DvD: Explorers of the World; French Explorers pt 2 - Jacques Cartier

The next part of the DVD is on the guy I’ve been reading the memoir of, Jacques Cartier. Like a lot of the other French explorers, Cartier was looking for silver and gold which was rumored the Spanish had found in the New World. Ships reached Newfoundland in 1534. The trader character mentions Cartier meeting the Huron and the 2 teenage boys (I thought they were men but apparently they were teenagers which I guess at that time teens counted as men to their own people and to the French) that Cartier took back to France, and who learned to speak French. The narrator states that the two boys were taken and that their father, the chief, only let a happen because there was nothing he could do about it. Cartier was sent back to the New World a second time by the King, who was still looking for a passage to the Spice Islands. The discovery of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River was not only a gateway to the content itself and into the Great Lakes through the other river systems, but it became an important travel method for trading later on. Through the St. Lawrence River they reached places like Québec and Montréal. With the intention to head back Cartier return to Québec where they built a fort to shelter them through the long winter. During that winter the crew was hit by horrible scurvy that made their teeth fall out, and might have died from it if the locals hadn’t shown them how to make a tea from the bark of a type of you tree, boiled to produce a medicine. It was foul tasting but in a week all the men that drank it were cured. The harsh winter killed off many of Cartier’s men, but if not for the medicine and the help of the natives it would have been a lot worse. The chief of the area told Cartier many stories about places rich with gold, so the Frenchman captured the chief and his two sons and took them back to France with him. The chief’s stories must’ve been convincing because the King of France sent Cartier back a third time in 1541. On the third voyage Cartier filled his crew complement with mostly criminals because it was so dangerous they were the only ones willing to volunteer to take the risk of trying to colonize the areas. The local fishermen and sailors other folks were perfectly happy up in the Newfoundland area coast so they weren’t interested on going further in. Cartier tried to take a smaller boat down the river to find this place of legend but he was not able to make it through the rapids before having to turn back. No long after he returned to the encampment a group of natives attacked them forcing Cartier and the survivors to flee, eventually boarding the ship and returning to France.