#72 Champlain Invades New York, Again
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Samuel de Champlain returns to New France in 1615, and leads an alliance of Huron and Algonquin tribes into western New York State to attack Onondaga, the heavily fortified heart of Iroquois territory on the site of today’s Syracuse. Along the way Champlain goes fishing on Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, and we learn that he was not the first European to do. The battle itself is dramatic. The French and their allies build a huge siege tower that requires two hundred men to move in position. But not all ends well. Champlain is injured, and endures unbelievable pain in the retreat to Huronia. The outcome is a matter of some historical controversy.
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Selected references for this episode
David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream
Étienne Brûlé (Wikipedia)
Étienne Brûlé (Dictionary of Canadian Biography)
Susquehannock (Wikipedia)
Casablanca (“There are certain sections of New York…”)
Map of Champlain’s route through Huronia and into Iroquoia:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 72. |
| 0:10.9 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman. |
| 0:13.3 | And I'm recording this episode on May 22nd, 2022, |
| 0:17.5 | in a secure undisclosed location in Princeton, New Jersey, four blocks from a former capital of the United States. |
| 0:26.7 | There will probably be an episode about that someday. |
| 0:30.1 | If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism. |
| 0:39.5 | We believe there is dignity in our national story, along with tragedy, triumph, brilliance, |
| 0:45.9 | hypocrisy, magnificence, depravity, corruption, venality, inspiration, oppression, defeat, and glory. Mostly, though, we are here to have some fun. |
| 1:00.6 | We're more than a little late this week, but listeners with great attention to detail will |
| 1:05.1 | remember that the original plan was to take the week off entirely. Between the chase for the legal tender and doing fun stuff, |
| 1:13.5 | I've been bouncing around a lot. A week began visiting my beloved mother and brother in Charlottesville, |
| 1:20.4 | proceeded to a couple of days of business meetings in New York, followed by three days at my |
| 1:26.5 | college reunions, which in my case involves |
| 1:29.0 | sitting up until all hours, catching up with friends, as the four expended bourbon bottles on |
| 1:35.8 | the kitchen counter attest. Wednesday night, in the middle of all of that, I was able to attend a |
| 1:41.5 | live recording of the fifth column podcast at the Village Underground |
| 1:45.8 | in Greenwich Village. While waiting to get in, I had a nice chat with Nick Gillespie, the former |
| 1:51.8 | editor of Reason Magazine, who had said nice things about the podcast on Twitter. He bent my ear |
| 1:58.3 | on the importance of Roger Williams in our history, so now I have another book to read. |
| 2:04.2 | I also had nice chats with Matt Welsh and Michael Moynihan, both of whom I have long admired, and any number of Ernest Fifth Column fans. |
| 2:14.3 | For those of you don't know the fifth column podcast, it's essentially a conversation of the news of the week and the usually inane media coverage thereof between three very learned guys who have great chemistry. |
| 2:27.1 | It's not for political partisans. |
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