1592-1633
"I had with me a youth who had already spent two winters at Kebec and wanted to go among the Algoumequins [Algonquins] to master their language ... learn about their country, see the great lake, take note of the rivers and the peoples living along them; and discover any mines, along with the most curious things about those places and peoples, so that we might, upon his return, be informed truthfully about them."
So in 1610, Etienne began a direction that would forever change the way he viewed life. Living amongst the Huron people, he not only learned their language and customs, but became one of them, throwing away his old inhibitions, and learning how to survive in an uncharted wilderness.
On the thirteenth of June, 1611, Champlain met up with Brule, after being taken through the Lachine Rapids by a group of natives, who had done this many times.
"I saw too my lad come dressed in the manner of the savages, mightily pleased with the treatment which the savages had accorded him, according to the custom of their country, and he related to me all that he had seen during his winter among them and had learned from said savages. ... My lad ... had learned their language very well."
However, he would turn out to be a disappointment to Champlain. When the Kirke Brothers took over Quebec, it was supposedly Brule and Nicolas Marsolet who led them to the French. When Etienne was brutally tortured and killed by the Huron people in 1633, Champlain said that it was the fitting death for a traitor. However, we have to remember that Brule no longer considered himself to be French, but Canadian; and his execution was carried out by his adopted countrymen, because of an "impropriety with a woman", not his involvement with the British.
