In his informative article (“Dawnland: Maine’s path to statehood began long before you think it did,” Feb. 16), Staff Writer Colin Woodard states: “Under (Samuel de) Champlain’s influence, France sought to co-exist in a friendly, respectful alliance with the Native American nations … .”

While it’s true that French traders were more interested in furs than colonies, this did not prevent them from entering into brutal warfare with opposing native peoples. Champlain, after all, “discovered” the lake named after him while on a retaliatory expedition against the Iroquois, a longtime enemy of his trading partners, the Algonquian and Montagnais.

Nor did the French escape the “civilizing” zeal that fueled the English. On his first voyage, Champlain brought missionaries, including the notorious Jesuit Paul Le Jeune, whose records detail the brutal steps taken to convert the “Savages.” While much about the “barbarians” disgusted Le Jeune, family relations horrified him. Women “wish to be free and … to divorce,” he complained. Native people took polygamy and sexual freedom for granted and refused to punish children. In response, the French banned divorce, imposed corporal punishment, sanctioned male authority and made female fidelity mandatory.

Resistance was widespread, but the social disruption and cultural turmoil the French created had lasting implications for native peoples in the St. Lawrence Valley.

With trade, social and cultural change always comes. And no European nation was ever a friend to indigenous peoples.

Thank you, Portland Press Herald and Mr. Woodard, for this wonderful series.

Ardis Cameron

South Portland

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