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Jean Nicolet (Nicollet), Sieur de Belleborne ( c. 1598 – October 1642) was a French coureur des bois noted for exploring Lake Michigan, Mackinac Island, Green Bay, and being the first European to set foot in what is now the U.S. state of Wisconsin .
Jean Nicolet was a French North American explorer who was the first known European to discover Lake Michigan and what is now the state of Wisconsin. The son of a dispatch carrier, Nicolet was 20 years old when he traveled to New France (Canada) at the request of Samuel de Champlain.
Jean Nicollet was born around 1598 in the Cherbourg region, in Normandy. By turn interpreter, explorer, public servant and colonist, Nicollet is one of the most prestigious figures in the history of North American exploration.
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May 14, 2018 · A skillful negotiator with Native people and with influential members of colonial society, Nicolet is representative of a handful of able intermediaries who helped shape Franco-Native relations in New France's early years.
Jean Nicolet was a French explorer, believed to be the first European to see Wisconsin. He migrated to Canada in 1618 to serve as an interpreter under Samuel de Champlain.
Jean Nicolet. (1598–1642). French North American explorer Jean Nicolet was the first known European to discover Lake Michigan and what is now the state of Wisconsin. He negotiated with several Native American tribes and acted as an interpreter between the Indians and the French.
In 1634, Nicolet traveled the Ottawa River to the portage with the Nipissing River that empties into northern Lake Huron. He canoed to the top of Lake Michigan at Michilimackinac, then traveled with his Huron guides south along the western shore of Lake Michigan to visit the fabled “Puans.”.
Jean Nicollet [also spelled Nicolet] (1598 - 1642) was a French explorer, translator, and negotiator who was the first European to travel through the Great Lakes area, visiting Lake Michigan and what are now Wisconsin and Illinois, possibly reaching the Mississippi River.
NICOLLET DE BELLEBORNE, JEAN, interpreter and clerk of the Compagnie des Cent-Associés, liaison officer between the French and the First Nations, explorer; b. c. 1598, probably at Cherbourg (Normandy), son of Thomas Nicollet, king’s postal courier between Cherbourg and Paris, and of Marie de Lamer; drowned near Sillery in 1642.
Among these voyageurs and interpreters there is one, Jean Nicolet, who occupies a prominent place in the very earliest history of Canada, and of whom the inhabitants of Cherbourg have the right to be proud inasmuch as the strongest presumptions—as I shall forth with show—permit them to claim him as a child of their city, or at least of its ...
