Explorer: Jacques Cartier

1. Where was Cartier born? Did he marry? Were there children? Were there godchildren?
2. How did he earn his living?
3. Who was the king for whom he sailed to the New World?
4. For what was he looking?
5. What did Cartier call the American Indians?
6. What did the Indians offer in trade?
7. What river did Cartier discover and explore?
8. There were Indian settlements located at the sites of two major, modern Canadian cities. What are they?
9. What is scurvy? How were Cartier's men cured?
10. How did Canada get its name?
11. How many trips to what is now Canada did Cartier make?
12. Did he ever lose a ship? Did he ever face revolt or mutiny by his men?
13. When, where, and at what age did Cartier die?

    ---

Encarta - the online version of the popular encyclopedia.

Biography - A&E's popular show online! Type your explorer's name to search for a biography.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Catholic Encyclopedia

An excellent source of detailed information about explorers, maps, the times they lived in and their technology can be found on the Discoverer's Web.*   It includes a biography of Jacques Cartier

Origin of the word "Canada"

Books:

Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, and the explorers of Canada / Tony Coulter. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, c1993.
Search the Lakewood Public Library Online Catalog for additional titles

Information from correspondence of Andre Engels (http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/index_en.html) to student Renee Parker, December 11, 1999:
Excerpt from Samuel Eliot Morison: The European Discovery of America. The Northern Voyages. A.D. 500-1600. New York: Oxford University Press (1971).

"Since omelettes are a traditional delicacy of Mont-Saint-Michel, we permit ourselves to imagine that they figured in the hospitality afforded to Francois-premier (...) The king, performing a pilgrimage in 1532 in company with his son the Dauphin, was received by the very magnificent Jean LeVeneur de Tilliers, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, grand almoner of France, bishop and count of Lisieux. He there presented to the king a relative of the abbey's treasurer, Jacques Cartier by name, master mariner of nearby Saint-Malo. This man, said the bishop, in consideration of his voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil, is capable of commanding ships 'to discover new lands in the New World' for France; and if the king would consent so to employ him, the bishop promised to furnish chaplains for the voyage, and even contribute to the cost."

"Who was this master mariner of Saint-Malo, destined to become the founder of New France? We know a little more about him than we do of Verrazzano, and far more than we do of John Cabot. He was born in 1491, at 'the ancient town of Saint-Malo (...)'. Cartier in legal documents is called a bourgeois. Born to a respectabl  family of mariners, he improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Catherine des Granches, of a leading Malouin ship-owning family. For aught we know they they were a faithful and loving couple but they had no children. His good name in Saint-Malo is proved by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers, as godfather or witness. And we have more than the bishop's word that he had made voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil. In his narratives of the Canadian voyages he makes several allusions to the people and products of Brazil, and in Newfoundland he seemed to be at home."

"Cartier's title, in all these documents pertaining to his first voyage, is 'Capitaine et Pilote pour le Roy'. This means that he was captain by the king's command, but a master pilot by experience. In all European languages 'pilot' then had two meanings: (1) a local river or harbor pilot who guided ships in and out, as today; and (2) a seagoing officer, corresponding roughly to first mate, next under the captain and master. He took charge of navigation, kept the reckoning and usually (unless the master insisted on taking charge) ordered making and taking in of sail. Cartier was the second kind of pilot, and in his American voyages he took on the responsibilities of captain and master as well."

Excerpt from Richard E. Bohlander (ed.): World explorers and Discoverers. New York: McMillan (1992)

"born 1491; St.-Malo"

"Little is known of Jacques Cartier's life before he made his 1534 voyage to North America. There has been speculation that he took part in Giovanni da Verrazano's voyages to America in 1524 and 1528, based in part on Cartier's comparisons of the inhabitants and produce of Canada with those of Brazil and in part on the information that Cartier was absent from France during the time of Verrazano's expeditions. Evidence against this theory includes the fact that Cartier never mentions Verrazano's voyages in his writings and the fact that although he made comparisons between Canada and Brazil, he never mentioned the North American seaboard, which Verrazano also explored. Nonetheless, Cartier was recommended to King Francis I of France by the abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel as someone who had voyaged to Brazil and Newfoundland. (...)"