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Updated: May 15, 2025
"This young man," rejoined Champlain, pointing to Vignau, who sat by his side, "has been to their country, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have said." "Nicolas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the Nipissings?" The impostor sat mute for a time, and then replied, "Yes, I have been there."
It was the village of an Algonquin band, called the Nipissings, a race so beset with spirits, infested by demons, and abounding in magicians, that the Jesuits afterwards stigmatized them as "the Sorcerers." In this questionable company Champlain spent two days, feasted on fish, deer, and bears.
The burden of these reflections was lightened when he approached Fort Frontenac. "Never was reception more solemn. The Nipissings and Algonkins, who were going on a war-party with Monsieur Belêtre, formed a line of their own accord, and saluted us with three volleys of musketry, and cries of joy without end. All our little bark vessels replied in the same way.
Pennahouel, chief of the Ottawas, and senior of all the Assembly, rose and said: "My father, I, who have counted more moons than any here, thank you for the good words you have spoken. I approve them. Nobody ever spoke better. It is the Manitou of War who inspires you." Kikensick, chief of the Nipissings, rose in behalf of the Christian Indians, and addressed the heathen of the west.
But why did you break your word with us last year when we all went down to meet you at Montreal, to give you presents and go with you to war? You were not there, but other Frenchmen were there who abused us. We will never go again. As for the four canoes, you shall have them if you insist upon it; but it grieves us to think of the hardships you must endure. The Nipissings have weak hearts.
Hereupon an outcry broke from the assembly, and they turned their eyes on him askance, "as if," says Champlain, "they would have torn and eaten him." "You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been when you were asleep.
Day after day, fleets of boats and canoes rowed up Lake Champlain, and, towards the end of the month, the whole force was gathered at Ticonderoga. Here were now collected eight thousand men, of whom two thousand were Indians, representing forty-one tribes and sub-tribes: among them were Iroquois, Hurons, Nipissings, Abenakis, Algonkins, Micmacs, and Malecites.
Another of them, Dollier de Casson, had spent the winter in a hunting-camp of the Nipissings, where an Indian prisoner, captured in the North-west, told him of populous tribes of that quarter, living in heathenish darkness. On this, the Seminary priests resolved to essay their conversion; and an expedition, to be directed by Dollier, was fitted out to this end.
Still she was deeply interested in the plans of the Récollet fathers, who were establishing missions among the Hurons and the Nipissings, and learning the languages. She gave generously of her allowance, and denied herself many things; would, indeed, have given up more had her husband allowed it. Captain Pontgrave came in to spend the winter, brave and cheerful, though he had lost his only son.
Each tribe had its interpreter, often as lawless as those with whom he had spent his life; and for the converted tribes there were three missionaries, Piquet for the Iroquois, Mathevet for the Nipissings, who were half heathen, and Roubaud for the Abenakis.
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