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CHAPTER V
After Champlain: from Montreal to the Mississippi
A very remarkable series of further explorations were carried out as
the indirect result of Champlain's work. In 1610 he had allowed a
French boy of about eighteen years of age, named ETIENNE BRULE, to
volunteer to go away with the Algonkins, in order to learn their
language. Brule was taken in hand by Iroquet,[1] a chief of the
"Little Algonkins", whose people were then occupying the lands on
either side of the Ottawa River, including the site of the now great
city of Ottawa. After four years of roaming with the Indians, Brule
was dispatched by Champlain with an escort of twelve Algonkins to the
headwaters of the Suskuehanna, far to the south of Lake Ontario, in
order to warn the Andastes[2] tribe of military operations to be
undertaken by the allied French, Hurons, and Algonkins against the
Iroquois. This enabled Brule to explore Lake Ontario and to descend
the River Suskuehanna as far south as Chesapeake Bay, a truly
extraordinary journey at the period. This region of northern Virginia
had just been surveyed by the English, and was soon to be the site of
the first English colony in North America.[3]
[Footnote 1: Mentioned on p. 80.]
[Footnote 2: The Andastes were akin to the Iroquois, but did not
belong to their confederacy; they lived in Pennsylvania.
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