GOVERNORSHIP OF MARQUIS DE DENONVILLE
1685 TO 1689
The Marquis de Denonville was sent to Canada to retrieve a difficult and
dangerous situation. He was a soldier by profession, and had had thirty
years' experience of military life. His courage and honour were alike
beyond question. In morals he was irreproachable. He was one of those
laymen who are half churchmen; and on the voyage from France he greatly
edified Saint Vallier by the gravity of his conduct and his punctilious
observance of all the forms and practices of religion. "He spent," Saint
Vallier himself tells us, "nearly all his time in prayer and the reading
of good books. The Psalms of David were always in his hands. In all the
voyage I never saw him do anything wrong; and there was nothing in his
words or acts which did not show a solid virtue and a consummate
prudence, as well in the duties of the Christian life as in the wisdom
of this world." Three years later Saint Vallier speaks of him in terms
of equal praise, adding that "there is no need to be astonished at the
benedictions which God is bestowing upon his government and upon his
enterprises against the Indians." Unfortunately, this interpretation of
the ways of Providence preceded by just a year the greatest calamity in
early Canadian history, the massacre of Lachine.
The three hundred men who were sent out with Denonville were far from
constituting, even had their number not been sensibly reduced by fever
on the voyage, the reinforcement he required in order to assume the
offensive against the Iroquois with any hope of success. He was
compelled, therefore, to temporize while making the most earnest appeals
for a more liberal supply of troops. To counteract English intrigues
among the Five Nations, he sent numerous presents in that direction, and
carefully avoided any acts which could precipitate a conflict. One of
the chief perils of the situation was the disaffection produced in the
minds of the Lake tribes by the dismal failure of La Barre's expedition
of 1684. The only way to regain credit, he says in a despatch to the
minister (Seignelay), dated 12th June 1686, is to put a sufficient
number of French troops, militia and regulars, into the field to attack
and defeat the Iroquois without any assistance from the western allies.
He wished to begin building blockhouses for defensive purposes, but was
afraid to do so, lest the enemy should consider it a preparation for
war. Like La Barre, he entered into correspondence with the governor of
New York, Colonel Dongan, but in a more guarded manner. He wrote first
simply announcing his appointment to the governorship of Canada. Dongan
replied in his usual high-flown manner with many expressions of
courtesy. Denonville returned the compliment, and then took occasion to
speak of the Senecas and the difficulty of keeping peace with them,
inviting Dongan to assist him in protecting the missionaries who were
labouring amongst those heathen at the peril of their lives. Dongan, who
had been appointed by the Duke of York before he ascended the throne of
England as James II, and who, as might be supposed, was a good Catholic,
was quite ready to do justice to the personal merits of the
missionaries; but his fidelity to the English Crown made it impossible
for him to overlook the fact that they were Frenchmen operating on what
he claimed to be English territory. Their influence, he knew, could not
fail to be cast in favour of the rival claims of their own people; and
his desire was to replace them, as soon as it could conveniently be
done, by English priests, who, without being less sound in theological
matters, would be more so on the political side.
The two governors were thus playing at cross purposes, and it was not
long before all disguise in the matter was set aside. Each was planning
the construction of a fort at Niagara for the purpose both of
strengthening his influence in the Iroquois country and of shutting the
other out of Lake Erie. Dongan heard of Denonville's intention from some
_coureurs de bois_ who had deserted to Albany; whereupon he wrote to the
French governor to say that he found it hard to believe that a man of
his reputation would be so ill-advised as to follow in the footsteps of
M. de la Barre, and seek to make trouble by planting a fort on
territory clearly belonging to the King of England, and all for the sake
of "a little peltry." Denonville replied with more diplomacy than truth
that he had no intention of building a fort at Niagara; and expressed in
turn his surprise that a gentleman of Dongan's character should "harbour
rogues, vagabonds, and thieves," and believe all the silly stories they
told him. As the correspondence went on its tone became warmer. Dongan
had promised to send back deserters; but he found these men too
valuable, and did not keep his promise. Denonville upbraids him for this
want of good faith, and also for exciting the Indians by telling them
that the French are preparing to attack them. He blamed him also for
furnishing the savages with rum to the great detriment of their
religious and moral interests; to which Dongan retorted that, in the
opinion of Christians, English rum was more wholesome than French
brandy.
While this correspondence was going on, both governors were doing their
best to win over the Indians of the lake region. If these could be drawn
into an alliance with the Iroquois, so that their trade should pass
through the Iroquois country to the English, not only would the French
lose the most profitable part of their traffic, but their political
position would be seriously endangered, in fact would become untenable.
There was much in the arrangement from a business point of view to
recommend it to the savage mind. The English paid better prices for
goods, and gave their merchandise at lower prices; and, if their traders
once had free access to the lake region, the effects of their more
liberal dealing would be felt in every wigwam. Against this highly
practical consideration was to be set a certain hereditary distrust of
the Iroquois on the part of the Huron and Ottawa tribes, to which might
be added the personal influence of the French missionaries and a few
noted French leaders. The situation was for some time a most doubtful
one; but in the end it was not the economic argument that triumphed.
In the winter of 1685-6, a Dutchman, named Johannes Rooseboom, had set
out from Albany, by Dongan's directions, with a party of armed traders
in eleven canoes, filled with English goods, to trade in the Upper
Lakes. There was no resistance to their progress; and after trading most
successfully, and to the great satisfaction of the Indians, they
returned in safety. This was encouragement for a larger expedition the
following year; so, in the fall of 1686, the same adventurer set out
with a similar party in twenty canoes. On this occasion they were to
winter with the Senecas and resume their journey in the spring,
accompanied by fifty men, who were to come from Albany under the charge
of a Scots officer named M'Gregory, and a band of Iroquois; the whole
party to be under M'Gregory's command. The intention was to form a
general treaty of trade and alliance with the tribes that hitherto had
been under the domination of the French.
This was a bold step to take, and shows Dongan in the light of an early
advocate of the policy of "Forward." It was too bold. Fortunately for
Denonville, he had in the early summer of 1686 sent an order to Du Lhut,
then at Michilimackinac, to fortify a post at the outlet of Lake Huron,
which that capable and zealous officer lost no time in doing. On hearing
of the projected expedition, the governor was greatly incensed. He wrote
to Dongan in strong terms, and at the same time laid the matter before
the minister, declaring that it would be better to have open war with
the English than to be in constant danger from their intrigues. A
favourite plan of his was that Louis XIV should buy the colony of New
York from James II, as he had previously bought Dunkirk from Charles II.
The idea was not taken up by the French court, and there is much reason
to doubt whether, with the best will in the world, the English king
could have transferred the colony to France. It would have been an easy
thing to send out orders, but it would have been quite a different thing
to get them obeyed. In the New World men were already learning to put a
very wide construction upon their civil rights; and, as far the larger
portion of the population were of the reformed faith in one or other of
its branches, they would certainly have made strong objection to being
handed over to the tender mercies of the monarch who, at this very
moment, was extirpating Protestantism in his own kingdom by the cruelest
forms of persecution. The appeal to Dongan drew forth from that worthy
the declaration that, in his belief, it was "as lawful for the English
as for the French to trade with the remotest Indians." He denied,
however, that he had incited the Iroquois to acts of aggression, and
protested, in regard to the deserters, that he would much rather "such
rascalls and bankrouts" would stay in their own country, and that
Denonville was welcome to send for them. Negotiations, however, were
going on at this time between the English and French courts in relation
to affairs in America; and both Denonville and Dongan received
injunctions to cultivate peaceful relations with one another pending the
settlement of all matters in dispute by a joint commission.
If Dongan was preparing to trespass upon French rights in the region of
the Great Lakes, Denonville himself was acting with even less scruple in
another direction. For several years before this, the Hudson's Bay
Company, under the charter granted to them by Charles II in the year
1670, had been trading to the bay from which they derived their name,
and had established a number of posts along its shores. The charter had
been granted in perfect good faith, as the region in question, which had
been discovered and explored by navigators sailing under the English
flag, Cabot, Hudson, Baffin, and Davis, was regarded as English
territory. It is true that a memoir prepared by M. de Callieres,
Governor of Montreal, for the minister of marine and colonies,[27]
mentions proceedings taken at different times by governors of Canada,
between the years 1656 and 1663, to bring the country under French
sovereignty; but there is nothing to show that any attempt was made at
settlement or even at trading on the coast. The Hudson's Bay Company, on
the other hand, had from the date of its charter, not to mention earlier
operations, been carrying on trade, and establishing posts in that
region without any remonstrance from the French government, and without
disturbance of any kind until the year 1682, in the early winter of
which two Frenchmen, named Radisson and Des Groseilliers, sailed into
Hudson's Bay with two vessels, and took possession of a fort which the
English had established near the mouth of the Nelson River. The
explanation given by these parties was that they were acting on behalf
of the "Compagnie Francaise de la Baie du Nord de Canada," which had
previously formed establishments some distance up that river, and that
finding that some English had begun to erect dwellings on an island at
the mouth of the river, they had forced them to retire, considering
their own claim to the river and its outlet the better.
This was the beginning of trouble. The French king in writing to La
Barre on the subject authorized him to check, as far as possible,
English encroachments in that quarter. In the spring of 1684 he writes
again, and says that he has had a further communication from the English
ambassador in regard to the proceedings of Radisson and Des
Groseilliers, and that, while he is anxious not to give the English king
any cause of complaint, he still thinks it desirable that the English
should not be allowed to establish themselves on the Nelson River. La
Barre was therefore to make a proposal to the English commandant in
Hudson's Bay that no new establishments should be formed there by either
French or English. This was at the very least an acknowledgment of the
_status quo_. Nevertheless, a charter having been granted by the French
king in the following year to a Canadian company authorizing it to trade
on the Bourbon River, called in previous correspondence the Nelson,
Denonville chose to consider that fact a warrant for making a general
attack on the English in the bay. While his discussion with Dongan was
in progress in the summer of 1686, he organized an expedition of about a
hundred picked men, thirty being regular soldiers, and placed it under
the command of a very capable officer, the Chevalier de Troyes,
assigning to him as lieutenants three sons of Charles Le Moyne, of
Montreal: Iberville, Ste. Helene, and Maricourt. The difficulties of
the overland route were most formidable, but Troyes surmounted them with
the loss of only one man. He did not attempt any negotiation with the
English, nor send any summons to surrender, but fell upon Port Hayes,
the first to which he came, in the dead of night, and captured it
without difficulty, the garrison being totally unprepared to resist an
attack. At this point there does not appear to have been any loss of
life; but at Fort Rupert, which was similarly attacked at night, three
of the occupants were killed, and two were wounded. Three more men were
killed on the same night on board a vessel anchored near the shore. When
the assailants reached Fort Albany, held by a garrison of thirty men,
they found that their coming had been anticipated, but, with the aid of
cannon captured in the other forts, they had little difficulty in
forcing a surrender. Leaving Maricourt in command at the bay, Troyes
returned to Quebec. The English captured in this buccaneer fashion were
sent home in one of their own vessels which happened to arrive
opportunely for the purpose.
Denonville had succeeded in arousing the French government to the
importance of proceeding vigorously against the Iroquois. Eight hundred
men were sent out to him in the spring of 1687, which, with about eight
hundred already in the colony, made the force at his disposal quite a
formidable one. In the summer of the previous year there had been a
change of intendant. M. de Meulles had been recalled, and a new man,
Bochart de Champigny, sent out in his place. As the appointment of the
latter was made as early as April 1686, it may be surmised that
Denonville, shortly after arriving in the country, signified to the king
that he and Meulles were not adapted to work together satisfactorily.
Meulles was certainly far from having the fervent piety of the governor;
and it may not improbably have been some difference of opinion or policy
arising out of this fact that caused his recall. His successor was a man
conspicuously devoted to the church; and Denonville in his despatches
praises him in high terms. Having now the necessary force at his
command, and being zealously seconded in all his views by the new
intendant, the governor determined not to let the summer of 1687 pass
without undertaking his long meditated campaign against the Iroquois.
While preparing for war, however, he talked of peace, in the hope of
taking the enemy unawares. So far did he carry his dissimulation that he
completely misled the colonists, so that, when they discovered that war
was intended, they manifested a strong indisposition to respond to the
call to arms. There were enough regular soldiers, they said, in the
country to meet all military requirements. Denonville was too well
advised, however, to dream of taking a force of regulars into the woods,
unsupported by militia accustomed to the country and familiar with the
methods of Indian warfare. He therefore issued a special proclamation,
which the vicars-general, in the absence of the bishop, supported by a
_mandement_, with the result that the inhabitants, accustomed to yield
to authority, furnished the quota of men required, about eight hundred.
The more effectually to throw the Iroquois off their guard, the governor
had instructed his chief agent amongst them, Father Lamberville, a man
in whom they had perfect confidence, to invite them to a friendly
conference at Fort Frontenac. The good father was kept completely in the
dark as to what was really intended, and was allowed to continue his
solicitations to the Indians to attend the conference up to the moment
when all disguise was thrown off. He was still with them when they
discovered that they had been deceived; and, had it not been for the
unbounded faith they had learnt to place in the good priest's word, they
would certainly have put him to death with torture as a traitor. As it
was they charged the deception entirely on Denonville, who, in this
case, had certainly carried craft to very dangerous, not to say
indefensible, lengths.
The expedition as organized by Denonville consisted of four companies of
regulars, men who had been some time in the country, and four of
militia, making in all fifteen hundred Frenchmen, to whom were added
five hundred mission Indians, Christian in name, but scarcely less
savage in instinct than their unreclaimed brethren of the forest. The
regulars were commanded by their own officers, amongst whom we
recognize Troyes, the hero of the Hudson's Bay exploit. The militia were
led by four notable seigneurs, Berthier, Lavaltrie, Grandville, and Le
Moyne de Longueuil, brother of the three Le Moynes who had accompanied
Troyes. All the French troops were placed under the general command of
Callieres, Governor of Montreal, a very capable officer. M. de
Vaudreuil, who had just come out from France as commander of the king's
forces, accompanied the expedition in the capacity of chief-of-staff to
the governor. The troops that he brought with him were left behind to
take care of the country in the absence of its other defenders.
Starting from Montreal on the 13th June 1687, the expedition, after
encountering the usual perils and fatigues of the St. Lawrence route,
and losing one or two men in the rapids, arrived at Fort Frontenac on
the 1st July. Here news was received of a reinforcement on which the
governor had not permitted himself to count. In October of the previous
year orders had been sent to the commanders in the West to rally the
Indians of that region for another movement against the Iroquois. As
Denonville well knew, there were serious difficulties in the way. The
fiasco of 1684 had left a deplorable impression on the minds of the Lake
tribes, whose loyalty was being further undermined by the pleasing
prospect of trade with the English. These arguments, however, did not
weigh with the Illinois, the latest victims of Iroquois barbarity; and
Tonty in charge at Fort St. Louis, who had been notified with the
others, had little trouble in getting a couple of hundred of them to
follow him to Detroit on the way to Niagara. Nicolas Perrot in like
manner raised a contingent among the tribes to the west of Lake
Michigan, and, passing by way of Michilimackinac, joined his efforts to
those of La Durantaye who had been labouring all winter to win over the
dissatisfied Hurons and Ottawas. The Hurons were at last persuaded to
move; but the Ottawas still refused, and La Durantaye and the Hurons
started for Detroit, the first place of rendezvous, without them.
Scarcely had they left Michilimackinac when they fell in with a number
of the canoes which Dongan had sent to trade in the lakes. La Durantaye
at once summoned the intruders to surrender; and, as he seemed to have a
formidable force with him, the summons was obeyed. The commander
distributed most of the goods among his Indian followers to their great
delight, and sent some barrels of rum to the Ottawas in the hope that it
would incline them to follow. It is difficult to say what did influence
the minds of these savages; but in a few days they set out, taking,
however, a route of their own by way of the Georgian Bay and overland to
what is now Toronto. Perrot and his men went to Detroit, and from that
point he and the others conducted their respective commands to Niagara,
arriving there just about the same time that Denonville's force reached
Fort Frontenac.
The gratification of the governor on learning that this important
reinforcement had arrived just in the nick of time may be imagined. He
sent word to the commanders to proceed to Irondequoit Bay, the entrance
to the Seneca country; and, conducting his force thither, saw the
western men approaching just as he himself was about to land. Such a
concentration, on the same day, of troops brought from as far east as
Quebec, and from as far west as the sources of the Mississippi, was
indeed remarkable. It seemed on this occasion at least as if everything
was destined to go well.
Denonville had now nearly three thousand men under his command. Forming
a camp and erecting temporary fortifications on the point of land which
shuts in Irondequoit Bay from Lake Ontario, he left four hundred men at
that place to guard supplies, and arranged his army in marching order.
The van was led by La Durantaye, Du Lhut and Tonty with their _coureurs
de bois_, about two hundred in number. On their left were the mission
Indians, and on their right the Lake and other western tribes--a wild
and motley gathering of, for the most part, naked savages, made hideous
with paint and horns and tails. Separated from these by a short
interval, the main body of the army followed, regulars and militia in
alternate companies. A broad trail ran southwards to the heart of the
Seneca country, but on either side was a dense bush in which enemies
might well be concealed. The first day a distance of about ten miles was
covered. It was mid-July, the heat was intense, the flies were
outrageous, and the men were burdened with thirteen days' provisions in
addition to their arms and ammunition. On the second day, as they were
drawing near to the first fortified habitation of the enemy, whom they
supposed to be awaiting them behind their defences, the advance guard
was vigorously attacked both in front and rear by a foe as yet
invisible. The Senecas had supposed that the advance guard, _coureurs de
bois_ and Indians, constituted the entire army, but learnt their error
when those making the rear attack found themselves, as they soon did,
between two fires.
Meantime, however, no little confusion had been caused in the ranks of
the invaders; and Denonville and his principal officers had to exercise
all their powers of command to prevent a panic. As soon as confidence
was restored, the vigorous firing of the French and their allies put the
enemy to flight. "The Canadians," says Charlevoix, "fought with their
accustomed bravery; but the regular troops did themselves little credit
in the whole campaign." "What can one do with such men?" wrote
Denonville in a despatch to the minister. On the Canadian side five
militiamen, one regular soldier and five Indians were killed, and about
an equal number, according to Denonville's statement, were wounded. The
Senecas left twenty-seven dead upon the field. Their wounded they
succeeded in carrying off; to have abandoned them would have meant to
leave them to torture at the hands of the hostile Indians. As it was,
the victory was followed by horrible scenes of cannibalism, in which the
Ottawas, who, in the fight had showed marked cowardice, took the
principal part.
This engagement, which has been localized as having occurred near the
village of Victor, some fifteen miles south-east of the city of
Rochester, N. Y., was the only one of the campaign. Not meeting again
with the enemy, the army spent some days in burning the Seneca
habitations, in which large quantities of grain were stored, and in
destroying the standing crops. When this had been accomplished, they
retraced their steps to their fortified camp on the lake shore. Already
the army was getting into bad shape; the Indians were deserting and the
French were falling sick through eating too abundantly of green corn and
fresh pork; the latter article of diet being furnished by herds of swine
kept by the Senecas. Despatching the sick in bateaux to Fort Frontenac,
Denonville conducted the rest of his troops to Niagara in order to carry
out the long-cherished design, which, in his correspondence with Dongan,
he had disavowed, of erecting a fort at that point. This only occupied a
few days; and on the 3rd August he was able to set out on the return
journey, after detaching one hundred men to garrison the fort, which he
placed under the command of M. de Troyes. Proceeding further up the lake
to a point where it narrows, he crossed over to the north shore, and so
made his way to Fort Frontenac, and thence to Montreal, where he arrived
on the 13th of the month. The campaign, as Parkman observes, was but
half a success; it certainly fell short of being what Abbe Gosselin
calls it, "_une victoire eclatante_." The Senecas had been put to
flight; and their dwellings had been destroyed, together with their
stores of food; but their loss in men was not serious, and they could
rely on the neighbouring Cayugas and Onondagas to tide them over a
season of distress. Denonville writes, indeed, that they were succoured
by the English. At the same time the injury they had received sank deep
into minds not prone to forgive.
An incident which happened before the expedition set out from Fort
Frontenac tended greatly to aggravate the situation. It had been
intimated to Denonville in a despatch from the French government that
the king desired to have some captured Iroquois sent over to France for
service in the galleys, as it was understood that they were muscular
fellows, well fitted for such work. Champigny, who left Montreal with
Denonville, went ahead of the expedition with a few light canoes, in
order to make arrangements for its reception at Fort Frontenac. Finding
at that place a number of Iroquois, chiefly Onondagas, who, relying on
Denonville's professions of peace, had come thither for trade or
conference, and being anxious to show his zeal for his royal master, he
did not hesitate to make them prisoners. The savages had their wives and
children with them, a sure sign that they had come with friendly intent.
This circumstance did not weigh with the intendant, nor was he
influenced by the tears and entreaties of the families of the captured
men. He doubtless thought that the formidable force which the governor
was leading would strike such terror into the hearts of the Iroquois
nation as to put anything in the way of reprisals quite out of the
question: in any case there was advantage for himself in obeying the
mandate of the king. What kind of a service it was for which the
unfortunate captives were destined may be learnt from a description
given by a careful French writer: "Chained in gangs of six, with no
clothing save a loose short jacket, devoured by itch and vermin,
shoeless and stockingless, the galley slaves toiled for ten hours
consecutively at a rate of exertion which one would hardly have believed
a man could endure for one hour. They were indeed in luck when they were
not made to work twenty-four hours consecutively, with nothing to
sustain their strength but a biscuit steeped in wine, which was put into
their mouths, so that they should not have to stop rowing. If their
galley began to lose ground the petty officers would rain curses on
their heads and blows on their backs. Many a time, when the pace was
being forced under a blazing Mediterranean sun, some poor wretch would
sink down dead on his bench. In such a case his companions would pass on
his body, throw it overboard, and that was all."[28]
The total number of Indians sent home to France to be consigned to this
fate was thirty-five. They were at Fort Frontenac as captives, bound
helplessly to posts when Denonville's army passed through, and an
eye-witness, the Baron La Hontan, tells how he saw the mission Indians
torturing the poor creatures by burning their fingers in the bowls of
their pipes. He tried to interfere, but was censured for doing so, and
put under arrest. The leaders, doubtless, thought they could not afford
to put their Indian allies out of humour by interfering with their
amusements.[29] The wrong done in this matter seems to have created a
far more bitter feeling in the minds of the Iroquois than the open war
on the Senecas. The Oneidas retaliated by torturing a Jesuit father
named Millet, and would in the end have put him to death if an Indian
woman had not interceded for him and adopted him as her son. The temper
of the savages generally, in spite of the campaign, was far from being a
submissive one; and Denonville himself within a month of his return to
Quebec came to the conclusion that another punitive expedition would be
necessary before a solid peace could be obtained. He therefore wrote
home asking that eight hundred additional troops should be supplied to
him, observing that his Indian allies were not to be depended on, and
that the Canadians were not at all zealous for military service. His
opinion was that he should have a force of not less than three or four
thousand men at his disposal for two years. The French government did
not agree with him on this point. The troops could not be spared, and
the king thought that it ought to be possible to arrange matters by
negotiation. There were those, indeed, in Canada who thought the whole
war had been unnecessary; certainly, for some time before the Senecas
were attacked, they were not acting on the aggressive. The Iroquois
tribes generally had been impressed by the fact that the military forces
of the colony had been considerably augmented; and the character of the
governor himself, who seemed to possess much more firmness and
resolution than his immediate predecessor, had more or less influenced
them in favour of peace. Had Denonville made the most of these
advantages, and shown in addition a disposition to act with good faith,
it is altogether probable a satisfactory peace could have been arranged
without resort to war.
However, the mischief had been done. All the Iroquois tribes had been
angered, and the hives were ominously buzzing. Acts of reprisal became
frequent. Even the immediate neighbourhood of Fort Frontenac was not
secure, for during the following winter a woman and three soldiers were
carried off within gunshot of its walls. The Onondagas who effected
these captures stated expressly that they were made in retaliation for
those so treacherously made by Champigny. The captives were not put to
death, but were held as hostages, which gave them an opportunity of
appealing to Dongan. That worthy was not at all sorry that his rival had
got himself into trouble; and answered the appeal by saying that he
could not do anything for them till Fort Niagara, unjustly planted by
their governor on English territory, had been evacuated. On the last day
of the year Denonville sent to Albany an able negotiator in the person
of Father Vaillant, Jesuit, but with no satisfactory result. The only
terms on which Dongan would consent to use his influence in favour of
peace were that the prisoners sent to France for the galleys should be
restored; that the mission Indians at Laprairie and the Montreal
Mountain should be sent back to the Iroquois country to which they
originally belonged; that Forts Niagara and Frontenac should be razed;
and that the goods captured by the French from English traders on the
Upper Lakes should be restored. Scarcely had Vaillant left Albany on
his return when Dongan summoned representatives of the tribes, and,
acquainting them with the terms he had demanded, asked for their
ratification, which was readily granted. He told the chiefs not to bury
the hatchet, but simply to lay it in the grass where they could get it
if it was wanted, and meantime to post themselves along the lines of
communication to the French country.
The advice was promptly taken. Some bands operated along the St.
Lawrence, others along the Richelieu. Early in the season of 1688 a
convoy had been sent to revictual Forts Frontenac and Niagara. It passed
up the river safely, but on its return it was attacked, though greatly
superior in force, by a party of twenty-five or thirty Indians, who
killed eight men, and took one prisoner. Other raids more or less
destructive were made at Chambly, St. Ours, Contrecoeur, and even as far
east as Riviere du Loup. In the face of these attacks a sort of lethargy
seemed to have seized upon the colonists, making them slow to defend
themselves even when the conditions were in their favour. In other
respects also the state of affairs was one of great depression. The war
had been costly and burdensome; and, owing to the withdrawal of so many
men from the work of the fields, agriculture had greatly suffered. The
pillaging carried on by scattered bands of Iroquois made matters still
worse. Beggars began to be numerous in the streets of Quebec and
Montreal. It is interesting to note that mendicity was not looked upon
with favour in those days, and that praiseworthy attempts were made to
regulate it and restrain it within the narrowest possible limits.
Charitable ladies undertook to inquire into cases of ostensible want so
as to distinguish those which merited relief from others which might
proceed from idleness or misconduct. M. de Saint Vallier, who had
returned to France in the autumn of 1687, came back as bishop in August
of the following year. He brought with him two hundred copies of his
work on _The Present State of the Church in Canada_, written by him
after his arrival in France, and published at Paris in March 1688, in
which, as already seen, a glowing tribute was paid to the piety of the
Canadian people. Instead, however, of distributing this work in the
country, as he had doubtless intended, he virtually suppressed it; and,
in almost his first episcopal utterances, told the people that the
troubles and distresses from which they were suffering were the result
of their lukewarmness in religious matters. The statement was not
received in the most submissive spirit. There were some who said that
the mundane causes of the sad plight in which the country found itself
were only too apparent, and that it was not necessary to look
further.[30]
In the course of the summer of 1688, while Denonville had still under
consideration the unpalatable terms proposed by Dongan, he received at
Montreal, through the useful mediation of Father Lamberville, a visit
from La Barre's old friend, the famous Onondaga orator, Big Mouth, who
brought with him six other warriors. As on the occasion of his meeting
with the former governor, Big Mouth occupied a strong position, and made
the most of it. He had been holding back his own people, he said;
otherwise they would have swarmed down on the colony and destroyed it.
The conditions of peace which he proposed were those already outlined by
Dongan; and he wanted an answer in four days. Denonville told him that
he was prepared to treat for peace if the tribes would send delegates to
Montreal duly empowered for that purpose. Big Mouth promised that this
should be done, and meantime signed a treaty of neutrality. Denonville
had by this time brought himself to the point of agreeing to abandon
Fort Niagara, the garrison of which had been reduced by sickness from
about a hundred men to ten or twelve, and with which, moreover, he found
it impossible to maintain satisfactory communication. He had also been
forced to give way as regards the captives sent to France, and had
written asking that as many of them as survived might be sent out;
suggesting at the same time that, to produce as good an effect as
possible, they should be decently clothed. These were the principal
points, and he hoped to be able to make peace without any further
concessions.
The negotiations, however, were destined to be badly wrecked. The Indian
allies, Hurons and Algonquins, had only too good reason to suspect that
the peace would not include them. Big Mouth had been ominously
non-committal on that point. It was doubtless remembered that, when La
Barre had made peace with the Iroquois, he had abandoned the Illinois to
their mercy. A leading Huron, Kondiaronk, or the Rat, by name,
determined that there should be no peace if he could help it. He was at
Fort Frontenac with a party of forty warriors when he heard that
negotiations for peace were in progress and that delegates from the Five
Nations were expected to arrive in a few days. His plan was at once
formed. Pretending to have set out with his party for Michilimackinac,
he really paddled over to La Famine, placed himself in ambush in the
path of the delegates, and waited their coming. It was four or five days
before they appeared, and no sooner were they within gun shot than the
Huron party fired. One chieftain was killed outright; several were
wounded; the rest, all but one who escaped wounded, and made his way to
Fort Frontenac, were captured. The captives in great indignation
explained to the Rat the mission they were on, when the wily Huron
expressed the most profound regret, saying that the French had sent him
out on the war-path, and had never given him the slightest hint that
peace negotiations were in progress. He was eloquent in denouncing the
bad faith of Onontio, and at once let his captives go. True, the warrior
who had escaped heard a very different story at Fort Frontenac--that the
Rat had been specially informed of the negotiations, and had professed
that he was starting for home; nevertheless, as the Rat expected, the
peace was killed. The party attacked had consisted of some men of
consequence who were preceding the delegates to give assurance to the
governor that the latter would soon be at hand. They never came. Other
thoughts now occupied the Iroquois mind.
For months there was an ominous calm. The winter of 1688-9 passed
without incident, and so did the following summer. Marauding on the part
of the Iroquois had so entirely ceased, that the opinion began to
prevail in the colony that the enemy had lost courage, and were no
longer disposed for war. Some rumours, it is true, reached the governor
that mischief was brewing, but he paid little heed to them: no special
measures of defence whatever were taken. A strange kind of somnolence
seems to have crept over almost the entire population. The intendant, in
a despatch written just about this time (6th November 1688), after
speaking of the disastrous effect of brandy drinking upon the Indians,
goes on to say: "The Canadians also ruin their health thereby; and, as
the greater number of these drink a large quantity of it early in the
morning, they are incapable of doing anything the remainder of the day."
It may safely be assumed that the morning potations were indulged in
without prejudice to a tolerably free use of the bottle in the evening.
It is remarkable that so serious a judgment upon the habits of the
people should have preceded by only a few months a striking and fatal
example of their unreadiness and incapacity.
The night of the 4th August 1689 was dark and stormy with rain and hail.
It was just such a night as might serve to cover the approach of a
stealthy foe; and the foe, vengeful and relentless, was at hand.
Fourteen hundred Iroquois had descended the St. Lawrence and taken up
their station on the south side of the Lake St. Louis, opposite Lachine.
About midnight, amid the darkness and the noise of the elements, they
crossed the lake, and, landing, posted themselves in small bands close
to the dwellings of the slumbering inhabitants. An hour or so before
daybreak, a war-whoop, the preconcerted signal, was raised. Instantly a
thousand savage throats gave forth the dismal howl; and then began the
work of slaughter that made "the massacre of Lachine" a name of terror
for generations. The account of the disaster given by Charlevoix, who
puts the number of the slain at two hundred, has been generally followed
by later writers; but there is fortunately reason to believe that the
massacre was much less in extent, and perhaps somewhat less horrible in
character, than the reverend father represents. Judge Girouard,[31] who
has gone into the matter in a most careful and painstaking manner,
places the number of persons killed at Lachine--men, women, and
children--at twenty-four. The place was defended by three forts, all of
which had garrisons; but from these no help seems to have been afforded
to the wretched inhabitants. The torch did its work as well as the
tomahawk, and fifty-six houses were burnt. There were some regular
troops--about two hundred--under an officer named Subercase, encamped
about three miles off. A shot from one of the forts gave the alarm, and
Subercase with his men marched to the scene of action. Many of the
Indians had inebriated themselves with brandy seized in the houses of
the inhabitants; and it is probable that, had they been promptly and
vigorously attacked, they might have been defeated with heavy loss.
Subercase was just on the point of leading his men against them, when M.
de Vaudreuil, acting-governor of Montreal in the absence of M. de
Callieres who had gone to France, appeared on the scene with formal and
positive orders from M. de Denonville, who, as ill-luck would have it,
was at Montreal, to remain strictly on the defensive. Subercase was
extremely indignant, and felt strongly tempted to disobey; but the
instinct of subordination prevailed, and he remained inactive. The
Indians meanwhile dispersed themselves over the Island of Montreal,
killing, capturing, burning, and meeting with little or no resistance.
A really circumstantial and consistent account of the whole occurrence
is lacking; and it is therefore uncertain how long the Iroquois remained
in the neighbourhood. The probability would seem to be that the main
body retreated with their prisoners and booty after a brief campaign,
but that some bands of warriors stayed behind for further pillage. On
the 13th of November a bloody raid was made on the settlement at La
Chesnaye, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, some twenty miles
below Montreal; all the houses were burnt, and the majority of the
inhabitants either killed or captured. The total number of persons
killed elsewhere than at Lachine is estimated by Judge Girouard, who has
endeavoured to trace the names in the parish registers, at forty-two,
making, with the twenty-four killed at Lachine, a total of sixty-six. As
regards the number of captives, the same authority, whose careful
methods inspire much confidence, accepts the statement of Belmont, who
places it at ninety. We read that, when the savages left Lachine, which
they did without any attempt being made from the forts to harass their
retreat, they crossed Lake St. Louis, and, encamping on the opposite
shore, lit their fires and began to torture their prisoners. Torture,
there can be no doubt, was sufficiently congenial to the Iroquois
nature; and yet there is room for doubt whether there is sufficient
warrant for the highly coloured narrative which has become the popular
legend on this subject. It was usual with the Iroquois to carry their
captives with them into their villages; and it is known that they did
this with at least the great majority of those whom they secured on the
Island of Montreal, for many of them were alive years afterwards.
Moreover had there been many burnings on the south shore of Lake St.
Louis, the same pious care which caused the re-burial a few years later
(1694) of the remains of the victims of the Lachine massacre would have
been extended to any that might have been found on the site of the last
encampment. There is no record of the discovery of any such remains or
of their burial or re-burial. It is true that some burnings of captives
occurred in the Iroquois villages; still it is some satisfaction to
think that the calamity as a whole was not on the scale that tradition
has represented.[32]
It is related that as the savages paddled away from the Lachine shore,
they called out: "Onontio, you deceived us; now we have deceived you."
The last days of Onontio, in his official capacity at least, were at
hand. The king had decided early in the year that he was not the man to
support a falling state or rescue an imperilled community, and had
offered the position again to Count Frontenac notwithstanding the many
troubles that had marked that gallant soldier's former tenure of office.
Evidently, with all his faults of temper, he had at least impressed
himself on the king as a man who could be relied on in the hour of
danger. Denonville's last act was one which strikingly illustrated the
condition of feebleness and dejection into which he had fallen. Dongan
and the Iroquois had demanded the abandonment of Fort Frontenac.
Denonville now determined that this was the only course to follow, and
accordingly sent orders to the garrison to blow up the walls, destroy
the stores, and make the best of their way to Montreal.
[Footnote 27: _New York Colonial Documents_, vol. ix. p. 268. See also
"Transactions between England and France, relating to Hudson's Bay,
1687," in _Canadian Archives_, 1883, p. 173.]
[Footnote 28: Clement, _Vie de Colbert_, p. 456.]
[Footnote 29: "In dealing with indigenous races," observes M. Lorin,
"governors were sometimes obliged to sacrifice a few victims to the
ferocity of savages; and it was not on the eve of a campaign that it
would have been wise to exhibit towards the Iroquois a humanity that
would have been mistaken for weakness."--_Comte de Frontenac_, p. 333.
We may certainly agree that it would have been difficult for those who
had captured peaceful and unsuspecting natives for the horrible regime
of the galleys to adopt a high humanitarian tone in reproving the
cruelties of their Indian confederates and converts.]
[Footnote 30: _New York Colonial Documents_, vol. ix. p. 389.]
[Footnote 31: See his _Lake St. Louis, Old and New_.]
[Footnote 32: Both as regards the number of the slain and the details of
the massacre Charlevoix simply repeats the statements made by Frontenac
in a despatch dated the 15th November 1689, one month after his return
to Canada, and after several days spent at the scene of the disaster and
at Montreal. It is he who speaks of the "_enlevement de cent vingt
personnes apres un massacre de deux cents brules, rotis vifs, manges, et
les enfans arraches du ventre de leurs meres_." The tendency in
furnishing information to the French government was always to exaggerate
the havoc wrought by the Indians. At the time Frontenac wrote this
despatch he was not aware of the further massacre at La Chesnaye, the
news of which only reached him on the 17th of November.]