Samuel De Champlain

Biography 

Samuel De Champlain was born around 1567 in Brouage, France, a sea port town on the Bay of Biscay.  His family were mariners so he learned how to navigate, draw nautical charts and write reports from an early age.  Champlain served in the french army under Henry IV.  In 1598 he went with his uncle-in-law on a ship to transport  Spanish troops.  Champlain took detailed notes of the joyage and reported them back to the king.  As a reward, King Henry gave him a large yearly pension.  In 1601, his Uncle-in-law died and left his estate to Champlain.  The inheritance plus the pension made him a wealthy man.  From 1601 to 1603 Champlain served as a geographer for  King Henry.  He was responible to  travel to French ports in North America.  This is how he bacame an explorer.

In 1609 Champlain wanted to form better relations with the local indian tribes.  He became friendly with the Wendat, Algonquin, and Montagnais  tribes located around the St. Lawrence River.  These tribes wanted Champlain to help them fight the Iroquios.  Later that year, 200 Iroquois advanced to fight Champlain's men.  He fired once and killed two of them.  One of his men fired and killed a third.  The Iroquis fled with no further bloodshed.

Samuel De Champlain was an explorer, mapmaker, and a diplomat. He founded Qubec city in1608.  Although he was never officially made the governor of Qubec City or New France, he served as one.  He mapped out much of the Great Lake areas and documented his travels  Samuel De Champlain died on December 25, 1635 of a stroke in Quebec.

Champlain is known as the "Father of New France", and many places, streets, and structures in northeastern North America have his name.  Lake Champlain is probably the most well know of these "memorials."

                                                                    Maps of Samuel De Champlain's Travels 

Summary

I think Samuel De Champlain belongs in the Hall Of Fame instead of the Hall Of Shame because he didnt do anything bad. He explored mch of eastern Canada and became known as the "Father of New France". which was the french part of Canada. He formed alliences with Indians such as the Algonquins for fur trade.

He mapped out the Great Lakes and helped the Algonquins defeat the Iroquois. Samuel De Champlain took 7 voyages.

Reflection 

The Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries are similar and different in some ways to space exploration today. They are the same because both ways are exploring unkown areas. They are both big risks to take because when you don't know what to expect, you could easily be killed. They are also different in some ways because the technolgy we use to travel differs from how it was back then. We use spaceships and they use ships. Space travel is much faster than land travel but is also more dangerous. Space travel never ends because the univearse never ends, so we could explore more.

Work Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_de_Champlain  10-22-09

http://www.travel-vermont.net/2008/09/map-samuel-de-champlain-voyages-travels/  10-01-09