Jean Nicolet... one of my great grandfathers who turns out to be a famous explorer

There was a family myth about the French Canadian brothers who first came to Quebec in the 1600's.  It claimed that they landed in Quebec, grabbed some Native American women, and started our family line. Of course, the family name was Guay by the time it was my mother's maiden name and the story wasn't true. But there was one ancestor who fathered that line who did come from France and take a Nipissing maiden as his own. She bore a child for him, who became one of my great grandmothers.

The crazy thing is that his name was Jean Nicolet, and although he was not as well known as Samuel Champlain or Marquette, after about 200 years Wisconsin 'discovered' him.  Yes, he became quite famous as the first European to visit what is now Wisconsin, so famous, in fact, that there are paintings of him in the Governor's office and a statue recently moved to a park near Green Bay.

He lived with the Nipissing nation, which was a small tribe at the time, near Lake Nipissing for eight years.  Champlain had sent him there to enhance the fur trading business and to learn their language so that he could be an interpreter. It is said that he learned all the survival skills from the tribe, but there was one element of his education that was neglected.  Although he traveled by canoe thousands of miles, he could not swim. He drowned in 1942 because of it.

My great grandfather Jean was quite a noble man from all accounts, so much so that school children helped raise some of the money for that bronze statue that glorifies his contribution to history. The Jesuits also wrote about him, they had some of his memoir material although most of it was lost overboard (while in a canoe). He is quite famous in Quebec as well, I should add, and he was known as one of the good guys.

This painting depicts him in a Chinese embroidered damask gown that he donned as a way to impress a tribe (Winnegago) he had been told was ferocious. Thinking they might be from another race - from the descriptions of other Native Americans - he thought they might be from Asia. He was looking for the northwest passage for Champlain, remember. Hence, the robe and the two pistols - which he discharged to show his 'power' - seemed to be sufficient to create the show he intended. It seems this scene is often re-enacted in Wisconsin Public Schools, much the same way the Pilgrim story is re-enacted in Massachusetts, where I lived part of my childhood.

I am not sure if my great grandmother, known as Nipissing maiden or Giizis with a very long last name - BAHMAHMAAADJIMOWIN, which probably translated to 'daughter of so and so' - also called Jeanne, died or her relationship with Jean Nicolet faded when he returned to Quebec. Their daughter Euphonsie-Madeleine Nicolet, aka Euphrodie-Madeleine, was born around 1628, but she later joined her father in the City. She married Jean LeBlanc, a Frenchman, when she was 15 (legal marriage age for girls in those days was 12 but for boys it was 14) in 1643. There was a terrible shortage of French women for the Frenchmen who were there, so I am sure she had other offers as well. Her step-mother, Marguerite Couillard, was a Frenchwoman who married her father in 1637.

Of course, I have tried many times to find this Native American ancestor, as many family myths are based on truth.  I was sure this one was. Of course, as it has been 13 generations, I am about 2/10ths of a percent Native American on that line. Not a lot I suppose, but still exciting to know that I now have three ancestors who were Native American. One from the Mayflower Days, which is just about the same number of generations ago, so maybe I am closer to a half a percent Native American, and another from the New Amsterdam era.  The other rumor was we were from the Mi'kmaq tribe also on the French Canadian side, but that one I cannot verify yet.

The odd thing is that initially when North America was settled by Europeans, the French preferred a chubby type and a Native American woman was  valuable woman as she could withstand the elements and knew how to survive.Of course, once the Native Americans introduced the settlers to popcorn in the late 1630's, they should have realized the Europeans would eventually take everything else they had of value. I mean, what would the world be like without popcorn?

Well, I'll write more about this later. It is just interesting to realize that I am different than I thought I was this morning. I have a lot of research to do on this great grandfather.  I have found almost 300 historical references to him and several biographies.