1648.
ANTOINE DANIEL.
Huron Traders • Battle at Three Rivers • St. Joseph • Onset of the
Iroquois • Death of Daniel • The Town Destroyed
In the summer of 1647 the Hurons dared not go down to the French
settlements, but in the following year they took heart, and resolved at
all risks to make the attempt; for the kettles, hatchets, and knives of
the traders had become necessaries of life. Two hundred and fifty of
their best warriors therefore embarked, under five valiant chiefs. They
made the voyage in safety, approached Three Rivers on the seventeenth of
July, and, running their canoes ashore among the bulrushes, began to
grease their hair, paint their faces, and otherwise adorn themselves,
that they might appear after a befitting fashion at the fort. While they
were thus engaged, the alarm was sounded. Some of their warriors had
discovered a large body of Iroquois, who for several days had been
lurking in the forest, unknown to the French garrison, watching their
opportunity to strike a blow. The Hurons snatched their arms, and,
half-greased and painted, ran to meet them. The Iroquois received them
with a volley. They fell flat to avoid the shot, then leaped up with a
furious yell, and sent back a shower of arrows and bullets. The
Iroquois, who were outnumbered, gave way and fled, excepting a few who
for a time made fight with their knives. The Hurons pursued. Many
prisoners were taken, and many dead left on the field. [1] The rout of
the enemy was complete; and when their trade was ended, the Hurons
returned home in triumph, decorated with the laurels and the scalps of
victory. As it proved, it would have been well, had they remained there
to defend their families and firesides.
[1] Lalemant, Relation, 1648, 11. The Jesuit Bressani had come down with
the Hurons, and was with them in the fight.
The oft-mentioned town of Teanaustayé, or St. Joseph, lay on the
south-eastern frontier of the Huron country, near the foot of a range of
forest-covered hills, and about fifteen miles from Sainte Marie. It had
been the chief town of the nation, and its population, by the Indian
standard, was still large; for it had four hundred families, and at
least two thousand inhabitants. It was well fortified with palisades,
after the Huron manner, and was esteemed the chief bulwark of the
country. Here countless Iroquois had been burned and devoured. Its
people had been truculent and intractable heathen, but many of them had
surrendered to the Faith, and for four years past Father Daniel had
preached among them with excellent results.
On the morning of the fourth of July, when the forest around basked
lazily in the early sun, you might have mounted the rising ground on
which the town stood, and passed unchallenged through the opening in the
palisade. Within, you would have seen the crowded dwellings of bark,
shaped like the arched coverings of huge baggage-wagons, and decorated
with the totems or armorial devices of their owners daubed on the
outside with paint. Here some squalid wolfish dog lay sleeping in the
sun, a group of Huron girls chatted together in the shade, old squaws
pounded corn in large wooden mortars, idle youths gambled with
cherry-stones on a wooden platter, and naked infants crawled in the
dust. Scarcely a warrior was to be seen. Some were absent in quest of
game or of Iroquois scalps, and some had gone with the trading-party to
the French settlements. You followed the foul passage-ways among the
houses, and at length came to the church. It was full to the door.
Daniel had just finished the mass, and his flock still knelt at their
devotions. It was but the day before that he had returned to them,
warmed with new fervor, from his meditations in retreat at Sainte Marie.
Suddenly an uproar of voices, shrill with terror, burst upon the languid
silence of the town. "The Iroquois! the Iroquois!" A crowd of hostile
warriors had issued from the forest, and were rushing across the
clearing, towards the opening in the palisade. Daniel ran out of the
church, and hurried to the point of danger. Some snatched weapons; some
rushed to and fro in the madness of a blind panic. The priest rallied
the defenders; promised Heaven to those who died for their homes and
their faith; then hastened from house to house, calling on unbelievers
to repent and receive baptism, to snatch them from the Hell that yawned
to ingulf them. They crowded around him, imploring to be saved; and,
immersing his handkerchief in a bowl of water, he shook it over them,
and baptized them by aspersion. They pursued him, as he ran again to the
church, where he found a throng of women, children, and old men,
gathered as in a sanctuary. Some cried for baptism, some held out their
children to receive it, some begged for absolution, and some wailed in
terror and despair. "Brothers," he exclaimed again and again, as he
shook the baptismal drops from his handkerchief,--"brothers, to-day we
shall be in Heaven."
The fierce yell of the war-whoop now rose close at hand. The palisade
was forced, and the enemy was in the town. The air quivered with the
infernal din. "Fly!" screamed the priest, driving his flock before him.
"I will stay here. We shall meet again in Heaven." Many of them escaped
through an opening in the palisade opposite to that by which the
Iroquois had entered; but Daniel would not follow, for there still might
be souls to rescue from perdition. The hour had come for which he had
long prepared himself. In a moment he saw the Iroquois, and came forth
from the church to meet them. When they saw him in turn, radiant in the
vestments of his office, confronting them with a look kindled with the
inspiration of martyrdom, they stopped and stared in amazement; then
recovering themselves, bent their bows, and showered him with a volley
of arrows, that tore through his robes and his flesh. A gunshot
followed; the ball pierced his heart, and he fell dead, gasping the name
of Jesus. They rushed upon him with yells of triumph, stripped him
naked, gashed and hacked his lifeless body, and, scooping his blood in
their hands, bathed their faces in it to make them brave. The town was
in a blaze; when the flames reached the church, they flung the priest
into it, and both were consumed together. [2]
[2] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 3-5; Bressani, Relation
Abrégée, 247; Du Creux, Historia Canadensis, 524; Tanner, Societas Jesu
Militans, 531; Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre aux Ursulines de Tours,
Quebec, 1649.
Daniel was born at Dieppe, and was forty-eight years old at the time of
his death. He had been a Jesuit from the age of twenty.
Teanaustayé was a heap of ashes, and the victors took up their march
with a train of nearly seven hundred prisoners, many of whom they killed
on the way. Many more had been slain in the town and the neighboring
forest, where the pursuers hunted them down, and where women, crouching
for refuge among thickets, were betrayed by the cries and wailing of
their infants.
The triumph of the Iroquois did not end here; for a neighboring
fortified town, included within the circle of Daniel's mission, shared
the fate of Teanaustayé. Never had the Huron nation received such a
blow.