"CANADA IS FINE," THEY SAID. "THE WINTER ISN'T BAD," THEY SAID.

SO THIS GUY

Sam. Samuel de Champlian. And this other guy Henry. They went to this magical place BUT HOLD UP

You remember Jacques?

he didn’t really settle in canada.

BUT HE DID SOME TRADING.

and if you lived in Canada (or do live in Canada.) you’re going to want to be warm.

SO HE STARTED A FUR TRADE~!

and this attracted some people

ONE OF THESE PEOPLE BEING SAM.

Sam was probably the most mentally stable person we’re talked about this far.

no u get out

No actually he was a nice guy. And smart. And he wanted to settle in Canada.

K FORGET ABOUT THE WHOLE MENTALLY STABLE THING no i’m sorry

He went to this little place called QUEBEC and build some buildings and made a moat. Right about the same time Jamestown was being settled, too.

And only 9 people out of 23 survived the first winter.

WELP.

He tried to meet some of the neighbours.

BUUUUUUT basically because of some reasons he got a lot of people mad at each other whoops.

And one thing that was nice about this guy is that he tried to understand the native Canadians. But that didn’t really work out so he just MADE FRIENDS YAY.

And his country France still wanted to find out HOW TO GET TO ASIA. But they didn’t really know how big Canada was. And also how remote Canada was.

BUT CANADA HAD A BUNCH OF STUFF? which might have been just as valuable as spices. And that was right. And Sam was all exploring and had a nice fur trade going. Most of the fur was Beaver. YAY BEAVERS.

so he chilled out with these people called the Hurons who was pretty cool people i guess.

He also wrote some pretty cool stuff. He was a Protestant Christian and he wanted to convert the indians but I don’t really know how well that worked out??????///?/?

SO YOU GUYS KNOW HOW HE WAS FRENCH?

ENGLAND DOESN’T LIKE FRANCE lolyeshedoesishipit

/cough

ANYWAY

so England just casually sailed over there and took Quebec and took Sam and probably locked him up in the tower of london becAUSE WHERE ELSE.

So Sam is referred to as the Father of new France. which is the French-speaking part of Canada. Well that’s nice.

and then he died. In Canada.

NOW ENGLAND.

They had a Canadaslporer too! Henry. Henry Hudson.

HE MADE 4 JOURNEYS TO CANADA. COUNT THEM ONE TWO THREE FOUR.

The first two were sponsored by this merchant company. Because LET’S GET TO ASIA GUYS.

So he was NOT BEING PUSHED OFF THE ISLAND BY THE GOVERNMENT.

so this first journey.

1607 LOOK A DATE. He only had 10 men on his ship and he sailed off to... China.

They did not make it.

THEY JUST RAN INTO GREENLAND.

So they just went home.

JOURNEY 2.

and on this one he recorded seeing a MERMAID.

which is so legit guys

did you know you can buy your own mermaid tail.

pretty dang awesome am i right. you too can be a mermaid. You can just buy it and put it on and then go swim around in your pool or the ocean note you still can’t breathe underwater oh shoot

get ‘em custom fitted and everything.

and in like 12 colours and you can even buy hand fins like their gloves with webbing between the fingers and face fins which don't do anything but they're pretty and I’M SORRY WHAT AM I DOING BACK TO THE STORY

THIRD VOYAGE.

SO HE WAS SAILING THIS JOURNEY UNDER THE DUTCH EAST INDIAN COMPANY.

WHICH WAS BASICALLY THE NETHERLANDS.

WHICH WAS TREASON.

But henry was like NO SCREW EVERYTHING and did it anyway.

So he sailed from Amsterdam to the north pole??????

To get to China???????

whut.

So he was just like NO FORGET THIS so he went south and hit South Carolina? And then Chesapeake Bay. Then he went north AGAIN and went into the Hudson River! This led him to New York.

Anyway.

FOURTH. VOYAGE.

This ship was called the Discovery and was THE INTERESTING VOYAGE.

Because he was being sponsered by the English. Again. So he went sailing off and kinda nonchalantly went into the Hudson Strait and into the Hudson Bay whee. And his crew was like “Whut.”

because he didn’t have anything to give to the asians to. like. get into their country.

SO MAYBE HE WAS ON A SECRET MISSION?

because he might have been looking for a place to put a port or something. Because he verryyy carefullllyyyy went along the very edge of the shore. and that might have been ok with that if THEY HAD FOOD AND WATER AND WARMTH.

and Henry wouldn’t sail home. And he wouldn’t tell anyone what he was doing.

and then MUTINY.

Because of hopefully obvious reasons.

Now there are stories that say they they lived or something. But there was a rescue mission and nothing was found.

welp.

The crew was arrested when they got home the England.

ahahaha welp.

that was an odd way to end this.

Pounce De Lion, MERICUH, Indians, Oh My!

If anyone is unable to laugh at themselves, I kindly ask that you leave now.

BECAUSE I’M WRITING ABOUT GOOD OL’ NORTH ‘MERICUHH.

Now when people went traveling around ‘MERICUH, they killed lots of people. Who did they kill? THE ONLY INHABITANTS, NATIVE NORTH AMERICANS.

Otherwise known as Indians. And for the sake of simplicity, we’re gonna call them that.

Those Dora the Explorers were all up in the ‘MERICUHH, and they nicknamed it the Land Of Opportunity. And the Indians were like “Yeah. OUR Lands of Opportunity.” But unfortunately, the Indians did not speak whatever language the explorers spoke so they could not express this opinion without, you know, some neighborly bloodshed.

SO THIS GUY. His name was Juan Pontc de Leon. Otherwise knows as Pants, because that’s how his second name is pronounced. He was from Spain, and he had travelled with our old buddy Chris. He settled down in Central America, and he was made Governor of PUERTO R-R-RICO~ And the PUERTO R-R-RICANS~ told him that up north there was a beautiful fountain that restored youth to the old and would give him the fountain of youth and awesomeness. Otherwise known as the Fountain of Youth. Annnd he believed it. So he hopped on a ship and sailed up north.

I’m guessing the PUERTO R-R-RICANS~ didn’t like Pants very much.

Anyways, Pants went on sailin’ up to Florida.

As we all should know is that there is no Fountain Of Youth on the coast of Florida. Pants actually named Florida, except the name was a little longer. Pants tried to start a colony, but that didn’t really work out. Because the Indians.

And soon, ERRYONE wanted to move into Florida. But Florida is nice. I like Florida.

Including the French!

So France sent some explorers, but they were actually looking for a passage to China. Still. ANYWAYS, Francis the First of France sent out a guy towards ‘MERICUH, looking for a shortcut to China. Because China had all the shtuff. Which France did not have, apparently.

And while the explorer guy was running around, he bumped into Canada and was like “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there 4 MILLION SQUARE MILE MASS OF LAND.”

Anyways, this guy named Jacques Cartier sailed around Newfoundland and hung out around Quebec. And he met the Micmac (which is fun to say.) Who were horrible Indians who slaughtered him and his crew. ER, wait. Hang on.

No.

It’s exactly the opposite. They were wonderful people.

Anyways, so the guy met a lot of people and claimed the area for France by building a THIRTY FOOT TALL CROSS. And the Indians were confused with this. And they were like “Y u do diss.” So he lied and was like “IT’S A LAND MARK I MAKE IS SO BEUTIFUL.”

And that was the first mistake. But the Indians were like “Oh ok cool.” So he got best frands with the Chief and either jacked his kids or asked politely for his children. I dunno. Nobody does. Either way, they went on to France and taught them French and shtuff. He took them back to Quebec and gave them back to their dad. And on this trip, guy went and jacked Montreal. Sorta. He named it, at least. Er, he named the mountain. And he didn’t actually name it Montreal. He named it Mount Royal, which is kinda like Montreal.

So he didn’t really do a whole lot.

Anyways, Canada is really really REALLY cold. So he and his crew went on trekking through four foot deep snow, icey oceans, and the whole crew was nearly wiped out.

Herpderpfail.

So Jaqc jacked the chief and nine other peeps (Fo realz this time, he did really jack the person. It was a kidnapping. Chiefnapping.) with him to France. And the Chief was kinda ok with this apparently, because there wasn’t any protesting or anything. He wanted the Chief and his peeps to basically tell the king “HEY CANADA IS AWESOME AND GOLD.” But the Chief and peeps died shortly after reaching France.

So the guy went back on to Canada, although he was with a different crew and was not the captain. And the natives were angry. He lied and told them their chief was alive and well back in France, but that was a lie. And they thought it was a lie. So he left Canada AGAIN, which what he thought was heapin’ loads of diamond and gold. But it was actually quartz and fool’s gold. After this embarrassment, he was kinda like FORGET THIS and he hung his hat up and retired.

Now while Jaqc was all in the Canada, Some Spaniards were checking out North America. South North America. Meaning, Florida and Mississippi and shtuff. This was about 25 years after Pants, and this guy named Hernando was hanging out. He was so special he had a town named after him!

But he was really mean. He wanted gold and he thought it was a good idea to enslave the Native Americans! Because obviously, they’ve got gold, right?

WHERE DID HE LEARN THAT?

From the Indians!

Bleh. So he got a lot of people and dogs and stuff, but it’s kinda sad that he thought THAT far ahead. But he did also bring preachers and monks.

HERE, MY BLACKSMITH WILL MAKE A COLLAR AND CHAIN FOR YOU WHILE MY PREACHER TEACHES YOU ABOUT GOD’S LOVE.

Herpderp.

But so yew guiz remember the Incas? How they got wiped out and shtuff? Well this guy was involved with that. Yay~

So he got frands with some of the Indians because they were pagan, and then killed some others because they were pagan. And last I checked, the Bible did not say “THOU SHALT KILL SOME PAGANS YOU DON’T LIKE AND BE FRANDS WITH OTHER PAGANS YOU DO LIKE.”

(It doesn’t say either of those, baituhwai.)

HE THEN WENT TO FLORIDA. Mosquitoes, alligators, swamps, oh my! They nearly ate his men alive. All three of those things.

So he found some Indians and started killing them. Which was really really stupid, because they knew where the gold was.

Do you know where it was?

THERE WASN’T ANY. THERE’S NO GOLD IN FLORIDA.

So the Indians were like “OH YEAH THERE’S SOME GOLD JUST KEEP GOIN UP.” And he kept goin’ up and he kept not finding any.

Some people view Indians as stupid herpderps. They were actually pretty smart, apparently.

BUT They probably lied to him to get him to leave. Because bloodthirsty murderers aren’t very nice people to have around your village. Seriously.

However, the more stories of gold he heard, the more he wanted it. So eventually he wandered over Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Probably Georgia too.

Eventually, the guy died. So they buried him in an old Indian Mound.

And his men got really really scared. Because Hernando kinda told them that he was immortal. So they told the Indians that he just kinda disappeared. And so the crew just left because they didn’t really want to stay. So they hopped on the Mississippi River and sailed down to Mexico.

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS THAT INDIANS ARE SMART AND THE PEOPLE HELPING YOU WITH YOUR ADVENTURES DON’T REALLY LIKE YOU THAT MUCH AND WILL LEAVE AS SOON AS YOU DIE.


Now this last guy is named ~Fr-r-rancisco de Cor-r-ronado~. He was from England.

NO HE WAS FROM SPAIN WITH A NAME LIKE THAT SERIOUSLY WHERE ELSE WOULD HE BE FROM.

Anyways~!

He was over in the Texas-Oklahoma-Arizona area. And New Mexico. And like everyone else, he found some painfully smart Indians. AYY, THERE’S SOME CITIES DOWN SOMEWHERE MADE OUT OF GOLD AND JEWELS AND PRETTY.

Of course, this was a lie.

Of course, Fran believed it.

This legend went on long enough for Fran to get three hundred men to march through cacti and deserts and BUFFALO~. Eventually, they ended up in the Grand Canyon. And the Continental Divide. And no cities made of gold. So he felt really bad so he retired in Mexico City and was declared a failure. Like everyone else!

He was also later charged of poor treatment of Indians.

HERPDERPDERP. BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE WAS WONDERFUL TO THEM.

So yeah. This is just kinda the first part of a longlonglonglongLONG series on American history. GET READY.