See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1612-1650, and after.
NEWTON BUTLER, Battle of (1689).
See IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689.
NEWTONIA, Battles of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS);
and 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
NEY, Marshal, Campaigns and execution of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER),
1806-1807, 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE);
SPAIN: A. D. 1809;
RUSSIA: A. D. 1812;
GERMANY: A. D. 1813;
FRANCE: A. D. 1815, and 1815-1830.
NEZ PERCÉS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: NEZ PERCÉS.
----------NIAGARA: Start--------
NIAGARA:
The name and its original applications.
"Colden wrote it [the name] 'O-ni-ag-a-ra,' in 1741, and he
must have received it from the Mohawks or Oneidas. It was the
name of a Seneca village at the mouth of the Niagara river;
located as early as 1650, near the site of Youngstown. It was
also the place where the Marquis de Nonville constructed a
fort in 1687, the building of which brought this locality
under the particular notice of the English. The name of this
Indian village in the dialect of the Senecas was 'Ne-ah'-gä,'
in Tuscarora 'O-ne-ä'-kars,' in Onondaga 'O-ne-ah'-gä,' in
Oneida 'O-ne-ah'-gäle,' and in Mohawk 'O-ne-a'-gä-rä.' These
names are but the same word under dialectical changes. It is
clear that Niagara was derived from some one of them, and thus
came direct from the Iroquois language. The signification of
the word is lost, unless it is derived, as some of the present
Iroquois suppose, from the word which signifies 'neck,' in
Seneca 'O-ne-ah'-ä,' in Onondaga 'O-ne-yä'-ä' and in Oneida
'O-ne-arle.' The name of this Indian village was bestowed by
the Iroquois upon Youngstown; upon the river Niagara, from the
falls to the Lake; and upon Lake Ontario."
_L. H. Morgan,
League of the Iroquois,
book 3, chapter 3._
"It [the name Niagara] is the oldest of all the local
geographical terms which have come down to us from the
aborigines. It was not at first thus written by the English,
for with them it passed through almost every possible
alphabetical variation before its present orthography was
established. We find its germ in the 'On-gui-aah-ra' of the
Neutral Nation, as given by Father L'Allemant in a letter
dated in 1641, at the mission station of Sainte Marie, on Lake
Huron. … The name of the river next occurs on Sanson's map
of Canada, published in Paris in 1656, where it is spelled
'Ongiara.' Its first appearance as Niagara is on Coronelli's
map, published in Paris in 1688. From that time to the
present, the French have been consistent in their orthography,
the numerous variations alluded to occurring only among
English writers. The word was probably derived from the
Mohawks, through whom the French had their first intercourse
with the Iroquois. The Mohawks pronounced it Nyah,-ga-rah',
with the primary accent on the first syllable; and the
secondary on the last. … The corresponding Seneca name,
Nyah'-gaah, was always confined by the Iroquois to the section
of the river below the Falls, and to Lake Ontario. That
portion of the river above the Falls being sometimes called
Gni-gwaah-geh, one of their names for Lake Erie."
_O. H. Marshall,
The Niagara Frontier
(Historical Writings, page 283)._
NIAGARA: A. D. 1687-1688.
Fort constructed by De Nonville and destroyed a year later.
"We arrived there [at Niagara] on the morning of the 30th [of
July, 1687]. We immediately set about choosing a place, and
collecting stakes for the construction of the Fort which I had
resolved to build at the extremity of a tongue of land,
between the river Niagara and Lake Ontario, on the Iroquois
side. On the 31st of July and 1st of August we continued this
work, which was the more difficult from there being no wood on
the place suitable for making palisades, and from its being
necessary to draw them up the height. We performed this labor
so diligently that the fort was in a state of defence on the
last mentioned day. … The 2d day of August, the militia
having performed their allotted task, and the fort being in a
condition of defence in case of assault, they set out at noon,
in order to reach the end of the lake on their return to their
own country. On the morning of the 3d, being the next day, I
embarked for the purpose of joining the militia, leaving the
regular troops under the direction of M. de Vaudreuil to
finish what was the most essential, and to render the fort not
only capable of defence, but also of being occupied by a
detachment of 100 soldiers, which are to winter there under
the command of M. Troyes."
_Marquis de Nonville,
Journal of Expedition against the Senecas
(translated in Historical Writings of O. H. Marshall, p. 173)._
"De Nonville's journal removes the doubt which has been
entertained as to the location of this fortress, some having
supposed it to have been first built at Lewiston. … It
occupied the site of the present fort on the angle formed by
the junction of the Niagara with Lake Ontario. … De Nonville
left De Troyes with provisions and munitions for eight months.
A sickness soon after broke out in the garrison, by which they
nearly all perished, including their commander. … They were
so closely besieged by the Iroquois that they were unable to
supply themselves with fresh provisions. The fortress was soon
after abandoned and destroyed [1688], much to the regret of De
Nonville."
_Marquis de Nonville,
Journal of Expedition against the Senecas
(translated in Historical Writings of O. H. Marshall, p. 173).
Foot-notes_
ALSO IN:
_F. Parkman,
Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.,
pages 155 and 166._
NIAGARA: A. D. 1725-1726.
The stone fort built.
How the French gained their footing.
Joncaire's wigwam.
Captain Joncaire "had been taken prisoner when quite young by
the Iroquois, and adopted into one of their tribes. This was
the making of his fortune. He had grown up among them,
acquired their language, adapted himself to their habits, and
was considered by them as one of themselves. On returning to
civilized life he became a prime instrument in the hands of
the Canadian government, for managing and cajoling the
Indians. … When the French wanted to get a commanding site
for a post on the Iroquois lands, near Niagara, Joncaire was
the man to manage it.
{2357}
He craved a situation where he might put up a wigwam, and
dwell among his Iroquois brethren. It was granted, of course,
'for was he not a son of the tribe—was he not one of
themselves?' By degrees his wigwam grew into an important
trading post; ultimately it became Fort Niagara."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 1, chapter 5._
"In 1725 the Fort of Niagara was commenced by Chaussegross de
Léry, on the spot where the wooden structure of de Denonville
formerly stood; it was built of stone and completed in 1726."
_W. Kingsford,
History of Canada,
volume 2, page 516._
NIAGARA: A. D. 1755.
Abortive expedition against the fort, by the English.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
NIAGARA: A. D. 1756.
The fort rebuilt by Pouchot.
See CANADA: A. D. 1756.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1759.
The fort taken by the English.
See CANADA: A. D. 1759 (JULY-AUGUST).
NIAGARA: A. D. 1763.
The ambuscade and massacre at Devil's Hole.
See DEVIL'S HOLE.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1764.
Sir William Johnson's treaty with the Indians.
Cession of the Four Mile Strip' along both banks of the river.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1783.
Retention of the Fort by Great Britain
after peace with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784-1788.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1796.
Surrender of the fort by Great Britain.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1813.
Surprise and capture of the fort by the British.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813 (DECEMBER).
----------NIAGARA: End--------
NIAGARA, OR LUNDY'S LANE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
NIAGARA FRONTIER: A. D. 1812-1814.
The War.
Queenstown.
Buffalo.
Chippewa.
Lundy's Lane.
Fort Erie.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER);
1813 (DECEMBER);
1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
NIAGARA PEACE MISSION, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY).
NIAGARA RIVER, Navigated by La Salle (1679).
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.
NIBELUNGEN LIED, The.
"Of the bequests made to us of the [German] Popular Poetry of
the time of the Hohenstauffen, by far the most important, in
fact the most important literary memorial of any kind, is the
epic of between nine and ten thousand lines known as the
Nibelungen Lied. The manuscripts which have preserved for us
the poem come from about the year 1200. For full a thousand
years before that, however, many of the lays from which it was
composed had been in existence; some indeed proceed from a
still remoter antiquity, sung by primitive minstrels when the
Germans were at their wildest, untouched by Christianity or
civilization. These lays had been handed down orally, until at
length a poet of genius elaborated them and intrusted them to
parchment."
_J. K. Hosmer,
Short History of German Literature,
part 1, chapter 1._
"In the year 1757, the Swiss Professor Bodmer printed an
ancient poetical manuscript, under the title of Chriemhilden
Rache und die Kluge (Chriemhilde's Revenge, and the Lament);
which may be considered as the first of a series, or stream of
publications and speculations still rolling on, with increased
current, to the present day. … Some fifteen years after
Bodmer's publication, which, for the rest, is not celebrated
as an editorial feat, one C. H. Müller undertook a Collection
of German Poems from the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Centuries; wherein, among other articles, he reprinted
Bodmer's Chriemhilde and Klage, with a highly remarkable
addition prefixed to the former, essential indeed to the right
understanding of it; and the whole now stood before the world
as one Poem, under the name of the Nibelungen Lied, or Lay of
the Nibelungen. It has since been ascertained that the Klage
is a foreign inferior appendage; at best related only as
epilogue to the main work: meanwhile out of this Nibelungen,
such as it was, there soon proceeded new inquiries and kindred
enterprises. For much as the Poem, in the shape it here bore,
was defaced and marred, it failed not to attract observation:
to all open-minded lovers of poetry, especially where a strong
patriotic feeling existed, the singular antique Nibelungen was
an interesting appearance. Johannes Müller, in his famous
Swiss History, spoke of it in warm terms: subsequently, August
Wilhelm Schlegel, through the medium of the Deutsche Museum,
succeeded in awakening something like a universal popular
feeling on the subject; and, as a natural consequence, a whole
host of Editors and Critics, of deep and of shallow endeavour,
whose labours we yet see in progress. The Nibelungen has now
been investigated, translated, collated, commented upon, with
more or less result, to almost boundless lengths. … Apart
from its antiquarian value, and not only as by far the finest
monument of old German art; but intrinsically, and as a mere
detached composition, this Nibelungen has an excellence that
cannot but surprise us. With little preparation, any reader of
poetry, even in these days, might find it interesting. It is
not without a certain Unity of interest and purport, an
internal coherence and completeness; it is a Whole, and some
spirit of Music informs it: these are the highest
characteristics of a true Poem. Considering farther what
intellectual environment we now find it in, it is doubly to be
prized and wondered at; for it differs from those Hero-books,
as molten or carved metal does from rude agglomerated ore;
almost as some Shakspeare from his fellow Dramatist, whose
Tamburlaines and Island Princesses, themselves not destitute
of merit, first show us clearly in what pure loftiness and
loneliness the Hamlets and Tempests reign. The unknown Singer
of the Nibelungen, though no Shakspeare, must have had a deep
poetic soul; wherein things discontinuous and inanimate shaped
themselves together into life, and the Universe with its
wondrous purport stood significantly imaged; overarching, as
with heavenly firmaments and eternal harmonies, the little
scene where men strut and fret their hour, His Poem, unlike so
many old and new pretenders to that name, has a basis and
organic structure, a beginning, middle and end; there is one
great principle and idea set forth in it, round which all its
multifarious parts combine in living union. … With an
instinctive art, far different from acquired artifice, this
Poet of the Nibelungen, working in the same province with his
contemporaries of the Heldenbuch [Hero-book] on the same
material of tradition, has, in a wonderful degree, possessed
himself of what these could only strive after; and with his
'clear feeling of fictitious truth,' avoid as false the errors
and monstrous perplexities in which they vainly struggled.
{2358}
He is of another species than they; in language, in purity and
depth of feeling, in fineness of invention, stands quite apart
from them.' The language of the Heldenbuch … was a feeble
half-articulate child's-speech, the metre nothing better than
a miserable doggerel; whereas here in the old Frankish
(Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen, we have a clear
decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse not without
essential regularity, great liveliness, and now and then even
harmony of rhythm. … No less striking than the verse and
language is the quality of the invention manifested here. Of
the Fable, or narrative material of the Nibelungen we should
say that it had high, almost the highest merit; so daintily
yet firmly is it put together; with such felicitous selection
of the beautiful, the essential, and no less felicitous
rejection of whatever was unbeautiful or even extraneous. The
reader is no longer afflicted with that chaotic brood of
Fire-drakes, Giants, and malicious turbaned Turks, so fatally
rife in the Heldenbuch: all this is swept away, or only hovers
in faint shadows afar off; and free field is open for
legitimate perennial interests. Yet neither is the Nibelungen
without its wonders; for it is poetry and not prose; here too,
a supernatural world encompasses the natural, and, though at
rare intervals and in calm manner, reveals itself there. …
The whole story of the Nibelungen is fateful, mysterious,
guided on by unseen influences; yet the actual marvels are
few, and done in the far distance; those Dwarfs, and Cloaks of
Darkness, and charmed Treasure-caves, are heard of rather than
beheld, the tidings of them seem to issue from unknown space.
Vain were it to inquire where that Nibelungen-land specially
is: its very name is Nebel-land or Nift-land, the land of
Darkness, of Invisibility. The 'Nibelungen Heroes' that muster
in thousands and tens of thousands, though they march to the
Rhine or Danube, and we see their strong limbs and shining
armour, we could almost fancy to be children of the air."
_T. Carlyle,
The Nibelungen Lied
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 3)._
"The traditions of German heroic poetry extend over more than
300 years, and are drawn from various German tribes. King
Ostrogotha reigned over the Goths about the year 250, and was
the contemporary of the emperors Philip and Decius. Ermanaric
governed the Ostrogoths about 100 years later, and was a very
warlike king, ruling over a large extent of territory. The
invasion of the Huns drove him to despair, and he fell by his
own hand before the year 374. Soon after the year 400 the
Burgundians founded a mighty empire in the most fertile part
of the Upper Rhine, where Cæsar had already fought with the
Germans, near Spiers, Worms, and Mayence. The Roman Aëtius,
who ruled Gaul with the aid of his Hun allies, defeated the
Burgundians by means of these barbarians in a terrible battle
about the year 437; 20,000 men fell, amongst them their king
Gundicarius (Gunther). The Burgundians seemed to be
annihilated, and soon after retreated to Savoy. About the same
time Attila was king of the Huns and Ostrogoths to the terror
of the world. His name is Gothic, the arrangements of his
court were Gothic, and he reckoned among his knights
Theodomer; the king of the Ostrogoths. The West had just
learnt all the terror of this 'Scourge of God,' when news came
of his sudden death (453), and in the following year his
followers succumbed to the attacks of the Germans (454).
Twenty-two years later, Odoacer deposed the last shadow of a
Roman emperor; and again, twelve years later, Theodoric led
the Ostrogoths into Italy and Odoacer fell by his hand. About
the same period the Merovingian Clovis founded the kingdom of
the Franks; about the year 530 his sons destroyed the
Thuringian empire; and his grandson Theodebert extended his
kingdom so far, that, starting from Hungary, he planned an
attack on the Byzantine emperor. The Merovingians also offered
a successful resistance to the Vikings, who were the terror of
the North Sea, and who appeared even at the mouths of the
Rhine. From another quarter the Longobards in little more than
a century reached Italy, having started from Lüneburg, in the
neighbourhood of Brunswick, and their King Alboin took
possession of the crown of Italy in 568. These wonderful
transferences of power, and this rapid founding of new
empires, furnished the historical background of the German
hero-legends. The fact that the movement was originally
against Rome was forgotten; the migration was treated as a
mere incident in the internal history of the German nation.
There is no trace of chronology. … Legend adheres to the
fact of the enmity between Odoacer and Theodoric, but it
really confuses Theodoric with his father Theodomer,
transplants him accordingly to Attila's court, and supposes
that he was an exile there in hiding from the wrath of
Odoacer. Attila becomes the representative of everything
connected with the Huns. He is regarded as Ermanaric's and
Gunther's enemy, and as having destroyed the Burgundians.
These again are confused with a mythical race, the Nibelungen,
Siegfried's enemies, and thus arose the great and complicated
scheme of the Nibelungen legend. … This Middle High-German
Epic is like an old church, in the building of which many
architects have successively taken part. … Karl Lachmann
attempted the work of restoring the Nibelungen lied and
analysing its various elements, and accomplished the task, not
indeed faultlessly, yet on the whole correctly. He has pointed
out later interpolations, which hide the original sequence of
the story, and has divided the narrative which remains after
the removal of these accretions into twenty songs, some of
which are connected, while others embody isolated incidents of
the legend. Some of them, but certainly only a few, may be by
the same author. … We recognise in most of these songs such
differences in conception, treatment, and style, as point to
separate authorship. The whole may have been finished in about
twenty years, from 1190-1210. Lachmann's theory has indeed
been contested. Many students still believe that the poem, as
we have it, was the work of one hand; but on this hypothesis
no one has succeeded in explaining the strange contradictions
which pervade the work, parts of which show the highest art,
while the rest is valueless."
_W. Scherer,
History of German Literature,
chapters 2 and 5 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_B. Taylor,
Studies in German Literature,
chapter 4._