A Memoir of Jacques Cartier cont...The Micmac

It was quite awhile before they mentioned meeting anyone else, but the next time he did it was a group of boats, about 40 or 50, who this time did not seem pleased the strangers were in their territory.  Seeing they were outnumbered at the time Cartier and his men tried to leave, but a couple of the boats followed them. The Frenchmen came to discover that the people in the boats actually wanted to be friends. Of course the Frenchman got nervous, started shooting a bunch of warning shots, and that was about it for that interaction.  It seems however these people showed up later at the big ship and some trading occurred now that Cartier felt less outnumbered. They traded for knives and other types of iron goods along with a red hat to give to their leader, in exchange for the skins the people had, including the skins they were wearing at the time. He mentioned that people plan to return the next day with more skins, but it doesn’t say they actually returned. It is noted fortunately in the footnotes that the people Cartier met on this occasion were the Micmacs. This is useful to know when start researching possible tribes for the French name persona. I’m not surprised to see them mentioned since the herald I talked to that had a native persona with a French name was playing a Micmac.

Reading a bit further on it seems several days later the Micmac people returned in their boats and even hunted up some seals to share and cook as a gift for the visitors. Cartier in exchange gave them hatchets, knives, paternosters (from what I can figure out they are historical versions of prayer beads/rosary), and other goods which made the Micmac very happy. There were women and children there, and Cartier mentions the woman touch them without fear. The Micmac were very friendly and Cartier seem to take this as a sign they would be easily converted. This seems to be the last of the contact with the Micmac people for this voyage. Doing some further research online I found the Micmac referred to as the Mi'kmaq Nation. Our local library didn't seem to have very much on the Mi'kmaq Which was frustrating, though there does seem to be a fair bit at the campus library once I have the time to dig through it all.