Montagnais Indians


A tribe of Algonquian stock. Occupied the Saguenay

country in 1608, when Champlain visited Tadoussac, and acted as

intermediaries between the French and the tribes of the far north. They

defeated a party of Iroquois in 1610, with Champlain's assistance; but

paid bitterly for their success in later years, when the warriors of the

Five Nations hunted them relentlessly throughout all the region of their

northern fastnesses. In 1633 the Jesuits first established missions

among them, and laboured diligently for many years among this most

degraded of the Algonquian tribes. They are described in modern

narratives of exploration and travel in northern Quebec and Labrador.



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