Edited by Germaine Warkentin. Slated for publication by The Champlain Society in 2011.
The writings of Pierre-Esprit Radisson (c. 1640–1710) constitute vital primary sources for Iroquois culture in the seventeenth century. They furnish our first written record of the area around Lake Superior, and in the late seventeenth century they provided critical support for the English case in the debate with France over territorial rights in Hudson Bay. Radisson and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, were the men who in 1665 had brought welcome news to Charles II of a possible route through Hudson Bay to the continent’s rich furs, one that would evade the taxes imposed by the French settled along the St. Lawrence. Their action would lead to the chartering of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670 and thus, in J.B. Brebner’s often-quoted verdict, “change the course of history for half the North American continent.”
Nevertheless, the interpretation of Radisson’s career remains a vexing historical problem. In part this is because his apparent need to trumpet his own merit seems at odds with an explorer’s primary obligation to describe what he is exploring. Second, the amiable loyalty demonstrated in his bonds with his adopted Native relatives is contradicted by a vertiginous succession of changed allegiances. In the 1660s Radisson and Groseilliers abandoned New France for England, but in the 1670s the pair left England in discouragement and sought advancement in Paris. Rebuffed there, in 1682-83 they turned to sponsors in New France and captured Port Nelson on Hudson Bay on their behalf. In the following summer, however, Radisson changed sides suddenly and nonchalantly recaptured it on behalf of the English. Not surprisingly, he was henceforth regarded as a traitor by the French; in the 1690s there was a price on his head. Ignored by both sides after his death in 1710 — the manuscript of his first four voyages (written in English) lying unidentified in the Bodleian Library and his later two (written in French) kept for decades in the private chambers of the HBC — Radisson nevertheless sustained an anecdotal reputation for boldness that enshrined him in Canadian popular culture as a rough-hewn coureur de bois. Until recently, most of the important work on “this mercurial genius” was by Americans, who have adopted him as the founder of Wisconsin. Was Radisson a traitor, as the French viewed him? A trifling figure to be exploited politically, as he seemed in the eyes of certain English contemporaries? A "courtier in buckskin," as the novelist Philip Child once called him? Did he, as the third of his "Voyages" alleged, reach the Mississippi? No adequate edition of Radisson's writings has ever made it possible for us to decide.
The Writings of Pierre-Esprit Radisson is the first critical edition of Radisson's texts, which appeared in 1885 and 1961 in very imperfect versions. Besides the scribal manuscript of the first four Voyages (once owned by Samuel Pepys), this edition includes a new text of the two 1682-84 relations based on the scribal manuscript at Windsor Castle recently discovered by the family genealogist, Dr Jean Radisson. The edition also contains two short new documents in Radisson's own hand giving information about the Hudson Bay coast in the 1670s. It presents a close comparison between the three different manuscripts of the relation of 1684 that illustrates the politically sensitive situation Radisson found himself in. English documents appear in English with full annotation, French documents appear both in the original French and in annotated modern translations that entirely supersede the previous antiquated and inaccurate versions. An extensive historical introduction, textual introduction, glossary, biographical appendix, maps and illustrations, and bibliography complete the volume.
Germaine Warkentin is Professor Emeritus of English, University of Toronto. She has published widely on Renaissance literature and Canadian writing, and among other essays on Radisson is the author of his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
