7. Jacques Cartier the Ethnographer

Jacques Cartier became the first ethnographer of a New World Indigenous people by recording the life and habits of the St. Lawrence Iroquois.

Updated: Feb 11, 2023

Jacques Cartier introduced the world to the St. Lawrence Iroquois. By the time Samuel de Champlain arrived in Canada almost a half century later, these people had completely disappeared. How they disappeared is the topic of a later post. Consequently, the only record of their existence is through the logs and writings Cartier left after his voyages. This makes these people somewhat of a mystery.

The St. Lawrence Iroquois were not the only peoples Cartier encountered on his voyages. On his first voyage he encountered the Beothuk¹ in Newfoundland, the Innu (called Montagnais by the French) along the Labrador coast and the Mi'kmaq in the Baie des Chaleurs south of Gaspé. Cartier considered these peoples more advanced indigenous societies than the St. Lawrence Iroquois whom he considered as “no better than savages”.

Today historians have named the people of the territory of Canada the St. Lawrence Iroquois but in Cartier’s day they were known only by the territories they…