My experience in the Americas!

By Jonah

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I was a French explorer born in 1491 named Jacques Cartier, who was hungry for exploration. I sailed to North America on behalf of the French Empire in 1534. The French Empire was looking to expand their control over the world.

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My main goals were to find a passage to Asia on this voyage as well as convert the Indigenous people to Christianity, and ultimately expand the French Empire.
When I landed for the first time in North America, I landed in what is now Newfoundland, Canada, and saw how beautiful it was.

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I continued up the Saint Lawrence River and decided to build a fort on today's Montreal Island. I built this to trade with the local indigenous people and also explore the territory.

During my first voyage I realized that some of the Indigenous people were getting sick, and I thought that I might be spreading diseases from France to them because their bodies didn’t know how to fight off our foreign diseases. Overall, on my first voyage, I could not find a passage to Asia.

I went back to France and told everybody about this land and how great it was. I decided to come back to Canada in 1541 to explore further and try to teach the indigenous people about Christianity. I visited what the indigenous people called The Hochelaga village during my voyage, which is now Montreal.

When I was here, I learned more about how the indigenous people lived and how they were different from us European people. I realized that they had unique ways of living, yet our two ways of living had some similar areas.

As I explored the lands of Canada, I saw an opportunity to convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity, which was my duty as a faithful Catholic person. Although some resisted our efforts, we used a combination of persuasion and force to spread the teachings of the Church.