Celebrating Discovery
Last year we commemorated the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Jamestown in Virginia. And I was there to celebrate both the anniversary as well as my birthday. Neat!
This year? It’s Canada’s turn to mark 400 years since Champlain founded Quebec. There are celebrations aplenty underway on both sides of the Atlantic although these have not been without their problems.
What’s of interest to me in all of this is “Why 1608?” Why not, say, 1605 or 1606? Why is the foundation of Quebec more significant than the foundation of Port Royal? (Please to note that the oldest continuous European settlement in Canada is actually Port-Royal although I don’t remember hearing much fuss being made over the 400th anniversary in 2005 beyond issuing a commemorative stamp.)
Since 1992 brought lavish centenary celebrations of Columbus’s voyages to the New World, I’ve been fascinated by how we celebrate and commemorate Europeans’ coming to the Americas: what’s remembered and what’s forgotten. Both a century ago and today, the patterns seem much the same: the anniversary of 1492 drew much more attention than the remembrance of 1497 and John Cabot’s discovery of a New Found Land for Henry VII. Champlain’s involvement in Port Royal’s foundation in 1605 pales before the popular interest, at least in Canada, of his settlement of Quebec City in 1608. St. Augustine’s 1565 foundation merits hardly a mention compared to the hubbub over Jamestown’s settlement. And only the “Norsemaniacs” (and a few pathetic historians) paid much attention to the millennial commemoration of the Norse voyages to the New World.
The events we commemorate today are largely those that were settled upon as significant and worthy by our predecessors a hundred years ago. Samuel Champlain, John Smith and Christopher Columbus were glorified from the 1880s past the turn of the century. Even if, today, our relationship with these historical figures is a bit more troubled, their names trip off of the tongue much more readily than those who settled L’Anse aux Meadows or St. Augustine. (I dare you to name one of those individuals or even a secondary figure from the more-celebrated discoveries.)
So, this is why I’m spending the summer trawling around in archival sources for the 1880s through early twentieth century, trying to make sense of the ideas and arguments that circulated at that time in order to understand how our history became what it is. It’s a leap forward for an early modern historian, but it fascinates me.
Further Reading:
Samuel Champlain. The Foundation of Quebec. June, 1998. Modern History Sourcebook. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1608champlain.html (26 May, 2008)
Government of Canada, 400e anniversaire de ville de Québec | Quebec City’s 400th anniversary. 18 April, 2008. http://www.quebec400.gc.ca/ (26 May, 2008)
Robin Fleming. “Picturesque history and the medieval in nineteenth-century America.” The American Historical Review 100/4 (October 1995): 1061-1094.
H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999)
Ronald Rudin, Founding Fathers: The Celebration of Champlain and Laval in the streets of Quebec, 1878-1908. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003)
Barbara M. Schmeisser. “The Port Royal Habitation - A ‘Politically Correct’ Reconstruction?” Collections of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 44 (1996) pp. 41-47.
C. J. Taylor. Negotiating the Past? The Making of Canada’s National Historic Parks and Sites. (McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, Montreal-Kingston, 1990)
I grew up down the road (~10 min) from Port Royal. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the reason to celebrate!
What a beautiful part of the world in which to grow up!
Of course, this is yet another discovery historic site that I’ve visited — I only have to get to Newfoundland to tick off the last sites from my list.
L’Anse aux Meadows is thrilling to visit - I was there for the 2000 Viking Millennium Symposium. Even if, as we concluded, it’s not quite Vinland!
Susan, I envy you. Someday we’ll get there!
The entire Vinland debate is still so fascinating. I’ve been reading publications and lectures from the 1840s onwards that assuredly place Vinland here (Nova Scotia), there (Maine) or anywhere (Boston!). But the lack of any archaeological evidence is a real stumbling block, now as then, for getting scholarly agreement on the proposition.
My brother-in-law and his wife live in Bristol, England and from them I learned that in 1997 there was a Cabot commemorative voyage in a replica boat — their GP went along as the physician for the crew. But it doesn’t get as much attention.
It was a lovely place to grow up. We didn’t visit Port Royal often (I lived on the town side, not further up the road), but I spent many a day/night roaming Fort Anne with other teenagers, sliding on the hills, escaping adults, etc.
Susan, the Cabot voyage got a bit more coverage in Canada, unsurprisingly. But it was still nothing compared to the Columbus craze of 1992!