Champlain’s Plymouth visit occurred in 1605, two years after Pring’s expedition. He had spent several days in Gloucester Harbor and a night in Boston Harbor, where he had watched the building of a dugout canoe by the Indians. Coming down the South Shore, his bark grounded on one of the numerous ledges that dot that portion of Massachusetts Bay. “If we had not speedily got it off, it would have overturned in the sea, since the tide was falling all around, and there were five or six fathoms of water. But God preserved us and we anchored” near a cape, which perhaps was Brant Rock. “There came to us fifteen or sixteen canoes of savages. In some of them there were fifteen or sixteen, who began to manifest great signs of joy, and made various harangues, which we could not in the least understand. Sieur de Monts sent three or four in our canoe, not only to get water but to see their chief, whose name was Honabetha.—Those whom we had sent to them brought us some little squashes as big as the fist which we ate as a salad like cucumbers, and which we found very good—We saw here a great many little houses scattered over the fields where they plant their Indian corn.”

The expedition now sailed southward into Plymouth Harbor. “The next day [July 18] we doubled Cap St. Louis, so named by Sieur de Monts, a land rather low, and in latitude 42° 45’. The same day we sailed two leagues along a sandy coast as we passed along which we saw a great many cabins and gardens. The wind being contrary, we entered a little bay [Plymouth] to await a time favorable for proceeding. There came to us two or three canoes, which had just been fishing for cod and other fish, which are found there in large numbers. These they catch with hooks made of a piece of wood, to which they attach a bone in the shape of a spear, and fasten it very securely. The whole thing has a fang-shape, and the line attached to it is made out of the bark of a tree. They gave me one of their hooks, which I took as a curiosity. In it the bone was fastened on by hemp, like that in France, as it seemed to me. And they told me that they gathered this plant without being obliged to cultivate it; and indicated that it grew to the height of four or five feet. This canoe went back on shore to give notice to their fellow inhabitants, who caused columns of smoke to rise on our account. We saw eighteen or twenty savages, who came to the shore and began to dance.” Was this a reminiscence of dancing to the guitar for Pring’s sailor, perhaps? “Our canoe landed in order to give them some bagatelles, at which they were greatly pleased. Some of them came to us and begged us to go to their river. We weighed anchor to do so, but were unable to enter on account of the small amount of water, it being low tide, and were accordingly obliged to anchor at the mouth. I went ashore where I saw many others who received us very cordially. I made also an examination of the river, but saw only an arm of water extending a short distance inland, where the land is only in part cleared up. Running into this is merely a brook not deep enough for boats except at full tide. The circuit of the Bay is about a league. On one side of the entrance to this Bay there is a point which is almost an island, covered with wood, principally pines, and adjoins sand banks which are very extensive. On the other side the land is high. There are two islets in this bay, which are not seen until one has entered and around which it is almost dry at low tide. This place is very conspicuous from the sea, for the coast is very low excepting the cape at the entrance to the bay. We named it Port du Cap St. Louis, distant two leagues from the above cape and ten from the Island Cape [Gloucester]. It is in about the same latitude as Cap St. Louis.”

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New England

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH’S MAP OF NEW ENGLAND, 1614

Reproduced from the Pequot Collection, Yale University Library

Champlain’s map of Plymouth Harbor, which is reproduced herewith, was a quick sketch which he drew from the end of Long Beach after his vessel went aground there, probably during the afternoon of their arrival. Since the expedition stayed in Plymouth Harbor only over one night, too much accuracy of detail must not be expected of it. Saquish Head is represented as an island, and no distinction is made between Eel River and Town Brook. Plymouth Harbor has probably shoaled a good deal since the early seventeenth century, since it would now be impossible to find a seven-fathom anchorage anywhere except immediately around Duxbury Pier Light; yet Champlain’s anchorage in the middle of Plymouth Bay is so designated. Martin Pring had even described a landlocked anchorage in seven fathoms. The chief value of Champlain’s little map, aside from confirming the locality, is its evidences of very extensive Indian houses and cornfields occupying much of the slopes above the shore all the way around from the Eel River area through Plymouth and Kingston to the shores of Duxbury Bay.

The expedition left Plymouth on July 19 and sailed around the shores of Cape Cod Bay before rounding the Cape and arriving the next day at Nauset Harbor in Eastham. During several days’ stay there, a French sailor was killed by the Indians in a scuffle over a kettle. The following year, when Champlain returned to Cape Cod, a more serious disaster occurred. Four hundred Indians at Chatham ambushed and massacred five Frenchmen in a dawn raid, then returned and disinterred their bodies after burial. The French took vengeance by coolly slaughtering half a dozen Indians a few days later. But, like the English adventurers, the French then abandoned Massachusetts and never returned. Champlain reported that in all his travels he had found no place better for settlement than Nova Scotia. Two years later, changes of plans in France transferred him to Quebec, where he spent the remainder of his career laying the foundations of French Canada along the St. Lawrence. Massachusetts Indians had again rebuffed the threat of European penetration.

We have already noted that while Champlain was in Massachusetts, George Waymouth and Martin Pring had been exploring Maine. The coördination of these exploratory voyages was largely the work of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a diligent organizer of New England colonial preparations. In 1606 the administrative architecture of the English colonial movement in America was built. King James gave charters to two companies, the London Company and the Plymouth Company, providing for settlements respectively in what came to be known as “Southern” and “Northern” Virginia. The successful colony at Jamestown was founded by the London Company in 1607. The coincident attempt by the Plymouth Company, organized by Gorges, and the Popham and Gilbert families, to found a colony on the Kennebec River in Maine failed after a year’s trial. This Sagadahoc Colony failure was a blow to New England colonization, the effects of which lasted for a generation, since the impression of New England as a subarctic area, impractical for settlement, remained in English minds for many years. It needs to be emphasized, however, that despite this setback to English hopes, the loss of fortunes invested in the enterprise, and the breakdown of the Plymouth Company produced by this failure, the enterprise had come much nearer to success than Humphrey Gilbert’s attempted colony in Newfoundland. Much was learned about techniques of living in the new country, getting along with Indians, and the need for continuous replacement and supply. These ventures were hazardous: they required courage, teamwork, strong leadership, and personnel of heroic wisdom and tenacity.