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Samuel de Champlain (1567-December 25, 1635) was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608.
Samuel de Champlain in 1632[]
In 1633, Cardinal Richelieu appointed Samuel de Champlain the lieutenant-general of the newly expanded New France, which included not only the territory that England had seized, but in fact, all of the territories England maintained in the New World, which England had secretly sold to France.[1]
Richelieu knew that Champlain would be dead in two years, and intended to use the lieutenant-general's prestige to raise funds in France. Richelieu ordered his aide, Michel Mousnier, to keep Champlain in Virginia.[2]
Champlain learned of the timing and cause of his death in the OTL, and made preparations for it, assuming that that was what God had planned for him. He even figured that the stroke which led to his death had occurred -- and would occur -- on October 5, eighty days before Christmas Day. The information he had, a photocopy of an encyclopedia entry about him, only said that it had happened in October -- his reasoning was based on the ecclesiastical calendar having eighty days between Ash Wednesday and Pentecost. When that day, and several following days, passed without incident, he told his confessor, the Jesuit Charles Lallemant, and showed Lalemant the photocopy. Lalemant eventually convinced Champlain that the fate of the OTL's Samuel de Champlain may not be his. Both men realized that a Dutch trader who also traded with the Iroquois also seemed aware of the up-time information about Champlain, and that recent warlike activities among some of the Iroquois could be accounted for if some of them had come to believe that Champlain was dying or dead. Champlain allowed rumors that he was seriously ill to circulate, and surprised an Iroquois raiding party at Trois-Rivières by appearing alive and healthy.