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HALF-CENTURY OF
CONFLICT.
FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN
NORTH AMERICA.
PART SIXTH.
BY
FRANCIS PARKMAN.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1898.
_Copyright, 1892_,
By Francis Parkman.
_Copyright, 1897_,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
This book, forming Part VI. of the series called France and England in
North America, fills the gap between Part V., "Count Frontenac," and
Part VII., "Montcalm and Wolfe;" so that the series now forms a
continuous history of the efforts of France to occupy and control this
continent.
In the present volumes the nature of the subject does not permit an
unbroken thread of narrative, and the unity of the book lies in its
being throughout, in one form or another, an illustration of the
singularly contrasted characters and methods of the rival claimants to
North America.
Like the rest of the series, this work is founded on original documents.
The statements of secondary writers have been accepted only when found
to conform to the evidence of contemporaries, whose writings have been
sifted and collated with the greatest care. As extremists on each side
have charged me with favoring the other, I hope I have been unfair to
neither.
The manuscript material collected for the preparation of the series now
complete forms about seventy volumes, most of them folios. These have
been given by me from time to time to the Massachusetts Historical
Society, in whose library they now are, open to the examination of those
interested in the subjects of which they treat. The collection was begun
forty-five years ago, and its formation has been exceedingly slow,
having been retarded by difficulties which seemed insurmountable, and
for years were so in fact. Hence the completion of the series has
required twice the time that would have sufficed under less unfavorable
conditions.
Boston, March 26, 1892.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
1700-1713.
EVE OF WAR.
The Spanish Succession.--Influence of Louis XIV.
on History.--French Schemes of Conquest in
America.--New York.--Unfitness of the Colonies for War.--The
Five Nations.--Doubt and Vacillation.--The Western
Indians.--Trade and Politics 3
CHAPTER II.
1694-1704.
DETROIT.
Michilimackinac.--La Mothe-Cadillac: his Disputes with the
Jesuits.--Opposing Views.--Plans of Cadillac: his Memorial
to the Court; his Opponents.--Detroit founded.--The
New Company.--Detroit changes Hands.--Strange
Act of the Five Nations 17
CHAPTER III.
1703-1713.
QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.
The Forest of Maine.--A Treacherous Peace.--A Frontier
Village.--Wells and its People.--Attack upon it.--Border
Ravages.--Beaubassin's War-party.--The "Woful Decade."--A
Wedding Feast.--A Captive Bridegroom 34
CHAPTER IV.
1704-1740.
DEERFIELD.
Hertel de Rouville.--A Frontier Village.--Rev. John
Williams.--The Surprise.--Defence of the Stebbins
House.--Attempted Rescue.--The Meadow Fight.--The
Captives.--The Northward March.--Mrs. Williams killed.--The
Minister's Journey.--Kindness of Canadians.--A Stubborn
Heretic.--Eunice Williams.--Converted Captives.--John
Sheldon's Mission.--Exchange of Prisoners.--An English
Squaw.--The Gill Family 55
CHAPTER V.
1704-1713.
THE TORMENTED FRONTIER.
Border Raids.--Haverhill.--Attack and Defence.--War to
the Knife.--Motives of the French.--Proposed
Neutrality.--Joseph Dudley.--Town and Country 94
CHAPTER VI.
1700-1710.
THE OLD RÉGIME IN ACADIA.
The Fishery Question.--Privateers and Pirates.--Port
Royal.--Official Gossip.--Abuse of Brouillan.--Complaints of
De Goutin.--Subercase and his Officers.--Church and
State.--Paternal Government 110
CHAPTER VII.
1704-1710.
ACADIA CHANGES HANDS.
Reprisal for Deerfield.--Major Benjamin Church: his Ravages
at Grand-Pré.--Port Royal Expedition.--Futile Proceedings.--A
Discreditable Affair.--French Successes in
Newfoundland.--Schemes of Samuel Vetch.--A Grand
Enterprise.--Nicholson's Advance.--An Infected
Camp.--Ministerial Promises broken.--A New Scheme.--Port Royal
attacked.--Acadia conquered 120
CHAPTER VIII.
1710, 1711.
WALKER'S EXPEDITION.
Scheme of La Ronde Denys.--Boston warned against British
Designs.--Boston to be ruined.--Plans of the Ministry.--Canada
doomed.--British Troops at Boston.--The Colonists
denounced.--The Fleet sails for Quebec.--Forebodings of the
Admiral.--Storm and Wreck.--Timid Commanders.--Retreat.--Joyful
News for Canada.--Pious Exultation.--Fanciful Stories.--Walker
disgraced 156
CHAPTER IX.
1712-1749.
LOUISBOURG AND ACADIA.
Peace of Utrecht.--Perilous Questions.--Louisbourg
founded.--Annapolis attacked.--Position of the
Acadians.--Weakness of the British Garrison.--Apathy of the
Ministry.--French Intrigue.--Clerical Politicians.--The Oath
of Allegiance.--Acadians refuse it: their Expulsion proposed;
they take the Oath 183
CHAPTER X.
1713-1724.
SEBASTIEN RALE.
Boundary Disputes.--Outposts of Canada.--The Earlier and
Later Jesuits.--Religion and Politics.--The Norridgewocks
and their Missionary.--A Hollow Peace.--Disputed Land
Claims.--Council at Georgetown.--Attitude of Rale.--Minister
and Jesuit.--The Indians waver.--An Outbreak.--Covert
War.--Indignation against Rale.--War declared.--Governor
and Assembly.--Speech of Samuel Sewall.--Penobscots
attack Fort St. George.--Reprisal.--Attack on
Norridgewock.--Death of Rale 212
CHAPTER XI.
1724, 1725.
LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.
Vaudreuil and Dummer.--Embassy to Canada.--Indians
intractable.--Treaty of Peace.--The Pequawkets.--John
Lovewell.--A Hunting Party.--Another Expedition.--The
Ambuscade.--The Fight.--Chaplain Frye: his Fate.--The
Survivors.--Susanna Rogers 250
CHAPTER XII.
1712.
THE OUTAGAMIES AT DETROIT.
The West and the Fur-trade.--New York and Canada.--Indian
Population.--The Firebrands of the West.--Detroit in
1712.--Dangerous Visitors.--Suspense.--Timely
Succors.--The Outagamies attacked: their Desperate
Position.--Overtures.--Wavering Allies.--Conduct of
Dubuisson.--Escape of the Outagamies.--Pursuit and
Attack.--Victory and Carnage 272
CHAPTER XIII.
1697-1750.
LOUISIANA.
The Mississippi to be occupied.--English
Rivalry.--Iberville.--Bienville.--Huguenots.--Views of
Louis XIV.--Wives for the Colony.--Slaves.--La
Mothe-Cadillac.--Paternal Government.--Crozat's
Monopoly.--Factions.--The Mississippi Company.--New
Orleans.--The Bubble bursts.--Indian Wars.--The Colony firmly
established.--The two Heads of New France 298
CHAPTER XIV.
1700-1732.
THE OUTAGAMIE WAR.
The Western Posts.--Detroit.--The Illinois.--Perils of the
West.--The Outagamies.--Their Turbulence.--English
Instigation.--Louvigny's Expedition.--Defeat of
Outagamies.--Hostilities renewed.--Lignery's
Expedition.--Outagamies attacked by Villiers; by Hurons and
Iroquois.--La Butte des Morts.--The Sacs and Foxes 326
CHAPTER XV.
1697-1741.
FRANCE IN THE FAR WEST.
French Explorers.--Le Sueur on the St. Peter.--Canadians
on the Missouri.--Juchereau de Saint-Denis.--Bénard de la
Harpe on Red River.--Adventures of Du Tisné.--Bourgmont
visits the Comanches.--The Brothers Mallet in Colorado
and New Mexico.--Fabry de la Bruyère 346
CHAPTER I.
1700-1713.
EVE OF WAR.
The Spanish Succession.--Influence of Louis XIV. on History.--French
Schemes of Conquest in America.--New York.--Unfitness of the Colonies
for War.--The Five Nations.--Doubt and Vacillation.--The Western
Indians.--Trade and Politics.
The war which in the British colonies was called Queen Anne's War, and
in England the War of the Spanish Succession, was the second of a series
of four conflicts which ended in giving to Great Britain a maritime and
colonial preponderance over France and Spain. So far as concerns the
colonies and the sea, these several wars may be regarded as a single
protracted one, broken by intervals of truce. The three earlier of them,
it is true, were European contests, begun and waged on European
disputes. Their American part was incidental and apparently subordinate,
yet it involved questions of prime importance in the history of the
world.
The War of the Spanish Succession sprang from the ambition of Louis XIV.
We are apt to regard the story of that gorgeous monarch as a tale that
is told; but his influence shapes the life of nations to this day. At
the beginning of his reign two roads lay before him, and it was a
momentous question for posterity, as for his own age, which one of them
he would choose,--whether he would follow the wholesome policy of his
great minister Colbert, or obey his own vanity and arrogance, and plunge
France into exhausting wars; whether he would hold to the principle of
tolerance embodied in the Edict of Nantes, or do the work of fanaticism
and priestly ambition. The one course meant prosperity, progress, and
the rise of a middle class; the other meant bankruptcy and the
Dragonades,--and this was the King's choice. Crushing taxation, misery,
and ruin followed, till France burst out at last in a frenzy, drunk with
the wild dreams of Rousseau. Then came the Terror and the Napoleonic
wars, and reaction on reaction, revolution on revolution, down to our
own day.
Louis placed his grandson on the throne of Spain, and insulted England
by acknowledging as her rightful King the son of James II., whom she had
deposed. Then England declared war. Canada and the northern British
colonies had had but a short breathing time since the Peace of Ryswick;
both were tired of slaughtering each other, and both needed rest. Yet
before the declaration of war, the Canadian officers of the Crown
prepared, with their usual energy, to meet the expected crisis. One of
them wrote: "If war be declared, it is certain that the King can very
easily conquer and ruin New England." The French of Canada often use the
name "New England" as applying to the British colonies in general. They
are twice as populous as Canada, he goes on to say; but the people are
great cowards, totally undisciplined, and ignorant of war, while the
Canadians are brave, hardy, and well trained. We have, besides,
twenty-eight companies of regulars, and could raise six thousand
warriors from our Indian allies. Four thousand men could easily lay
waste all the northern English colonies, to which end we must have five
ships of war, with one thousand troops on board, who must land at
Penobscot, where they must be joined by two thousand regulars, militia,
and Indians, sent from Canada by way of the Chaudière and the Kennebec.
Then the whole force must go to Portsmouth, take it by assault, leave a
garrison there, and march to Boston, laying waste all the towns and
villages by the way; after destroying Boston, the army must march for
New York, while the fleet follows along the coast. "Nothing could be
easier," says the writer, "for the road is good, and there is plenty of
horses and carriages. The troops would ruin everything as they advanced,
and New York would quickly be destroyed and burned."[1]
Another plan, scarcely less absurd, was proposed about the same time by
the celebrated Le Moyne d'Iberville. The essential point, he says, is to
get possession of Boston; but there are difficulties and risks in the
way. Nothing, he adds, referring to the other plan, seems difficult to
persons without experience; but unless we are prepared to raise a great
and costly armament, our only hope is in surprise. We should make it in
winter, when the seafaring population, which is the chief strength of
the place, is absent on long voyages. A thousand Canadians, four hundred
regulars, and as many Indians should leave Quebec in November, ascend
the Chaudière, then descend the Kennebec, approach Boston under cover of
the forest, and carry it by a night attack. Apparently he did not know
that but for its lean neck--then but a few yards wide--Boston was an
island, and that all around for many leagues the forest that was to have
covered his approach had already been devoured by numerous busy
settlements. He offers to lead the expedition, and declares that if he
is honored with the command, he will warrant that the New England
capital will be forced to submit to King Louis, after which New York can
be seized in its turn.[2]
In contrast to those incisive proposals, another French officer breathed
nothing but peace. Brouillan, governor of Acadia, wrote to the governor
of Massachusetts to suggest that, with the consent of their masters,
they should make a treaty of neutrality. The English governor being
dead, the letter came before the council, who received it coldly.
Canada, and not Acadia, was the enemy they had to fear. Moreover, Boston
merchants made good profit by supplying the Acadians with necessaries
which they could get in no other way; and in time of war these profits,
though lawless, were greater than in time of peace. But what chiefly
influenced the council against the overtures of Brouillan was a passage
in his letter reminding them that, by the Treaty of Ryswick, the New
England people had no right to fish within sight of the Acadian coast.
This they flatly denied, saying that the New England people had fished
there time out of mind, and that if Brouillan should molest them, they
would treat it as an act of war.[3]
While the New England colonies, and especially Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, had most cause to deprecate a war, the prospect of one was
also extremely unwelcome to the people of New York. The conflict lately
closed had borne hard upon them through the attacks of the enemy, and
still more through the derangement of their industries. They were
distracted, too, with the factions rising out of the recent revolution
under Jacob Leisler. New York had been the bulwark of the colonies
farther south, who, feeling themselves safe, had given their protector
little help, and that little grudgingly, seeming to regard the war as no
concern of theirs. Three thousand and fifty-one pounds, provincial
currency, was the joint contribution of Virginia, Maryland, East Jersey,
and Connecticut to the aid of New York during five years of the late
war.[4] Massachusetts could give nothing, even if she would, her hands
being full with the defence of her own borders. Colonel Quary wrote to
the Board of Trade that New York could not bear alone the cost of
defending herself; that the other colonies were "stuffed with
commonwealth notions," and were "of a sour temper in opposition to
government," so that Parliament ought to take them in hand and compel
each to do its part in the common cause.[5] To this Lord Cornbury adds
that Rhode Island and Connecticut are even more stubborn than the rest,
hate all true subjects of the Queen, and will not give a farthing to the
war so long as they can help it.[6] Each province lived in selfish
isolation, recking little of its neighbor's woes.
New York, left to fight her own battles, was in a wretched condition
for defence. It is true that, unlike the other colonies, the King had
sent her a few soldiers, counting at this time about one hundred and
eighty, all told;[7] but they had been left so long without pay that
they were in a state of scandalous destitution. They would have been
left without rations had not three private gentlemen--Schuyler,
Livingston, and Cortlandt--advanced money for their supplies, which
seems never to have been repaid.[8] They are reported to have been
"without shirts, breeches, shoes, or stockings," and "in such a shameful
condition that the women when passing them are obliged to cover their
eyes." "The Indians ask," says the governor, "'Do you think us such
fools as to believe that a king who cannot clothe his soldiers can
protect us from the French, with their fourteen hundred men all well
equipped?'"[9]
The forts were no better than their garrisons. The governor complains
that those of Albany and Schenectady "are so weak and ridiculous that
they look more like pounds for cattle than forts." At Albany the rotten
stockades were falling from their own weight.
If New York had cause to complain of those whom she sheltered, she
herself gave cause of complaint to those who sheltered her. The Five
Nations of the Iroquois had always been her allies against the French,
had guarded her borders and fought her battles. What they wanted in
return were gifts, attentions, just dealings, and active aid in war; but
they got them in scant measure. Their treatment by the province was
short-sighted, if not ungrateful. New York was a mixture of races and
religions not yet fused into a harmonious body politic, divided in
interests and torn with intestine disputes. Its Assembly was made up in
large part of men unfitted to pursue a consistent scheme of policy, or
spend the little money at their disposal on any objects but those of
present and visible interest. The royal governors, even when personally
competent, were hampered by want of means and by factious opposition.
The Five Nations were robbed by land-speculators, cheated by traders,
and feebly supported in their constant wars with the French.
Spasmodically, as it were, on occasions of crisis, they were summoned to
Albany, soothed with such presents as could be got from unwilling
legislators, or now and then from the Crown, and exhorted to fight
vigorously in the common cause. The case would have been far worse but
for a few patriotic men, with Peter Schuyler at their head, who
understood the character of these Indians, and labored strenuously to
keep them in what was called their allegiance.
The proud and fierce confederates had suffered greatly in the late war.
Their numbers had been reduced about one half, and they now counted
little more than twelve hundred warriors. They had learned a bitter and
humiliating lesson, and their arrogance had changed to distrust and
alarm. Though hating the French, they had learned to respect their
military activity and prowess, and to look askance on the Dutch and
English, who rarely struck a blow in their defence, and suffered their
hereditary enemy to waste their fields and burn their towns. The English
called the Five Nations British subjects, on which the French taunted
them with being British slaves, and told them that the King of England
had ordered the governor of New York to poison them. This invention had
great effect. The Iroquois capital, Onondaga, was filled with wild
rumors. The credulous savages were tossed among doubts, suspicions, and
fears. Some were in terror of poison, and some of witchcraft. They
believed that the rival European nations had leagued to destroy them and
divide their lands, and that they were bewitched by sorcerers, both
French and English.[10]
After the Peace of Ryswick, and even before it, the French governor kept
agents among them. Some of these were soldiers, like Joncaire,
Maricourt, or Longueuil, and some were Jesuits, like Bruyas,
Lamberville, or Vaillant. The Jesuits showed their usual ability and
skill in their difficult and perilous task. The Indians derived various
advantages from their presence, which they regarded also as a flattering
attention; while the English, jealous of their influence, made feeble
attempts to counteract it by sending Protestant clergymen to Onondaga.
"But," writes Lord Bellomont, "it is next to impossible to prevail with
the ministers to live among the Indians. They [the Indians] are so nasty
as never to wash their hands, or the utensils they dress their victuals
with."[11] Even had their zeal been proof to these afflictions, the
ministers would have been no match for their astute opponents. In vain
Bellomont assured the Indians that the Jesuits were "the greatest lyars
and impostors in the world."[12] In vain he offered a hundred dollars
for every one of them whom they should deliver into his hands. They
would promise to expel them; but their minds were divided, and they
stood in fear of one another. While one party distrusted and disliked
the priests, another was begging the governor of Canada to send more.
Others took a practical view of the question. "If the English sell goods
cheaper than the French, we will have ministers; if the French sell them
cheaper than the English, we will have priests." Others, again, wanted
neither Jesuits nor ministers, "because both of you [English and French]
have made us drunk with the noise of your praying."[13]
The aims of the propagandists on both sides were secular. The French
wished to keep the Five Nations neutral in the event of another war;
the English wished to spur them to active hostility; but while the
former pursued their purpose with energy and skill, the efforts of the
latter were intermittent and generally feeble.
"The Nations," writes Schuyler, "are full of factions." There was a
French party and an English party in every town, especially in Onondaga,
the centre of intrigue. French influence was strongest at the western
end of the confederacy, among the Senecas, where the French officer
Joncaire, an Iroquois by adoption, had won many to France; and it was
weakest at the eastern end, among the Mohawks, who were nearest to the
English settlements. Here the Jesuits had labored long and strenuously
in the work of conversion, and from time to time they had led their
numerous proselytes to remove to Canada, where they settled at St.
Louis, or Caughnawaga, on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, a little
above Montreal, where their descendants still remain. It is said that at
the beginning of the eighteenth century two-thirds of the Mohawks had
thus been persuaded to cast their lot with the French, and from enemies
to become friends and allies. Some of the Oneidas and a few of the other
Iroquois nations joined them and strengthened the new mission
settlement; and the Caughnawagas afterwards played an important part
between the rival European colonies.
The "Far Indians," or "Upper Nations," as the French called them,
consisted of the tribes of the Great Lakes and adjacent regions,
Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Sacs, Foxes, Sioux, and many more. It was from
these that Canada drew the furs by which she lived. Most of them were
nominal friends and allies of the French, who in the interest of trade
strove to keep these wild-cats from tearing one another's throats, and
who were in constant alarm lest they should again come to blows with
their old enemies, the Five Nations, in which case they would call on
Canada for help, thus imperilling those pacific relations with the
Iroquois confederacy which the French were laboring constantly to
secure.
In regard to the "Far Indians," the French, the English, and the Five
Iroquois Nations all had distinct and opposing interests. The French
wished to engross their furs, either by inducing the Indians to bring
them down to Montreal, or by sending traders into their country to buy
them. The English, with a similar object, wished to divert the "Far
Indians" from Montreal and draw them to Albany; but this did not suit
the purpose of the Five Nations, who, being sharp politicians and keen
traders, as well as bold and enterprising warriors, wished to act as
middle-men between the beaver-hunting tribes and the Albany merchants,
well knowing that good profit might thus accrue. In this state of
affairs the converted Iroquois settled at Caughnawaga played a peculiar
part. In the province of New York, goods for the Indian trade were of
excellent quality and comparatively abundant and cheap; while among the
French, especially in time of war, they were often scarce and dear. The
Caughnawagas accordingly, whom neither the English nor the French dared
offend, used their position to carry on a contraband trade between New
York and Canada. By way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson they brought to
Albany furs from the country of the "Far Indians," and exchanged them
for guns, blankets, cloths, knives, beads, and the like. These they
carried to Canada and sold to the French traders, who in this way, and
often in this alone, supplied themselves with the goods necessary for
bartering furs from the "Far Indians." This lawless trade of the
Caughnawagas went on even in time of war; and opposed as it was to every
principle of Canadian policy, it was generally connived at by the French
authorities as the only means of obtaining the goods necessary for
keeping their Indian allies in good humor.
It was injurious to English interests; but the fur-traders of Albany and
also the commissioners charged with Indian affairs, being Dutchmen
converted by force into British subjects, were, with a few eminent
exceptions, cool in their devotion to the British Crown; while the
merchants of the port of New York, from whom the fur-traders drew their
supplies, thought more of their own profits than of the public good. The
trade with Canada through the Caughnawagas not only gave aid and comfort
to the enemy, but continually admitted spies into the colony, from whom
the governor of Canada gained information touching English movements and
designs.
The Dutch traders of Albany and the importing merchants who supplied
them with Indian goods had a strong interest in preventing active
hostilities with Canada, which would have spoiled their trade. So, too,
and for similar reasons, had influential persons in Canada. The French
authorities, moreover, thought it impolitic to harass the frontiers of
New York by war parties, since the Five Nations might come to the aid of
their Dutch and English allies, and so break the peaceful relations
which the French were anxious to maintain with them. Thus it happened
that, during the first six or seven years of the eighteenth century,
there was a virtual truce between Canada and New York, and the whole
burden of the war fell upon New England, or rather upon Massachusetts,
with its outlying district of Maine and its small and weak neighbor, New
Hampshire.[14]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Premier Projet pour L'Expédition contre la Nouvelle Angleterre,
1701._ _Second Projet_, etc. Compare _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 725.
[2] _Mémoire du Sieur d'Iberville sur Boston et ses Dépendances_, 1700
(1701?). Baron de Saint-Castin also drew up a plan for attacking Boston
in 1702 with lists of necessary munitions and other supplies.
[3] _Brouillan à Bellomont, 10 Août, 1701. Conseil de Baston à
Brouillan, 22 Août, 1701._ Brouillan acted under royal orders, having
been told, in case of war being declared, to propose a treaty with New
England, unless he should find that he can "se garantir des insultes des
Anglais" and do considerable harm to their trade, in which case he is to
make no treaty. _Mémoire du Roy au Sieur de Brouillan, 23 Mars, 1700._
[4] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, i. 431, 432.
[5] _Colonel Quary to the Lords of Trade, 16 June, 1703._
[6] _Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, 9 September, 1703._
[7] _Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 28 February, 1700._
[8] _Ibid._
[9] Schuyler, _Colonial New York_, i. 488.
[10] _N. Y. Col. Docs._, iv. 658.
[11] _Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, 17 October, 1700._
[12] _Conference of Bellomont with the Indians, 26 August, 1700._
[13] _Journal of Bleeker and Schuyler on their visit to Onondaga,
August, September, 1701._
[14] The foregoing chapter rests on numerous documents in the Public
Record Office, Archives de la Marine, Archives Nationales, _N. Y.
Colonial Documents_, vols. iv. v. ix., and the _Second and Third Series
of the Correspondance Officielle_ at Ottawa.