Micmac Chief Addresses the French

The following speech was delivered by a Micmac Chief to French priest Chrestian LeClerq in the Maritime Provinces of Quebec in the late 1600s. (Note: some of the language in this passage has been modernized to make it easier to understand. The original text can be found here: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5828.)

I am greatly shocked that the French have so little intelligence in the effort to persuade us to convert our homes into those houses of stone and of wood which are as tall, according to their what they say, as these trees. Very well! But why now, do men of five to six feet in height need houses which are sixty to eighty? For, in fact, as you know very well,do we not find in our own houses all the conveniences and the advantages that you have with yours, such as resting, drinking, sleeping, eating, and amusing ourselves with our friends when we wish? This is not all, my brother, if you had as much cleverness as the Indians, who carry their houses and their wigwams with them so that they may lodge wherever they please? You are not as bold nor as strong as we, because when you go on a trip you cannot carry upon your shoulders your buildings and your houses. Therefore you must prepare many homes, or else you stay in a hired house which does not belong to you. As for us, we find ourselves secure from all these inconveniences, and we can always say, more truly than you, that we are at home everywhere, because we set up our wigwams with ease wherever we go, and without asking permission of anybody.

You tell us, very inappropriately, that our country is a little hell in contrast with France, which you compare to a paradise on earth, telling us it has everything you need in abundance. You also tell us that we are the most miserable and most unhappy of all men, living without religion, without manners, without honor, without social order, and, in a word, without any rules, like the beasts in our woods and our forests, lacking bread, wine, and other comforts which you have much of in Europe.

Well, my brother, if you do not yet know the real feelings which our Indians have to your country, I should tell you. Believe me when I tell you, miserable as we seem in your eyes, we consider ourselves as much happier than you because we are very content with the little that what we have. You deceive yourself greatly if you want to persuade us that your country is better than ours. For if France is a little heaven, why do you leave it? Why do you leave your wives, children, and friends? Why do you risk your life and your property every year? Why do you risk the storms of the sea in order to come to a strange and primitive country which you think is the poorest and least fortunate of the world? We would never go to France, because we fear, with good reason, that we would find little satisfaction there, because we have seen that the French leave it every year in order to enrich themselves on our shores. We believe, further, that you are also incomparably poorer than we, and that you are only simple journeymen, valets, servants, and slaves, all masters and grand captains even though you may appear because you love wearing our old rags and our miserable suits of beaver which can no longer be of use to us. You take our fish to comfort your misery and the poverty which oppresses you.

As for us, we find all our riches and all our conveniences among ourselves, without trouble and without exposing our lives to the dangers in which you find yourselves constantly through your long voyages. And, while we feel compassion for you in the sweetness of our lives, we wonder at the anxieties and cares which you give yourselves night and day in order to load your ship. We see also that all your people live, as a rule, only upon cod which you catch here. Always nothing but cod-cod in the morning, cod at noon, cod at evening, and always cod, until when you want some good food, it is at our expense; and you have to come to the Indians, whom you despise so much, and to beg them to go hunting so that you can eat.

Now tell me this one little thing, if you have any sense: Which of these two is the wisest and happiest-he who works without ceasing and only gets enough to live on, or he who rests in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasure of hunting and fishing? It is true, that we have not always had the use of bread and of wine which your France produces; but, in fact, before the arrival of the French in these parts, we lived much longer than now? If we don't have any old men of a hundred and thirty to forty years, it is only because we are gradually adopting your manner of living. Experience is making it very plain that those of us live longest are those who despise your bread, your wine, and your brandy and are content with their natural food of beaver, of moose, of waterfowl, and fish, in accord with the custom of our ancestors. Learn now, my brother, once for all, because I must open my heart to you: there is no Indian who does not consider himself infinitely happier and more powerful than the French.

Source: William F. Among, trans. and ed.
New Relation of Gaspesia, with the Customs and Religion of the Gaspesian Indians, by Chrestien LeClerq
(Toronto: Champlain Society, 1910), 103-06.