On 29 August 1606, Champlain left Port Royal on his third voyage down the coast of New England. He stopped briefly at St. Croix where he picked up the Mi’kmaq chieftains Secoudon and Messamouet, who wanted to travel with him to Saco to ally with the people there.
The group left St. Croix on September 12, paused for a while in Casco Bay, and arrived at Saco on the 21st. As Champlain relates: “On the 21st we reached Saco, where we saw Onemechin, chief of that river, and Marchin, who had finished harvesting their corn … In this place, we rescued a prisoner from Onemechin, to whom Messamouet made presents of kettles, axes, knives, and other articles. Onemechin made return in Indian corn, squashes, and Brazilian beans; but these did not altogether satisfy Messamouet, who departed much displeased because he had not been suitably repaid for what he had given them” (Biggar, 1922: 396). He would return the next year and conduct a brutal raid.
The group then proceeded to Cape Ann and then onto Gloucester Harbor, where they had a friendly interaction with a large group of locals. They then sailed to Cape Cod and Mallebarre. Here, their interactions with the Nauset began well, but after a couple of weeks Champlain “observed that the Indians were taking down their wigwams and were sending into the woods their wives, children and provisions … This made us suspect some evil design … ” (Biggar, 1922: 416)
Sure enough, a few days later, a small party of Frenchmen on the shore were attacked.“The Indians, to the number of four hundred, came quietly over a little hill, and shot such a salvo of arrows at them as to give them no chance of recovery before they were struck dead. Fleeing as fast as they could towards our pinnace, and crying out, “Help, help, they are killing us,” some of them fell dead in the water, while the rest were all pierced with arrows, of whom one died a short time afterward. These Indians made a desperate row, with war-whoops which it was terrible to hear” (Biggar, 1922: 421).
The French attempted a counteroffensive, but the Nauset fled inland, and all that could be done was bury the dead bodies and raise a cross. Soon, as French historian Lescarbot writes, “the Nauset returned to the place of their murderous deed, uprooted the Cross, dug up one of the dead, took off his shirt, and put it on, holding up the spoils which they had carried off; and with all this they also turned their backs to the long-boat and made mock at us by taking sand in their two hands and casting it between their buttocks, yelping the while like wolves (Biggar, 1922: 423)
On October 16, Champlain decided to set sail, but his group didn’t get very far due to contrary winds before returning to Mallebarre Harbor. Forced to stay put, they decided that it was time to extract revenge. As Champlain relates, they would “seize a few Indians of this place, to take them to our settlement and make them grind corn at a hand mill as a punishment for the murderous assault committed upon five or six of our men … [But to do this they would have] to resort to stratagem … when they should come to make friends with us again, we should coax them, by showing them beads and other trifles, and should reassure them repeatedly; then we should take the shallop well-armed, and the stoutest and strongest men we had, each with a chain of beads and a match and should set these men on shore, where … we were to coax them with soft words to draw them into the shallop; and, should they be unwilling to enter, each of our men as he approached was to choose his man, and throwing the beads about his neck should at the same moment put a cord around the man to drag him on board by force …” (Bigger 1922: 478 – 479).
Champlain then states that “This was very well carried out, as arranged,” but gives no details. We can only assume that things actually did not go well, as later in his account he speaks of four or five sick and wounded compatriots and there is never a mention of any captives. Lescarbot reported that “over haste frustrated the design to capture the Indians, though six or seven of them were hacked and hewed in pieces” (Bigger, 1922: 478).
Finally, on October 28, 1606, Champlain decided it was time to return to Port Royal. Their trip back would not be easy, as they suffered several misfortunes at sea. Most notably, the rudder of their ship would be damaged when their shallop surged at the end of its tow line and smashed into the rudder. They only made it back because their pilot Champdore managed a miraculous repair at sea.
Illustration: Champlain’s (1613) chart of the harbor of Beauport, present-day Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Literature cited:
Bigger, 1922. The works of Samuel de Champlain. Vol. 1: 1599 – 1607. The Champlain Society, Toronto.
Catalysts of trade and exploration 