Note 81 — Front matter

For an extended account of the Radisson-Groseillers controversy see Memoirs of Explorations in the Basin of the Mississippi, Vol. VI, Minnesota, by J. V. Brower, and particularly Radisson and Groseilliers, by Henry Colin Campbell, issued as No. 2 of the Parkman Club Publications, Milwaukee, 1896.

Pierre Esprit Radisson was a native of St. Malo in Brittany and in 1651 settled with his parents at Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, was born in Brie, France, though the exact dates in both cases are not known. It is supposed that these two adventurers died in Great Britain at an advanced age as they had served in the interest of the French and British as policy dictated. In the Minnesota monograph above referred to, Mr. Benjamin Sulte, one of the leading Canadian authorities on the early French explorations, gives in detail a vast amount of highly important material concerning the Radisson-(Chouart) Groseillers connection and a more popular though somewhat biased exposition of the same subject is given by Miss Agnes C. Laut in her Pathfinders of the West, part I.

Radisson’s highly important account of his wanderings are in manuscript in The Bodleian Library, and include the record of his first four voyages, including two journeys westward in company with Groseilliers, and his subsequent Hudson Bay experiences are in the British Museum. In 1885 The Prince Society of Boston published the work in its entirety and to the lasting benefit of American history.

For further reference to this matter see Wis. Hist. Coll., Vol. XI, and also the same Society’s Proceedings, for 1895.