1645-1648.
A DOOMED NATION.
Indian Infatuation • Iroquois and Huron • Huron Triumphs • The Captive
Iroquois • His Ferocity and Fortitude • Partisan Exploits • Diplomacy •
The Andastes • The Huron Embassy • New Negotiations • The Iroquois
Ambassador • His Suicide • Iroquois Honor
It was a strange and miserable spectacle to behold the savages of this
continent at the time when the knell of their common ruin had already
sounded. Civilization had gained a foothold on their borders. The long
and gloomy reign of barbarism was drawing near its close, and their
united efforts could scarcely have availed to sustain it. Yet, in this
crisis of their destiny, these doomed tribes were tearing each other's
throats in a wolfish fury, joined to an intelligence that served little
purpose but mutual destruction.
How the quarrel began between the Iroquois and their Huron kindred no
man can tell, and it is not worth while to conjecture. At this time, the
ruling passion of the savage Confederates was the annihilation of this
rival people and of their Algonquin allies,--if the understanding
between the Hurons and these incoherent hordes can be called an
alliance. United, they far outnumbered the Iroquois. Indeed, the Hurons
alone were not much inferior in force; for, by the largest estimates,
the strength of the five Iroquois nations must now have been
considerably less than three thousand warriors. Their true superiority
was a moral one. They were in one of those transports of pride,
self-confidence, and rage for ascendency, which, in a savage people,
marks an era of conquest. With all the defects of their organization, it
was far better than that of their neighbors. There were bickerings,
jealousies, plottings and counter-plottings, separate wars and separate
treaties, among the five members of the league; yet nothing could sunder
them. The bonds that united them were like cords of India-rubber: they
would stretch, and the parts would be seemingly disjoined, only to
return to their old union with the recoil. Such was the elastic strength
of those relations of clanship which were the life of the league. [1]
[1] See ante, Introduction.
The first meeting of white men with the Hurons found them at blows with
the Iroquois; and from that time forward, the war raged with increasing
fury. Small scalping-parties infested the Huron forests, killing squaws
in the cornfields, or entering villages at midnight to tomahawk their
sleeping inhabitants. Often, too, invasions were made in force.
Sometimes towns were set upon and burned, and sometimes there were
deadly conflicts in the depths of the forests and the passes of the
hills. The invaders were not always successful. A bloody rebuff and a
sharp retaliation now and then requited them. Thus, in 1638, a war-party
of a hundred Iroquois met in the forest a band of three hundred Huron
and Algonquin warriors. They might have retreated, and the greater
number were for doing so; but Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, refused.
"Look!" he said, "the sky is clear; the Sun beholds us. If there were
clouds to hide our shame from his sight, we might fly; but, as it is, we
must fight while we can." They stood their ground for a time, but were
soon overborne. Four or five escaped; but the rest were surrounded, and
killed or taken. This year, Fortune smiled on the Hurons; and they took,
in all, more than a hundred prisoners, who were distributed among their
various towns, to be burned. These scenes, with them, occurred always in
the night; and it was held to be of the last importance that the torture
should be protracted from sunset till dawn. The too valiant Ononkwaya
was among the victims. Even in death he took his revenge; for it was
thought an augury of disaster to the victors, if no cry of pain could be
extorted from the sufferer, and, on the present occasion, he displayed
an unflinching courage, rare even among Indian warriors. His execution
took place at the town of Teanaustayé, called St. Joseph by the Jesuits.
The Fathers could not save his life, but, what was more to the purpose,
they baptized him. On the scaffold where he was burned, he wrought
himself into a fury which seemed to render him insensible to pain.
Thinking him nearly spent, his tormentors scalped him, when, to their
amazement, he leaped up, snatched the brands that had been the
instruments of his torture, drove the screeching crowd from the
scaffold, and held them all at bay, while they pelted him from below
with sticks, stones, and showers of live coals. At length he made a
false step and fell to the ground, when they seized him and threw him
into the fire. He instantly leaped out, covered with blood, cinders, and
ashes, and rushed upon them, with a blazing brand in each hand. The
crowd gave way before him, and he ran towards the town, as if to set it
on fire. They threw a pole across his way, which tripped him and flung
him headlong to the earth, on which they all fell upon him, cut off his
hands and feet, and again threw him into the fire. He rolled himself
out, and crawled forward on his elbows and knees, glaring upon them with
such unutterable ferocity that they recoiled once more, till, seeing
that he was helpless, they threw themselves upon him, and cut off his
head. [2]
[2] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 68. It was this chief whose
severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits. See ante, (page 137).
When the Iroquois could not win by force, they were sometimes more
successful with treachery. In the summer of 1645, two war-parties of the
hostile nations met in the forest. The Hurons bore themselves so well
that they had nearly gained the day, when the Iroquois called for a
parley, displayed a great number of wampum-belts, and said that they
wished to treat for peace. The Hurons had the folly to consent. The
chiefs on both sides sat down to a council, during which the Iroquois,
seizing a favorable moment, fell upon their dupes and routed them
completely, killing and capturing a considerable number. [3]
[3] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55.
The large frontier town of St. Joseph was well fortified with palisades,
on which, at intervals, were wooden watch-towers. On an evening of this
same summer of 1645, the Iroquois approached the place in force; and the
young Huron warriors, mounting their palisades, sang their war-songs all
night, with the utmost power of their lungs, in order that the enemy,
knowing them to be on their guard, might be deterred from an attack. The
night was dark, and the hideous dissonance resounded far and wide; yet,
regardless of the din, two Iroquois crept close to the palisade, where
they lay motionless till near dawn. By this time the last song had died
away, and the tired singers had left their posts or fallen asleep. One
of the Iroquois, with the silence and agility of a wild-cat, climbed to
the top of a watch-tower, where he found two slumbering Hurons, brained
one of them with his hatchet, and threw the other down to his comrade,
who quickly despoiled him of his life and his scalp. Then, with the
reeking trophies of their exploit, the adventurers rejoined their
countrymen in the forest.
The Hurons planned a counter-stroke; and three of them, after a journey
of twenty days, reached the great town of the Senecas. They entered it
at midnight, and found, as usual, no guard; but the doors of the houses
were made fast. They cut a hole in the bark side of one of them, crept
in, stirred the fading embers to give them light, chose each his man,
tomahawked him, scalped him, and escaped in the confusion. [4]
[4] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55, 56.
Despite such petty triumphs, the Hurons felt themselves on the verge of
ruin. Pestilence and war had wasted them away, and left but a skeleton
of their former strength. In their distress, they cast about them for
succor, and, remembering an ancient friendship with a kindred nation,
the Andastes, they sent an embassy to ask of them aid in war or
intervention to obtain peace. This powerful people dwelt, as has been
shown, on the River Susquehanna. [5] The way was long, even in a direct
line; but the Iroquois lay between, and a wide circuit was necessary to
avoid them. A Christian chief, whom the Jesuits had named Charles,
together with four Christian and four heathen Hurons, bearing
wampum-belts and gifts from the council, departed on this embassy on the
thirteenth of April, 1647, and reached the great town of the Andastes
early in June. It contained, as the Jesuits were told, no less than
thirteen hundred warriors. The council assembled, and the chief
ambassador addressed them:--
"We come from the Land of Souls, where all is gloom, dismay, and
desolation. Our fields are covered with blood; our houses are filled
only with the dead; and we ourselves have but life enough to beg our
friends to take pity on a people who are drawing near their end." [6]
Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they
were the voice of a dying country.
[5] See Introduction. The Susquehannocks of Smith, clearly the same
people, are placed, in his map, on the east side of the Susquehanna,
some twenty miles from its mouth. He speaks of them as great enemies of
the Massawomekes (Mohawks). No other savage people so boldly resisted
the Iroquois; but the story in Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania, that a
hundred of them beat off sixteen hundred Senecas, is disproved by the
fact, that the Senecas, in their best estate, never had so many
warriors. The miserable remnant of the Andastes, called Conestogas, were
massacred by the Paxton Boys, in 1763. See "Conspiracy of Pontiac," 414.
Compare Historical Magazine, II. 294.
[6] "Il leur dit qu'il venoit du pays des Ames, où la guerre et la
terreur des ennemis auoit tout desolé, où les campagnes n'estoient
couuertes que de sang, où les cabanes n'estoient remplies que de
cadaures, et qu'il ne leur restoit à eux-mesmes de vie, sinon autant
qu'ils en auoient eu besoin pour venir dire à leurs amis, qu'ils eussent
pitié d'vn pays qui tiroit à sa fin."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons,
1648, 58.
The Andastes, who had a mortal quarrel with the Mohawks, and who had
before promised to aid the Hurons in case of need, returned a favorable
answer, but were disposed to try the virtue of diplomacy rather than the
tomahawk. After a series of councils, they determined to send
ambassadors, not to their old enemies, the Mohawks, but to the
Onondagas, Oneidas, and Cayugas, [7] who were geographically the central
nations of the Iroquois league, while the Mohawks and the Senecas were
respectively at its eastern and western extremities. By inducing the
three central nations, and, if possible, the Senecas also, to conclude a
treaty with the Hurons, these last would be enabled to concentrate their
force against the Mohawks, whom the Andastes would attack at the same
time, unless they humbled themselves and made peace. This scheme, it
will be seen, was based on the assumption, that the dreaded league of
the Iroquois was far from being a unit in action or counsel.
[7] Examination leaves no doubt that the Ouiouenronnons of Ragueneau
(Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46, 59) were the Oiogouins or Goyogouins,
that is to say, the Cayugas. They must not be confounded with the
Ouenrohronnons, a small tribe hostile to the Iroquois, who took refuge
among the Hurons in 1638.
Charles, with some of his colleagues, now set out for home, to report
the result of their mission; but the Senecas were lying in wait for
them, and they were forced to make a wide sweep through the Alleghanies,
Western Pennsylvania, and apparently Ohio, to avoid these vigilant foes.
It was October before they reached the Huron towns, and meanwhile hopes
of peace had arisen from another quarter. [8]
[8] On this mission of the Hurons to the Andastes, see Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1648, 58-60.
Early in the spring, a band of Onondagas had made an inroad, but were
roughly handled by the Hurons, who killed several of them, captured
others, and put the rest to flight. The prisoners were burned, with the
exception of one who committed suicide to escape the torture, and one
other, the chief man of the party, whose name was Annenrais. Some of the
Hurons were dissatisfied at the mercy shown him, and gave out that they
would kill him; on which the chiefs, who never placed themselves in open
opposition to the popular will, secretly fitted him out, made him
presents, and aided him to escape at night, with an understanding that
he should use his influence at Onondaga in favor of peace. After
crossing Lake Ontario, he met nearly all the Onondaga warriors on the
march to avenge his supposed death; for he was a man of high account.
They greeted him as one risen from the grave; and, on his part, he
persuaded them to renounce their warlike purpose and return home. On
their arrival, the chiefs and old men were called to council, and the
matter was debated with the usual deliberation.
About this time the ambassador of the Andastes appeared with his
wampum-belts. Both this nation and the Onondagas had secret motives
which were perfectly in accordance. The Andastes hated the Mohawks as
enemies, and the Onondagas were jealous of them as confederates; for,
since they had armed themselves with Dutch guns, their arrogance and
boastings had given umbrage to their brethren of the league; and a peace
with the Hurons would leave the latter free to turn their undivided
strength against the Mohawks, and curb their insolence. The Oneidas and
the Cayugas were of one mind with the Onondagas. Three nations of the
league, to satisfy their spite against a fourth, would strike hands with
the common enemy of all. It was resolved to send an embassy to the
Hurons. Yet it may be, that, after all, the Onondagas had but half a
mind for peace. At least, they were unfortunate in their choice of an
ambassador. He was by birth a Huron, who, having been captured when a
boy, adopted and naturalized, had become more an Iroquois than the
Iroquois themselves; and scarcely one of the fierce confederates had
shed so much Huron blood. When he reached the town of St. Ignace, which
he did about mid-summer, and delivered his messages and wampum-belts,
there was a great division of opinion among the Hurons. The Bear
Nation--the member of their confederacy which was farthest from the
Iroquois, and least exposed to danger--was for rejecting overtures made
by so offensive an agency; but those of the Hurons who had suffered most
were eager for peace at any price, and, after solemn deliberation, it
was resolved to send an embassy in return. At its head was placed a
Christian chief named Jean Baptiste Atironta; and on the first of August
he and four others departed for Onondaga, carrying a profusion of
presents, and accompanied by the apostate envoy of the Iroquois. As the
ambassadors had to hunt on the way for subsistence, besides making
canoes to cross Lake Ontario, it was twenty days before they reached
their destination. When they arrived, there was great jubilation, and,
for a full month, nothing but councils. Having thus sifted the matter to
the bottom, the Onondagas determined at last to send another embassy
with Jean Baptiste on his return, and with them fifteen Huron prisoners,
as an earnest of their good intentions, retaining, on their part, one of
Baptiste's colleagues as a hostage. This time they chose for their envoy
a chief of their own nation, named Scandawati, a man of renown, sixty
years of age, joining with him two colleagues. The old Onondaga entered
on his mission with a troubled mind. His anxiety was not so much for his
life as for his honor and dignity; for, while the Oneidas and the
Cayugas were acting in concurrence with the Onondagas, the Senecas had
refused any part in the embassy, and still breathed nothing but war.
Would they, or still more the Mohawks, so far forget the consideration
due to one whose name had been great in the councils of the League as to
assault the Hurons while he was among them in the character of an
ambassador of his nation, whereby his honor would be compromised and his
life endangered? His mind brooded on this idea, and he told one of his
colleagues, that, if such a slight were put upon him, he should die of
mortification. "I am not a dead dog," he said, "to be despised and
forgotten. I am worthy that all men should turn their eyes on me while I
am among enemies, and do nothing that may involve me in danger."
What with hunting, fishing, canoe-making, and bad weather, the progress
of the august travellers was so slow, that they did not reach the Huron
towns till the twenty-third of October. Scandawati presented seven large
belts of wampum, each composed of three or four thousand beads, which
the Jesuits call the pearls and diamonds of the country. He delivered,
too, the fifteen captives, and promised a hundred more on the final
conclusion of peace. The three Onondagas remained, as surety for the
good faith of those who sent them, until the beginning of January, when
the Hurons on their part sent six ambassadors to conclude the treaty,
one of the Onondagas accompanying them. Soon there came dire tidings.
The prophetic heart of the old chief had not deceived him. The Senecas
and Mohawks, disregarding negotiations in which they had no part, and
resolved to bring them to an end, were invading the country in force. It
might be thought that the Hurons would take their revenge on the
Onondaga envoys, now hostages among them; but they did not do so, for
the character of an ambassador was, for the most part, held in respect.
One morning, however, Scandawati had disappeared. They were full of
excitement; for they thought that he had escaped to the enemy. They
ranged the woods in search of him, and at length found him in a thicket
near the town. He lay dead, on a bed of spruce-boughs which he had made,
his throat deeply gashed with a knife. He had died by his own hand, a
victim of mortified pride. "See," writes Father Ragueneau, "how much our
Indians stand on the point of honor!" [9]
[9] This remarkable story is told by Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons,
1648, 56-58. He was present at the time, and knew all the circumstances.
We have seen that one of his two colleagues had set out for Onondaga
with a deputation of six Hurons. This party was met by a hundred
Mohawks, who captured them all and killed the six Hurons, but spared the
Onondaga, and compelled him to join them. Soon after, they made a sudden
onset on about three hundred Hurons journeying through the forest from
the town of St. Ignace; and, as many of them were women, they routed the
whole, and took forty prisoners. The Onondaga bore part in the fray, and
captured a Christian Huron girl; but the next day he insisted on
returning to the Huron town. "Kill me, if you will," he said to the
Mohawks, "but I cannot follow you; for then I should be ashamed to
appear among my countrymen, who sent me on a message of peace to the
Hurons; and I must die with them, sooner than seem to act as their
enemy." On this, the Mohawks not only permitted him to go, but gave him
the Huron girl whom he had taken; and the Onondaga led her back in
safety to her countrymen. [10] Here, then, is a ray of light out of
Egyptian darkness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild
hearts.
[10] "Celuy qui l'auoit prise estoit Onnontaeronnon, qui estant icy en
os tage à cause de la paix qui se traite auec les Onnontaeronnons, et
s'estant trouué auec nos Hurons à cette chasse, y fut pris tout des
premiers par les Sonnontoueronnons (Annieronnons?), qui l'ayans reconnu
ne luy firent aucun mal, et mesme l'obligerent de les suiure et prendre
part à leur victoire; et ainsi en ce rencontre cét Onnontaeronnon auoit
fait sa prise, tellement neantmoins qu'il desira s'en retourner le
lendemain, disant aux Sonnontoueronnons qu'ils le tuassent s'ils
vouloient, mais qu'il ne pouuoit se resoudre à les suiure, et qu'il
auroit honte de reparoistre en son pays, les affaires qui l'auoient
amené aux Hurons pour la paix ne permettant pas qu'il fist autre chose
que de mourir avec eux plus tost que de paroistre s'estre comporté en
ennemy. Ainsi les Sonnontoueronnons luy permirent de s'en retourner et
de ramener cette bonne Chrestienne, qui estoit sa captiue, laquelle nous
a consolé par le recit des entretiens de ces pauures gens dans leur
affliction."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 65.
Apparently the word Sonnontoueronnons (Senecas), in the above, should
read Annieronnons (Mohawks); for, on pp. 50, 57, the writer twice speaks
of the party as Mohawks.
We hear no more of the negotiations between the Onondagas and the
Hurons. They and their results were swept away in the storm of events
soon to be related.