1909 Champlain Tercentenary
Report of the NY Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission
to the Legislature of the State of New York, Sept. 19, 1911

THE CELEBRATION AT CROWN POINT

Fellow Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen: We are met today on this memorable spot, where men of many nations have battled in days gone by, to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of this beautiful and historic lake by Samuel Champlain, and also to celebrate the one hundred and thirty-third anniversary of the independence of these United States.

In the history of the United States, New England has played so important a part that we do not always remember that before it was called ‘ New England” that territory was known as “New France.” Similarly, the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock in 1620 has bulked so large before the minds of the American people that we are apt to forget that the French had entered the domain of what is now the State of New York eleven years before the voyagers of the Mayflower established the colony at Plymouth. It is an interesting coincidence that the State and city of New York are to celebrate, in this same year, the voyage of Henry Hudson up the majestic river which bears his name, which led almost immediately to the settlement of New Amsterdam by the Dutch.

It is worthy of remark that, while the French were the first to enter our State, and while this lake still bears the name of its discoverer, the name of “ New France “ never attached itself permanently to New York territory. The Dutch, on the other hand, called the province “New Netherlands “ before its borders were strictly defined, and this name it held until its cession by the Dutch to England gave to the Province, and afterward to the State, its name of New York. The French name did not adhere, while the Dutch name did, because to the French this region was only a battle ground, while to the Dutch this territory offered the opportunity of permanent settlement.

More than once in the history of this country the plough has shown itself superior to the sword as affording a title to the land. When the Oregon Territory was in dispute between the United States and Great Britain, the title ultimately fell to the United States, because it was proved that settlers, arriving in wagons upon wheels overland from the American Union, were the first to establish homes there by ploughing the soil for permanent occupancy. The English claim, on the other hand, rested upon the early and undisputed presence of their fur traders in the same region; but, when the dispute was adjusted, it was recognized that to shoot over a land to gather furs constitutes a title far less valuable than to make the land yield crops for the support of human life. And so Oregon and the State of Washington became parts of the United States.

This celebration carries us back to the France of Henry of Navarre and to the England of James I. It also carries us back, upon this continent, to the supremacy of the Five Nations of the Iroquois, among the red men of the forest.

Crown Point has this significance, in the history of all this region, that it was at or near here that Champlain, with his Canadian Indian allies of the Huron and Algonquin tribes first met the Iroquois in battle. Up to that dramatic moment the Iroquois had never seen firearms, and when, in the course of the fight, Champlain stepped forward, clad in armor, and with his arquebuse killed one of the Iroquois chieftains, at a distance, the unexpected noise and the surprising effect of the shot carried terror to the hearts of the Iroquois.

Quickly they abandoned their stockade and fled, and the victory was with the allies from the North. But, like many another victory on the field of battle, the distant result was far-reaching and unexpected. The Iroquois soon became accustomed to firearms and to the use of them; but this first conflict with the French, and the defeat which they suffered at their hands, made the powerful Iroquois people permanent enemies of the French, in the long struggle which subsequently ensued between France and England and the English Colonies for the control of this continent. More than once during this struggle the attitude of the Iroquois was decisive, and in instances fatal to the purposes of France.

It will probably be a surprise to many to be told that it is believed that there are as many Indians living today, within the borders of the United States, as there were when the white men first landed on these shores. I heard General Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, make such a statement thirty years ago, and was so surprised that I asked him for his authority. He could not sustain his statement by direct reference, from the nature of the case; but he told me that he knew that that was the opinion of the well-informed. Since then I have met the statement many times, and I believe it to be the fact. The history of Canada affords an illustration which makes the statement seem not unreasonable.

While Champlain’s relation to the permanent settlement of Canada is so decisive that he is properly called “The Father of New France,” he was not the first Frenchman to sail up the St. Lawrence. Jacques Cartier, in 1535, ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the present city of Montreal, and there he found an Indian town with more than a thousand inhabitants, called Hochelaga. Sixty-eight years later, when Champlain visited this same spot there was no sign whatever of any settlement. The Indians had scattered, and the whole region had become unsafe through constant warfare with the Iroquois. In other words, the Indians were not permanent settlers. They roamed through the woods, establishing their camps, now here and now there, and, as they were engaged in almost constant warfare with one another, their numbers could not greatly increase.

While, therefore, it is certainly the case that the number of Indians east of the Mississippi is much smaller than the number who roamed over this territory when the whites first landed on these shores, the number of Indians who now live west of the Mississippi is believed to be far greater than it used to be. This is the result of the early policy of the United States in moving into what was then the Far West, all the tribes that had proved themselves to be uncomfortable neighbors in the eastern portion of the country.

Whatever faults may be charged against our government, in detail, in its relation to Indian tribes, it may at least be said that its policy of confining Indians to reservations, and thus protecting them from utter destruction, as civilization closed in about them, has probably had the effect of keeping their numbers on this continent, as a whole, as large as they ever were. We may justly rejoice that, in these later days, since it became evident that the Indian problem could no longer be solved by the removal of the tribes to more distant places, away from contact with the white man, the government has made, and is making, strenuous, and often successful, efforts to fit the individual Indian to play a useful part in the white man’s civilization.

Senator Robert L. Owen, from the new State of Oklahoma, is a Cherokee Indian, so that in his person the aborigines are now represented in the government of the Republic. Here, again, one is led to realize that the bow and arrow and the rifle often go down before the plough. In other words, the husbandman outlasts the hunter. That, again, is a commentary on the Greek myth of Antaeus, the giant whom Hercules overcame only by holding him in the air until he had choked him, because every time that Antaeus touched the earth he acquired new strength. If you read the commercial forecasts of the present hour, you will recognize the same old truth, for it is everywhere declared that the prosperity of our country, in the immediate future, depends upon the outcome of this year’s harvests.

The France of Henry IV was a feudal France, and the attempt of France to dominate North America involved the attempt to establish in the wilderness the same feudal system that had slowly developed out of European conditions during a thousand years, and that was, even then, on the point of perishing there. The historian Parkman has pointed out that New France, in its fall, led to two revolutions — the American and the French; and the French Revolution put a definitive end to the ancient régime. The change effected in society in Europe and elsewhere, by this revolution, was so radical that I have heard a deep student of European history say that it is impossible for any modern man to think himself back into the conditions that prevailed prior to the French Revolution.

If one will bear this in mind, two thoughts spring to the front. First, that it is not strange that the attempt to domesticate the ancient régime of France in the wilds of North America was not successful; and, second, that it is the old France and not the republican France of our own day that failed. If Parkman be right, it was the failure of the old France in North America which helped to precipitate the incoming of the new France in Europe.

The old France, with all its mistakes, left, nevertheless, on this side of the ocean its worthy monuments. You find them in the name of Lake Champlain, in the name of the St. Lawrence river, at St. Louis, and in Louisiana; and French names are identified with prosperous communities all over this region, not only in Canada, but in the United States. These isolated tokens of early French occupancy are tributes to the enterprise, the endurance, and the heroism of the founders of New France, and of that intrepid band of discoverers who rested not until they had discovered all of the Great Lakes and had traversed the Mississippi from its source to its mouth. In the province of Quebec, moreover, one finds still a population that are the lineal descendants of the early settlers of New France.

They retain by treaty right their old laws and their old customs, and they have always been a loyal and useful element in the population of Canada. The manufactures of New England bear constant testimony to their industry and faithfulness; and the distinguished premier of Canada today, Sir Wilfred Laurier, is a descendant of that stock. It is literally true, therefore, that New France, “being dead, yet speaketh.” Indeed, she still lives in the names of her founders, and in the persons of their descendants, and contributes to the life of today influences that we would not willingly let die.

No one can speak of the history of New France without pausing to pay a tribute to the Jesuit Fathers, of whom Jogues, Brébceuf, and Lalemant stand out conspicuously as heroic and noble types. These men left France, inspired by the burning desire to convert the Indians of America to Christianity. Brélxruf and these others sealed their testimony with their blood, perishing at the hands of the Indians under unspeakable tortures; but no privation and no danger led them to quail. French Canada to this day is loyal to their memories and to their church.

Crown Point holds one other relation to the succession of events which, in one sense, is hardly less decisive than was that battle near here in which Champlain killed the first Iroquois who fell at the hands of the French. For many years the settlement of the continent proceeded so slowly that the French and the English did not come, in this part of the country, into very close touch with each other. In 1904, I took part in the dedication of a boulder in memory of Champlain, in recognition of his discovery in the year 1604 of the Island of Mount Desert. Along the coast of Maine, which the French early settled, the French and the English came into early conflict.

The greater numbers of the English in this region gave them quick supremacy; but it was nearly a century later before both France and England recognized that they were to have a life-and-death struggle for the control of the continent. About the middle of the eighteenth century — in 1 731 — when this idea had been fully grasped, the French Governor of Canada sent the Sieur de la Fresnière to occupy Crown Point, which, by its location on Lake Champlain, just where the lake narrows almost to a river, is evidently a strategic point of great value, and here was built Fort Frédéric.

The manifest purpose of France thus to hold this region by force of arms, precipitated the conflict in this part of the continent which terminated only with the death of Montcalm and the surrender of Quebec to the victorious Wolfe. Ticonderoga, just below us, where the waters of Lake George enter into Lake Champlain, was the more frequent battle ground; but it was the occupation of Crown Point by the French, at this juncture, which turned the tide of battle into this region. I assume that the celebration at Ticonderoga will concern itself with the military events which have given to that name its fateful and august significance in the history of this continent. I think I am right, however, in saying that it was the aggressive move of France in occupying and fortifying Crown Point which brought things to a crisis in all this region.

At the recent celebration in Quebec, it was pointed out that the completeness of the victory of England over France for the mastery of this continent, itself made possible the American Revolution; for the English Colonies, while they had a military power like France for a neighbor, were not at all likely to set up for them selves. When, however, this danger disappeared, the spirit of independence waxed stronger and stronger until it culminated in the American Revolution.

It is worth while also to point out, in this connection, that precisely as it was the old France, and not the France of our day, which failed to make New France permanent, so also it was an England that has changed in the interval scarcely less than France has changed, which failed to hold its American Colonies. The England of that day had not yet learned the lesson that no colonies can be successfully held, as the old idea ran, for the purpose of being exploited in the interest of the mother country.

The effort to do this means a challenge, whenever the strength to support the challenge has been developed; and, while, in a sense, therefore, it may be true that the fall of New France deprived England of the Colonies which are now the United States, it is also true that, through this loss, England has been able to hold true to herself, ever since, the Colony of Canada by granting to Canada a measure of independence which the old England denied to the colonies that have become the United States. And so England’s loss has been, at the same time, England’s gain.

Nor should it be overlooked, on an occasion like this, that we of the United States owe to the help of the old France, against whom we contended with England for the mastery of this continent, the decisive assistance against England which enabled us to maintain successfully our Declaration of Independence. How many and how tangled are the threads which make up the pattern of history as one looks back upon it after two hundred years!

In the many military struggles for the control of this region the mastery of Lake Champlain has been a decisive factor. When the French controlled the lake the English were driven back. When the English controlled the lake the French were driven back. When, later, the English controlled the lake, the Americans were driven back; and when the Americans controlled the lake, the English were obliged to retire.

This is an illustration from inland waters of Admiral Mahan’s proposition of the decisive influence of sea power in history. Commodore Perry’s victory on Lake Erie teaches the same lesson; for the victory of the American fleet on Lake Erie made it necessary for the English to abandon Detroit and other points to the west, in order to keep in touch with their base of supplies. And so, in turn, Lake Champlain has belonged to France, to England, and to the United States; and with its control has gone the control of a large part of the surrounding territory.

The Poet Whittier, in 1876, began his Centennial Poem with these words:

O Thou, Who hast in concord furled
The war-flags of a gathered world.”