In most American text books, Samuel de Champlain serves as a sort of historical speed bump between Christopher Columbus and Lewis and Clark.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer believes Champlain deserves better treatment for his key role as leader of one of the earliest settlements in North America.
“He’s been vanishing from the seventh grade in the past 20 years,” said Fischer, author of “Champlain’s Dream,” a newly published biography of the 17th-century French explorer.
A lake shared by New York, Vermont and Quebec bears Champlain’s name, as do colleges, communities and any number of entities on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. But until a recent resurgence of interest in Champlain tied to the 400th anniversary of his explorations, his many accomplishments were often lumped with other European explorers who fell out of favor in academic circles during the late 20th century, Fischer said.
Born on France’s Atlantic Coast in 1567, Champlain was more than an explorer. He was a skilled seaman, soldier and spy as well as an artist, cartographer, diplomat and prolific writer who detailed his extensive travels from the West Indies to the Canadian wilderness.
Fischer’s book delves into the roots of Champlain’s strong sense of humanism developed while growing up in a seaport town and living through the many religious wars that plagued France in the late 16th century, when Catholics and Protestants slaughtered one another wholesale. The title of his new book alludes to Champlain’s “dream of humanity and peace in a world of cruelty and war,” said Fischer, who teaches at Brandeis University outside Boston.
Sent by France’s King Henry IV to reconnoiter Spain’s emerging New World colonies, Champlain witnessed Indians being burned at the stake by the Inquisition and beaten for missing Mass. Appalled by what he saw, he strove to build peaceful relationships with the American Indians he encountered after first arriving in North America in 1603.
“He was a man full of curiosity and he was especially curious about people who lived in America,” said Fischer, who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for history with “Washington’s Crossing.”
Champlain’s explorations in North American included voyages through what would become six Canadian provinces and five American states, including New York and Vermont. In July 1609, Champlain, along with two other Frenchman and their Huron allies, explored the large lake that would later bear his name.
Despite a battle along the lake shore with a force of Mohawks, Champlain worked vigorously until his death in 1635 to establish peaceful relations with the many Indian nations he encountered, Fischer said.
He traveled only a small slice of what would become the United States, but Fischer said Champlain’s deeds shouldn’t take a back seat to those contemporaries with better name recognition, particularly Henry Hudson. Champlain and Hudson are sharing the limelight when New York commemorates the 400th anniversary of their voyages next year.
“I hope that as people discover more about Champlain, they’ll begin to understand him in a larger way,” he said. “He realized his dreams, which to me is the most amazing thing.”
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