Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain (ca. 1567-1635), French explorer and cartographer is recognized as the father of New France for his efforts to establish settlements in Acadia and the St. Lawrence region of Canada. On July 3, 1603 he founded a trading post on the St. Lawrence River that later became known as the city of Québec.
On July 4, 1609 Samuel de Champlain and a raiding party of 60 Indian allies and two French soldiers entered the lake that would later bear his name. On the evening of July 29, the found a party of 200 Iroquois camped on the Ticonderoga peninsula. The next morning both forces met in battle. Champlain fired his musket killing two Iroquois chiefs and wounding a third. The Iroquois, who had never before experienced firearms, immediately fled closely pursued by Champlain’s Indian Allies. Samuel de Champlain’s engagement with the Iroquois at Ticonderoga was the first military action in the Champlain valley.
Over the course of Champlain’s voyages and explorations of North America in the early 17th century, he explored and mapped the St. Lawrence River region, Lake Ontario and the Atlantic coast as far south as Cape Cod. In his later life he enjoyed success as a fur trader before dying in Québec on December 25, 1635.
