CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL DE (1567-1635), French ex plorer, colonial pioneer and first governor of French Canada, was born at Brouage on the Bay of Biscay. His father was a sea cap tain, and the boy was early skilled in seamanship and navigation. He entered the army of Henry IV., and served in Brittany. When the army of the League was disbanded he accompanied his uncle, who had charge of the ships in which the Spanish allies were con veyed home, and on reaching Cadiz secured (1599) the command of one of the vessels about to make an expedition to the West Indies. He was gone over two years, visiting all the principal ports and pushing inland from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. The ms. account of his adventures, Bref Discours des Choses plus re marquables que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a recognues aux lades Occidentales, is in the library at Dieppe. It was not pub lished in French until 187o, although an English translation was printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1859. It contains a suggestion of a Panama canal, "by which the voyage to the south sea would be shortened by more than 1,500 leagues." In 1603 Champlain made his first voyage to Canada, being sent out by Aymar de Clermont, on whom the king had bestowed a patent. Champlain at once established friendly relations with the Indians and ex plored the St. Lawrence to the rapids above Montreal. On his return he published Des sauvages, ou voyage de Samuel Cham plain de Brouage fait en la France Nouvelle. During his absence de Clermont had died, and his privileges and fur trade monopolies were conferred upon Pierre de Guast, sieur de Monts (156o 1611) . With him, in 1604, Champlain was engaged in exploring the coast as far south as Cape Cod, in seeking a site for a new settlement, and in making surveys and charts. They first settled on an island near the mouth of the St. Croix river, and then at Port Royal—now Annapolis, Nova Scotia.
Meanwhile the Basques and Bretons got de Monts' patent re voked, and Champlain returned to Europe. When, however, in modified form, the patent was re-granted to his patron, Cham plain induced him to abandon Acadia and establish a settlement on the St. Lawrence. Champlain was placed in command of one of the two vessels sent out. He was to explore and colonize, while the other vessel traded, to pay for the expedition. Champlain fixed on the site of Quebec and founded the first white settlement there in July 1608, giving it its present name. In the spring he joined a war party of Algonquins and Hurons, discovered the great lake that bears his name, and, near the present Ticonderoga, took part in the victory which they obtained over the Iroquois. The Iroquois naturally turned first to the Dutch and then to the English for allies. Champlain then returned to France, but in 1611 was back in Canada, and established a trading post at Mont Royal. He was subsequently appointed lieutenant-general in New France.
In 1613 Champlain again crossed the Atlantic and endeavoured to confirm Nicolas de Vignau's alleged discovery of a short route to the ocean by the Ottawa river, a great lake at its source, and another river flowing north therefrom. That year he got as far as Allumette Island in the Ottawa, but two years later, with a "Great War Party" of Indians, he crossed Lake Nipissing and the eastern ends of Lakes Huron and Ontario, and attacked an Onondaga fortified town a few miles south of Lake Oneida. This was the end of his wanderings. He now devoted himself to the growth and strengthening of Quebec. Every year he went to France with this end in view. He was one of the ioo associates of the Company of New France, created by Richelieu to reform abuses and take over all his country's interests in the new world. But in 1629 Quebec was forced to surrender to the English. Champlain was taken to England a prisoner, but when Canada was restored to the French he returned (1633) to his post, where he died. He had married in 161o, Helene Boulle, then but 12 years old. She did not leave France for Canada, however, until ten years later. Af ter his death she became a nun.
Champlain's works in six vols. were published under the patronage of the University of Laval in 187o. There is a careful trans. of Champlain's Voyages, by A. N. and E. G. Bourne (1906) in the "Trailmaker" series ed. by Prof. J. B. McMaster. See F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World (1865); J. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac (1894) ; G. Gravier, Vie de S. Champlain (19oo) ; N. E. Dionne, Champlain (1905) ; R. Flenly, S. Champlain (Toronto, 1924) .