Bedrock Canadiana: the Best Edition of Lescarbot
With Foundational Maps of Canada, the New England Coast and the American Southeast
This edition of Lescarbot is usually styled the best and most complete edition. Published in Paris by Adrian Perier, it contains more maps than earlier editions. The first edition was published in 1609 (with 2 maps), the second in 1611 (with 3 maps). The present third edition (with 4 maps), has additions to the text, including Poutrincourt's second voyage, bringing the narrative up to the time of publication.
[The third edition] received the last touches of Lescarbot's hand and may therefore be considered the most desirable of them all - Church.
The four engraved maps are: New France, Port Royal (Nova Scotia), Port Ganabara (Brazil), and a map of the Southeast. This last map first appeared in 1612 (in the second issue of the second edition).
Church describes an impossibly rare version of this third edition with a 1617 dated title page, calling it an "almost unknown early issue ... except for the title-page it is identical with the 1618 edition."
Lescarbot's work is one of the most important early works on the first French settlements in North America. Included herein are accounts of the voyages of Verrazano, Laudonnière, Gourgues, Villegagnon, Cartier, Roberval, De Monts, Poutrin-court, and the first voyages of Champlain. Lescarbot was a Protestant lawyer who spent more than a year in America as part of the expedition that founded Port Royal in Nova Scotia, arriving in 1606. The book was published to encourage settlement in the New World. During the second New England voyage Lescarbot was left in charge of the Port Royal colony.
This very important and reliable work on the early French settlements in Canada is divided into three books: the first gives an account of the voyages of Verrazano, Laudonniere, Gourgues, and Villegagnon; the second contains the voyages of Cartier, Roberval, De Monts, Poutrincourt, and the first voyages of Champlain; and the third contains an interesting description of the manners and customs of the Indians - Church.
Lescarbot's history is highly esteemed not only for its great veracity, but as the work of a candid and intelligent writer... His descriptions of Indian life and peculiarities are very interesting, an account both of their fidelity, and from being among the first authentic relations, we have of them after Cartier...
This [1618] edition of Lescarbot's rare work on the History of New France, differs greatly from both the former. It has 139 pages more than that of 1609, with a very large addition of matter, and the arrangement much altered... All of the French editions, as well as the translation of a part of that of 1609 into English by Erondell, are very rare - Field.
The First Detailed Map of Canada (and the Coast of New England)
Lescarbot's seminal map, Figure De La Terre Neuve, Grande Riviere De Canada, is the first detailed map of Canada and New England (extending south to Cape Cod) based on a systematic exploration of the area.
Although drawn primarily from a 1607 manuscript map by Champlain, Lescarbot's map was printed three years prior to the first edition of Champlain's map. In addition, as pointed out in Mapping Boston, Lescarbot's was the first map to show Cape Cod. Also, several important place names appeared on the map for the first time, including Kebec (Quebex), Kinibeki (Kennebec), and P. Royal (Port Royal).
The map extends up the St. Lawrence River as far as the Indian village Hochelaga (now Montreal). The first trading post in Canada, founded in 1600 at Tadousac, is shown at the mouth of the R. de Saguenay and just next to that is the River Lesquemin mistakenly named in reverse. Kebec is shown here for the first time on a printed map in its Micmac form, meaning the narrows of the river. The New England coastline on this map closely follows Champlain's manuscript of the area, which is dated 1607, and now resides at the Library of Congress (Burden 157).
Lescarbot records Champlain's explorations in 1605 and 1606 along the eastern seaboard of North America as far south as Cape Cod, specifically Stage Harbor in Chatham. The purpose of this voyage was to scout the warmer locales south of the St. Lawrence River for advantageous areas for settlement. In so doing, Champlain remained for some time at places that showed promise, especially those with good harbors, and sketched charts of these areas in some detail.
The important Lescarbot map of Canada is present here in the second state, per Burden.
States of Lescarbot's Map
The map of Canada is known in two states:
- 1609 - Sable Island below C. Breton, with name written horizontally.
- 1618 - Sable Island moved further south and the shape changed. Name written vertically.
Map of the Southeast
This edition of Lescarbot has an important map of what is now the southeastern United States. It first appeared in the 1612 second issue of the second edition of Lescarbot, published by Millot. A printed note appears on this map: De la main de Mr. Marc Lescarbot ("By the hand of Mr. Marc Lescarbot"). According to Burden, Figure et Description de la Terre Reconue et Habitée par les François en la Floride..., is derived from a wall map by Cornelis Claesz from circa 1602. However, Lescarbot's map incorporates several new features and has increased accuracy in positions of place names. The Apalachian mountains are represented as one single pyramid-shaped mountain called "Montagne de Palassi" which is here noted as a place where gold, silver, and copper abounded ("ici se trouve or, argent, et cuivre"). Indian villages are named by their chiefs. "Marc Lescarbot... published a map probably influenced by the Mercator-Hondius map but showing independent study of his sources" - Cumming.