The Other States of America: History Podcast

Champlain sailed the seas, fought in wars, befriended a king, worked as a spy, visited New Spain, envisioned a canal across Panama and became ridiculously wealthy, before ever setting foot in New France.

In this episode we break down the intricacies of Haudenosaunee government as it may have been before the arrival of Europeans, the episode ends with the story of first contact given from the point of view of a young Mohawk warrior.

After five years of war and waiting Cartier is given a commission to plant a colony in the New World, only to be usurped by nobleman named Roberval; a dreaded Huguenot. Both men would search for the mystical Kingdom of Saguenay, The Natives finally attack, a woman is abandoned on an island full of polar bears. The French build their first settlement in North America decades before St. Augustine, Jamestown and Plymouth.

After the failed colony of Roberval the sailors of St. Malo and elsewhere continued a clandestine trade with the Natives. The St. Lawrence Iroquois mysteriously disappeared and the Innu at Tadoussac create a monopoly on the furs coming from the interior of the continent. France, enveloped in civil wars has few resources to settle their claim to the region, but when the price of fur skyrockets a few brave souls, and a few unwilling prisoners give it try...

in 1634 a young man leaves Fort Orange to explore the Mohawk and Oneida Nations, his account is the earliest written record from within the world of the Haudenosaunee. He tries to buy a pet bear, is tasked with driving out the devil and yet at the end he is the strangest character of all.