Chapter 1
Looking for China — and Finding Quebec! (1524–1610)
In This Chapter
Looking at the role of the French in founding Quebec
The New World nation of Quebec was founded by adventurers, missionaries, and women and men who wanted to improve their lot and dreamed of a better world. When they crossed the ocean in the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe was experiencing an unprecedented period of growth. Portugal, Spain, and England were seeking new routes to China. Taking advantage of new scientific discoveries, sailors set out to sea, crossed the Atlantic, discovered America, and founded colonies.
France, 16th-century Europe’s leader in wealth and population, made the first move to colonize Quebec. In this chapter, I fill you in on when and why French leaders decided to set out for the New World, the circumstances that fed their curiosity about these vast western lands, and the ambitions that drove the French state. I also explain what the early explorers discovered (hint: they weren’t the first people there) and what kind of relationship developed between the French and the indigenous peoples. Finally, I tell you why the French decided to settle in the St. Lawrence Valley and found Quebec.
Setting Out to Conquer the West
In the 16th century, all western European powers were curious about the New World. This desire to travel and look beyond their shores took shape in the context of the Renaissance, an extraordinary and unprecedented period of artistic and intellectual growth and economic and political upheaval.
Why the Europeans wanted to explore
A combination of factors explains western Europeans’ sudden desire to explore a vast world:
The fall of Constantinople: Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, was the gateway to Asia for Europeans. Caravans brought back silks, precious gems, and spices (which were used to preserve staple foods). Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, which spelled trouble for the Europeans: The gateway to Asia was now closed. To import these riches from the Orient again, new routes had to be explored to avoid Arab and Muslim peoples who were hostile to Christian Europe, and for good reason: Christians had repeatedly invaded their part of the world during the bloody Crusades of the Middle Ages.
The search for gold: In the 15th century, a number of European cities experienced rapid growth. Paris, Naples, Venice, and Florence each had more than 100,000 inhabitants. With the economy flourishing, gold coins were increasingly required for commerce. Suppliers in North Africa and the Middle East wanted to be paid in hard cash. The problem: Gold mines supplying Europeans were running out. For growth to continue, new deposits had to be found, and the New World was a place to look.
Who went where
To find a new way of reaching Asia or to venture into distant lands to discover gold, technical innovation was vital. People needed more sophisticated methods of navigation, and they had to have faster and better ships that could accommodate large crews and heavy loads of food.
The Renaissance atmosphere prevailing in Europe gave rise not only to lively discussions among scholars but also to a variety of innovations that were useful to the great adventurers. They could now set out to sea for months at a time. No ambition was too great for the intrepid sailors, mostly of Italian origin, who staffed these ships. The race to Asia could begin!
Portugal finds a route around Africa
The Portuguese were the first to undertake this bold odyssey. Led by Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese discovered the Azores and explored the coast of Africa. In 1488, they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, opening the route to India. Ten years later, Vasco de Gama reached the Indian subcontinent.
Spain discovers America
These Portuguese successes led Spain, Portugal’s great neighbor and competitor, to follow suit. With the southern route already explored, the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus urged Spain to finance a westward expedition — a truly bold venture because the route was completely unknown.
But circumstances favored Columbus. In 1492, the Spanish monarchs defeated the Arabs and achieved full political union. On October 12 of that year, Columbus reached unknown territory. He was not in Asia, however, but in America. The Spaniards settled in and were soon exploiting the new continent’s gold.
English incursions farther north
These impressive Spanish conquests stirred envy in other countries. England also had ambitions of finding new ways to Asia, but by a northerly route. On May 2, 1497, Giovanni Caboto (called John Cabot by the English) left the port of Bristol. On June 24, he reached the shores of Newfoundland, planted an English flag, and took possession. He, too, thought he had arrived in Asia. He returned the following year but soon became disenchanted: These new lands offered plenty of fish and furs but very little gold or other precious metals.
What they found when they arrived: An inhabited New World
Neither Spain nor England discovered a route to Asia. Between the Orient of their dreams and Old Europe lay a New World inhabited by a variety of unknown peoples.
The origins of “Homo americanus”
The earliest inhabitants of the New World were members of the species Homo sapiens sapiens. These bipeds were capable of producing tools and had a good knowledge of flora. Their presence in America resulted from two waves of immigration: They came from Asia across the Bering Strait or by sea along the west coast of the American continent in small boats, arriving about 15,000 years ago (or as long as 30,000 years ago, by some accounts) and settling mostly in South America. These migrants belonged to tribes that hunted herds of mammoths and buffalo.
About 5,000 years ago, a second wave of migrants followed the same route but settled in the northwest. This second wave arrived at the end of a long ice age estimated to have begun about 100,000 years earlier. For thousands of years, Quebec, along with the entire northeast of the continent, was covered with a thick layer of ice. With the ice receding, living in the more northerly regions was possible.
Number and diversity
At the time the first Europeans arrived, the American continent may have been inhabited by about 80 million people, most of whom lived in the south. The indigenous population of North America is thought to have been somewhere between 4 million and 9 million; of these, 500,000 to 2 million lived in Canada.
The first Europeans to arrive were immediately struck by the cultural diversity of the peoples they encountered. Most had their own languages, ancestral customs, and spiritual beliefs. Some nomadic people lived from hunting, fishing, and gathering. Subsistence for these people was easy in the summer but more difficult in the winter. Others were partly sedentary, combining cultivation of the soil with nomadic subsistence activities and living in large settlements. Rivalries for control of a resource or a territory often erupted between indigenous peoples. Wars sometimes set them violently against one another well before the Europeans arrived.
Although their customs were very different from those of the Europeans and their means of fighting were less sophisticated, they were neither bloodthirsty barbarians nor noble savages motivated solely by higher thoughts. The passions that moved them were similar to those of the Europeans.
Culture shock
The encounter between the Europeans and First Nations (the various indigenous people in Canada) produced a real shock, for both sides. To begin with, the Europeans came bearing illnesses that wiped out huge numbers of indigenous people, because they lacked the protective immunity to fight these diseases. The Europeans suffered less from bacteriological shock, but many died in adapting to the new continent, especially in the winter months.
The shock was also cultural. The Montagnais of northern Quebec thought the first ships were floating islands, saw their sails as strange clouds, and believed the first cannon shots were horrible thunderclaps. They were fascinated by the hairiness of the Europeans, as well as by the wine they drank while eating, which they initially thought was blood.
This culture shock also affected the Europeans, who saw more relaxed social and sexual customs among the indigenous peoples and a more liberal way of raising children. They also discovered a number of new products: tobacco, maple sap, canoes, and snowshoes.
