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.