Jacques Cartier
1491–1557 · French navigator who explored the St. Lawrence River and named Canada.
Jacques Cartier was born in the port of Saint-Malo in Brittany and became an experienced sailor. In 1534 King Francis I of France sent him to look for a northwest passage to Asia and for gold. He crossed the Atlantic in twenty days, explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at Gaspé raised a large cross claiming the land for France. There he met a group of St. Lawrence Iroquoians led by the chief Donnacona, and he took two of the chief's sons back to France. On his second voyage in 1535, guided by them, he sailed up the St. Lawrence River to the village of Stadacona, where Quebec City stands today, and to Hochelaga, now Montreal. He used the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning village, which became the name Canada. That winter his men suffered terribly from scurvy until the Iroquoians showed them how to make a cure from the bark and needles of a tree. A third voyage, in 1541, to found a colony failed; the gold and diamonds he brought back proved worthless. He died in Saint-Malo in 1557.
Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1534 First voyage to the Gulf of St. Lawrence
- 1535–1536 Sails up the St. Lawrence to Hochelaga
- 1541–1542 Third voyage
- 1557 Dies at Saint-Malo
Record-breaker
Firsts and records, worded as the sources give them ("first known", "at the time").
- He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the first to record the name 'Canada' for the land along the St. Lawrence River. (Source: Jacques Cartier (Wikipedia))
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