History of Brule's Discoveries and Explorations, 1610-1626: Being a Narrative of the Discovery, by Stephen Brule, of Lakes Huron, Ontario and Superior; and of His Explorations (the First Made by Civilized Man) of Pennsylvania and Western New York, also o…

xii, 184 pp. Narrative of the First White Man's Explorations of the Interior Regions of Pennsylvania, Western New York and the Great Lakes. Never before has a book captured my imagination as this book has about the first civilized man to explore the interior regions of Pennsylvania and Western New York, as has this book by Butterfield. First published in 1898, this book traces the course of Etienne (Stephen) Brule s 17th century travels, from his arrival in North America with Champlain in 1608, to his untimely death in 1626 when he was killed and eaten by the Indians. We always talk about what life was like on the Eastern Frontier in the 18th century, now we can read what it was like to be the first white man to explore the pre-contact areas of the Eastern Frontier 150 years before the start of the French and Indian War. This book gives us one of the rare glimpses into the fascinating early pre-contact Indian history of the East. Do you know about the Erie Indian tribe (or the Cat nations as the Indians called them), formidable adversaries of the Iroquois who suddenly disappeared into history? It was Brule s restless spirit and ardent love of adventure that prompted him to request permission from Champlain to explore interior New York and Pennsylvania. No white man had preceded him into that region and the date of that particular journey was 1615 a little over eight years after the settlement of Jamestown and six years after the first white man ascended the Hudson. Read about the tobacco farmers to the west of the Iroquois called the Neutral Nation. Learn the basis for the Iroquois hatred of the French. Sail down the Susquehanna River past the palisaded forts of the Susqhehannocks into the Chesapeake Bay country through Brule s journal in the early 1600 s and record his time here in North America until his untimely death at the hands of the Huron who killed and ate him. This is a book unlike any other you will ever read about this early 17th century time period because there are no others. I believe we need to have a sense about the pre-contact period in order to understand the roots of the French and Indian War in North America and this is the only real book to give us this understanding. The principal reason why Brule s visits to the various unexplored regions of the East have found so few historians referring to him are simply because of the lack of early information available. Butterfield simply spent the time collecting the available data and published it. Many questions we might ask about the 150 years following Brule can be answered by the knowledge we gain by reading this book. Come back with me in time as we read and rediscover the early 17th century.