In this episode we tell the story of Jean Nicolet, one of Samuel de Champlain’s embedded interpreters. In the summer of 1634, Champlain sent Nicolet to negotiate a treaty with a tribe known to eat their enemies on the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Along the way we consider the first European encounters with cities that today have National Football League franchises, and the fraught question of Nicolet’s legendary “Chinese robe,” which was depicted on a United States postage stamp in 1934. But the serious question remains: Was Champlain still looking for a northwest passage, or playing geopolitical 3-D chess?

[Errata: No sooner did I publish this episode than I realized that John Smith and other Virginians exploring the Chesapeake had certainly reached the site of Baltimore. The latest possible date is Thomas Claiborne in 1631. All such possible visits are obviously earlier than Jean Nicolet reaching Green Bay.]

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Selected references for this episode

Patrick J. Jung, The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet: Uncovering the Story of the 1634 Journey

Norman K. Risjord, “Jean Nicolet’s Search for the South Sea,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring 2001.

David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream

Virtual Museum of New France (Cool site, btw)

#111 Jean Nicolet’s Journey to Wisconsin in 1634