1. The New Lands

The warlords who were the victors at the end of the Era of the Warring States consolidated their conquests. They had called themselves dukes; now they called themselves kings. They built walls of rammed earth as a hedge against the nomads to the north. Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War. Lu Buwei, a businessman from Wei presented his mistress as a gift to Zhuang Xiang, the Crown Prince of Ch’in. She gave birth to a son and the Crown Prince made Lu his chancellor. As one of his duties, Lu compiled The Annals, an encyclopedia of universal knowledge. In 246 BCE the Crown Prince died and the boy, Ying Zheng, was crowned King of Ch’in. Lu was caught masterminding a revolt that involved the Queen Dowager Zhao (Ying Zheng's mother) and her consort, Lao Ai. Lu's title was taken away and he was banished to Shu, a remote region in the southern part of Ch'in. Ying realized that he was going to have to establish a strong centralized authority. He built a tightly controlled army that conquered Jau and Wei. These victories developed in him a thirst for conquest.  His army advanced into Han, Chu, Qi and Yen and drafted men from those states. His troops carried long bronze swords and attacked in three waves; shock troops, heavy artillery, and cavalry. He consolidated a thousand counties from the Tibetan border to the Pacific Ocean and from the Manchurian hills to the South China Sea. He was crowned as a god and a veil of stars was placed over his face. He had his title changed to Imperial Emperor and his name changed to Shi Hwang Di. He developed paranoia after a failed assassination attempt and commanded that his scholars create an elixir that would grant him immortality. When they failed, he had 400 of them buried alive. He burned the books of the literati and had 120,000 ruling families moved to the capital, where he could keep a close eye on them. He created a single set of written characters to be used throughout the empire and demanded that carts have a uniform axle length so that his army could move faster through the wheel ruts in the roads. He collated weights and measures. He had a hydraulic system built to divert the Min River so that it could water the plains of Sichuan. He standardized and simplified Chinese script, built a national highway across the Ordos Desert, and conscripted 700,000 laborers to build for him an elaborate burial complex near Lintong. Inside the complex was an earthen hill and built into the hill was an underground palace. Seven thousand, five hundred terra cotta warriors in battle formation, holding metal and wooden weapons and leading life-sized horses, were placed in the tomb to protect Shi from enemies who might be waiting for him in the afterlife. Each soldier was in the uniform of his rank and had the features and height of the soldier on which he had been modeled. As his final public work Shi unified the earthen walls into one 30-foot wall with built-in forts. It began as a dragon’s head drinking from the Bohai Sea and stretched 3,000 miles west across mountainous terrain. Shi died in 210 BCE and the Han Dynasty completed the wall with a 300-foot drop at the Jia Yu Guan Fortress in Ganzu Province.

The most prominent of the northern nomads were the Xiong Nu, whose empire extended across the Mongolian Plateau to the Orkhon River. Their horse archers had developed a short stirrup that they could stand up in and between gallops let go of an arrow or wield a sword, but they could not get their horses and their flocks of sheep, cattle and camels over Emperor Shi’s wall and they finally divided into two sub-tribes, the Huns and the White Huns, and went elsewhere looking for conquests.  The White Huns rode south across the Tibetan Plateau into what are today India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  They burned cities and slaughtered populations but were never successful at governing the territories that they conquered. The Huns rode south by west across the Russian steppes to the Caspian Sea. They defeated the Alans, an Iranian people who lived in the Volga and Don River valleys. The Alans fled west across the Rhine River into Gaul. The Huns chased them as far as the Danube River. The Visigoths lived on the lower Danube, in what is today Romania. The Ostrogoths were further down the river, near the Black Sea. The Huns absorbed the Ostrogoths, but the Visigoths sought asylum in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Flavius Julius Valens, the Eastern Roman Emperor, allowed them into two of his provinces, Moesia and Thrace. Local governors exploited them and forced them into cramped living conditions. They rebelled and Valens went into battle against 200,000 of them 10 miles outside of Adrianople in Eastern Thrace. Valens was killed and his army was annihilated.

In 382 CE Theodosius, the new Eastern Roman Emperor, arranged a peace treaty with the Visigoths and in 395 the Visigoths crowned as their king Alaric of the Baltha family. In 410 Alaric invaded Italy and laid siege to Rome. His successor, Athaulf, led the Visigothic army into Gaul. Althaulf’s successor, Wallia, defeated the Alans, who had sided with the Franks. Wallia established his capital at Tolosa (Toulouse) and in 469 he expanded his empire north to Nantes and south to Cadiz. In 507 Clovis I, the King of the Franks, converted to Catholicism and launched a campaign to drive heretics out of Gaul. He defeated Wallia’s army at Vouille. Wallia was killed and his successor, Amalaric, fled across the Pyrenees. He transferred the seat of his government to Toledo, united the Iberian tribes, and Catholicism became the state religion. Amalaric’s successor, Leovigild, wore a crown, sat on a throne, engraved his image on the coinage, and brought charisma to the monarchy, but he was not able to unite his nobles and when his successor, Wittiza, came to the throne in 701 there was a succession struggle. An assembly deposed Wittiza. They assassinated him in 710 and usurped the throne from his sons, Aquila and Sisibuto. They named Roderigo, the Duke of Baetica, to the throne and drove Aquila, Sisibuto, and their mother, who was serving as Regent at Toledo, north to a small province in the Basque country. Their mother appealed to Count Julian, the Governor of Ceuta on the tip of Morocco, to help her to restore her sons to their throne. Julian enlisted the aid of the Governor of Morocco, Moussa ibn Noceir. Governor Moussa raised an army of 7,000 Africans and Saracens and appointed as their commander Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Governor of Tangier. Tariq sailed his ships through the Straits of Gibraltar and up to the fishing village of Calpe on the Costa Blanca. His troops rode west and on June 19, 711 they defeated Roderigo’s army at Xeres de la Frontera. They captured Ecija, Cordoba, Sevilla, Medina Sidonia, Carmona and Merida. They crossed the Sierra Morenas and mounted a surprise attack on Toledo. Tariq had by now forgotten about Aquila, Sisibuto, and their mother. He brought reinforcements up from Morocco, completed his conquest of the peninsula, and left a few small provinces in the north to the Christians. He named the conquered territory Al-Andulus, made it a dependent emirate of Damascus, and established his capital at Cordoba. In 755 Abdhar-Rahman made Al-Andulus an independent emirate. In 929 Abdhar-Rahman III made it the Western Caliphate. He brought books in from Baghdad, and built baths, hospitals, a center for Islamic studies, and the Mezquita-Catedral, which even today is rivaled only by the Great Mosque at Mecca. The central market at Cordoba sold goods from all over the world. Scholars, philosophers, poets and historians arrived from Damascus. Abbas ibn Furnas taught music, studied the mechanics of flight, and built a planetarium. Maslamah al-Majriti, wrote works on mathematics and astronomy. Al-Zarqali built astronomical instruments and wrote an almanac in which he compiled tables of latitude and longitude. Ibn Shuhayd wrote the Tasrif, a medical textbook. Al-Bitruji developed a theory on the movements of the stars. Ibn al-Nafis discovered pulmonary circulation. Al-Idrisi wrote a geographical history of the world, and Ibn Rushd wrote works on Western Philosophy.

In 1031 the Caliphate broke up into small kingdoms called taifas, the two most important of which were Sevilla, on the Quadalquivir River, and Granada, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. The taifa system split Al-Andalus into two factions, the Andalusis at Sevilla and the Berbers at Granada and Malaga. In 1144 Abu Yaqu Yusuf, the son of the Caliph of Marrakesh, established his northern capital at Sevilla. There was a large Jewish community in the narrow streets of the Barrio de Santa Cruz in Sevilla and in the square around the Giralda minaret. It was a golden age for the Jews, freed as they were from the oppression that they had suffered under the Visigoths. Hasday ben Shiprut was Caliph Abhdar-Rahman’s personal physician, Abraham ben Ezra carried Hispano-Arabic and Hispano-Hebraic culture into Italy, France and England, and Moses ben Maimon wrote Guide for the Perplexed, one of the most influential works of the Late Middle Ages.

In 1085 King Alfonso VI of Castile captured Toledo, which prompted other Christian monarchs in the north to begin doubling their efforts to retake the peninsula. In 1212 the Castilians were victorious again at Navas de Tolosa. In 1229 Jaime I of Aragon regained Mallorca. In 1230 Alfonso IX of Leon gained control of Estremadura and captured Lisboa. In 1252 Fernando III of Castile conquered Cordoba and Sevilla. He gave Muslims one month to leave Cordoba and repopulated the city with Christians and Jews from Castile, Leon, Toledo, Portugal, Aragon and Catalonia. His son, Alfonso X, was then able to use Cordoba as the base of operations for his conquest of Cadiz. In 1309 Fernando IV took Gibraltar and his son, Alfonso XI, conquered Algeciras and launched an unsuccessful campaign against Granada.

In 1464 Enrique IV of Castile named his sister, Isabella, as heir to his throne. In 1469 Isabella married Ferdinand of Aragon, who was in line to the throne of United Christian Spain. In 1480 the Inquisition consolidated their monarchies. In 1492 their armies laid siege to Granada. Ferdinand and Isabella invited Cristobal Colon, a mariner from Genoa, to join them at Santa Fe, the small city that they had built outside the walls of Granada. Colon was seeking financing for a voyage west across the Ocean Sea to Cipango and Cathay. Ferdinand and Isabella had been refusing to finance him since 1487, but he was still trying to convince them that by voyaging west he could reach Cathay in less time than it took the traders who carried goods to Samarkan and Changan by caravan routes over the Arabian and Persian deserts, through the Straits of Hormuz, across the Takla Makan Desert, over the Pamir Mountains, and through the red canyons of the Tianshan foothills. That route was dangerous, he argued. It took a long time and the pomegranates, grapes and rugs that were carried over it had to be sold at high prices to cover expenses. Equally long and arduous was the route by sea around the Cape of Good Hope that Bartholomew Diaz had discovered in 1488.

Earlier expeditions had established that the world was round. In 330 BCE the Greek explorer Pytheas had sailed beyond Britain to Thule. In 875 Celtic monks had established a settlement on what is today Cape Breton Island. In 986 the Viking explorer Bjarni Herjolfson had sighted present-day Labrador. In 995 Eirikr Thorvaldsson, Thorfinnr Thordarson, Leifr Eiriksson, and Freydis Eiriksdottir had explored present-day Newfoundland. In 1398 Henry Sinclair, a mariner from the Orkney Islands, had landed with 12 ships and 300 men at what is now Guysborough, Nova Scotia. In 1476 Danish mariner Johaunes Scolvus had wintered in the territory of the Nunavut people on the shore of what is today Hudson Bay. And by 1420 Breton and Basque whalers were hauling up baskets of cod and halibut in the Grand Bank off Labrador. 

In the Ambassador Room of the Citadel of the Alhambra Sultan Muhammad Boabdil cried as he signed the surrender of Granada. The Sultan was a patron of the arts, not a military man.

“Don’t weep like a woman for what you couldn’t defend like a man,” said his mother.

The sultan’s flag was lowered from the citadel and he rode out of Granada through a massive gate at the head of a column of 100 of his noblemen. The Christian monarchs met him on the banks of the Genil River. He kissed their rings and a cheer went up. The dual monarchy had reconquered Al-Andalus.

Sultan Baobdil fled to Africa. The Inquisition gave Jews three months to accept Christ or leave Spain. Expelled Muslims passed through Morocco, crossed the Sahara Desert, and attacked the western border of the Mali Empire. Queen Isabella’s first order of business was a reconsideration of Colon’s proposal. To discover new lands for the glory of God would be a way for her to thank to Him for her victories. If Colon failed and dropped out of sight it would be good riddance to a pest, but if he reached the Spice Islands, she would corner the European market on nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and pepper.

She bought three ships from the Pinzon family, shipbuilders at Palos de la Frontera. The Nina was a light caravel with lanteen sails. The Pinta was a square-rigged caravel. The Santa Maria was an unwieldy cargo ship with a big round hull, a large square sail on her main mast, and lanteen rigging on her mizzen mast. Three members of the Pinzon family joined the expedition. Martin Alonzo Pinzon signed on as captain of the Nina, Vincente Yanez Pinzon as captain of the Pinta, and Francisco Pinzon as the pilot on the Pinta.

On August 3, 1492 the small fleet weighed anchor at Palos and sailed down the Rio Tinto beneath the walls of La Rabida, the Franciscan monastery where Colon lived with his son. They crossed the Gulf of Cadiz and entered the open sea. The Santa Maria had forty men on board. The Nina and Pinta carried 20 to 30 men apiece, all veteran seamen from around Palos. One had escaped from jail. He had been offered amnesty if he would sign up for the voyage. Two friends who had helped him to escape also signed on.

Three days out the Pinta’s rudder slipped out of its socket. Captain Pinzon did a quick fix with ropes. Colon ordered the fleet to stop at Grand Canary. Pinzon waited there while Colon went to San Sebastian on the island of Gomera to see if he could find another ship, but none was available. The boatswain and carpenters built a new rudder, placed it in position, and the Pinta rejoined the fleet. The men loaded a fresh supply of water, wood and meat to replace what they had consumed during the delay. On August 6 they sailed out of the harbor at San Sebastian, turned west until the stunning view of the mountains was behind them, and entered onto a peaceful sea.

On October 11 they saw birds and other signs of land. During the night they saw a beach fire.

“TERRA!” cried Roderigo Triana, the lookout on the Pinta.

The Pinta’s crew hoisted a flag up her tallest mast and fired a cannon to signal her sister ships. Colon ordered all sails furled except mainsails. The ships stood clear of a coral reef and waited until dawn. At daylight they discovered that the land was an island. On the other side of the island they found an opening in the coral and anchored in a shallow lagoon.

The island was called Guanahani by the Lucayans who lived there. It was one of 700 islands and 2,500 cays south of present-day Nassau. Today it is thought to be either Watling Island or Samana Key. The Lucayans were Arawaks, a branch of the Tainos. They were descendants of the Lokonos, who lived in the basin of the Orinoco River that flowed from Venezuela through Guyana and into the Colombian Andes. They had migrated north, first to Trinidad and then to the Windward Islands, Dominica, and the Leeward Islands, fleeing the more militaristic Kalinago, who were conquering their way north and practicing the ritual eating of enemies captured in war. The Lucayans had crossed over to Guanahani from their capital island, Quizqueia (Moher of All Lands), where five caciques held power. Today we call it Hispaniola. They had crossed to Guanahani by way of the Caicos Islands and the Great Inagua Island with their gods mounted on the bows of their dugouts, which were filled with corn, beans, and squeeze-dried cassava roots. They maintained regular trade with the capital across what is today known as the Great Bahama Bank, 156 miles of shallow water. There were about 40,000 Lucayans living throughout the Bahamas when Colon arrived. The heaviest population was in the southern islands, but they were gradually migrating north from Inagua to what are today Acklins Island, Crooked Island, Cat Island, and Grand Bahama. Colon described them in his logbook as handsome, graceful, gentle and peaceful. Their houses were round tents made of thatch held together by poles and with a smoke hole at the top. They grew sweet potatoes, peanuts, beans, and maize and they supplemented their diet with papayas, pineapples that grew wild, and fish.

Colon’s ships weighed anchor and each ship sent a boat ashore.  Martin Pinzon headed up the Pinta’s landing party. Vincente Pinzon led the one from the Nina. Roderigo de Escobedo, the Fleet Secretary, and Roderigo Sanchez, the Queen’s Inspector, were lowered with Colon from the Santa Maria. They unfurled banners embroidered with the standards of the dual monarchy and Colon claimed the new lands for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Colon was not the only mariner seeking patronage for a voyage west. In 1490 a Venetian mariner named Giovanni Caboto had moved with his wife Mattea and their two sons to Valencia, Spain, where he worked as an engineer making improvements to the harbor. From there he had moved to Sevilla, where he had rebuilt the stone bridge across the Guadalquivir River. In 1493 the Nina and Pinta returned in triumph to Barcelona. The Santa Maria had run aground at Qiuizqueia and had been scuttled. Caboto petitioned Ferdinand and Isabella and King John II of Portugal to finance a voyage to find a northerly passage through the new lands. They were not interested.  In 1495 he moved to London and presented his proposal to King Henry VII. Henry, aware that England was the European country furthest removed from the caravan routes, supported the plan, but he was willing to risk only one ship. On May 20, 1497 Caboto and 18 men set sail from Bristol aboard the Mathew, a fifty-ton navicula. They sailed down the Avon River, rounded Horseshoe Bend, stopped for two days at Dursey Head and Achill Head on the coast of Ireland, and turned west by north through smooth seas. Before dawn on June 24 a rugged headland came into view. Caboto turned south to avoid floating ice and anchored in a quiet harbor beneath a high cape. He named the cape Cape Bonavista. His men found fishnets, snares, and a stick painted red on the beach beneath the cape. They raised their banners, formed a procession behind a boy holding a shepherd’s staff, and claimed the new lands for St. George, the patron saint of England, and St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice.

France, with more coastline than England and six times the population, was now the only major power in Europe without a claim in the new lands. The Breton and Basque whalers fishing for cod in the Grand Bank returned home each fall before ice breaking off the coast of Greenland made the return hazardous. Rouen was the distribution center for the Grand Bank fish and the fishing industry was financed by Italian bankers in the Terreaux District of Lyon.

On November 20, 1519 King Charles I of Spain commissioned Ferdinand Magellan to find a passage through the new lands that was south of Colon’s route. Magellan set sail from Grand Canary in four ships. On December 6 he sighted Brazil. Not wanting to trespass on territory that had been claimed by the Portuguese, he continued south. The weather turned cold and one of his ships sank in the rough seas. On March 30, 1520 he wintered at he named Puerto San Julian in what is today Patagonia. In October he sighted straits, which he named the Straits of All Saints. The passage through them took 38 days and in the last week of November, they entered the Pacific Ocean. Magellan had no idea of the immensity of the Pacific and thought that he would reach the Spice Islands in two days. Four months later he landed in the Philippine Islands.

The silk merchants in the Terreaux District speculated over the possibility of a northerly route through the new lands that would compete with the route through the Straits of All Saints. They commissioned a voyage and selected Giovanni da Verrazano, a mariner from Florence who lived in Dieppe, to captain it. King Francis I gave the privately funded voyage his blessing and in January 1524 Verrazano sailed out of Dieppe with four large ships. Two of his ships went down in a storm and while he was waiting for the weather to improve, he conducted a series of raids along the Spanish coast. His third ship carried his prizes home and his flagship, La Dauphine, sailed west from Las Desertas in the Madeira Islands. On March I, 1524 they landed at what is today Cape Fear, North Carolina. Verrazano steered south but turned north again, just above present-day Charleston. He stopped again at Cape Fear and along the Outer Banks. He continued north but missed both Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay because of his habit of anchoring at a distance offshore to avoid shallow water. He explored the mouth of the Hudson River, discovered Block Island at the entrance to Narragansett Bay, and spent two weeks in the sheltered harbor at what is today Newport, Rhode Island. He stopped at Nantucket Sound, crossed Massachusetts Bay to Casco Bay, and landed where Portland, Maine is today. The stores on La Dauphine were almost gone by the time he reached Newfoundland, forcing him to return home. He made a rapid crossing, buoyed by favorable winds, and arrived back in Dieppe in just over two weeks.

King Francis was away fighting the German army, the King of Spain, and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. Francis was taken prisoner while besieging the Germans at Pavia and in prison he was forced to sign the Treaty of Madrid, by which he gave up his claims in Italy. After his release he refused to honor the treaty and he, Pope Clement VII, and the governments of Venice, Florence, and Milan, organized the League of Cognac. Charles V’s army defeated the League and sacked Rome.

Verrazano’s sponsors in the Terreux District were not pleased. He had brought back nothing that was of value to them. But when King Francis returned after his imprisonment, he expressed satisfaction with the voyage and commissioned another one. Verrazano set out in four ships. At sea his crew mutinied and demanded that he return to Dieppe. He steered instead for Brazil and made landfall there. He told the crew that he had made a navigational error and gave them his word that he would immediately head for France. While in Brazil they filled their cargo holds with red logwood to take back to their sponsors in Lyon.

In 1528 Francis sent Verrazano back to Brazil for more logwood. Verrazano’s brother Girolamo signed on as the ship’s cartographer. They landed on the coast of Florida, continued south to the Bahamas, and then down through the Lesser Antilles. At Guadalupe they anchored, as usual, at a distance offshore. Verrazano and Girolamo were lowered in a boat. Verrazano jumped out before the boat landed and waded ashore. He was anxious to greet a group of Arawaks who were on the beach. But the Indians on the beach were not Arawaks. They were Kalinagos. They had killed and eaten the Arawaks and had taken over their island. They waited for Verrazano to get close, then attacked and killed him. While they were eating Verrazano, they made threatening gestures at Girolamo, who could only look on in horror. The ships were too far out to provide support with their guns.

Verrazano’s death went unnoticed by the Court at Versailles, but not by King Francis. On a pilgrimage that the King made to Mont St. Michel he was introduced to Jacques Cartier, a master mariner who lived in nearby St. Malo. Francis commissioned Cartier to continue the search for a northerly passage through the new lands and on April 20, 1534, Cartier set sail from St. Malo with 240 men in two ships. On May 10 he landed at Cape Bonavista. He spent 10 days there making repairs. He sailed up the coast of Newfoundland, through the Straits of Belle Isle, and down past what is now Rocky Harbour. He stopped at Prince Edward Island, explored several waterways, and circled the tall cliffs of a wide peninsula. A gale forced him to anchor in a large bay. He named it Chaleur Bay. His men lowered their landing boats. Micmac Indians in face paint and chatting excitedly came out in canoes to greet them. The Micmacs traded the furs they were wearing for knives and tools. Cartier took a party of his men out in a longboat to explore the bay. They met other Micmacs and traded hatchets, knives and beads for strips of broiled seal served on wooden platters. They returned to their ships, weighed anchor, and sailed east toward Newfoundland. A storm came up and they anchored in a roadstead at the entrance to a large bay. Cartier named it Gaspe Bay. He took another party of men out and 200 Hurons who were fishing in the bay traded furs with them in exchange for tools, combs and beads. The men built a 30-foot cross with VIVE LE ROY DE FRANCE carved on it in an indented panel and fleurs-de-lis in side panels. They knelt before the cross, raised their hands, thanked God, and claimed the new lands for King Francis I.

Donnaconna, the Huron chief, did not know what they were saying but he could tell that they were taking possession. He boarded Cartier’s flagship dressed in old black bearskins and conveyed in sign that the surrounding country belonged to him and his people and nobody could erect anything without his permission. Cartier placated him with gifts and explained to him in sign that the cross was intended to guide ships bringing in goods to him and his people. He dressed Donnaconna’s sons in French shirts and red caps and indicated that he would like to take them with him back to France. Donnaconna agreed to let them go and on the following day he and his people stood and watched as the big ships weighed anchor with the two young men on board.

Cartier arrived at St. Malo amidst great excitement. He displayed his furs and his two Indian boys and accounts of his travels spread across France. King Francis gave him a coat of arms, which he carved on the gate at the entrance to his farm. The King commissioned another voyage and gave Cartier three ships. His flagship, Le Grand Hermine, weighed 120 tons. Le Petit Hermine weighed 60 tons. L’Emerillon was a small ship. The Indian boys learned French and signed on as interpreters. On May 16, 1535 the ships weighed anchor and sailed out of St. Malo. A storm separated them, but on July 26 they rendezvoused at the Straits of Belle Isle. The wooden cross at Gaspe Bay was still there. On August 10, 1535, the day of the Feast of St. Lawrence, they entered a large bay. Cartier named it St. Lawrence Bay and he named the river that flowed into it from the west the St. Lawrence River. Donnaconna’s sons informed him that they were entering the Saguenay Kingdom and that this was the Great Hochelaga River that flowed out of the mountains to the west. On September 1 they arrived at the Saguenay River, a gloomy fjord between high bluffs. They anchored at Tadoussac, an Indian trading site, and canoes filled with Hurons came out to greet them. They continued up the St. Lawrence River, beneath immense cliffs. Forests descended to the water’s edge. Humpbacks and white Beluga whales surfaced. They anchored on a large island. Cartier named it the Ile d’Orleans. Donnaconna and his people crossed over in beautiful canoes and took them back across to their village. The village, called Stadecona, was surrounded by meadows. Behind it a waterfall tumbled over a rocky cliff into a small river that emptied into the St. Lawrence. Cartier named the waterfall Montmorency Falls. He asked Donnaconna the name of the surrounding country. Donnaconna said that it was ‘Kanata’, which meant ‘village’. The men built a small fort at Stadecona. They left the two larger ships there and continued upriver in L’Emerillon. Donnaconna tried to keep them from going. Upriver was the village of the Hochelaga. The chief there was his rival. But he realized that it would be good for the Hochelaga to see that the white men, with their guns and their big ships, were his allies.

The St. Lawrence widened into a lake. Cartier named it Lac St. Pierre. The crew anchored L’Emerillon and Cartier continued up the river in a longboat with three men. The Hochelaga village was a circle of 50 houses inside a stockade. The Hochelaga gathered at the water’s edge with gifts and food. Their chief took Cartier and his men through fields of maize to the foot of a mountain that was covered with trees. Cartier named it Mont Real. Today the mountain is a public park that overlooks the city of Montreal. From its peak Cartier and his men could see that the river flowed west between what are known today as the Laurentian Mountains to the north and the Adirondacks to the south. Near the south shore were large waves that today are known as the Lachine Rapids. Cartier realized that they would not be able to navigate the rapids. The Hochelaga chief told them that it was just as well because the country beyond the rapids belonged to bad people called the Ottawa.

Cartier and his men spent three days at the Hochelaga village and when they left one of the sub-chiefs sent his eight-year-old daughter with them so that she could visit France. They returned to Lac St. Pierre and the next day sailed L’Emerillon back to Stadecona. It was too late in the year for an ocean crossing. They chopped firewood, brought in salt fish and meat, and prepared to stay the winter. Fall gave way and their ships froze in the ice. They were there from October 1535 to April 1536. During that winter the men were ravaged by scurvy. When the weather thawed in the spring Donnaconna wandered off, supposedly on a hunt. He came back with a large group of strange Indians, voters to support his candidacy in the upcoming village elections. Not knowing what he was up to, the French prepared to leave. They could only take two ships back. Scurvy had taken most of the third ship’s crew. Cartier invited Donnaconna on board Le Grand Hermine to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross. Donnaconna’s sons, nine of his sub-chiefs, and the Hochelaga girl came aboard with him. For three days the ships’ officers kept them busy with food, wine and speeches while their crews prepared to get underway. On the third day they seized Donnaconna, his subchiefs, and his sons, unfurled the sails, and weighed anchor. Donnaconna’s people ran wailing along the shore, but Donnaconna stood up so that they could see that he was alive. Cartier promised to bring him back on the next voyage. An east wind carried the ships past groves of trees and fields of wild wheat on what are today the Magdelen Islands. They passed Cape Breton Island, rounded the black cliffs at Cape Race, crossed the Atlantic in three weeks, and arrived at St. Malo on July 6, 1536. Cartier presented Donnaconna to the court at Versailles. Donnaconna learned French and told tales of treasures to be found near his village. King Francis was unimpressed and made no plans to send another expedition. Donnaconna, his subchiefs, his sons, and the Hochelaga girl died in France without ever returning home.

For the next 50 years France was distracted by political events. In 1559 fifteen-year old Francis II assumed the throne. Three families, the Guises, the Bourbons, and the Montmorency-Chatillons struggled against each other to control him. The Guises were fanatical Catholics and the Bourbons and the Montmorency-Chatillons were moderate Catholics who, for political reasons, supported the Huguenots (French Protestants). Francis died in 1560 after one year as king and his brother, Charles IX, ascended to the throne. Like Francis, Charles was too young to be King. Their mother, Catherine de Medici, ruled in his place as Regent. Catherine played both sides against the middle. Seeing the Guises as a more serious threat to the throne, she tilted the balance of power toward the Bourbons and the Montmorency-Chatillons. She allowed Huguenots to worship openly, which enraged the Guises, but to keep the Huguenots from gaining too much power she convinced Charles that they were plotting his overthrow.

In 1565 the Duc d’Guise returned from the wars against the Turks in Hungary and joined in what was known as the Wars of Religion against the Huegenots. He served under the Duc de Montmorency at the Battle of Saint-Denis in 1567, under Marshal Gaspard de Saulx in the defence of Poitiers in 1569, and under Comte de Lude at the Battle of Moncontour later that same year. At Vassy his army attacked a Huguenot church during a service and slaughtered the congregation. In 1576 Charles’ brother, Henri III, ascended to the throne. The Guises formed the Catholic League with Philip II of Spain. In 1588 an attempt by Henri III to overthrow the League failed and the Guises drove him out of France. From exile he formed an alliance with his Huguenot cousin, Henri de Navarre. On May 9, 1588, known as the Day of the Barricades, the Duc de Guise defied the King and entered Paris. The Flying Squadron, Catherine’s spy organization, discovered his location and the King’s bodyguard, who were known as the Forty-Five, assassinated him. In 1589 Henri III was stabbed to death.  Henri de Navarre, who was next in line to the throne, was crowned Henri IV. On July 25, 1593 Henri IV converted to Catholicism and on April 13, 1598 he proclaimed the Edict of Nantes, which granted certain rights to Huguenots and ended the Wars of Religion.

Meanwhile, the Breton and Basque whalers in the Grand Bank extended their fishing grounds to Tadoussac. They traded knives, hatchets and iron kettles to the Hurons in exchange for fox, bear and beaver furs. Parisian hatters discovered that beaver pelts made nice inner linings for the wide-brimmed hats that were currently in fashion and almost overnight the Hurons had a market for all the beaver they could trap. In 1600 Henri IV brought the fur trade under the control of the crown and granted trade monopolies to ambitious men who promised to take settlers with them when they built their trading posts on the St. Lawrence River. The first monopoly went to Aymar de Chaste, the Governor of Dieppe, but he died unexpectedly. His monopoly was passed on to Francois Grave, Sieur de Pontgrave. In 1603 the King commissioned Pontgrave to set up a trading post at Tadoussac. Samuel de Champlain, the King’s hydrographer, accompanied him. Pontgrave set up the trading post and Champlain measured and mapped the Saguenay and St. Lawrence rivers. During the winter they went back to France, but in 1604 they returned to St. Lawrence Bay, accompanied by a Huegenot named Pierre du Gua de Monts, who had fought for the King in the Wars of Religion. The King had rewarded De Monts by granting exclusive trading rights in New France to the company of merchants that he represented in Rouen and St. Malo. Pontgrave, Champlain, and de Monts built a fort on St. Croix Island near the mouth of the St. Croix River. They stayed there through the winter. Their supplies froze, they almost starved, and several men died of scurvy. Spring came and De Monts went back to France for supplies and more colonists, while Pontgrave and Champlain went looking for a better location. In the Bay of Fundy they passed through a narrow passageway into a large bay that was sheltered by hills on which meadows and fields climbed to dense woods. It was an ideal location. They took down the fort on St. Croix Island and rebuilt it at the new place. They named it Port Royal and Champlain began to chart its shorelines. De Monts returned with supplies and reinforcements. The new colonists cleared the land, caught fish, and prepared delicious meals from the ducks, geese, partridges, rabbits, moose and bears that the Micmacs gave them. They ate in a common room before a blazing fire and the Micmac chiefs were their frequent guests. They appointed De Monts Governor and named the surrounding country ‘Arcadie’ from the French word ‘Arkade’, which meant ‘region’. Henri IV allowed them to form their own governmental structures and rivalries developed between Catholics and Huguenots over the profits from the fur trade. De Monts’ Catholic partners blocked his financing and he was unable to enforce his rights against them. He shifted his support to a new colony that Champlain had founded at Stadecona. The Algonquins had destroyed Donnaconna’s village and had driven the Hurons north across the Ottawa River. Champlain built a small fort at the base of Montmorency Falls and called it Kebec, an Algonquin word that meant ‘place where the waters narrow’. Eight of his men survived the first winter there. In the spring ships arrived with fresh supplies and new settlers. Champlain took a small party up the St. Lawrence River in canoes borrowed from the Algonquins to look for a place to establish second settlement. At the Hochelaga village, which had also been destroyed by the Algonquins, they built a fort at the base of Mont Real.

The traders at the forts had little interest in settling down. The only farmer in the colony was a druggist named Louis Hebert who came to Port Royal in 1606 as a member of the Acadia Company, leaving his wife, Marie, to manage his apothecary in Paris. The Acadia Company collapsed in 1607 and Hebert went back to Paris, but in 1616 he returned to what was now called Quebec as a member of the Company of Merchants. He cleared ten acres at the top of the cliff above Montmorency Falls and planted the colony’s first wheat. He went back to Paris, sold his house and apothecary, and Marie and the children returned with him to Quebec. Marie opened a school, where she and her daughters taught Indian girls. The Heberts were the first real family in New France and their house, garden, and fenced-in yard was the only cozy place in the rough settlement.

In 1615 four Recollet friars came to Quebec and in 1625 the first Jesuits arrived. The Recollets were pastors to the colonists and the Jesuits preached to the Hurons, Algonquins, Abenakis, Iroquois, Chippawa, and Ojibway. A mission was established on Lake Superior and trading posts on the Great Lakes. The new King, Louis XIV, established a system for acquiring land grants in New France and settlers arrived from Picardy, Normandy and Brittany. Landlords met them at the river landings with prearranged allotments of land. Young women arrived from convents in France. They were chaperoned by Ursuline nuns who arranged marriages for them. The new settlers cleared the land and built log houses on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Champlain built the first farm at Chateau Richer Parish on the Beaupre Coast, northeast of Quebec City. The parish land, which belonged to the Seminary of Quebec, was within sight of town. Fields were narrowed to maximize the number of farms with river access and stone farmhouses with whitewashed walls, vegetable vaults, sugar shacks, and outdoor bread ovens replaced the log cabins.

Romain d’Etrepagny was born in 1627 in St.-Pierre Muchedent, a suburb of Dieppe in the Seine-Maritime Department of Haute-Normandie. His parents were Charles and Marie d’Estrepagny. In 1655 Romain and his friend Charles La Francois were part of a group of 100 settlers who sailed from Dieppe to Quebec. Today one can read on a monument in Dieppe's Square du Canada below the Chateau de Dieppe the words "1627 Romain D'estrepagny est baptize a Saint Pierre de Muchedent". Romain settled in Chateau Richer. He dropped the de and changed his surname to Trepagnier. Charles received a concession of land from Louis de Lauzon de la Sitiere. His land was 40 arpents by a league and a half, just west of the Petite Pre River. (An arpent was 192 English feet). He became Lauzon’s tenant and married Marie Madeleine Triot, the daughter of Jacques and Catherine Triot. Romain also became Lauzon’s tenant. His house was 37 by 22 feet. It had two chimneys, a brick oven, an attic covered with planks, and a straw-covered barn. In the 1681 Census he owned one gun, 13 horned animals, and 14 arpents of land. On April 24, 1656 he married Genevieve Drouin, the daughter of Robert and Ann Drouin. He and Genevieve had nine children; Genevieve, Marie Madeleine, Francois, Jacques, Charles, Anne, Barbe, Claude, and Jean.