avail, they decided to fall back upon the and to frighten the French from their design. Their artifice was transparent enough, but to the minds of the Indians was calculated to strike awe into the hearts of their visitors. Instead of coming near the ships, as they had done on each preceding day, the Indians secreted themselves in the woods along the shore. There they lay hid for many hours, while the French were busied with their preparations for departure. But later in the day, when the tide was running swiftly outward, the Indians in their canoes came paddling down the stream towards the ships, not, however, trying to approach them, but keeping some little distance away, as if in expectation of something unusual. The mystery soon revealed itself. From beneath the foliage of the river bank a canoe shot into the stream, the hideous appearance of its occupants contrasting with the bright autumn tints that were lending their glory to the Canadian woods. The three Indians in the canoe had been carefully made up by their fellows as stage devils, to strike horror into Cartier and his companions. They were dressed like devils, being wrapped in dog skins, white and black, their faces besmeared as black as any coals, with horns on their heads more than a yard long. The canoe came rushing swiftly down the stream, and floated past the ships, the devils who occupied the craft, making no attempt to stop, not even turning towards the ships, but counterfeiting, as it were, the sacred frenzy of angry deities. The devil in the center shouted a fierce harangue into the air. No sooner did the canoe pass the ships than Don Acona and his braves, in their light barks, set after it, paddling so swiftly as to overtake the canoe of the devils, and seize the gunwale of it in their hands. The whole thing was a piece of characteristic Indian acting, viewed by the French with interest, but apparently without the faintest alarm. The devils, as soon as their boat was seized by the profane touch of the savages, fell back as if lifeless in their canoe. The assembled flotilla was directed to the shore. The devils were lifted out rigid and lifeless, and carried solemnly into the forest. The leaves of the underbrush closed behind them, and they were concealed from sight, but from the deck of the ship the French could still hear the noise of cries and incantations that broke the stillness of the woods. After half an hour the Indians issued from among the trees. Their walk and their actions were solemnity itself, while their faces simulated the religious ecstasy of men who had spoken with the gods. The caps that they had worn were now placed beneath the folds of their Indian blankets, and their clasped hands were uplifted to the autumn sky. The Indians cried out three times upon the name of Jesus, then kept shouting, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Jacques Cartier. Cartier very naturally called to them to know what was Cartier urged the Indian to explain, and the guide, still acting the part of one who bears tidings from heaven, said that the great god, Gedragni, had spoken at Hoshilega, and had sent down three spirits in the canoe, to warn Cartier that he must not try to come to Hoshilega, because there is so much ice and snow in that country, that whoever went there should die. In the face of this awful revelation, Cartier showed a cheerful and contemptuous skepticism. Their god, he said, must be a fool and a noodle, and that, as for the cold, Christ would protect his followers from that, if they would but believe in him. The Indians asked Cartier if he had spoken with Jesus. Cartier answered no, but said that his priests had done so, and that Jesus had told them that the weather would be fine. The Indians professed a great joy at hearing this, and set off into the woods, the whole band of Indians, singing and dancing. Their plan had failed, but they evidently thought it wiser to offer no further opposition to Cartier's journey, though all refused to go with him. The strange conduct of Donicona and his Indians is not easy to explain. It is quite possible that they meditated some treachery towards the French. Indeed, Cartier, from first to last, was suspicious of their intentions, and was careful after his return to Donicona never to put himself within their power. To the very end of his voyage, he seems to have been of the opinion that if he and his men were caught off their guard, Donicona and his braves would destroy the whole of them for the sake of their coveted possessions. The stories that he heard now and later from his guides of the horrors of Indian war, and of a great massacre at the Bic Islands, certainly gave him just grounds for suspicion, and counseled prudence. Some writers are agreed, however, that the Indians had no hostile intentions whatever. The newcomers seemed to them wondrous beings, floating on the surface of the water in great winged houses, causing the thunder to roll forth from their abode at will, and, more than all, feasting their friends, and giving to them such gifts as could only come from heaven. Such guests were too valuable to lose. The Indians knew well of the settlement at Hochelega, and of the fair country where it lay. They feared that if Cartier once sailed to it, he and his presence, the red caps and the brass bowls sent direct from heaven, would be lost to them forever. Be this as it may, no further opposition was offered to the departure of the French. The two larger ships, with a part of the company as guard, were left at their moorings. Cartier and the other gentlemen of the expedition, a company of fifty in all, set out for Hochelega. Saint Lawrence was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome, under Pope Sixtus II, who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman Emperor Valerian ordered in 258 A.D. I'm Mark Vinette, and I hope you're enjoying the ride.