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Updated: June 2, 2025
This conduct did not please Champlain, who would have preferred to find a people more amenable to natural laws, which are in themselves a defence against murder. The Montagnais who had been sent to the Iroquois returned to Quebec in July, 1624. They had been courteously received, and as a result of their negotiations, a general meeting of the Indians was held at Three Rivers.
Champlain was well pleased to receive this present, although it was of small value. The Montagnais assembled at Three Rivers, and on June 18th they all set out together. On the following day they arrived at an island situated at the mouth of the river Richelieu, which the Montagnais used to frequent when they wished to avoid the Iroquois.
During his first warlike expedition into the land of the Iroquois the following year, escorted by Algonquin and Montagnais Indian allies, he ascended a river to which was afterwards given the name of Cardinal Richelieu, prime minister of Louis XIII. of France. Lawrence River at a point one hundred and forty miles above Quebec, and forty miles below Montreal.
"The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais. In their camp on the Richelieu, one of them dreamed that a war party of Iroquois was close upon them; on which, in a torrent of rain, they left their huts, paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake of St. Peter, and hid themselves all night in the rushes.
When they ceased their screaming to listen, George called to them in Montagnais: "We are strangers and are passing through your country." A swift change followed these few words in their own familiar tongue. There was eager talking together, the screams of terror were changed to laughter, and four of the older women ran down to the landing to welcome us.
The missionaries, it was clear, must learn Algonquin at any cost; and, to this end, Le Jeune resolved to visit the Indian encampments. Hearing that a band of Montagnais were fishing for eels on the St. Lawrence, between Cape Diamond and the cove which now bears the name of Wolfe, he set forth for the spot on a morning in October.
Each of the Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, convoyed by the Montagnais. At daylight each put on light armour and, armed with an arquebus, went ashore. Champlain was near enough the barricade to see nearly two hundred Iroquois, 'stout and rugged in appearance.
The Montagnais race, which is still the most important in Canada, has been preserved by Catholicism from the vices and the misery which brought about so rapidly the extirpation of the savages." Mgr. de Laval succeeded beyond his hopes; cordially received by King Louis XIV, he obtained the recall of Governor d'Avaugour.
The Montagnais, the Hurons, the Algonquins, the Iroquois, the Outagomies, the Mohawks, the Senecas, the Sioux, the Blackfeet, and the Crowfeet red-faces, were the undisputed possessors of the soil. They held the mine, the lake, the river, the forest, and the township in free and common soccage. They were sometimes merchants and sometimes soldiers.
When he was eight leagues from Quebec he met a canoe bearing an Algonquin and a Montagnais, who entreated him to hasten towards Three Rivers, as the Algonquins and Hurons would be at the meeting-place within two days.
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