Samuel de Champlain (1567?-1635)

Samuel de Champlain (1567?-1635) Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, and mapmaker. He explored much of eastern Canada and became known as the father of New France, which was the French part of Canada. Champlain was born in Brouage, France. As a boy he learned how to navigate ships, and became a naval captain, like his father. In 1603 he went on his first voyage to Canada, as geographer on a furtrading expedition. He travelled up the Saguenay, St. Lawrence, and Richelieu rivers and used the information he collected to make a very accurate map of Canada from Hudson Bay in the north down to the Great Lakes. In 1604 Champlain made his second trip to North America. He was looking for a place where French people could make a permanent settlement. Champlain remained for three years, exploring the Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy down to Cape Cod. On his third trip in 1608, Champlain founded a settlement and trading post along the St. Lawrence River that eventually became the city of Quebec. It was the first permanent white settlement in Canada, which makes Quebec the oldest city in Canada. He spent most of the rest of his life going back and forth between France and Canada. His goals were to map North America, find a quicker way to get to the Pacific Ocean, and teach North American natives about Christianity. In 1629 Quebec was captured by the English and Champlain was taken to England as a prisoner. When Canada was returned to France in 1633 he returned to his trading post and remained in Quebec until his death on Christmas Day in 1635.

JOHN CABOT (1450?-1499) John Cabot (known as Giovanni Caboto in Italy) was a great Italian navigator and explorer. He was probably born in Genoa, Italy around 1450, but he moved to Venice and that is where he most likely learned to sail. In 1484, he moved again, this time to Bristol in England. That's when he decided to call himself John Cabot, the "English" version of his name. Like Columbus and others of his time, Cabot believed that Asia could be reached by sailing westward. Up until then, the only known way to get to Asia was by going east. Some wealthy Englishmen liked his ideas and paid for him to lead an westward expedition to Asia. They were anxious to find an easier and quicker way to bring back goods from Asia to trade in Europe. He made his first voyage to North America (which he thought was Asia) in 1497. The ship was called the Matthew and had a crew of 18 men. He sailed northwest, through the stormy Atlantic Ocean, and eventually came to North America. He sailed along the coast, past Labrador, Newfoundland, and New England. He claimed the land he found for England. King Henry VII was pleased with his efforts and granted Cabot a pension of 20 pounds a year. In 1498, Cabot wanted to return to find "Japan," so he organized another expedition. This time, he took four or five ships and about 300 men and left Bristol in June of 1498. No one knows for certain what happened to this expedition, but it may have sailed from Greenland southward towards Chesapeake Bay in North America. Cabot had to return to England because he was running out of supplies, and he died soon after returning.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1451-1506) Christopher Columbus is one of the best-known of all explorers. He is famous for his voyage in 1492, when he "discovered" America while he was looking for a way to sail to Asia. Columbus was probably born in Genoa, Italy, around 1451. His real name was Christoforo Columbo. His wife, a Portuguese women who he married around 1480, was Felipa Perestrello e Moniz. They had one son named Diego. He made several voyages to the New World, which he thought was Asia. His first voyage took place in 1492. He led an expedition of three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. On October 12, 1492, the expedition landed on a small island in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus was sure that he was close to Asia. His second voyage was from 1493 to 1496. This time, he took 17 ships and 1200 sailors and colonists looking for riches in the New World and a quick route to Asia. On this trip, he explored Cuba and discovered the islands of Jamaica, Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico. He went again to the New World from 1498 to 1500. His final voyage was in 1502-1504. Christopher Columbus died in 1506. He was not the first European to find North America. The Vikings had come to northern North America hundreds of years earlier. However, Columbus is important because his explorations made Europeans much more aware of the New World and helped to encourage more exploration of North and South America in the 1500s.

AMERIGO VESPUCCI (1454-1512) Amerigo Vespucci is important because he was one of the early explorers of the New World, and also because the continents of North and South America were named in his honor. (He was also known by the name of Americus Vespucci.) Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, Italy in 1454. He was well-educated by his uncle, and became a businessman involved in trading goods. That is how he became familiar with ships. He moved to Seville, Spain in 1491 to work in the trading business there. He was probably there when Christopher Columbus returned from his first journey to the New World. He then helped Columbus get ships ready for his second and third voyages to the New World. Vespucci was a skilled navigator. As a trader, he was very interested in finding a quicker way to sail to Asia. He went on at least two, and possibly four, voyages to Central and South America between 1497 and 1504 for Spain and Portugal. He went to many places, including Venezuela and Brazil. After his explorations in 1501-1502, he was one of the first explorers to come up with the idea that these places he had visited were not part of Asia (as Columbus thought) but rather were part of a "New World." In 1507, a pamphlet was published called "The Four Voyages of Amerigo" and the author suggested that the new land that Amerigo had explored be named in his honor. At first, the name of America was only meant to apply to South America, but later on, both continents of America became known by his name. After his explorations, Amerigo returned to Seville and became its Master Navigator. He stayed in that job until he died in 1512.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN (1480-1521) Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sea captain. He was the commander of the expedition that became the first to sail around the world. He first went to sea in 1505. He was interested in the way that Columbus sailed and studied Columbus's maps of his routes for many years. He was sure that he could get to the riches of the Far East quicker by sailing westward, but he had no idea how far it really was from Europe to the Far East. In 1513 Magellan asked King Manuel of Portugal for permission to sail to the Spice Islands in the Far East. These islands grew cloves and many other spices which would be very valuable if brought back to Spain. His best maps convinced him that he could sail to the Spice Islands (which are now part of Indonesia) by going around the southern tip of South America. He thought that this route would be shorter than the eastward trip to the southern tip of Africa and across the Indian Ocean. Of course, he thought that the Spice Islands were very close to South America. He didn't realize how big the Pacific Ocean was. Nobody knew at that time. King Manuel refused Magellan's proposal because he didn't like Magellan. Magellan then studied astronomy and navigation for about two years. He met a man named Ruy Falesrio who enjoyed listening to what Magellan had to say. He influenced Magellan's life and in a way became Magellan's partner. They finished their studies on the territory of the Spice Islands, that were awarded to Spain in 1494. In 1518 Magellan went left Portugal and went to Spain. He presented the information he had learned about the Spice Islands. The year after that, Magellan convinced King Charles I of Spain to support his voyage. The king promised Magellan one-fifth of the profits from the voyage to the Spice Islands. Getting the voyage ready took more that a year. The voyage began on September 20, 1519. His first destination was southern Spain. From his ship Magellan commanded a total of 241 men and a fleet of five ships. The fleet sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to South America. The ships followed the South American coast. They landed on the bay where Rio de Janeiro now stands. They remained there for two weeks and then sailed south to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean. However, they could not find the passage before the end of summer in the southern hemisphere. In late March 1520, Magellan's fleet anchored for the winter at Puerto San

Julian in what is now southern Argentina. During the winter a storm destroyed the Santiago. In addition, a mutiny broke out shortly after the men set up their winter quarters. Magellan and his crew resumed their voyage on Oct. 18, 1520. They were the first Europeans ever to sail across the Pacific, and it was far larger then anyone had imagined. They went for 98 days without seeing any land and ran out of food and used almost all their water. They ate rats and sawdust to avoid starvation. Nineteen men died before they reached the Pacific island of Guam on March 6, 1521. Conflicts with the people of Guam and the nearby islands prevented Magellan from fully resupplying his ships. The crew finally got enough food to set out westward again, toward the Philippines. Magellan and his crew stayed in the Philippines for many weeks and they got to know the islanders very well. On April 27, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan was killed when he took part in a battle between rival Filipino groups on the island of Mactan. After the battle only about 110 of the original members remained. That was not enough to sail three ships. Therefore they abandoned one of the ships, called Conception. The two remaining ships sailed to the Spice Islands. At the Spice Islands the ships were loaded up with spices for the trip back. The ship called the Trindad tried to return back to Spain the same way they had came. They sailed eastward across the Pacific Ocean but were caught in really bad weather. More than half of the crew members died. The rest of the group was forced to return to the Spice Islands and where they arrived there, the Portuguese imprisoned them. The last ship that remained was the Victoria. That ship continued back to Spain. The Victoria experienced many hardships and many of the crew members died of malnutrition and starvation. Finally, on September 6, 1522, they reached Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain, nearly three years after the voyage started. Five ships and 241 men began the journey. Only eighteen survivors returned to the starting spot. Those people completed the first voyage around the world that started with the dream of Ferdinand Magellan.

HERNÁN CORTÉS (1485-1547) Hernán Cortés was a Spanish explorer who is famous mainly for his march across Mexico and his conquering of the Aztec Empire in Mexico. Cortés was born in the Spanish city of Medellín in 1485. When he was a young man, he studied law, but he soon gave that up to seek his fortune in the New World that was just being discovered by Columbus and others. First he went to the island of Santo Domingo (now known as the Dominican Republic) in 1504. He was only 19 years old at the time. He stayed there for seven years, then took part in the Spanish conquest of Cuba in 1511. He became mayor of Santiago de Cuba and stayed there until 1518. Cortés was eager for more power and conquests, so he talked the Spanish governor of Cuba into letting him lead an expedition to Mexico in 1519. Mexico had just been discovered by the Spanish explorer de Córdoba a year before. At that time, Mexico was ruled by the Aztec Empire and its leader, Montezuma II. Cortés arrived in Mexico in March 1519 with a group of about 600 men and a few horses. He soon learned of the Aztecs and began to make his way inland to the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlán. Along the way, he made friends with a native group called the Tlaxcalans, who were enemies of the Aztecs. The Tlaxcalans helped Cortés against the Aztecs. In November of 1519, Cortés and his men reached the Aztec capital and met Montezuma. The Aztecs may have thought that Cortés was a godking, and so they treated him and his soldiers well. However, Cortés was afraid that the Aztecs might soon try to get rid of him, so he took Montezuma hostage and asked for a huge ransom of gold and jewels. It turned out that Cortés was right and the Aztecs finally drove him and his men out of their city in June of 1520. But Cortés regrouped and returned in the summer of 1521 to capture Tenochtitlán. Soon after, he began to build Mexico City on the Aztec ruins and brought many Europeans over to live there. It soon became the most important European city in North America. Because of his conquests and all the gold and jewels he had collected, Cortés was very popular back home in Spain and so he was made governor and captain general of New Spain in 1523.

But he wasn't done exploring. In 1524, he led a group into Honduras and stayed in that area for two years. By 1528, the Spanish government was worried that Cortés was getting out of control in the Americas, and so he had to give up his governor's job and was sent back to Spain. He spoke to the king, who was persuaded to send Cortés back to Mexico in 1530, but with less power and freedom than before. In 1536, Cortés explored the northwestern part of Mexico and discovered the Baja California peninsula. He also spent time exploring the Pacific coast of Mexico. This was the last major expedition by Cortés. In 1539, he went back to Spain, and spent much of the rest of his life there before he died near Seville in 1547.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE (1540?-1596) Sir Francis Drake was always dreaming that he would sail, and he did. Drake was an Englishman who hoped to explore possibilities of trade and colonial settlement in the Pacific Ocean and to find the western outlet of the Northwest Passage. He wanted to find an undiscovered continent that was thought to lie in the Pacific. Drake became a ship's captain in 1567, and he lead several trading voyages from England to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. In 1577, Queen Elizabeth I chose him to lead a secret expedition to the Pacific coast of North America. He started his voyage on December 13, 1577. He and more than 160 men sailed from Plymouth on five ships, including Drake's flagship, the Golden Hind. After leaving Sao Tiago in the Cape Verde Islands, Drake's expedition met two Portuguese ships. He captured one of the vessels and gave its command to a friend,thomas Doughty. The ships then sailed south along the Atlantic coast of South America and ran into violent storms. They stopped at San Julian. Before leaving San Julian, Drake destroyed the supply ships and the ships that he had picked up (the Portuguese ships) because they were in bad condition. The remaining three ships sailed through the Strait of Magellan. Shortly after that some more violent storms wrecked the Marigold and blew the Elizabeth off course forcing it to return to England. The storms also blew the Golden Hind, which he was sailing on, way to the south. Drake then headed north along the Pacific coast of South America. He captured a Spanish ship the Cacafuego and stole its cargo of gold, silver, and jewels. Loaded with treasure, the Golden Hind sailed north along the Pacific coast of North America. Drake then turned south and repaired his ship where what is now called San Fransico and named the new area New Albion. He claimed the land for England. Drake had planned to return to England through the Strait of Magellan, not to sail around the world. But he feared an attack from the Spanish if

he sailed south again. So he decided to sail home by the Pacific and Indian oceans. Drake stopped many times for supplies. After crossing the Indian ocean he sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. Drake reached Plymouth on September 26, 1580. He had been out at sea for almost three years and the voyage made him a national hero and he is still today.

HENRY HUDSON (?-1611?) Henry Hudson was a very good navigator and sailor who named and explored Hudson Bay in Canada and the Hudson River in America. His quest was to find a shortcut from Europe to the Far East. Hudson was from England, but nothing is known about his life before 1607. On May 1, 1607, Hudson, his son, and 11 other crew members sailed from England on the Hopewell. He and his crew went past Greenland toward the North Pole. They were working for an English trading company and were hoping to find a quicker way to get from England to the Far East, by way of the Arctic Ocean. In the next two years, he tried twice more to find a "northeast passage" but failed and returned to England. The trading company would not send him on any more explorations. In 1609 he moved to Holland and sailed for a Dutch trading company on the ship named Half Moon. In 1609 he set sail from Amsterdam and headed north, again trying to find a way through the Arctic to the Far East. This time, conditions were so bad that his crew of about 20 men threatened to mutiny. Hudson turned the ship around and headed south down the east coast of Canada. Hudson was hoping that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were separated by just a thin strip of land, and that he would be the one to find the shortest way between the two oceans. He sailed into New York Bay in September of 1609 and explored a river which became known as the Hudson River for about 150 miles. He was looking for the shortcut to the Pacific, but of course, he did not find it, so he returned to Holland. He was told by Holland to go back to England. On his final journey from England in 1610, he again headed northwest towards Canada, this time on the ship Discovery. In August Hudson found a body of water which at first he thought was the Pacific Ocean. The body of water was a large bay, which eventually was named the Hudson Bay. In November 1610, the Discovery became locked in ice in

Hudson Bay. The crew wanted to get back to England, but Hudson would not let them leave. It was a very cold winter, and the crew suffered greatly in the icy conditions. The crew was thinking of mutiny. In June 1611, they decided to put Hudson, his son, and the seven others into a small boat, and they were never heard from again.

RENE-ROBERT CAVALIER, SIEUR de LaSALLE (1643-1687) Rene-Robert de LaSalle was important because of his exploration of the Mississippi River in North America. He was the first European to sail down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed the Mississippi River Basin, which he called the Louisiana Territory, for France. He is sometimes called "the Father of the Louisiana Territory." He was born in France on November 24, 1643. He went to Jesuit schools. When he was 23, he set sail for Canada, with plans to be a farmer. However, La Salle became interested in fur trading and set up a fur trading post instead. He became friendly with the Iroquois Indians, and learned from them of a great river which led to a sea. He became convinced that this was the great water route that would lead to Asia and make trading with the Far East easier. He decided he would try to find that trade route. In 1669 he sold his land and spent two years exploring. He went up the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, and probably to the Ohio River region after that, though we're not really sure because the records of this part of his trip were lost. We do know that he didn't find what he was looking for and that he returned to Canada. In 1677 he had grown bored with fur trading and asked Louis XIV for authorization to explore the western parts of New France. France was very interested in taking over more of North America. In 1679-80, LaSalle led a group that explored the Great Lakes and helped to establish French forts in the area. In 1682, LaSalle traveled down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and continued all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico. On April 9, 1682 La Salle claimed all of the Mississippi River Basin for France. That was an enormous amount of land because it included all the rivers and streams that feed into the Mississippi, and all of the land between. It includes much of the western part of North America. He named this area Louisiana in honor of the king. Later, in 1803, France sold this land to the United States, and that led to the explorations of Lewis and Clark and then the westward expansion of America.

From 1684 to 1687, LaSalle led an expedition to further explore the southern end of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. This expedition was full of problems. LaSalle didn't get along with other leaders. He became very sick. Many of his men were unhappy and deserted the expedition. On March 20, 1687 La Salle was assassinated in Texas by three of his own men. It was a sad end for an important explorer.

JACQUES MARQUETTE (1637-1675) LOUIS JOLLIET(sometimes spelled Joliet) (1645-1700) Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet searched together and found the waters of the Mississippi River. They were the first Europeans to follow the course of the river. Jacques Marquette (also known as Father Marquette) was a Catholic missionary and explorer. He was born in Laon, France. In 1666 came to Québec, Canada and learned Indian languages. From 1669 to 1671 he worked in missions in Sault Sainte Marie (Michigan) and La Pointe (Wisconsin). Around this time, he first met Louis Jolliet, who was trading with Indians in the same area. Jolliet was a French-Canadian trader and explorer. Jolliet was born near Québec City and raised in a Jesuit seminary. In 1668 he decided that he didn't want to become a priest and he became a trader with the Indians instead. From 1669 to 1671 Jolliet explored a lot of the Great Lakes region. During that time he became a great map maker, also worked as a fur trader, and met Marquette. In 1672, Jolliet was named leader of an expedition that would explore the northern part of the Mississippi River the following year. Jolliet asked Father Marquette to be the chaplain of this group. Along with five others, Jolliet and Marquette crossed Lake Michigan, and explored the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, before reaching the Mississippi River. They followed the Mississippi southward past the mouth of the Arkansas River, then returned northward. After the expedition, Marquette stayed by Lake Michigan and Jolliet returned to Québec. Father Marquette preached among the Illinois Indians until his death in 1675. On his way back to Québec, when Jolliet was on Lake Michigan, his canoe turned over and all his precious maps and journals of his trips were lost, but he was able to replace most of the information from memory. Later, he explored other parts of Canada, such as Labrador and Hudson Bay. Louis Jolliet died in 1700 at the age of 55.