Who was the leader of the St. Lawrence River Haudenosaunee that Cartier met?

• A. Champlain
• B. Tecumseh
• C. Donnacona
• D. Ponce de León

Answer: (C)

The meeting tests knowledge of early encounters between Europeans and Indigenous leadership along the St. Lawrence. Jacques Cartier’s first voyage brought him to Stadacona, where the Haudenosaunee chief who welcomed him ruled—the person Cartier records as the leader of that community. This figure, Donnacona, stood as the recognized ruler of the St. Lawrence area at that time, making him the correct answer.

This moment matters because it illustrates how European explorers began diplomatic and cultural exchanges with Indigenous governance along the river, a prelude to the complex relations that would unfold. The other names belong to different times or places: Champlain came later as a French founder and explorer, Tecumseh was a later Indigenous leader of the Shawnee in a different era, and Ponce de León explored parts of the Americas far from this encounter.