Background
Étienne Brûlé was born reputedly at Champigny-sur-Marne, France.
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Étienne Brûlé
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When, in 1608, Samuel de Champlain went to the New World and founded a trading post at Quebec, Brûlé was probably a member of that expedition. In 1610 Brûlé voyaged west with a band of Algonquians to learn their language, a vital necessity in the fur trade. Where Brûlé traveled is not known, but when he returned to Quebec the following year, Champlain was well pleased with Brûlé's knowledge of the Indian country and the Algonquin language. Shortly afterward Brûlé returned to the west; and when Champlain, in 1615, assisted the Hurons in a campaign against the Onondagas near presentday Syracuse, N. Y. , Brûlé volunteered to accompany a Huron delegation across the enemy's country to enlist the aid of the Susquehannas.
The reinforcements the delegation brought arrived too late, for Champlain and the Hurons had been defeated and forced to retreat.
Brûlé spent the following year or more with the Susquehanna tribe and apparently traveled down the river bearing their name to Chesapeake Bay, the first European to traverse that part of present-day Pennsylvania.
In 1621 or 1622 Brûlé returned to the west and appears to have voyaged to Lake Superior.
There is some evidence to indicate that he went as far as the site of present-day Duluth.
By this time Brûlé appears to have been more attuned to the permissive Indian way of life than to that of the more puritanical French.
In 1632 Canada was returned to France, but Brûlé was not brought to account.
He had returned to the west, where in 1633 he was killed by the Hurons under obscure circumstances.
Brûlé left no record of his travels, and his activities can be gleaned only from passing references in the accounts of others.
He spent most of his active life with Native Americans and was assimilated by them.
