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Gates Community Center
David Hackett Fischer's upcoming biography of Samuel de Champlain, Champlain's Dream, is the enthralling story of an adventurer and leader with a rare vision for a new world founded on harmony and respect.
Fischer will explain Champlain's vision, and talk about his book in his lecture, "Champlain's Dream" at College of the Atlantic on Wednesday, July 23 at 7 p.m. in the college's Gates Community Center.
Calling Champlain a complex, elusive man who associated with many colorful characters, Fischer's history includes palace intrigues, raging storms at sea and ferocious wars fought alongside Native American allies. But most important, is Champlain's dream: that Europeans and Aboriginals could cooperate for mutual benefit within this new world.
The book, Champlain's Dream: The Visionary Adventurer who made a new world in Canada, will be published by Simon & Schuster in October. Fischer, a trustee of College of the Atlantic and Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University, is the Pulitzer-prize winning author of Washington's Crossing among other histories.
In a New York Times op-ed published July 3, the eve of the United State's Independence Day and the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, Fischer explained how Champlain's dream grew from a childhood spent witnessing the diversity of cultures and religions in the French seaport of Brouage at a time when bitter wars were fought over religion.
Writes Fischer, "Champlain was a soldier in these wars. He became a devout Catholic who deeply believed in a universal church that was open to all humanity, and supported Henri IV's policy of religious toleration for Protestants. He served the king as a soldier and secret agent, working for peace and tolerance in France. He also moved in a circle of French humanists who lived for faith and reason, science and truth. In a troubled time, they kept the vital impulse of humanism alive. These forgotten men inherited the Renaissance and inspired the Enlightenment."
Having traveled through the Spanish colonies, Champlain was shocked by the treatment of the Indians and envisioned a different New France. Continues Fischer, "He approached the Indians with respect, joined with them in a long tabagie (tobacco feast) and made an informal alliance that endured for many generations. The same thing happened in 1604, when he made peace with the Penobscot Indians of Maine at a tabagie in what is now downtown Bangor. It happened again with the Micmac of Acadia in 1605 and the Huron and many Algonquin nations after 1608."
As a result, writes Fischer, "small colonies of Frenchmen and large Indian nations lived close to one another in a spirit of amity and concord. This successful partnership was made possible in large measure because of Champlain's dream of humanity.
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