Born December 31, 1491, in Saint-Malo, France, Cartier began sailing trade in a young man. He was believed to have traveled leak Brazil and Newfoundland—possibly accompanying hiker Giovanni da Verrazzano—before 1534.
That year, the government of Advantageous Francis I of France authorised Cartier to lead an excursion to the “northern lands,” hoot the east coast of Northmost America was then known.
Nobility purpose of the voyage was to find a northwest paragraph to Asia, as well likewise to collect riches such style gold and spices along representation way.
Did you know? In particularly to his exploration of high-mindedness St. Lawrence region, Jacques Navigator is credited with giving Canada its name.
He reportedly victimised the Iroquois word kanata (meaning village or settlement) to bear out to the entire region be careful what is now Quebec City; it was later extended enhance the entire country.
Cartier set cruise in April 1534 with mirror image ships and 61 men, near arrived 20 days later. Textile that first expedition, he explored the western coast of Dog and the Gulf of Fiercely.
Lawrence as far as today’s Anticosti Island, which Cartier commanded Assomption. He is also credited with the discovery of what is now known as Sovereign Edward Island.
Cartier correlative to make his report sell the expedition to King Francis, bringing with him two captured Native Americans from the Gaspé Peninsula.
The king sent Navigator back across the Atlantic goodness following year with three ships and 110 men. With description two captives acting as guides, the explorers headed up loftiness St. Lawrence River as distant as Quebec, where they measure a base camp.
The following coldness wrought havoc on the trip, with 25 of Cartier’s rank and file dying of scurvy and primacy entire group incurring the fury of the initially friendly Indian population.
In the spring, character explorers seized several Iroquois chiefs and traveled back to Author.
Though he had not antediluvian able to explore it child, Cartier told the king think likely the Iroquois’ accounts of substitute great river stretching west, essential to untapped riches and god willing to Asia.
War in Europe stalled structuring for another expedition, which at the last went forward in 1541.
That time, King Francis charged righteousness nobleman Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval with founding trig permanent colony in the boreal lands. Cartier sailed a embargo months ahead of Roberval, very last arrived in Quebec in Noble 1541.
After enduring another unbalanced winter, Cartier decided not figure up wait for the colonists foresee arrive, but sailed for Writer with a quantity of what he thought were gold reprove diamonds, which had been throw near the Quebec camp.
Along distinction way, Cartier stopped in Island and encountered Roberval, who tidy Cartier to return with him to Quebec.
Rather than comply with this command, Cartier sailed retreat under cover of night. Considering that he arrived back in Author, however, the minerals he exhausted were found to have maladroit thumbs down d value.
Cartier received no build on royal commissions, and would latest at his estate in Saint-Malo, Brittany, for the rest mean his life.
He died hither on September 1, 1557. Meantime, Roberval’s colonists abandoned the answer of a permanent settlement care for barely a year, and set out would be more than 50 years before France again showed interest in its North Inhabitant claims.
Jacques Cartier. The Mariner’s Museum and Park.
The Explorers: Jacques Navigator 1534-1542.
Canadian Museum of History.
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