Pocahontas proved a true friend to the English. More than once she warned Captain Smith of the deep-laid plans of the Virginia tribes to murder all the white settlers at a stroke. She became a convert to Christianity, was christened Rebecca, and was confirmed in the Church of England. Then a young settler, John Rolfe, married her and took her to England, where she was received in the homes of lords and ladies, and entertained by the queen as Lady Rebecca and the Princess Pocahontas. Some of the “First Families of Virginia” proudly prove that this beautiful and devoted Indian girl was one of their ancestors.
Not long after his escape from the Indians, John Smith was seriously injured by the explosion of some gunpowder, and was compelled to return to England for treatment. His work in Virginia was done. But the restless soul of the old Captain could not let him be content to remain at ease in England. He made other voyages of exploration along the coast to the north of the Dutch island of Manhattan. From his careful observations he drew a good map of that northern country and gave it the name New England. So besides starting the greatest southern colony of North America, he prepared the way for the Pilgrims to settle at Plymouth.
CHAMPLAIN, THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE
IN Samuel de Champlain’s earlier life he was both a soldier and a sailor of France. He was a great adventurer, who came to visit the new country in America claimed for France by Jacques Cartier about seventy-five years before. He was a personal friend of Henry of Navarre, who became Henry the Fourth, king of France.
Champlain was a great lover of king and country. He said to the high officials at court: “Spain has her ‘New Spain,’ and England her ‘New England’; why should not we have our ‘New France’ in America?” The king and the rich nobles thought it was a good idea, and one leading man at the French court sent Champlain to carry out his own project. The brave explorer started a settlement on the coast near the wide mouth of the St. Lawrence, but on account of the wars France was engaged in, this wealthy Frenchman found that he could no longer spare money to carry on the enterprise, and Champlain had to give up the settlement he had so nicely started and go back to France.
But Samuel de Champlain was a plucky soul whom nothing could frighten or discourage. He had a romantic nature, to which the wild life in America appealed. It was not long before he was back in the New World, sailing up the St. Lawrence. There he saw a high, steep cliff at a narrow point in the wide river, and decided that it would be a good place to build a fort and make a settlement.
He started both at once—placing the fort on the head of the cliff and building several houses at its foot. Champlain, who was quite an artist, made a drawing of this small group of houses and named the little settlement Quebec. On account of its high cliff above a narrow place in the river, Quebec is called “the Gibraltar of America.” Gibraltar is the name of a high rock on the coast of Spain guarding the entrance to the Mediterranean.
In this narrow settlement Champlain planted a garden with as many roses and other flowers as he could. He had a kind heart and a pleasant face, and soon became as great a friend to the Indians as William Penn in Philadelphia. Champlain encouraged his French friends to treat the men of the forest as their brothers. As he was a devout Catholic, he did everything he could to make the savages Christians, sending good men to live among them and teach the natives how to live right. He not only tried to help pious men to convert the Indians, but he went himself to trade and hunt with the neighboring tribes and make them his friends. More than this, he sent young Frenchmen to live among the different tribes and learn the language and the ways of the Indians. These hardy young heroes were called “wood runners,” and became the first white guides and scouts in the wilds of America.
It was necessary for Champlain to make several voyages home to Old France. On one of these visits “the Father of New France,” now forty years of age, married Hélène, the young daughter of a wealthy citizen of Paris. But, instead of taking her to share his rough life in the wilds of the St. Lawrence, he sent her back to school to fit herself better to aid him in teaching the Indians when she was old enough to come with him to the New World.
When he went back to Quebec he went farther up the St. Lawrence to an island which Cartier had called Mount Royal, and started another little settlement, which he named Montreal. Here he made everything as beautiful as he could, planting roses and other flowers, as he had done at Quebec. The island in the river opposite this new settlement he named Sainte Hélène, for the child wife he had left behind in Old France. This island, now known by the English name, St. Helen’s, is a park and pleasure ground for the people of Montreal.