1682-1684.
LeFebvre de la Barre.
His Arrival at Quebec • The Great Fire • A Coming Storm • Iroquois
Policy • The Danger imminent • Indian Allies of France • Frontenac and
the Iroquois • Boasts of La Barre • His Past Life • His Speculations •
He takes Alarm • His Dealings with the Iroquois • His Illegal Trade •
His Colleague denounces him • Fruits of his Schemes • His Anger and his
Fears.
When the new governor, La Barre, and the new intendant, Meules, arrived
at Quebec, a dismal greeting waited them. All the Lower Town was in
ashes, except the house of the merchant Aubert de la Chesnaye, standing
alone amid the wreck. On a Tuesday, the fourth of August, at ten o'clock
in the evening, the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu were roused from their early
slumbers by shouts, outcries, and the ringing of bells; "and," writes
one of them, "what was our terror to find it as light as noonday, the
flames burned so fiercely and rose so high." Half an hour before,
Chartier de Lotbinière, judge of the king's court, heard the first
alarm, ran down the descent now called Mountain Street, and found every
thing in confusion in the town below. The house of Etienne Planchon was
in a blaze; the fire was spreading to those of his neighbors, and had
just leaped the narrow street to the storehouse of the Jesuits. The
season was excessively dry; there were no means of throwing water except
kettles and buckets, and the crowd was bewildered with excitement and
fright. Men were ordered to tear off roofs and pull down houses; but the
flames drove them from their work, and at four o'clock in the morning
fifty-five buildings were burnt to the ground. They were all of wood,
but many of them were storehouses filled with goods; and the property
consumed was more in value than all that remained in Canada. [1]
[1] Chartier de Lotbinière, Procès-verbal sur l'Incendie de la Basse
Ville; Meules au Ministre, 6 Oct., 1682; Juchereau, Histoire de
l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 256.
Under these gloomy auspices, Le Febvre de la Barre began his reign. He
was an old officer who had achieved notable exploits against the English
in the West Indies, but who was now to be put to a test far more severe.
He made his lodging in the château; while his colleague, Meules, could
hardly find a shelter. The buildings of the Upper Town were filled with
those whom the fire had made roofless, and the intendant was obliged to
content himself with a house in the neighboring woods. Here he was ill
at ease, for he dreaded an Indian war and the scalping-knives of the
Iroquois. [2]
[2] Meules au Ministre, 6 Oct., 1682.
So far as his own safety was concerned, his alarm was needless; but not
so as regarded the colony with whose affairs he was charged. For those
who had eyes to see it, a terror and a woe lowered in the future of
Canada. In an evil hour for her, the Iroquois had conquered their
southern neighbors, the Andastes, who had long held their ground against
them, and at one time threatened them with ruin. The hands of the
confederates were now free; their arrogance was redoubled by victory,
and, having long before destroyed all the adjacent tribes on the north
and west, [3] they looked for fresh victims in the wilderness beyond.
Their most easterly tribe, the Mohawks, had not forgotten the
chastisement they had received from Tracy and Courcelle. They had
learned to fear the French, and were cautious in offending them; but it
was not so with the remoter Iroquois. Of these, the Senecas at the
western end of the "Long House," as they called their fivefold league,
were by far the most powerful, for they could muster as many warriors as
all the four remaining tribes together; and they now sought to draw the
confederacy into a series of wars, which, though not directed against
the French, threatened soon to involve them. Their first movement
westward was against the tribes of the Illinois. I have already
described their bloody inroad in the summer of 1680. [4] They made the
valley of the Illinois a desert, and returned with several hundred
prisoners, of whom they burned those that were useless, and incorporated
the young and strong into their own tribe.
[3] Jesuits in North America.
[4] Discovery of the Great West.
This movement of the western Iroquois had a double incentive, their love
of fighting and their love of gain. It was a war of conquest and of
trade. All the five tribes of the league had become dependent on the
English and Dutch of Albany for guns, powder, lead, brandy, and many
other things that they had learned to regard as necessities. Beaver
skins alone could buy them, but to the Iroquois the supply of beaver
skins was limited. The regions of the west and north-west, the upper
Mississippi with its tributaries, and, above all, the forests of the
upper lakes, were occupied by tribes in the interest of the French,
whose missionaries and explorers had been the first to visit them, and
whose traders controlled their immense annual product of furs. La Salle,
by his newly built fort of St. Louis, engrossed the trade of the
Illinois and Miami tribes; while the Hurons and Ottawas, gathered about
the old mission of Michillimackinac, acted as factors for the Sioux, the
Winnebagoes, and many other remote hordes. Every summer they brought
down their accumulated beaver skins to the fair at Montreal; while
French bush-rangers roving through the wilderness, with or without
licenses, collected many more. [5]
[5] Duchesneau, Memoir on Western Indians in N. Y. Colonial Docs., IX.
160.
It was the purpose of the Iroquois to master all this traffic, conquer
the tribes who had possession of it, and divert the entire supply of
furs to themselves, and through themselves to the English and Dutch.
That English and Dutch traders urged them on is affirmed by the French,
and is very likely. The accomplishment of the scheme would have ruined
Canada. Moreover, the Illinois, the Hurons, the Ottawas, and all the
other tribes threatened by the Iroquois, were the allies and "children"
of the French, who in honor as in interest were bound to protect them.
Hence, when the Seneca invasion of the Illinois became known, there was
deep anxiety in the colony, except only among those in whom hatred of
the monopolist La Salle had overborne every consideration of the public
good. La Salle's new establishment of St. Louis was in the path of the
invaders; and, if he could be crushed, there was wherewith to console
his enemies for all else that might ensue.
Bad as was the posture of affairs, it was made far worse by an incident
that took place soon after the invasion of the Illinois. A Seneca chief
engaged in it, who had left the main body of his countrymen, was
captured by a party of Winnebagoes to serve as a hostage for some of
their tribe whom the Senecas had lately seized. They carried him to
Michillimackinac, where there chanced to be a number of Illinois,
married to Indian women of that neighborhood. A quarrel ensued between
them and the Seneca, whom they stabbed to death in a lodge of the
Kiskakons, one of the tribes of the Ottawas. Here was a casus belli
likely to precipitate a war fatal to all the tribes about
Michillimackinac, and equally fatal to the trade of Canada. Frontenac
set himself to conjure the rising storm, and sent a messenger to the
Iroquois to invite them to a conference.
He found them unusually arrogant. Instead of coming to him, they
demanded that he should come to them, and many of the French wished him
to comply; but Frontenac refused, on the ground that such a concession
would add to their insolence, and he declined to go farther than
Montreal, or at the utmost Fort Frontenac, the usual place of meeting
with them. Early in August he was at Montreal, expecting the arrival of
the Ottawas and Hurons on their yearly descent from the lakes. They soon
appeared, and he called them to a solemn council. Terror had seized them
all. "Father, take pity on us," said the Ottawa orator, "for we are like
dead men." A Huron chief, named the Rat, declared that the world was
turned upside down, and implored the protection of Onontio, "who is
master of the whole earth." These tribes were far from harmony among
themselves. Each was jealous of the other, and the Ottawas charged the
Hurons with trying to make favor with the common enemy at their expense.
Frontenac told them that they were all his children alike, and advised
them to live together as brothers, and make treaties of alliance with
all the tribes of the lakes. At the same time, he urged them to make
full atonement for the death of the Seneca murdered in their country,
and carefully to refrain from any new offence.
Soon after there was another arrival. La Forêt, the officer in command
at Fort Frontenac, appeared, bringing with him a famous Iroquois chief
called Decanisora or Tegannisorens, attended by a number of warriors.
They came to invite Frontenac to meet the deputies of the five tribes at
Oswego, within their own limits. Frontenac's reply was characteristic.
"It is for the father to tell the children where to hold council, not
for the children to tell the father. Fort Frontenac is the proper place,
and you should thank me for going so far every summer to meet you." The
Iroquois had expressed pacific intentions towards the Hurons and
Ottawas. For this Frontenac commended him, but added: "The Illinois also
are children of Onontio, and hence brethren of the Iroquois. Therefore
they, too, should be left in peace; for Onontio wishes that all his
family should live together in union." He confirmed his words with a
huge belt of wampum. Then, addressing the flattered deputy as a great
chief, he desired him to use his influence in behalf of peace, and gave
him a jacket and a silk cravat, both trimmed with gold, a hat, a scarlet
ribbon, and a gun, with beads for his wife, and red cloth for his
daughter. The Iroquois went home delighted. [6]
[6] For the papers on this affair, see N. Y. Colonial Docs., IX.
Perhaps on this occasion Frontenac was too confident of his influence
over the savage confederates. Such at least was the opinion of
Lamberville, Jesuit missionary at Onondaga, the Iroquois capital. From
what he daily saw around him, he thought the peril so imminent that
concession on the part of the French was absolutely necessary, since not
only the Illinois, but some of the tribes of the lakes, were in danger
of speedy and complete destruction. "Tegannisorens loves the French," he
wrote to Frontenac, "but neither he nor any other of the upper Iroquois
fear them in the least. They annihilate our allies, whom by adoption of
prisoners they convert into Iroquois; and they do not hesitate to avow
that after enriching themselves by our plunder, and strengthening
themselves by those who might have aided us, they will pounce all at
once upon Canada, and overwhelm it in a single campaign." He adds that
within the past two years they have reinforced themselves by more than
nine hundred warriors, adopted into their tribes. [7]
[7] P. Jean de Lamberville à Frontenac, 20 Sept., 1682.
Such was the crisis when Frontenac left Canada at the moment when he was
needed most, and Le Febvre de la Barre came to supplant him. The new
governor introduces himself with a burst of rhodomontade. "The
Iroquois," he writes to the king, "have twenty-six hundred warriors. I
will attack them with twelve hundred men. They know me before seeing me,
for they have been told by the English how roughly I handled them in the
West Indies." This bold note closes rather tamely; for the governor
adds, "I think that if the Iroquois believe that your Majesty would have
the goodness to give me some help, they will make peace, and let our
allies alone, which would save the trouble and expense of an arduous
war." [8] He then begs hard for troops, and in fact there was great need
of them, for there were none in Canada; and even Frontenac had been
compelled in the last year of his government to leave unpunished various
acts of violence and plunder committed by the Iroquois. La Barre painted
the situation in its blackest colors, declared that war was imminent,
and wrote to the minister, "We shall lose half our trade and all our
reputation, if we do not oppose these haughty conquerors." [9]
[8] La Barre au Roy, (4 Oct.?) 1682.
[9] La Barre à Seignelay, 1682.
A vein of gasconade appears in most of his letters, not however
accompanied with any conclusive evidence of a real wish to fight. His
best fighting days were past, for he was sixty years old; nor had he
always been a man of the sword. His early life was spent in the law; he
had held a judicial post, and had been intendant of several French
provinces. Even the military and naval employments, in which he
afterwards acquitted himself with credit, were due to the part he took
in forming a joint-stock company for colonizing Cayenne. [10] In fact,
he was but half a soldier; and it was perhaps for this reason that he
insisted on being called, not Monsieur le Gouverneur, but Monsieur le
Général. He was equal to Frontenac neither in vigor nor in rank, but he
far surpassed him in avidity. Soon after his arrival, he wrote to the
minister that he should not follow the example of his predecessors in
making money out of his government by trade; and in consideration of
these good intentions he asked for an addition to his pay. [11] He then
immediately made alliances with certain merchants of Quebec for carrying
on an extensive illicit trade, backed by all the power of his office.
Now ensued a strange and miserable complication. Questions of war
mingled with questions of personal gain. There was a commercial
revolution in the colony. The merchants whom Frontenac excluded from his
ring now had their turn. It was they who, jointly with the intendant and
the ecclesiastics, had procured the removal of the old governor; and it
was they who gained the ear of the new one. Aubert de la Chesnaye,
Jacques Le Ber, and the rest of their faction, now basked in official
favor; and La Salle, La Forêt, and the other friends of Frontenac, were
cast out. There was one exception. Greysolon Du Lhut, leader of coureurs
de bois, was too important to be thus set aside. He was now as usual in
the wilderness of the north, the roving chief of a half savage crew,
trading, exploring, fighting, and laboring with persistent hardihood to
foil the rival English traders of Hudson's Bay. Inducements to gain his
adhesion were probably held out to him by La Barre and his allies: be
this as it may, it is certain that he acted in harmony with the faction
of the new governor. With La Forêt it was widely different. He commanded
Fort Frontenac, which belonged to La Salle, when La Barre's associates,
La Chesnaye and Le Ber, armed with an order from the governor, came up
from Montreal, and seized upon the place with all that it contained. The
pretext for this outrage was the false one that La Salle had not
fulfilled the conditions under which the fort had been granted to him.
La Forêt was told that he might retain his command, if he would join the
faction of La Barre; but he refused, stood true to his chief, and soon
after sailed for France.
[10] He was made governor of Cayenne, and went thither with Tracy in
1664. Two years later, he gained several victories over the English, and
recaptured Cayenne, which they had taken in his absence. He wrote a book
concerning this colony, called Description de la France Équinoctiale.
Another volume, called Journal du Voyage du Sieur de la Barre en la
Terre Ferme et Isle de Cayenne, was printed at Paris in 1671.
[11] La Barre à Seignelay, 1682.
La Barre summoned the most able and experienced persons in the colony to
discuss the state of affairs. Their conclusion was that the Iroquois
would attack and destroy the Illinois, and, this accomplished, turn upon
the tribes of the lakes, conquer or destroy them also, and ruin the
trade of Canada. [12] Dark as was the prospect, La Barre and his
fellow-speculators flattered themselves that the war could be averted
for a year at least. The Iroquois owed their triumphs as much to their
sagacity and craft as to their extraordinary boldness and ferocity. It
had always been their policy to attack their enemies in detail, and
while destroying one to cajole the rest. There seemed little doubt that
they would leave the tribes of the lakes in peace till they had finished
the ruin of the Illinois; so that if these, the allies of the colony,
were abandoned to their fate, there would be time for a profitable trade
in the direction of Michillimackinac.
[12] Conference on the State of Affairs with the Iroquois, Oct., 1682,
in N. Y. Colonial Docs., IX. 194.
But hopes seemed vain and prognostics illusory, when, early in spring, a
report came that the Seneca Iroquois were preparing to attack, in force,
not only the Illinois, but the Hurons and Ottawas of the lakes. La Barre
and his confederates were in dismay. They already had large quantities
of goods at Michillimackinac, the point immediately threatened; and an
officer was hastily despatched, with men and munitions, to strengthen
the defences of the place. [13] A small vessel was sent to France with
letters begging for troops. "I will perish at their head," wrote La
Barre to the king, "or destroy your enemies;" [14] and he assures the
minister that the Senecas must be attacked or the country abandoned.
[15] The intendant, Meules, shared something of his alarm, and informed
the king that "the Iroquois are the only people on earth who do not know
the grandeur of your Majesty." [16]
[13] La Barre au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1683.
[14] La Barre au Roy, 30 Mai, 1683.
[15] La Barre au Ministre, 30 Mai, 1683.
[16] Meules au Roy, 2 Juin, 1683.
While thus appealing to the king, La Barre sent Charles le Moyne as
envoy to Onondaga. Through his influence, a deputation of forty-three
Iroquois chiefs was sent to meet the governor at Montreal. Here a grand
council was held in the newly built church. Presents were given the
deputies to the value of more than two thousand crowns. Soothing
speeches were made them; and they were urged not to attack the tribes of
the lakes, nor to plunder French traders, without permission. [17] They
assented; and La Barre then asked, timidly, why they made war on the
Illinois. "Because they deserve to die," haughtily returned the Iroquois
orator. La Barre dared not answer. They complained that La Salle had
given guns, powder, and lead to the Illinois; or, in other words, that
he had helped the allies of the colony to defend themselves. La Barre,
who hated La Salle and his monopolies, assured them that he should be
punished. [17] It is affirmed, on good authority, that he said more than
this, and told them they were welcome to plunder and kill him. [18] The
rapacious old man was playing with a two-edged sword.
[17] Soon after La Barre's arrival, La Chesnaye is said to have induced
him to urge the Iroquois to plunder all traders who were not provided
with passports from the governor. The Iroquois complied so promptly,
that they stopped and pillaged, at Niagara, two canoes belonging to La
Chesnaye himself, which had gone up the lakes in Frontenac's time, and
therefore were without passports. Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en
Canada au Sujet de la Guerre, etc., depuis l'année 1682. (Published by
the Historical Society of Quebec.) This was not the only case in which
the weapons of La Barre and his partisans recoiled against themselves.
[18] Belmont, Histoire du Canada (a contemporary chronicle).
[19] See Discovery of the Great West. La Barre denies the assertion, and
says that he merely told the Iroquois that La Salle should be sent home.
Thus the Illinois, with the few Frenchmen who had tried to defend them,
were left to perish; and, in return, a brief and doubtful respite was
gained for the tribes of the lakes. La Barre and his confederates took
heart again. Merchandise, in abundance, was sent to Michillimackinac,
and thence to the remoter tribes of the north and west. The governor and
his partner, La Chesnaye, sent up a fleet of thirty canoes; [20] and, a
little later, they are reported to have sent more than a hundred. This
forest trade robbed the colonists, by forestalling the annual market of
Montreal; while a considerable part of the furs acquired by it were
secretly sent to the English and Dutch of New York. Thus the heavy
duties of the custom-house at Quebec were evaded; and silver coin was
received in payment, instead of questionable bills of exchange. [21]
Frontenac had not been faithful to his trust; but, compared to his
successor, he was a model of official virtue.
[20] Mémoire adressé a MM. les Intéressés en la Société de la Ferme et
Commerce du Canada, 1683.
[21] These statements are made in a memorial of the agents of the
custom-house, in letters of Meules, and in several other quarters. La
Barre is accused of sending furs to Albany under pretext of official
communication with the governor of New York.
La Barre busied himself with ostentatious preparation for war; built
vessels at Fort Frontenac, and sent up fleets of canoes, laden or partly
laden with munitions. But his accusers say that the king's canoes were
used to transport the governor's goods, and that the men sent to
garrison Fort Frontenac were destined, not to fight the Iroquois, but to
sell them brandy. "Last year," writes the intendant, "Monsieur de la
Barre had a vessel built, for which he made his Majesty pay heavily;"
and he proceeds to say that it was built for trade, and was used for no
other purpose. "If," he continues, "the two (king's) vessels now at Fort
Frontenac had not been used for trading, they would have saved us half
the expense we have been forced to incur in transporting munitions and
supplies. The pretended necessity of having vessels at this fort, and
the consequent employing of carpenters, and sending up of iron, cordage,
sails, and many other things, at his Majesty's charge, was simply in the
view of carrying on trade." He says, farther, that in May last, the
vessels, canoes, and men being nearly all absent on this errand, the
fort was left in so defenceless a state that a party of Senecas,
returning from their winter hunt, took from it a quantity of goods, and
drank as much brandy as they wanted. "In short," he concludes, "it is
plain that Monsieur de la Barre uses this fort only as a depot for the
trade of Lake Ontario." [22]
[22] Meules à Seignelay, 8 July, 1684. This accords perfectly with
statements made in several memorials of La Salle and his friends.
In the spring of 1683, La Barre had taken a step as rash as it was
lawless and unjust. He sent the Chevalier de Baugis, lieutenant of his
guard, with a considerable number of canoes and men, to seize La Salle's
fort of St. Louis on the river Illinois; a measure which, while
gratifying the passions and the greed of himself and his allies, would
greatly increase he danger of rupture with the Iroquois. Late in the
season, he despatched seven canoes and fourteen men, with goods to the
value of fifteen or sixteen thousand livres, to trade with the tribes of
the Mississippi. As he had sown, so he reaped. The seven canoes passed
through the country of the Illinois. A large war party of Senecas and
Cayugas invaded it in February. La Barre had told their chiefs that they
were welcome to plunder the canoes of La Salle. The Iroquois were not
discriminating. They fell upon the governor's canoes, seized all the
goods, and captured the men. [23] Then they attacked Baugis at Fort St.
Louis. The place, perched on a rock, was strong, and they were beaten
off; but the act was one of open war.
[23] There appears no doubt that La Barre brought this upon himself. His
successor, Denonville, writes that the Iroquois declared that, in
plundering the canoes, they thought they were executing the orders they
had received to plunder La Salle's people. Denonville, Mémoire adressé
ou Ministre sur les Affaires de la Nouvelle France, 10 Août, 1688. The
Iroquois told Dongan, in 1684, "that they had not don any thing to the
French but what Monsr. delaBarr Ordered them, which was that if they
mett with any French hunting without his passe to take what they had
from them." Dongan to Denonville, 9 Sept., 1687.
When La Barre heard the news, he was furious. [24] He trembled for the
vast amount of goods which he and his fellow-speculators had sent to
Michillimackinac and the lakes. There was but one resource: to call out
the militia, muster the Indian allies, advance to Lake Ontario, and
dictate peace to the Senecas, at the head of an imposing force; or,
failing in this, to attack and crush them. A small vessel lying at
Quebec was despatched to France, with urgent appeals for immediate aid,
though there was little hope that it could arrive in time. She bore a
long letter, half piteous, half bombastic, from La Barre to the king. He
declared that extreme necessity and the despair of the people had forced
him into war, and protested that he should always think it a privilege
to lay down life for his Majesty. "I cannot refuse to your country of
Canada, and your faithful subjects, to throw myself, with unequal
forces, against the foe, while at the same time begging your aid for a
poor, unhappy people on the point of falling victims to a nation of
barbarians." He says that the total number of men in Canada capable of
bearing arms is about two thousand; that he received last year a hundred
and fifty raw recruits; and that he wants, in addition, seven or eight
hundred good soldiers. "Recall me," he concludes, "if you will not help
me, for I cannot bear to see the country perish in my hands." At the
same time, he declares his intention to attack the Senecas, with or
without help, about the middle of August. [25]
Here we leave him, for a while, scared, excited, and blustering.
[24] "Ce qui mit M. de la Barre en fureur." Belmont, Histoire du Canada.
[25] La Barre au Roy, 5 Juin, 1684.