Cartier Enters the Saint Lawrence

April 20, 1534

The Breton mariner Jacques Cartier, sent by Francis I, nosed into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and planted a cross at Gaspe. He kidnapped two sons of the Iroquoian chief Donnacona to take back to France as proof of discovery. A French claim to Canada had been clumsily planted. The kidnapping of Donnacona's sons as interpreters established a troubling pattern of coercive contact in early French-Indigenous relations.