THIRTEENTH GENERATION

5870. Jean Nicolet ^{(1090) (1091)} was born about 1598 in Cherbourg, Normandie, France. He died on 29 Oct 1642 in St-Joseph, Sillery, Quebec. Following are three major items about Jean Nicolet.

1. The following is from Relation of Occurrences in New France, in the Year 1642 and 1643, by Father Barthelemy Vimont, S.J. (It was written in the early autumn of 1643, in time for the vessel returning to France.)

... I will now speak of the life and death of Monsieur Nicollet, Interpreter and Agent for the Gentlemen of the Company of New France. He died ten days after the Father (Raymbault), and had lived in this region twenty-five years. What I shall say of him will aid to a better understanding of the country. He came to New France in the year sixteen hundred and eighteen and forasmuch as his nature and excellent memory inspired good hopes of him he was sent to winter with the Island Algonkins, in order to learn their language. He tarried with them two years, alone of the French, and always joined the Barbarians in their excursions and journeys, -- undergoing such fatigues as none but eye witnesses can conceive; he often passed seven or eight days without food, and once, full seven weeks with no other nourishment than a little bark from the trees.

He accompanied four hundred Algonkins, who went during that time to make peace with the Hyroquois, which he successfully accomplished; and would to God that it had never been broken, for then we would not now be suffering the calamities which move us to groans, and which must be an extraordinary impediment in the way of converting these tribes.

After this treaty of peace, he went to live eight or nine years with the Algonquin Nipissiriniens, where he passed for one of that nation, taking part in the very frequent councils of those tribes, having his own separate cabin and household, and fishing and trading for himself. He was finally recalled and appointed Agent and Interpreter.

While in the exercise of this office, he was delegated to make a journey to the nation called People of the sea, and arrange peace between them and the Hurons, from whom they are distant about three hundred leagues Westward. He embarked in the Huron country, with seven Savages; and they passed by many small nations, both going and returning. When they arrived at their destination, they fastened two sticks in the earth, and hung gifts thereon, so as to relieve these tribes from the notion of mistaking them for enemies to be massacred.

When he was two days' journey from that nation, he sent one of those Savages to bear tidings of the peace, which word was especially well received when they heard that it was a European who carried the message; they despatched several young men to meet the Manitouririnou, -- that is to say, "the wonderful man." They meet him; they escort him, and carry all his baggage. He wore a grand robe of China damask, all strewn with flowers and birds of many colors. No sooner did they perceive him than the women and children fled, at the sight of a man who carried thunder in both hands, --for thus they called the two pistols that he held.

The news of his coming quickly spread to the places round about, and there assembled four or five thousand men. Each of the chief men made a feast for him, and at one of these banquets they served six scores beavers. The peace was concluded; he returned to the Hurons, and some time later to the three Rivers, where he continued his employment as Agent and Interpreter, to the great satisfaction of both the French and the Savages, by whom he was equally and singularly loved. In so far as his office allowed, he vigorously cooperated with our Fathers for the conversion of those peoples, whom he could shape and bend howsoever he would, with a skill that can hardly be matched.

Monsieur Olivier, Chief Agent of the Gentlemen of the Company, having gone to France last year, sieur Nicollet came down to Quebec in his place with joy and lively consolation at the sight of the peace and devotion at Quebec; but his joy was not long. A month or two after his arrival, he made a journey to the three Rivers for the deliverance of a Savage prisoner; which zeal cost him his life, in a shipwreck. He sailed from Quebec, toward seven o'clock in the evening, in the shallop of Monsieur de Savigny, bound for three Rivers. Before they reached Sillery, a gust of wind from the Northwest, which had raised a horrible storm upon the great river, filled the shallop with water and caused it to sink, after two or three turns in the waves. The passengers did not immediately sink, but clung for some time to the shallop. Monsieur Nicollet had leisure to say to Monsieur de Savigny, "Sir, save yourself, you can swim. I cannot; as for me, I depart to God. I commend to you my wife and my daughter."

One by one, the waves tore them all from the shallop, which was floating overturned against a rock. Monsieur de Savigny alone plunged into the water, and swam amid the billows and waves, which were like small mountains. The shallop was not very far from shore, but it was now black night, and there prevailed a severe frost which had already frozen the borders of the stream; so that the sieur de Savigny, perceiving his heart and strength fail, made a vow to God, and, soon afterward striking with his foot, he felt ground. Drawing himself out of the water, he came to our house at Sillery, half dead, and remained a long time without strength to speak; then at last he told us of the woeful mischance, which, besides the death of Monsieur Nicollet, so grievous for all the country, had lost him three of his best men, and great part of his furniture and stores. He and Madamoiselle his wife endured this notable affliction in a barbarous country with great patience and without abating a jot of their courage The Savages of Sillery, at the noise of Monsieur Nicollet's shipwreck, ran to the spot, aud manifested unspeakable grief to see him appear no more.

This sad news was augmented by other tidings....

[The following is a footnote in the Relations; it was written by Reuben Gold Thwaite, editor and translator of the Relations.] Jean Nicolet, a native of Cherbourg, France, came to Quebec in 1615, probably at the age of about 20 years. Like Marsolet, Brule, and others, he was sent by Champlain to live among the Indians, that he might acquire a knowledge of the country, of the natives, and of their language. For this purpose, Nicolet went (1620) to the Algonkins of Allumettes Island, where he remained two years; while among this tribe, he accompanied a large body of their warriors to the Iroquois country, in order to arrange a treaty of peace -- an enterprise successfully accomplished. He then spent some nine years among the Nipissings, during which time he wrote an account of these savages, their customs, etc., as Le Jeune informs us in the Relation for 1636.

In June, 1634, Champlain sent him on an exploring expedition westward -- partly in the hope of finding the "sea of China" which was at that time supposed to lie not far west of the regions of America then known, and thereby discovering the long-looked-for short passage to Asia; partly to become acquainted with the savage tribes lying beyond the "Mer deuce" (Lake Huron), and to extend the French trade for peltries. Upon this trip (accompanying Brebeuf as far as Allumettes Island), Nicolet went to his old abode, Lake Nipissing. Thence, with a bark canoe and an escort of seven Hurons, be voyaged by French River into Lake Huron, and Northward to St. Mary's Straits and Mackinac; and thence by Lake Michigan, Green Bay, and the Fox River, as far as a village of the Mascoutins, probably in what is now Green Lake county, Wisconsin. He was thus the first white man who, so far as it is recorded, had entered this region. From the Mascoutin village he journeyed southward to what is now northern Illinois, -- afterward returning to Canada by the same route on which he had set out; he reached Quebec early in the autumn of 1635.

Nicolet, after his return to Canada, resumed his employment (begun in 1633) as clerk and interpreter at Three Rivers. Oct. 7, 1637, he married Marguerite (then aged eleven years), second daughter of Guillaume Couillard. . . . Nicolet died Oct. 29, 1642, being drowned at Sillery. -Ibid., viii., note 29.

2. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1. University of Toronto, 1966, pp. 516-8. Jean Nicolet entry by Jean Hamelin.

NICOLLET DE BELLEBORNE, JEAN, interpreter and clerk of the Compagnie des CentAssocies, liaison officer between the French and the Indians, explorer; b. c. 1598, probably at Cherbourg (Normandy), son of Thomas Nicollet, king's postal courier between Cherbourg and Paris, and of Marie de Lamer; drowned 27 Oct. 1642 at Sillery.

Nicollet arrived in Canada in 1618, in the service of the Compagnie des Marchands de Rouen et de Saint-Malo. Like Marsolet and Brule, he was intended to live among the Indian allies in order to learn their language and customs and explore the regions they inhabited. Nothing is known of his education or temperament, except this remark of Father Vimont in 1643: "his disposition and his excellent memory led one to expect worthwhile things of him."

Champlain, at the time of his explorations, had established relations with the Algonkins in the upper reaches of the Ottawa (Outaouais) River. It is presumed that, in his desire to strengthen the alliance that was only just taking shape, it was Champlain who instructed Nicollet, the year he arrived, to go and spend the winter on Allumette Island. This place was the rallying-point of the great Algonkin family commanded by Tessouat (d. 1636). The island was located at a strategic spot on the Ottawa River, the fur-trade route. It was important, for the sake of trade, that the tribes living on the shores of the Ottawa should be friendly with the French. Nicollet stayed two years at Allumette Island, and carried out his mission very well. He learned the Huron and Algonkin languages, lived the precarious existence of the natives, came to know their customs, and explored the region. They were not long in accepting him as one of their own. They made him a chief, allowed him to attend their councils, and even took him among the Iroquois to negotiate a peace treaty.

Nicollet returned to Quebec in 1620. He made a report on his mission and was given another: to make contact with the Nipissings who lived on the shores of the lake of the same name. These Indians were each year assuming a more important role in the fur trade, acting as intermediaries between the French and the Indian tribes of the west and of Hudson Bay. It was Nicollet's task to consolidate their alliance with the French, and to see that their furs did not find their way to Hudson Bay.

In the summer of 1620, Nicollet went to the country of the Nipissings. For nine years he was to live among them. He had his own lodge and a store. By day he traded with the Indians of the various tribes that were on their way to the shores of Lake Nipissing, and questioned them about their country; at night he noted down what he had gleaned. These "memoires" of Nicollet, unfortunately lost today, have come to us indirectly through the Relations. Father Paul Le Jeune, who was able to consult them, drew upon them in order to describe the customs of the Indians in that region.

When Quebec was captured by the English in 1629, Nicollet, who was loyal to France, took refuge in the Huron country. He thwarted all the English plans to get the Indians to trade with them.

Nicollet appeared at Trois-Rivieres and Quebec in 1633. He asked permission to set himself up at Trois-Rivieres as a clerk of the Compagnie des Cent-Associes, and his wish was readily granted. Before taking up his new duties, however, he was requested, no doubt by Champlain, to undertake a voyage of exploration and pacification among the Gens de Mer, also called Puants, Ounipigons or Winnebagoes. These Indians lived at the far end of Green Bay (Baie des Puants), surrounded by Algonkin tribes with whom their relationship was somewhat cool, where the fur trade was concerned. An alliance between the Gens de Mer and the Dutch of the Hudson River region was to be feared. It was necessary to restore peace as soon as possible in this area. Nicollet was also supposed to use the trip to check the information that he had gathered concerning the China Sea, which according to the Indians was near to Green Bay. Nicollet therefore provided himself, before his departure, with a robe of Chinese damask, liberally strewn with flowers and multi coloured birds.

Nicollet set out in the summer of 1634, probably in mid-July. He followed the traditional Ottawa River route, branched off at Allumette Island in the direction of Lake Nipissing, then went down the French River (Riviere des Francais) to get to Lake Huron. On the way he recruited an escort of seven Hurons. He headed for Michilimackinac, entered Lake Michigan, and reached Green Bay. Attired in his damask robe, he momentarily struck terror into the Winnebagoes, who took him for a god. He assembled 4,000 or 5,000 men, grouping together the different tribes of the region, and, while smoking their long-stemmed pipes, they concluded a peace.

Nicollet had attained the first objective of his journey. Unfortunately, he had not found the China Sea. In a fruitless attempt to do so, he went down the Fox River (Riviere aux Renards) as far as the village of Mascoutens, three days' distance from the Wisconsin River, a tributary of the Mississippi. A thrust southward, towards the Illinois River, was scarcely more rewarding. Probably disappointed by the incomplete success of his mission, he returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1635. It is none the less true that he was the first white man to explore the region now known as the American Northwest.

Nicollet settled finally at Trois-Rivieres, as a clerk of the Compagnie des Cent- Associe's. He received, "in common with Olivier Letardif, a grant of 160 acres of wooded land in the outskirts, 23 May 1637." It may have been at the same period that he obtained, in co-ownership with his brother-in-law Letardif, the Belleborne fief, which was probably on the Plains of Abraham, at Quebec. In October 1637 he married Marguerite, daughter of Guillaume Couillard and Guillemette Hebert, by whom he had a son and a daughter. The latter, whose first name was Marguerite, became the wife of Jean-Baptiste Legardeur de Repentigny, a member of the Conseil Souverain. Until his death, Nicollet stood out as a leading figure in the little town of TroisRivieres. The noteworthy services that he rendered to the colony, and his knowledge of Indian languages and customs, earned him the respect of everyone.

The Jesuit Relations often speak warmly of his exemplary conduct; unlike the majority of the coureurs de bois of his day, Nicollet appears always to have lived according to the principles of his religion. In 1628, however, he did have an illegitimate daughter, probably born of a Nipissing Indian woman. In 1633 he asked permission to stay at Trois-Rivieres, "to assure his salvation," wrote Father La Jeune, "by the use of the sacraments." His greatest joy, in the spare moments that his duties allowed him, was to act as an interpreter for the missionaries and to teach religion to the Indians.

Nicollet died prematurely in 1642 at Quebec. While he was temporarily replacing the head clerk of the company, his brother-in-law Letardif, he was asked to go with all speed to TroisRivieres to save an Iroquois prisoner that the Hurons were preparing to torture. The shallop that was taking him to Trois-Rivieres was overturned by a strong gust of wind, near Sillery. Being unable to swim, he was drowned. Jean Hamelin

Sources: ASQ, Documents Faribault, 7; Registre A, 560f.(carries Nicollet's signature). Champlain, Oeuvres (Laverdiere), V, VI. JR (Thwaites), VIII, 247, 257,267, 295f.; XXIII, 274-82; et passim. C.W. Butterfield, History of the discovery of the north-west by John Nicolet in 1634, with a sketch of his life (Cincinnati, 1881). Godbout, Les pionniers de la region trifluvienne. Auguste Gosselin, Jean Nicolet et le Canada de son temps (Quebec, 1905). Lionel Groulx, Notre grande aventure: l'empire francais en Amerique da Nord (1535-1760) (Montreal et Paris, [1958]). Gerard Hebert, "Jean Nicolet, le premier blanc a resider au lac Nipissing" (La Societe historique du Nouvel-Ontario, Documents historiques, XIII, Sudbury, 1947), 8-24. Henri Jouan, "Jean Nicolet (de Cherbourg), interprete-voyageur au Canada, 1618-1642," RC, XXII (1886), 67-83. Benjamin Suite, "Jean Nicolet," Journal de l'Instruction publique, XVII (1873), 166f.: XVIII (1874), 28-32; "Jean Nicolet et Ia decouverte du Wisconsin, 1634," RC, VI (1910), 148-55, 331- 42, 409-20; "La nom de Nicolet," BRH VII (1901), 21-23; "Notes on Jean Nicolet" (Wisconsin Hist. Soc. Coll, VIII, Madison, 1879), 188-94.

3. Francis Parkman, France and New England in North America, Vol. 1, pp. 725-6, says the following about our ancestor Jean Nicolet:

"A century passed after DeSoto's journeyings in the South, before a French explorer reached a northern tributary of the great river [the Mississippi].

This was Jean Nicolet, interpreter at Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. He had been some twenty years in Canada, had lived among the savage Algonquins of Alumette Island [in the Ottawa River between Quebec and Ontario], and spent eight or nine years among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name. Here, he became an Indian in all his habits, but remained, nevertheless, a zealous Catholic, and returned to civilization at last, because he could not live without the sacraments. Strange storys were current among the Nipissings, of a people without hair or beard, who came from the West, to trade with tribes beyond the Great Lakes. Who could doubt that these strangers were Chinese or Japanese? Such tales may well have excited Nicolet's curiosity; and, when, in 1635, or possibly in 1638, he was sent as an ambassador to the tribe in question, he would not have been surprised if on arriving he had found a party of mandarins among them. Perhaps it was with a view to such a contingency that he provided himself, in a dress of ceremony, with a robe of Chinese damask embroidered with birds and flowers. The tribe to which he was sent was that of the Winnebagos, living near the head of Green Bay of Lake Michigan. They had come to blows with the Hurons, allies of the French; and Nicolet was charged to negotiate a peace. When he approached the Winnebago town, he sent one of the Indian attendants to announce his coming, put on his robe of damask, and advanced to meet the expectant crowd with a pistol in each hand. The squaws and children fled, screaming that it was a manito, or spirit, armed with thunder and lightning; but the chiefs and warriors regaled him with so bountiful a hospitality that a hundred and twenty beavers were devoured at a single feast. From the Winnebagoes, lie passed westward, ascended Fox River, crossed to the Wisconsin, and descended it so far that, as he reported on his return, in three days more he would have reached the sea. The truth seems to be, that he mistook the meaning of his Indian guides, and that the "great water" to which he was so near was not the sea, but the Mississippi."
He was married to M. Nipissirinienne about 1628.

5871. M. Nipissirinienne was born about 1610 in Lake Nipissing, Ontario. She died after 1628 in Lake Nipissing, Ontario. We do not know the name of our one Amerindian ancestor. (Had her name been known, she would have been included by the PRDH in the group of 3,380 Pioneers, along with the twelve other Amerindians in that group.) We know that she was a Nipissing, and I have used that knowledge and created a name for her. Note that she is referred to near the end of the article in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography about Jean Nicolet quoted above. I assume M. Nipissirinienne had already died by 1633 when Nicolet concluded his many years of living with the Nipissing and returned to Trois Rivieres. I prefer to imagine that Nicolet brought his young half-Amerindian daughter Madeleine with him to Trois Rivieres at this time, although it is likely that we will never know for sure.
Children were:

2935 i. Madeleine-Euphrosine Nicolet.