Abandoned Europe
There is some mystery concerning Cadillac's military service as a young man that allegedly began around 1677--he claimed to have been in regiments of Dampierre-Lorraine and Clairambault, but some historians surmise he may have earned a criminal record instead during this period of his life, and hence the name change. In any case, Cadillac yearned to leave Europe and its seemingly stifling social, economic, and religious constraints behind, and looked toward the new lands across the Atlantic to which England and France were then staking claim. Fur traders, Jesuit priests, and ordinary adventurers were settling the regions of what is now New England, Canada's Maritime Provinces, and Quebec. In Cadillac's day, the exploits of the men who had first claimed these lands were legendary--such as Samuel de Champlain's founding of Quebec in 1608-and perhaps he saw for himself similar glory as a conqueror of the unfamiliar territories.
Cadillac probably first set foot on North American shores when he landed at Port Royal, Acadia (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) in 1683. During his residency there, he explored the coastline, made maps, and sent informative reports back to the French government.
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