The Nicolet Corrigenda: New France Revisted

Corrigenda: A list of errors with corrections. Jean Nicolet, emissary of Samuel de Champlain, Commandant of New France, is memorialized in a huge bronze statue overlooking Green Bay, in half a dozen murals in public buildings in Wisconsin, and on a U.S. postage stamp. In search of the Northwest Passage and the riches of the Orient, he was the first European to reach Wisconsin in 1634. He is always depicted in a Chinese robe as he addresses an assembly of Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Indians because he thought they might be Chinese. Or so it is commonly believed. Employing anthropological and historical methods, Lurie and Jung demonstrate how errors build on errors and become credible through repetition. The myth of the Chinese robe is just the beginning of the list of folktales dignified as history, from the reason for his journey to his return to Quebec and even the circumstances of his death by drowning in 1642.