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2004
is the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s third
voyage to America and the founding of France’s first permanent
colony in the New World.
In
March of 1604, Champlain set sail from Le Havre, France, commissioned
to found a colony for the purpose of trade.
Over a period of three years he explored the length of the New
England coast south to Martha’s Vineyard, and made the first
detailed maps of the coast.
Champlain
arrived in the area we know as Plymouth in the summer of 1605, and
named it “Port St. Louis.” The
map he drew of the harbor and its surrounding Wampanoag village was
engraved later in Paris for the publication of Les Voyages de Sieur de
Champlain, published in 1613.
The
large number of Native People living in “Port St. Louis” in 1605
persuaded the Frenchman to look further north for a less populated
area, and for the more abundant fur trade of a colder climate.
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