THE MEN WHO PLANTED NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA, FOUNDED QUEBEC, EXPLORED THE GREAT LAKE REGION, AND PENETRATED THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE [Sidenote: =Cartier, 1534=] =31. The French in North America.= France was the slowest of the great nations in the race for North America. Not until 1534 did Jacques Cartier, a French sea captain searching for a shorter route to India, sail into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. He reached an Indian village where Montreal now stands and took possession of the country for his king. [Sidenote: =Champlain founded Quebec, 1608=] One year after Jamestown was settled, and one year before the _Half Moon_ sailed up the Hudson, Samuel de Champlain laid the foundations of Quebec (1608). Champlain was of noble birth, and had been a soldier in the French army. He had already helped found Port Royal in Nova Scotia. [Illustration: SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN _From the portrait painting in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania_] [Sidenote: =Made friends and foes among the Indians=] Wherever he went, Champlain made fast friends with the Algonquin Indians, who lived along the St. Lawrence. He gave them presents and bought their skins of beaver and of other animals. In the fur trade he saw a golden stream flowing into the king's treasury. Champlain certainly made a good beginning in winning over these Indians, but he also made one great blunder out of which grew many bitter enemies among other Indian tribes. [Illustration: THE SITE OF QUEBEC _Here, 1608, on a narrow belt of land at the foot of the high bluff, Champlain laid out the city of Quebec_] [Sidenote: =An Indian war party=] =32. Champlain and the Indians.= The Algonquins were bitter foes of the Iroquois or Five Nations. One time they begged Champlain and his men, clad in steel and armed with the deadly musket, to join their war party (1609). This he did. They made their way up the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Richelieu, and up that river to the falls. The Indians then carried the canoes and the baggage around the falls. [Sidenote: =Discovery of Lake Champlain=] What must have been Champlain's feelings when they glided out of the narrow river into the lake now bearing his name! A lake no white man had ever seen, and greater than any in his beloved France! On the left he saw the ridges of the Green Mountains, on the right the pine-clad slopes of the Adirondacks, the hunting grounds of the hated Iroquois. One evening, near where the ruins of Ticonderoga now stand, they saw the war canoes of their enemies. That night the hostile tribes taunted each other and boasted of their bravery. On the shores of the lake the next day they drew up in battle array. The Iroquois chiefs wore tall plumes on their heads, and their warriors carried shields of wood or hide. [Sidenote: =Why the Iroquois came to hate the French=]