268. Colonising Canada: Why Does Quebec Speak French? (Ep 2)

Summary

Empire Podcast Episode 268: "Colonising Canada: Why Does Quebec Speak French? (Ep 2)"

Release Date: June 30, 2025

Hosts: Anita Anand & William Dalrymple
Description: William Dalrymple and Anita Anand delve into the intricate narratives of French colonization in Canada, exploring the rise and challenges of New France, the pivotal figures involved, and the enduring impact of these early power struggles on contemporary Quebec and beyond.

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1. Introduction to Early French Colonization in Canada

In this episode, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand embark on a deep exploration of the French endeavors to colonize North America, particularly focusing on Canada. They highlight that French efforts predate British settlements, positioning the French as early pioneers in the continent's colonization narrative.

Key Points:

• The French were ahead of the British in establishing footholds in North America.
• Early French colonization efforts were fraught with challenges, particularly harsh climates and strained relations with indigenous populations.

Notable Quote:

"The British are very much the Johny come lately to the story of the colonization of North America."
— William Dalrymple [02:09]

2. Jacques Cartier's Expeditions and Failures

The hosts revisit Jacques Cartier's ambitious voyages, emphasizing the hardships faced during these expeditions. Cartier's quest for precious metals like gold and diamonds was met with disappointment, as he often returned with minimal wealth but invaluable knowledge of the region.

Key Points:

• Cartier's introduction to Canada was marked by severe winters and unyielding weather conditions.
• Early interactions with indigenous tribes were complicated by Cartier's aggressive tactics, including kidnappings.

Notable Quote:

"He doesn't expect to get this invitation. And having struggled over the ocean and everything and expecting a hostile land, they are invited in at this point."
— Anita Anand [24:46]

3. The Role of the Fur Trade and Its Economic Impact

A significant portion of the episode delves into the fur trade's central role in French colonization. The insatiable European demand for beaver pelts, driven by a fashion craze for felt hats, transformed the fur trade into a lucrative and driving force behind the establishment and expansion of New France.

Key Points:

• Beaver pelts became a cornerstone of the European economy, particularly in France and England.
• The fur trade led to the overexploitation of beaver populations, causing significant biodiversity loss.
• The economic success of the fur trade fueled further colonization efforts and the establishment of chartered companies like the Muscovy Company.

Notable Quote:

"The more you bring back, the more the craze for these beaver pelts. They end up calling this process by which they make these sort of felted hats from the 1530s becomes a mad thing."
— Anita Anand [13:21]

4. Samuel de Champlain and the Foundations of New France

Samuel de Champlain emerges as a pivotal figure in establishing New France. Unlike his predecessors, Champlain focused on building sustainable relationships with indigenous tribes, emphasizing diplomacy and mutual benefit over exploitation.

Key Points:

• Champlain's extensive voyages and explorations laid the groundwork for Quebec City in 1608.
• He prioritized alliances with tribes like the Innu and Wendat (Huron), understanding the necessity of indigenous support for the colony's survival.
• Champlain's efforts in mapping and ethnology provided invaluable insights into the region and its peoples.

Notable Quote:

"He is not the only passive element. They are not passive."
— William Dalrymple [23:13]

5. Indigenous Alliances and Interactions

The episode highlights the dynamic and reciprocal relationships between French settlers and indigenous tribes. Unlike the often one-sided narratives of European colonization, the French actively engaged with and respected the autonomy of indigenous communities, leading to strategic alliances that were mutually beneficial.

Key Points:

• Indigenous tribes such as the Innu and Wendat played active roles in the colony's development.
• Alliances were built on trade, military cooperation, and cultural exchanges, including intermarriage.
• These relationships, however, also entangled the French in existing tribal conflicts, particularly with the Iroquois Confederacy.

Notable Quote:

"They, you know, these guys are manipulating the French and taking the French, offering the French what they want in order to manipulate them and drag them into Their own wars."
— William Dalrymple [24:25]

6. The Emergence of Étienne Brûlé: The First Coureur de Bois

Étienne Brûlé is introduced as a quintessential coureur de bois—a French-Canadian fur trader who lived among indigenous populations. Brûlé's immersion into indigenous cultures exemplifies the deep integration and adaptability that characterized successful French colonists.

Key Points:

• Brûlé was trained by Samuel de Champlain to bridge the cultural and linguistic gaps between the French and indigenous peoples.
• His ventures into the interior regions, adoption of indigenous customs, and intermarriage significantly advanced the fur trade.
• Brûlé's life remains shrouded in mystery, with accounts of his death varying between being killed in tribal conflicts and other causes.

Notable Quote:

"He is the only white man who has gone into some of the areas and the places that they are taking him."
— Anita Anand [37:21]

7. The Consequences of French and Indigenous Collaborations

The collaborative efforts between the French and various indigenous tribes had profound and lasting impacts on the region's socio-political landscape. These alliances not only facilitated economic prosperity through the fur trade but also entrenched the French in the complex tribal dynamics of North America.

Key Points:

• Indigenous tribes leveraged French alliances to gain advantages over rival tribes, thereby influencing regional power balances.
• The increasing demand for firearms from the French exacerbated intertribal conflicts, particularly between the Huron Wendat and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois).
• Jesuit missionaries played a crucial role in these dynamics, promoting Catholicism and further intertwining French and indigenous affairs.

Notable Quote:

"This is the height of the Counter Reformation and the Jesuits are this incredible multinational force."
— William Dalrymple [42:18]

8. The Birth of the Hudson Bay Company and Rising Tensions

The establishment of the Hudson Bay Company marked a significant turning point, representing the rise of English economic ambitions in the very heart of French-claimed territories. This development set the stage for escalating tensions that would culminate in prolonged conflicts between the French and British empires.

Key Points:

• Founded in 1670 by French entrepreneurs seeking tax relief, the Hudson Bay Company was England's first major chartered trading company.
• The company's presence in the Hudson Bay region encroached upon French interests, leading to territorial disputes.
• This budding rivalry foreshadowed the larger-scale conflicts between France and England over control of North America.

Notable Quote:

"It's already part of North America's economic fabric, setting the stage for future imperial confrontations."
— William Dalrymple [46:57]

9. Prelude to the French and Indian War

The episode concludes by setting the stage for the French and Indian War, illustrating how the intricate web of alliances, economic interests, and territorial ambitions among European powers and indigenous tribes inevitably led to large-scale conflict.

Key Points:

• The French and British competition for fur and territory intensified, drawing in various indigenous allies.
• The aggressive expansion and military strategies of both empires destabilized the region, leading to violent confrontations.
• Figures like George Washington emerge in these early conflicts, underscoring the personal and political stakes involved.

Notable Quote:

"This is going to be the first act of what the Americans still call the French and Indian wars, which is known in the rest of the world as the Seven Year War."
— William Dalrymple [50:14]

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Conclusion

Episode 268 of Empire provides a comprehensive and nuanced examination of French colonization in Canada, emphasizing the interconnectedness of economic pursuits, indigenous relations, and European rivalries. Through detailed storytelling and insightful analysis, Anita Anand and William Dalrymple shed light on the historical forces that have shaped Quebec's linguistic heritage and the broader trajectories of North American history.

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Transcript

[William Dalrymple]

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[Anita Anand]

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan and me, William Dalrymple. So in the last episode we did this rather stuttering start to France's adventures in Canada, but we're going to dig into that a bit more because it's not the end of their story.

[William Dalrymple]

And what I think is so interesting about this, and I hadn't realized earlier, is that this is all long before the British have got started here. The French are way ahead of the British at this point and the British are very much or the English are very much the Johnny come lately to the story of the colonization of North America. And it's a whole chapter that I was completely unaware of before this.

[Anita Anand]

So we talked about Cartier last time. Do you remember Cartier and his fool's gold errand?

[William Dalrymple]

I feel so sorry for Cartier.

[Anita Anand]

Behold my diamonds. It's quartz. Behold. My God. No it's not. It's pyrite. So you know, and he's not the only person who gets fooled by this. People go to Canada. And they expect to come back laden with chests full of basically paperweights and junk, which they're told is all a load of rubbish they've risked their lives for. But what they do have is a new driving force which is kind of unexpected because not gold, not diamonds, not the gateway to China, which is very, so very sweet. Cabot. I found China. You haven't. It's not there, but it's fish and fur. Fish and fur. So, you know, France felt it had burned its fingers a little bit with Cartier. Those early French attempts at colonization were pretty disastrous because you know what? They never counted on the weather being as cold as it was. And I was reading that the weather in Canada was colder than anywhere in Europe. So they'd never experienced any like, anything like this on their own continent. And it all came as something of a shock.

[William Dalrymple]

There's those letters. Aren't they talking about 7ft of snow in their first winter? And they said they've never seen anything like that.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah. And, you know, just being snowbound, your ships are frozen, so you have to find a bay that is going to stay liquid and it doesn't crush your ship's hull. So it was really unclement weather for them. We dwelt on the voyages. Last time, Cartier, who we talked about last time, Jacques Cartier, also did try and put down roots. They. The roots just didn't go deep enough in the frozen ground and they didn't stick. And I just wanted to talk about maybe one or two early settlements. They're both French. One is in what we know as Canada and one is in what we know as America now. So you've got, first of all, Charlesbourg Royale, Charbourg Royale and Fort Caroline, which I'm just not even going to try and Frenchify. These settlements were created in Cartier's time, but abandoned in failure. And I'll talk about the first. First. So Cartier set up this base, something a bit more solid and a bit more permanent than sort of sheltering in a cave with a fire. And it was near present day Quebec City. And this is the first time they try and put down some kind of permanent settlement. It's backed by King Francois the First, and it's led by another Francois, Jean Francois de la Roch de Robeval, to give him his full name.

[William Dalrymple]

I'm enjoying your French pronunciation.

[Anita Anand]

I know. I'm enjoying it too. A bit too much, actually, trying to do that again.

[William Dalrymple]

It so good.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah, actually, I really, really do. Jean Francois de la Rocque de Roberval is his name, this colony is on a rock. It's sort of wooden and on a rock. I mean, I sent you sort of early pictures.

[William Dalrymple]

Not just on a rock, it's on the most enormous cliff face.

[Anita Anand]

This colony on the rock. Rocky outcrop. I'll choose to call it mountainous.

[William Dalrymple]

Mountainous.

[Anita Anand]

It faced really brutal winters because, you know, however high your settlement, you're still going to have to deal with the weather. And the winters were brutal. There's scurvy and disease because, as we said before, the French, you know, this is not a place for lemon trees. And they do count on ships bringing them stuff to keep them alive, and that's not easy. They're also surrounded by, you know, the Mi' Kmaqs, the Iroquois, who are quickly getting the idea, maybe tipped off by Cartier's frequent kidnapping of their senior staff and their senior chiefs and family, that these people do not come entirely in peace.

[William Dalrymple]

Yes, there's an increasing conflict.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah. So, you know, you've got sort of Cartier writing bitterly about this, this experience, you know, the worst winter we've ever seen with snow deeper than a man is tall. And he writes this back. So actually not really very surprising that the entire colony was abandoned by 1543. But that isn't to say that the French have given up on the idea of colonization. It is very much in their minds because, you know, they realize very quickly that just be a visitor here, you need to have your own resources because, you know, the tribes, they think, are fickle because the tribes sometimes object to kidnap and so on. You know, they're a bit moody. So we have to have our own sort of anchored place. They do this with, you know, the Sharpeur disaster, but they also do this, and I didn't know this in America, too, in Fort Caroline in Florida, around about the same time, 1564. And that one would only last for a couple of years. And I like the story, and it's not strictly in our remit of Canada, but it is the French trying their best, but a different branch of French and for different reasons. So these are the Huguenots.

[William Dalrymple]

These are the Huguenots, Exactly. They turn up.

[Anita Anand]

Interesting. No, I didn't know this. Did you know this?

[William Dalrymple]

I didn't know this. I didn't know any of this.

[Anita Anand]

Why don't you just tell people who the Huguenots were? Because, you know, we know, but not everyone will know who the Huguenots were.

[William Dalrymple]

The Huguenots are the French Protestants who at this period are suffering increasing persecution and to the point of being Shortly after this, besieged in various strongholds and driven out of the country. And many come to Britain.

[Anita Anand]

East End of London. East End of London was a Huguenot enclave.

[William Dalrymple]

Exactly. But many others now setting off for the New World. And these guys go to Florida, of all places. This is before Louisiana.

[Anita Anand]

We're talking 1564 and these Huguenots under two men called Jean Ribaut and Rene de Laudonniere. I'm not gonna stop. I can't. So they sort of find Florida. They're driven by this desire not to be killed by the Catholics, because that's happening a lot to the Huguenots in France. And they want to make this Protestant house haven somewhere else in the New World. They are so determined to make this work. They even go to France's arch enemy, Elizabeth I, and they say to her, you know what, Liz, do you want to pay for this colony because it's entirely Protestant backed? I mean, I know we're French and I know, you know, Anita pronounces our name really well in that French accent, but we're willing to do business with you. Elizabeth I, she's quite interested at the beginning, but they back away because they think, oh, she's going to make us swear allegiance to her and to the flag and we will be dragged into a war that we can't fight. And we just got away from that.

[William Dalrymple]

And then they end up being confronted by an entirely new Catholic enemy. Who are the Spanish?

[Anita Anand]

Tell us a bit more about that.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah, so a little bit later in 1565, you've got Spanish forces under Pedro Mendez. How about that?

[Anita Anand]

I mean, mark's out of 10 for our listeners. Do it again, do it again. God, I think I feel you need a run at it. Go for it.

[William Dalrymple]

Pedro Menendez del Avileh ended France's American dream when they massacred the settlers and actually raised the fort. And this is all again, you know, Catholic anti Protestant savagery. They're slaughtered as heretics.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah, that's what one survivor says. Yeah, we thought they were our friends.

[William Dalrymple]

We were betrayed under flag of truce. So all these inter Christian jagged rivalries ever since the Reformation are now playing out in this completely new theater in North America. And you've also got the Dutch turning up around this time too, who had an entirely new element. And you've got the Dutch founding settlements to the south of the French in New France and allying often with the enemy tribes of the tribes that the French are aligned with. So there's a whole patchwork of Catholic Protestant rivalry playing out alongside rivalries between the indigenous tribes in this region. So it's complicated and fascinating.

[Anita Anand]

It's European politics being superimposed on local politics. And so you've got this swirling vat of allegiances and breakup of allegiances and it is really kind of shifting sand. But do you know why the French persist? The French persist, even though this is quite a hostile territory for them in what we now know as Canada, what they will very soon call New France.

[William Dalrymple]

Climatically very hostile for Europeans who are not used to this level of snow and ice and so on.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah, 100%. You know, they're sick of dry fish. You know, it's. It's not easy to be here. But do you hear it? The beaver is calling. This is. This is why they can't go away and can't let it go like they do in Florida. You know, the Huguenots just do it.

[William Dalrymple]

The French can't leave the beaver.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, gosh.

[William Dalrymple]

But you've got to explain to us why the French are so keen on beaver in case our listeners possibly get the wrong idea.

[Anita Anand]

Well, I don't know how they would, considering you've done such a fulsome explanation. So look, this all goes back to the fur trade in Canada, which sort of begins in informally with European fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. So just like, you know, we said, the Vikings came over.

[William Dalrymple]

The children of Eric the Red were making a lot of money financing their conquests of Greenland through seal and walrus pelts and tusks.

[Anita Anand]

Walrus tusks, which they sort of used as ivory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[William Dalrymple]

But beaver is what they find in large numbers in North America. And this comes at exactly the same time as beavers are being wiped out. And all this is because of hats, isn't it? This is because everyone wants a beaver hat.

[Anita Anand]

Let me get to that in just a moment. But they came for the fish, they left with the pelts is the story of this. So it's sort of a cod war.

[William Dalrymple]

One thing that I haven't been able to work out from my reading is how. How is the fish preserved? If you're fishing in Canada, you just salted salt.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah.

[William Dalrymple]

And how do you serve a salted cod? What is that, just like a sort of herring or something?

[Anita Anand]

What do I look like, Delia bloody Smith? I don't know. You just.

[William Dalrymple]

Fish goes off in two days. You just pack it with salt.

[Anita Anand]

Salted? Yes, salted fish lasts for age. I mean, go to any hostile climate and salted fish will last. Pickled fish, salted Fish. I mean, I think it's salted fish at this point.

[William Dalrymple]

Have you ever eaten salted fish? I've never eaten salted fish.

[Anita Anand]

Have I eaten salted. I mean, an anchovy is a salted fish.

[William Dalrymple]

If you think today you have pickled herring and stuff, but they're not pickling.

[Anita Anand]

It, they're salting it. I mean, I'm saying. I'm shouting anchovy at you, but it will be your idea in about 30 seconds.

[William Dalrymple]

Anchovies.

[Anita Anand]

See our anchovies.

[William Dalrymple]

Salty fish.

[Anita Anand]

Jesus Christ. It's so wearing. It's so tiring. But look, they came for the fish. And the French fishermen who are coming to Newfoundland where the stocks are plentiful and the fish are humongous, they're from either France or the Basque region. And what they learn really early on. So this is before New France is even an idea. This is early in the 1500s, that if they trade metal goods and cloth, particularly with the Mi' Kmaq and Inu peoples, they will get animal pellets, pelts, especially this beaver. And let me tell you about hats now. Now I want to. I just want to tell you about fish. And then hats, fur and the kind of pelts that come back are highly prized in Europe because they are the absolute bedrock of making felt hats. So first of all, you'll see, if you go and look on the Google, you'll see fashions that go back to, I mean, maybe not the 1500s, but they're making them, but certainly the end of the 1500s and the 1600s. So there is this huge fashion right from the mid to late 1500s, and it will go on for 200, 300 years of making the finest hats from these pelts. Now, Paris, of course, they have the best furriers in Europe, and they go crazy for this type of high quality, very warm, very easy to manipulate beaver pelt. And so suddenly these fishermen have gone over to bring fish stocks back in whichever sorted stroke, preserved form that they do manage to. They realize they could make so much more money by bringing back pelts. And the more they bring back, the more the craze for these beaver wool. They end up calling this. This process by which they make these sort of felted hats from the 1530s becomes a mad thing. So you Parisian and London merchants just can't get enough of these things.

[William Dalrymple]

This also is why you get, shortly after this, the founding of the Muscovy Company, which is trading exactly the same products with Moscow. The beginning of Western trade with that whole region begins at this Point. And it's this that provokes the very first chartered company, the Muscovy Company is the one that inspires the Levant Company, which in turn inspires the East India Company. And so for all that we've been joking about, it's actually incredibly important driver of economic change and the fur trade and the need to get these, these high fashion items, these high cost items to Western Europe drives an entire economy, just like we've seen how what you might have thought was a sort of fairy, ephemeral thing, getting a little sugar in your tea, creates an entire slave economy. This fashion for felt hats, which starts in France but spreads to Holland and England and the rest of Europe and becomes part of the making of a gentleman and the perception of a gentleman in Western Europe at this time. You can't go in the streets without a hat. And in fact, when Europeans go outside Europe to places like India, they are known as hat wearers.

[Anita Anand]

Topi Wallas. Yes, Topi Wallace. Exactly that. But also biodiversity collapse. Because what they've done, first of all, Willy, is that, you know, there were beavers around, you know, Scandinavia and indeed around Scotland and Britain, you know, and there is such a craze for this that they completely deplete the sources of beaver populations around the British Isles and Scandinavia. And so you've got, I mean, there's a historian called Harold Innes, writes all about the fur trade in Canada. It's an old book in 1930, but back then he was considering how much you would make. A single beaver pelt from the New World, he wrote, could fetch up to 20 times its weight in manufactured goods. So, you know, this was. If you had a ship and you wanted to fill the cargo with stuff that's going to make you rich. Forget about the iron pyrite, which means nothing, even forget about fish, which is a limited sort of profit return and du fair. And had there not been this fashion trend, as you say, the Muscovy company wouldn't have happened and the French Crown would not have invested seriously in this thing called New France. Because they see, they see, by the early 1600s, fur has overtaken fish as the dominant export from New France. So there is money.

[William Dalrymple]

It's extraordinary how these utterly ephemeral things like sugar and fur hats shape entire geopolitics and lead to the extinction of whole aboriginal tribes.

[Anita Anand]

A reshaping of continents, reshaping entire continents.

[William Dalrymple]

On the basis of a whim of fashion.

[Anita Anand]

Indeed.

[William Dalrymple]

The more you look at this history, the weirder and more shockingly sort of random it is.

[Anita Anand]

No weirder than sugar in your tea and tea for opium. I mean, it's just, you know, these are tiny dominoes that lead to enormous cultural and suffering and massive cultural waves.

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[Anita Anand]

Collapse.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah.

[Anita Anand]

But in steps, this man who is going to formalize the presence of France, New France, in Canada.

[William Dalrymple]

We've got another French name for you here.

[Anita Anand]

I'm revving for it. Samuel de Champlain. Samuel de Champlain is his name. So he's important for many reasons. Interesting. For many reasons, because he's one of those people who sort of comes up from nowhere. He's not landed gentry. He's not, you know, someone who has even a drop of blue blood in his veins. He was a French explorer. You might. I mean, if you've heard of him, you'll know him as an explorer, navigator, cartographer, soldier, geographer. But he was also an ethnologist because he took copious notes of the people that he met. So some of the first contact stuff that he writes down and sends back is absolutely invaluable to historians. He's also a diplomat. So let me tell you his foundation story, shall I? This man, de Champlain makes between 21 and 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean. And he's partly. The reason he's able to do this is because he crawls into the ear of one Cardinal de Richelieu. I mean, we say Richelieu, if we watch movies of the Three Musketeers. I'm sorry, you're not going to do that. And I'll do that. Richelieu, Cardinal de Richelieu. So he has sort of crawled into the Cardinal's ear, and he said, look, I've made so many voyages. There is so much money to be made. And Richelieu, who's kind of the Foreign Secretary of France at that time, wants to make money, and he sees that the British are spreading their tentacles across the globe, and he does not want France to get left behind. And so he gets into the Year of the King. And that's why a lot of these things are funded. And he's able to do what Cabot couldn't. You know, all of the Cartier couldn't. People who come back on sort of perceived, yes, you did very well, but you've not made as money missions. They don't get funded for 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean.

[William Dalrymple]

Just to make this clear. This is before the founding of the Virginia Company. This is before the British have landed with their serious settlement on the east coast of America. So the French are well in there. I Hadn't realized the chronology. So, I mean, they're not far behind the Spanish and the Portuguese. The French are in there pretty quick in the 16th century, and that is.

[Anita Anand]

Part of national pride. And that's why Richelieu takes it very seriously and puts money into these campaigns. But you've got de Champlain, who founds then Quebec City and New France on the 3rd of July, 1608.

[William Dalrymple]

And not so far from the last failed French colony.

[Anita Anand]

Yes. Which was just a mess.

[William Dalrymple]

Cartier has abandoned colonies not far away.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah. So, I mean, just a little bit more about this man who is interesting and a pioneer. So he sort of grew up around, surrounded by the sea. He was born in 1567 in a place called Brouage. It's a small French seaport on the Bay of Biscay. And if you Listen to Radio 4's shipping announcements, you'll be familiar. He develops this passion for navigation and it's influenced by his father, who is a captain, and his uncle, who has spent life on the oceans. And though these men are of little means, they are his heroes and he learns through them seamanship, navigation, and crucially, map making. Map making at this early period of time, when this is all virgin territory, is absolutely invaluable, where people who've come before are absolutely convinced that China is through the waterfall. His map making is going to transform the way people look at this, this, this area of the world. So in. In 1599, he sails with the Spanish fleet and sees their holdings in the Americas.

[William Dalrymple]

And just again, for those who, who don't know this history, at this point, the Spanish have not only captured Mexico and great chunks of Latin America, but they have really got the mines going. And there is now a flood at the end of the 6th, 19th century of gold and silver coming across the Atlantic every single year. So much so that the price of gold bottoms. Because there's now, for the first time in European history, massive amounts of gold everywhere. And a lot of this gold is making it through to the Ottoman Empire and to Goa and the Moguls. This is a complete revolution in the world economy. There's never been so much gold and precious metals in Europe ever before. And this is what the British, sitting on their island, looking jealously at the incredible wealth of the Spanish and the Portuguese are raiding. And remember that whole world that we talked about when we were discussing the founding of the East India Company, when Drake and Raleigh are what the British politely call privateers, but which the Spanish rightly call themselves pirates. They're licensed Pirates, and they're raiding at every opportunity this enormous quantities of gold and silver crossing from the mines of Latin America. And so this is what Champlain's seeing. He's seeing, I mean, it's like, you know, someone today visiting Silicon Valley and seeing all the wealth of that area of California. This is the biggest honeypot in the world at this time.

[Anita Anand]

Well, and because he's not a blue blood, he's not immediately put at the top of the triangle to come and make this happen for France. Another man is given a fur trade trading monopoly in the region. But, you know, he is given carte blanche to go and explore the St. Lawrence river for the first time. He comes back to New France and he goes out and he's being funded again. And he goes further afield. And what's interesting about him is that he starts forming relationships with the local tribe. So he makes friends with the Inu and the Wendat, the Huron people of the region. And what he says is that, you know, look, I searched for a place suitable for our abode. I found none more convenient or better situated than the point of Quebec. And what he realizes is that he's not going to make Quebec last. He's seen the other places rise and fall and he knows how hard it's going to be. He needs these tribes. So he tries to make sort of relationships with them. Rather than kidnapping them, throwing them on board or locking them in a brig, he starts to make these treaties with them.

[William Dalrymple]

Historians from Europe have often viewed this entirely from the European point of view. But there's quite an interesting new generation of historians in North America who are of indigenous descent and who are rewriting history very interestingly from the point of view of the indigenous. And as they see it, the tribes here are finding the French useful allies. It's not a one way thing. It isn't just that the French are coming in.

[Anita Anand]

They're not passive.

[William Dalrymple]

They're not passive.

[Anita Anand]

They're not passive.

[William Dalrymple]

These guys are choosing to make the French settle here because it's in their interest, because they see the French weaponry. They see these guys who at this stage are turning up still with suits of armor, Those heavy late 16th century sort of conquistador Pauldrons and so on, which are very effective against the weaponry of the Indian tribes. There is an argument, or certainly you can see it in a slightly different way if you look from the Indian perspective, that these guys are manipulating the French and taking the French, offering the French what they want in order to manipulate them and drag them into Their own wars and their own very hot conflicts with neighbouring tribes.

[Anita Anand]

So you're absolutely spot on. And this is crucial because as he's sort of founding his Quebec City, he's doing it on Innu land. And he's only allowed to do it because the Innu leaders invite him to come and stay.

[William Dalrymple]

They invite him. That's the key point. He doesn't expect to get this invitation. And having struggled over the ocean and everything and expecting a hostile land, they are invited in at this point.

[Anita Anand]

They are. But, you know, as you say, this is a quid pre quo at this point. So they're not passive, you know, natives who are just kind of being swept along. What they say is, you know, what? If you're coming on board, you fight our fights. So fight the Mohawks, and if you fight with them, we will bring you the beaver pelts. But you've got to give us some good stuff and fight with us, because we need to defeat those people because they are our enemies and have been for years. And so he gets pulled into these conflicts, you know, he said, you know, the Inu Algonquin Wendat delegation explained that they were wanting vengeance against the Mohawks and the Haudenosaunee, who they'd fought for a long time because of the many cruelties they have committed. And so they say to Champlain, you know, if you want to stay here, if you want a foothold here, and if you want those beaver pelts, fine, but we go to war together. So it is. He's pulled into Native politics.

[William Dalrymple]

Because I certainly always read this as the sort of. Of, you know, Europeans coming in and having their way and choosing to do basically what they want. But you can read this in a completely different way, whereby they're pawns in a very complicated chess game that's already going on in this area.

[Anita Anand]

So you've got them on one side, but then the Dutch say, okay, if that's the way you want to play. The Dutch say, okay, we can be friends with the Mohawks, then. Let's see, you know. And then again, you've got this sort of drawing of lines that exist in Europe, but are also sort of superimposed on lines of. Of enmity which already exist in Canada.

[William Dalrymple]

And again, for those who don't know this history, the Dutch are in what will become New York, which is then called Manhattan, and that entire area of the Hudson River. And so you've got a rival Protestant settlement just to the south of where these Frenchmen are setting up. So, two, it's like three dimensional chess. You've not only got all the different European rivalries between different, different nations who are arranged, in a sense, in two different sides of the board as Protestant and Catholic, but you've also got this very complicated chessboard of enemies. Enemies between the Innu, the Algonquin, the Wendats, the Mohawks. And you pronounce it rather than me because I make a mess of it.

[Anita Anand]

Haudenosaunee.

[William Dalrymple]

Haudenosaunee. Beautifully done.

[Anita Anand]

I mean, I hope so. But, you know, bit by bit, through this diplomacy, Native diplomacy, as they called it, then Champlain starts to establish his total authority, at least at Quebec, and he's able to explore, he's able to map, and all of this stuff is fantastic, except he's really into the exploring and making first contacts. And it is in 1620. The king says, could you stop the exploring now and concentrate on the administrative tasks, because we need to get some money out of here. It's all very well. You're going up and down and shaking hands with people and making. What does it mean if we're not getting any kind of wealth? I mean, what you see early on in this establishment of New France is one man saying, you know what, we'll create a new, new kind of people. There'll be a mixed pot of races as one.

[William Dalrymple]

And this, it's important to say, is very different from the English perspective at this point. You do get a great deal of English interaction with Indians and intermarriage in the 18th century, but you're not getting that in India in the very early days, the.

[Anita Anand]

The early 17th century, because racial miscegenation is the worst thing you can do is. It's not that.

[William Dalrymple]

It's not quite as that, but I think it's more of a. I think. I suspect it's more a religious thing for the. For the Jacobite Caribbeans in that very early period. But this is not the case for some reason in North America. And you do get this astonishingly integrated open intermarriage. And because one of the things that the French are doing is that they're converting the Mohawks and the Iroquois and all the tribes they're coming into contact with to Catholicism, certainly trying to. There's a huge Jesuit presence and there's Jesuit settlements very soon after the royal settlement. And so once the indigenous peoples have been converted to Catholicism, there's no ban on intermarriage in the franchise. I think that's what's going on.

[Anita Anand]

Right. And so you've got sort of New France, which is Built on this idea of collaboration with Indians who become trading partners, military allies and kin over the course of the 17th century. Just to round up de Champlain's life. And we're going to a break. He, during his life creates the first accurate coastal map of Canada. His explorations have founded and discovered tribes. He's got various colonial settlements and agreements. He's the first European to describe the Great Lakes and publish maps of his journeys and accounts of what he's learned from natives and French living among the natives. He is also, I love this, a bit of a self publicist. There is one likeness of him which is him very heroically holding a musket, I guess, very smartly dressed in sort.

[William Dalrymple]

Of wonderful conquistador pauldrons and wonderful metal helmet and that very sort of particular Jacobean armour or I don't know what the French equivalent would be, but it's a terrific little woodcut that we have.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah. Do you know what? He did it himself, he drew himself. So I kind of love that about him. So let me just tell you how he dies, because he's one of this new breed, if you like, a French explorer who chooses not to go back and live the high life in France. Instead, he dies in Quebec itself on the 25th of December, Christmas Day, 1635. Quebec, to him is home. France no longer is. And what's his legacy, would you say?

[William Dalrymple]

Well, he's founded Quebec, which is obviously now one of the main cities in Canada. But there's another legacy which is going to play out into the next century. And this is important, through his alliances with indigenous tribes that he's been invited in and allowed to found Quebec parts. But it is also through those alliances that he finds himself in a century long conflict that will completely change the history and the politics for the next 100 years. In 1609, he joins his indigenous allies in a raid against the Iroquois Confederacy using firearms in battle. That's a crucial new development. And the French find themselves caught in over a century of conflict, conflict between the French and the Iroquois. And that will shape everything that comes. So he's not only the founder, he's left this legacy of inter tribal conflict into which the French have been pulled and there's no escaping.

[Anita Anand]

Right. Okay. After the break, we are going to talk about a man who I also find fascinating and who happens to be de Champollain's prodigy, A man called Etienne Brulee. He is a really interesting story who makes a lot of money from this craze for fur that carries on in France. Join us then.

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[Anita Anand]

Welcome back. So I promised you a story of an interesting man. And that man is Etienne Brulee, the first coureur de bois, the wild man of New France.

[William Dalrymple]

It's a lovely, lovely idea. This is all for those who like their movies. This is all, it's a different geography and it's a little bit earlier, but it's the same world of fur trappers that you got in that movie the Revenant where all these guys are going upriver to trade beaver furs and running into tribes and going to completely new areas they haven't seen before. And it's a very, very exciting and wonderful world.

[Anita Anand]

Well, Etienne Beuret, as I said, coureur de Bois means literally the runners of the wood. And these were very, very early Revenant examples. And you can see actually there's a really lovely plaque dedicated to him in Toronto. And you see him Davy Crockett style, motioning towards, you know, whatever, this new land that he's going to explore. With his almost his back turned and his sort of three quarter faced round, he was such a success that he ends up being actually a fabulous businessman in the end. So, so who is he? He is the protege of de Champlain who finds him as this sort of lanky teenager, very, very young, who wants to make a life. And he says, okay, you could make a good life. Du Champlain says, if you, for me, go and live with the Huron Wendat Algonquins, learn their languages and their customs. Because what I really need is translators. And I need translators I can trust, because there is, and there was in Cartier's time as well, this distrust that what you're being told is the truth. Because all of their rivalries are brought into negotiations. You know, would you remember? The Sons would not take voyages up to meet other tribes because they were their enemies and they didn't want any trade to go on with their enemies. So at first, he introduces them to emissaries from these tribes. And the tribes want nothing to do with the this kid because they think, my God, if he dies in our care, the French are going to come back and shoot us all. But de Champlain says this rather hilarious thing. He says, if he dies, he dies. This is a direct quote. Accidents could happen. So they take this youth, estimated to be about 17 years old at the time, and they decide to teach him their ways. And he's with the Algonquins at this time, and he's entirely dependent on their goodwill, and he's a liability to them. You know, like this hapless piece of baggage on their canoes who could bring them trouble on the move during the warmer weather. His companions travel naked. They're only in loincloths. They endure hunger. And they're tough, tough men. Insect bites, physical hardships that would have killed most Frenchmen. But this very young man manages to survive all of this. You know, you're in a canoe. If you're doing long stretches, using your wooden food bowls as chamber pots in the boat, because you don't stop because you've got somewhere to be. So sickness is no stranger on these things. So he's really hardened. He's exposed to all of these illnesses, and he doesn't die, and he doesn't get shot or stabbed either.

[William Dalrymple]

I've got a very interesting scoop that I got literally last night at dinner. I am staying with my friend Mark Horton, an archaeologist who's just been digging early English colonies in the American coast. And this sort of thing has always been traditionally written up as something the French did that the British didn't do. Can you remember last year when we were doing the American series? We talked about almost at the same period when the English are arriving at Roanoke and they're dropped off Walter Raleigh founds the colony, and then they come back and they find there's no one.

[Anita Anand]

There except one sign.

[William Dalrymple]

And there's one sign, Croton, on the tree. Exactly that. American historians have always believed that those people were massacred and disappeared from history. So my host, literally, where I'm staying at the moment, Mark Horton, who's this amazing archaeologist who is a specialist in the early imperial archaeology of this time, recently dug around Roanoke island at the place where the sign was pointing towards Croton. And he dug the middens of the indigenous settlements there and found there were European goods and European items there, implying that the British had left Roanoke and gone to live with the indigenous and intermixed with them.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, really?

[William Dalrymple]

So at the same time as this guy is running around using chamber pots and canoes and getting heavily involved in the trapping and the capture of beaver and so on, the similar things going on, and we haven't realized this on the British settlements in Virginia. And it's not that they're wiped out, it's just that they become.

[Anita Anand]

They get absorbed.

[William Dalrymple]

They get absorbed.

[Anita Anand]

That's really interesting.

[William Dalrymple]

Even more than the French and no one had ever known. This is his big scoop this year. He literally has been digging it this summer.

[Anita Anand]

That's fascinating. I mean, we do know about Brule because, again, there has been stuff written by him and about him. But he's so successful in his first winter with the Algonquins, and they start to respect him. He's the only white man who has gone into some of the areas and the places that they are taking him. And when the winter's over, he comes down the Ottawa river to St. Lawrence with 200 Indians to meet with the French. I mean, can you imagine? They sort of arrive in this huge mass of canoes to meet the French. It's been such a successful thing. And they begin, thanks to him, an annual trading fair which will bring beaver pelts and, you know, the wealth comes to the French, beaver pelts for knives and kettles and hatchets. And he has learned enough of the language now to serve as an interpreter for Chief Iroquet, who is a man who shows complete trust in this strange white boy who has come and is keen to learn and live with them and who is, you know, strong enough to do it. So the close of the trading season, when, you know, he could go back, he says, no, I'm going to. Actually, what I would like to do, do, if you don't mind, is going to spend the year with the Huron Indians, who live near what Is now known as Lake Huron's Georgian bay. And de champlain is delighted because this is exactly what he wanted. He wanted these first contacts with somebody who could speak the language and faithfully tell him what they're actually saying and whether they will actually want to have some kind of deal with him or do some kind of trade without actually lying about it, saying, no, they hate you. They want to kill you, because they happen to be tribal enemies. Enemies. So he says, yes, sure, go. I don't have an interpreter for the Hurons. They are powerful. They are wealthy. So go. So he goes. And while acting for his boss and doing this sort of map drawing and interpreting and making this first contact and saying, my people would like to trade with you, he also develops his own lucrative side hustle. He becomes one of the first coureurs de bois, these runners of the wood. Unlicensed fur traders. So, you know, like, the monopoly is kind of given to one man who's running new France at the time. But he, you know, you can do this little thing on the side and make your own money. And he goes deeper and deeper into the interior, Possibly, people think, reaching lake Superior Years before any European will ever see it. He dresses in native clothes. He marries into indigenous communities. He trades directly the pelts that he.

[William Dalrymple]

Brings back, Married into Jesus communities. Plural.

[Anita Anand]

He has many wives. Yeah, apparently so. So, I mean, this kind of. Of really plunging yourself into the life Makes him rich. But he has absolutely no interest in going back to France to live the life of a gentleman. Instead, he just lives his life among the tribes of Canada. And there's a big question mark. There's a big thing about, you know, how did he die? So for years, people said he was murdered with some exclusions.

[William Dalrymple]

He was eaten.

[Anita Anand]

Eaten, Exactly. They're really lurid, florid descriptions of how he was dismembered and eaten by the wendat. Some say, you know, he was assassinated because they didn't like him trading with others behind their back. The wendat didn't like him talking to the Seneca, Iroquois indians, for example, all those sort of enmities.

[William Dalrymple]

Again, this. This thing that. That when you're part of this new world, you have to operate according to the new world moralities, the new world taboos. You could very easily, as a European, without realizing it, Completely break the tribal taboos between trading with enemies and so on.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah, I mean, whatever happened, I sort of, you know, it's a mystery. But I'd like to think he lived happily ever after, because he seems like quite A quite an interesting.

[William Dalrymple]

He sounds a fascinating character, doesn't he?

[Anita Anand]

I'm glad you think so.

[William Dalrymple]

Very pleased to be introduced to him.

[Anita Anand]

But by the time he dies, the tribes are getting wise to the power they have in the deal because, you know, the French appetite for these beaver pelts is growing. So they say, look, firearms, enough of your hatchets and kettles, I don't need those anymore. But what I'd really like is guns, because we have serious enemies that we have to fight. And, yes, you're going to fight with us, but we also need to have our own guns. And this leads to a shifting power balance, particularly between the Huron Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, you know, the Iroquois Confederacy. And what you have is one Jesuit missionary writing a report in the early 1600s saying the Peltry of Canada is now turned to powder and shot. So a warning, you know, that you are arming people and it's going to be disastrous.

[William Dalrymple]

And I think we just stumbled there onto something that's very important that can't be emphasized enough, which is the power of the Jesuits at this time. This is the height of the Counter Reformation and the Jesuits are this incredible multinational force. They are the main backers of Goa on the Indian end of things. They are all over Latin America at this point, founding missionary settlements and providing a counterbalance to the more exploitative elements in the. In the sort of conquistador world. Remember that, that movie, the Mission years ago with Robert De Niro, that whole.

[Anita Anand]

Beautiful soundtrack, amazing soundtrack.

[William Dalrymple]

This. All this is going on just sort of know, 500, 600 miles to the south. And exactly at this point, the Jesuits are there in large numbers now and they're making a lot of conversions and you're getting these very interesting societies developing which the indigenous tribes are converting to Catholicism. They're turning up at church, There's a great deal of intermarriage and there is a extraordinary closeness. And you remember last year we did that whole story of the raid on Deerfield. It is Deerfield.

[Anita Anand]

Yes.

[William Dalrymple]

That's again, this sort of period when you have very much mixed and intermarried French Catholic and French Indian forces fighting white Puritan English. This is all going on at the same time.

[Anita Anand]

So, look, we talked about fur, but we haven't talked about fish. Fish that plays a part in the whole colonisation rush. So during the 17th century, the cod fishery in Newfoundland becomes increasingly important to European in fishing. France was one of several European countries competing for a share in fishing. And in 1662, so, I mean, Again, this is sort of early on, the French established a garrison town at a place called Pleasance, which is on the western side of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. And the French want to secure the merchant fishing's fleet, access to the fishery and their share of European cod, because it is, again, cod are big in these waters and they make money.

[William Dalrymple]

Have you ever read that book by Mark Kolansky called the Biography of a Fish that Changed the World? It was one of the first of those.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, like nutmeg or something.

[William Dalrymple]

Like nutmeg, Exactly. About, about 20 years ago, it was a huge, huge bestseller and it rewrote the history of the world around cod. Anyway, this, this is very much this territory, the degree to which cod forms one of the main product of this early colonization in North America.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah, well, I mean, Pleasance is placed next to rich fishing waters. It's relatively ice free as a harbour, so you can get your ships in and out. And you see pleas growing as well. It's like popcorn. You know, these places that are there for utility suddenly grow into kernels that will become a colony. So it's got military fortifications, it's got a base for the French Atlantic cod ships to come over.

[William Dalrymple]

Just to give the geography a bit of clarity of those that are not familiar with their, their maps of this region, this is, this is 100 miles to the west of Quebec and to the north, northwest of Quebec.

[Anita Anand]

Right. So the, the fishery is trying to succeed and there are some, some amazing images of this. This first on stilts staging post at pleasance from the 1660s. It's sort of wooden stilts and you've got people industriously working with great barrels.

[William Dalrymple]

There's your salted fish barrels. Look at them. I can see in the picture, it's wonderful.

[Anita Anand]

Now we know we are. But what is the problem with this is that they rely on the merchant fleet to bring laborers food, manufactured goods and to ship their dried catch back to Europe to be sold. But when you have war going on, and I think you're going to sort of pick up on this in a moment, those deliveries of things that you need, they just stop, they dry up. And so this is a really precarious existence for fishing. Just before you get into this, can I just give a little bit of background to why this war that you're going to tell us about is going to happen? It's a story of two tax dodgers. So this is in the 1660s. These two men, Medard Schouart de Groseillais and Pierre Esprit Disant. They flee to New England because they are sick and tired of the high cost of bringing back their hauls to Quebec and the heavy tax that they're suffering on fur pelts. So what they do is they go to England and they persuade a group of London merchants to attempt to take over the fur trade and just give them a tax break. And they say, look, there's this place called the Hudson Bay. You might like it. And this is how the Hudson Bay Company is born, which is the only.

[William Dalrymple]

One of these Elizabethan or Jacobean chartered companies which still survives. It's there now. Yeah, it's a fascinating story. These two French who go across to the English for tax break reasons, they go in 1668 to London and they finally get the charter to found the Hudson Bay Company in May 1670. And it was to seek its shareholders fortune in the northern interior of North America, not via the St. Lawrence or the Hudson, but through the discovery of this interior sea, the Hudson Bay. Hudson by this stage had long died, but his bay lingers on in the cartography. And Charles II obligingly claims this for England. And this, of course, is something which is going to change the history of this entire region because this is the first time that the English are coming this far north and establishing a foothold. They're claiming the watershed of the Hudson Bay, which they don't know how large it is, but of course, in reality, it's a vast piece of real estate stretching as far as the Rockies in the west and covering most of what would become the Canadian prairies. So this is now the English landing on the borders of French territory. And this is, of course, in time, the period just before we enter that century when the English and the French are struggling in every theater of the world for global domination. And this is something which is going to dominate the whole of the 18th century and not finally resolve itself until water in 1815. And it is another Hundred year war. It isn't a constant war and it has lots of different names like the wars of Spanish Succession and the Seven Year War. But it is this extraordinary struggle between these two European powers which rolls out at the end of this page. Now, this is going to lead us up to our next episode because we're going to jump now to the 21st of May, 1752, when we get the first beginnings of this, what will become this cataclysmic battle between the English and the French for the control of the north of North America. And the opening shots happen when, on 21 June 1752, a party of French Indians led by a French adventurer who's a similar figure to Etienne de Bruylay, another runner of the woods. And his name is Charles La Glade. And he has her own one, as so many of the French of this period now do. Through his language skills and through his intermarriage and his knowledge of this world, he's extremely influential among the Seneca, the Iroquois and the Mi' Kmaq. So he's a kind of extraordinary pan tribal figure who can unite these different tribes. And he leads a war party of 240 warriors down to Lake Huron, across Lake Erie and into the newly farmed English settlements of British Ohio. Tomahawks at the ready, they fall on the British settlement of Pickawillany, achieving complete surprise. And only 20 British settlers managed to muster to the stockade. Of those, one was later scalped and another ceremonially boiled. The most delicious parts of his body are eaten. Now this extraordinary race spreads a sense of instability and fear, even terror among the British traders and settlers as far away as New York and Virginia. And within months, regular French troops, supported by indigenous guides auxiliaries, large numbers of Indian warriors are moving in large numbers into the headwaters of the Ohio valley. And on the 1st of November, the governor of Virginia sends a 21 year old militia volunteer north to investigate. And who is he? He is George Washington, only 21 years old. And so begins the first act of what the Americans still call the French and Indian wars, which is known in the rest of the world as the Seven Year War. And this is going to be a total war and properly goble fought on multiple continents and in ruthless advancement of both British and French imperial interests. It'll carry European arms and warfare from the Ohio to the Philippines, from Cuba to Nigeria, from Palasi, which we've dealt with at the very first episode of this podcast, to the Heights Abraham outside Quebec.

[Anita Anand]

Well, you've built it up and so it's an exciting couple of episodes waiting for you. We're going to be joined by the fabulous Maya Jasanoff. Till the next time we meet. Then it's goodbye from me, Anita Anand.

[William Dalrymple]

And goodbye from me, William Durimple.

[Anita Anand]

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[William Dalrymple]

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[Anita Anand]

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[William Dalrymple]

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[Anita Anand]

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