Martin Chartier

Martin Chartier (1655–1718) was an expert glove maker, a French explorer in North America, and then a "white Indian", marrying, and living amongst the Shawnee Native Americans.

Martin Chartier accompanied Louis Jolliet on his 1674 journey to the Illinois Territory, and with René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle on his 1679-1680 journey to Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan. Martin Chartier assisted in the construction of Fort Miami and Fort Crèvecoeur where - on April 16, 1680 - Martin Chartier, along with six other men, mutinied, looted, and burned Fort Crèvecoeur down, and fled. In a letter dated 1682, La Salle stated that Martin Chartier "was one of these who incited the others to do as they did."

Chartier sometimes was written as Chartiere, Chartiers, Shartee or Shortive.

In 1655, Martin Chartier was born in St-Jean-de-Montierneuf, Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France.

In 1667, Martin Chartier arrived in Quebec with his brother Pierre and sister and his father René.

In 1672, Martin Chartier, along with his brother Pierre, went along with Louis Jolliet's second expedition. Louis Jolliet was an experienced mapmaker, explorer, king’s hydrographer, organist, teacher, fur trader, seigneur, geographer, and cartographer. Jolliet was chosen by Intendant Jean Talon (who in turn had been delegated his power from Governor Frontenac) to explore the Mississippi River beyond the Lakes, which the Indians alleged flowed into the southern sea. In the order the French governor refers to Jolliet as one "experienced in these kinds of discoveries and who had been already very near the river".

In December of the same year Joliet reached the Straits of Mackinaw, where with Père Marquette, he spent the winter and the early spring in questioning the Indians and preparing maps for his famous 1673 expedition also with Père Marquette, to find the mouth of the Mississippi River, to discover if it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean.

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