1690.
The Three War-parties.
Measures of Frontenac • Expedition against Schenectady • The March • The
Dutch Village • The Surprise • The Massacre • Prisoners spared • Retreat
• The English and their Iroquois Friends • The Abenaki War • Revolution
at Boston • Capture of Pemaquid • Capture of Salmon Falls • Capture of
Fort Loyal • Frontenac and his Prisoner • The Canadians encouraged.
While striving to reclaim his allies, Frontenac had not forgotten his
enemies. It was of the last necessity to revive the dashed spirits of
the Canadians and the troops; and action, prompt and bold, was the only
means of doing so. He resolved, therefore, to take the offensive, not
against the Iroquois, who seemed invulnerable as ghosts, but against the
English; and by striking a few sharp and rapid blows to teach both
friends and foes that Onontio was still alive. The effect of his return
had already begun to appear, and the energy and fire of the undaunted
veteran had shot new life into the dejected population. He formed three
war-parties of picked men, one at Montreal, one at Three Rivers, and one
at Quebec; the first to strike at Albany, the second at the border
settlements of New Hampshire, and the third at those of Maine. That of
Montreal was ready first. It consisted of two hundred and ten men, of
whom ninety-six were Indian converts, chiefly from the two mission
villages of Saut St. Louis and the Mountain of Montreal. They were
Christian Iroquois whom the priests had persuaded to leave their homes
and settle in Canada, to the great indignation of their heathen
countrymen, and the great annoyance of the English colonists, to whom
they were a constant menace. When Denonville attacked the Senecas, they
had joined him; but of late they had shown reluctance to fight their
heathen kinsmen, with whom the French even suspected them of collusion.
Against the English, however, they willingly took up the hatchet. The
French of the party were for the most part coureurs de bois. As the sea
is the sailor's element, so the forest was theirs. Their merits were
hardihood and skill in woodcraft; their chief faults were
insubordination and lawlessness. They had shared the general
demoralization that followed the inroad of the Iroquois, and under
Denonville had proved mutinous and unmanageable. In the best times, it
was a hard task to command them, and one that needed, not bravery alone,
but tact, address, and experience. Under a chief of such a stamp, they
were admirable bushfighters, and such were those now chosen to lead
them. D'Aillebout de Mantet and Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène, the brave son
of Charles Le Moyne, had the chief command, supported by the brothers Le
Moyne d'Iberville and Le Moyne de Bienville, with Repentigny de
Montesson, Le Ber du Chesne, and others of the sturdy Canadian noblesse,
nerved by adventure and trained in Indian warfare. [1]
[1] Relation de Monseignat, 1689-90. There is a translation of this
valuable paper in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 462. The party, according to
three of their number, consisted at first of 160 French and 140
Christian Indians, but was reduced by sickness and desertion to 250 in
all. Examination of three French prisoners taken by ye. Maquas
(Mohawks), and brought to Skinnectady, who were examined by Peter
Schuyler, Mayor of Albany, Domine Godevridus Dellius, and some of ye.
Gentlen. that went from Albany a purpose.
It was the depth of winter when they began their march, striding on
snow-shoes over the vast white field of the frozen St. Lawrence, each
with the hood of his blanket coat drawn over his head, a gun in his
mittened hand, a knife, a hatchet, a tobacco pouch, and a bullet pouch
at his belt, a pack on his shoulders, and his inseparable pipe hung at
his neck in a leather case. They dragged their blankets and provisions
over the snow on Indian sledges. Crossing the forest to Chambly, they
advanced four or five days up the frozen Richelieu and the frozen Lake
Champlain, and then stopped to hold a council. Frontenac had left the
precise point of attack at the discretion of the leaders, and thus far
the men had been ignorant of their destination. The Indians demanded to
know it. Mantet and Sainte-Hélène replied that they were going to
Albany. The Indians demurred. "How long is it," asked one of them,
"since the French grew so bold?" The commanders answered that, to regain
the honor of which their late misfortunes had robbed them, the French
would take Albany or die in the attempt. The Indians listened sullenly;
the decision was postponed, and the party moved forward again. When
after eight days they reached the Hudson, and found the place where two
paths diverged, the one for Albany and the other for Schenectady, they
all without farther words took the latter. Indeed, to attempt Albany
would have been an act of desperation. The march was horrible. There was
a partial thaw, and they waded knee-deep through the half melted snow,
and the mingled ice, mud, and water of the gloomy swamps. So painful and
so slow was their progress, that it was nine days more before they
reached a point two leagues from Schenectady. The weather had changed
again, and a cold, gusty snow-storm pelted them. It was one of those
days when the trees stand white as spectres in the sheltered hollows of
the forest, and bare and gray on the wind-swept ridges. The men were
half dead with cold, fatigue, and hunger. It was four in the afternoon
of the eighth of February. The scouts found an Indian hut, and in it
were four Iroquois squaws, whom they captured. There was a fire in the
wigwam; and the shivering Canadians crowded about it, stamping their
chilled feet and warming their benumbed hands over the blaze. The
Christian chief of the Saut St. Louis, known as Le Grand Agnié, or the
Great Mohawk, by the French, and by the Dutch called Kryn, harangued his
followers, and exhorted them to wash out their wrongs in blood. Then
they all advanced again, and about dark reached the river Mohawk, a
little above the village. A Canadian named Gignières, who had gone with
nine Indians to reconnoitre, now returned to say that he had been within
sight of Schenectady, and had seen nobody. Their purpose had been to
postpone the attack till two o'clock in the morning; but the situation
was intolerable, and the limit of human endurance was reached. They
could not make fires, and they must move on or perish. Guided by the
frightened squaws, they crossed the Mohawk on the ice, toiling through
the drifts amid the whirling snow that swept down the valley of the
darkened stream, till about eleven o'clock they descried through the
storm the snow-beplastered palisades of the devoted village. Such was
their plight that some of them afterwards declared that they would all
have surrendered if an enemy had appeared to summon them. [2]
[2] Colden, 114 (ed. 1747).
Schenectady was the farthest outpost of the colony of New York. Westward
lay the Mohawk forests; and Orange, or Albany, was fifteen miles or more
towards the south-east. The village was oblong in form, and enclosed by
a palisade which had two gates, one towards Albany and the other towards
the Mohawks. There was a blockhouse near the eastern gate, occupied by
eight or nine Connecticut militia men under Lieutenant Talmage. There
were also about thirty friendly Mohawks in the place, on a visit. The
inhabitants, who were all Dutch, were in a state of discord and
confusion. The revolution in England had produced a revolution in New
York. The demagogue Jacob Leisler had got possession of Fort William,
and was endeavoring to master the whole colony. Albany was in the hands
of the anti-Leisler or conservative party, represented by a convention
of which Peter Schuyler was the chief. The Dutch of Schenectady for the
most part favored Leisler, whose emissaries had been busily at work
among them; but their chief magistrate, John Sander Glen, a man of
courage and worth, stood fast for the Albany convention, and in
consequence the villagers had threatened to kill him. Talmage and his
Connecticut militia were under orders from Albany; and therefore, like
Glen, they were under the popular ban. In vain the magistrate and the
officer entreated the people to stand on their guard. They turned the
advice to ridicule, laughed at the idea of danger, left both their gates
wide open, and placed there, it is said, two snow images as mock
sentinels. A French account declares that the village contained eighty
houses, which is certainly an exaggeration. There had been some
festivity during the evening, but it was now over; and the primitive
villagers, fathers, mothers, children, and infants, lay buried in
unconscious sleep. They were simple peasants and rude woodsmen, but with
human affections and capable of human woe.
The French and Indians stood before the open gate, with its blind and
dumb warder, the mock sentinel of snow. Iberville went with a detachment
to find the Albany gate, and bar it against the escape of fugitives; but
he missed it in the gloom, and hastened back. The assailants were now
formed into two bands, Sainte-Hélène leading the one and Mantet the
other. They passed through the gate together in dead silence: one turned
to the right and the other to the left, and they filed around the
village between the palisades and the houses till the two leaders met at
the farther end. Thus the place was completely surrounded. The signal
was then given: they all screeched the war-whoop together, burst in the
doors with hatchets, and fell to their work. Roused by the infernal din,
the villagers leaped from their beds. For some it was but a momentary
nightmare of fright and horror, ended by the blow of the tomahawk.
Others were less fortunate. Neither women nor children were spared. "No
pen can write, and no tongue express," wrote Schuyler, "the cruelties
that were committed." [3] There was little resistance, except at the
blockhouse, where Talmage and his men made a stubborn fight; but the
doors were at length forced open, the defenders killed or taken, and the
building set on fire. Adam Vrooman, one of the villagers, saw his wife
shot and his child brained against the door-post; but he fought so
desperately that the assailants promised him his life. Orders had been
given to spare Peter Tassemaker, the domine or minister, from whom it
was thought that valuable information might be obtained; but he was
hacked to pieces, and his house burned. Some, more agile or more
fortunate than the rest, escaped at the eastern gate, and fled through
the storm to seek shelter at Albany or at houses along the way. Sixty
persons were killed outright, of whom thirty-eight were men and boys,
ten were women, and twelve were children. [4] The number captured
appears to have been between eighty and ninety. The thirty Mohawks in
the town were treated with studied kindness by the victors, who declared
that they had no quarrel with them, but only with the Dutch and English.
[3] "The women bigg with Childe rip'd up, and the Children alive throwne
into the flames, and their heads dashed to pieces against the Doors and
windows." Schuyler to the Council of Connecticut, 15 Feb., 1690. Similar
statements are made by Leisler. See Doc. Hist. N. Y., I. 307, 310.
[4] List of ye. People kild and destroyed by ye. French of Canida and
there Indians at Skinnechtady, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., I. 304.
The massacre and pillage continued two hours; then the prisoners were
secured, sentinels posted, and the men told to rest and refresh
themselves. In the morning, a small party crossed the river to the house
of Glen, which stood on a rising ground half a mile distant. It was
loopholed and palisaded; and Glen had mustered his servants and tenants,
closed his gates, and prepared to defend himself. The French told him to
fear nothing, for they had orders not to hurt a chicken of his;
whereupon, after requiring them to lay down their arms, he allowed them
to enter. They urged him to go with them to the village, and he
complied; they on their part leaving one of their number as a hostage in
the hands of his followers. Iberville appeared at the gate with the
Great Mohawk, and, drawing his commission from the breast of his coat,
told Glen that he was specially charged to pay a debt which the French
owed him. On several occasions, he had saved the lives of French
prisoners in the hands of the Mohawks; and he, with his family, and,
above all, his wife, had shown them the greatest kindness. He was now
led before the crowd of wretched prisoners, and told that not only were
his own life and property safe, but that all his kindred should be
spared. Glen stretched his privilege to the utmost, till the French
Indians, disgusted at his multiplied demands for clemency, observed that
everybody seemed to be his relation.
Some of the houses had already been burned. Fire was now set to the
rest, excepting one, in which a French officer lay wounded, another
belonging to Glen, and three or four more which he begged the victors to
spare. At noon Schenectady was in ashes. Then the French and Indians
withdrew, laden with booty. Thirty or forty captured horses dragged
their sledges; and a troop of twenty-seven men and boys were driven
prisoners into the forest. About sixty old men, women, and children were
left behind, without farther injury, in order, it is said, to conciliate
the Mohawks in the place, who had joined with Glen in begging that they
might be spared. Of the victors, only two had been killed. [5]
[5] Many of the authorities on the burning of Schenectady will be found
in the Documentary History of New York, I. 297-312. One of the most
important is a portion of the long letter of M. de Monseignat,
comptroller-general of the marine in Canada, to a lady of rank, said to
be Madame de Maintenon. Others are contemporary documents preserved at
Albany, including, among others, the lists of killed and captured,
letters of Leisler to the governor of Maryland, the governor of
Massachusetts, the governor of Barbadoes, and the Bishop of Salisbury;
of Robert Livingston to Sir Edmund Andros and to Captain Nicholson; and
of Mr. Van Cortlandt to Sir Edmund Andros. One of the best contemporary
authorities is a letter of Schuyler and his colleagues to the governor
and council of Massachusetts, 15 February, 1690, preserved in the
Massachusetts archives, and printed in the third volume of Mr.
Whitmore's Andros Tracts. La Potherie, Charlevoix, Colden, Smith, and
many others, give accounts at second-hand.
Johannes Sander, or Alexander, Glen, was the son of a Scotchman of good
family. He was usually known as Captain Sander. The French wrote the
name Cendre, which became transformed into Condre, and then into Coudre.
In the old family Bible of the Glens, still preserved at the place named
by them Scotia, near Schenectady, is an entry in Dutch recording the
"murders" committed by the French, and the exemption accorded to
Alexander Glen on account of services rendered by him and his family to
French prisoners. See Proceedings of N. Y. Hist. Soc., 1846, 118.
The French called Schenectady Corlaer or Corlar, from Van Curler, its
founder. Its treatment at their hands was ill deserved, as its
inhabitants, and notably Van Curler himself, had from the earliest times
been the protectors of French captives among the Mohawks. Leisler says
that only one-sixth of the inhabitants escaped unhurt.
At the outset of the attack, Simon Schermerhorn threw himself on a
horse, and galloped through the eastern gate. The French shot at and
ounded him; but he escaped, reached Albany at daybreak, and gave the
alarm. The soldiers and inhabitants were called to arms, cannon were
fired to rouse the country, and a party of horsemen, followed by some
friendly Mohawks, set out for Schenectady. The Mohawks had promised to
carry the news to their three towns on the river above; but, when they
reached the ruined village, they were so frightened at the scene of
havoc that they would not go farther. Two days passed before the alarm
reached the Mohawk towns. Then troops of warriors came down on
snow-shoes, equipped with tomahawk and gun, to chase the retiring
French. Fifty young men from Albany joined them; and they followed the
trail of the enemy, who, with the help of their horses, made such speed
over the ice of Lake Champlain that it seemed impossible to overtake
them. They thought the pursuit abandoned; and, having killed and eaten
most of their horses, and being spent with fatigue, they moved more
slowly as they neared home, when a band of Mohawks, who had followed
stanchly on their track, fell upon a party of stragglers, and killed or
captured fifteen or more, almost within sight of Montreal.
Three of these prisoners, examined by Schuyler, declared that Frontenac
was preparing for a grand attack on Albany in the spring. In the
political confusion of the time, the place was not in fighting
condition; and Schuyler appealed for help to the authorities of
Massachusetts. "Dear neighbours and friends, we must acquaint you that
nevir poor People in the world was in a worse Condition than we are at
Present, no Governour nor Command, no money to forward any expedition,
and scarce Men enough to maintain the Citty. We have here plainly laid
the case before you, and doubt not but you will so much take it to
heart, and make all Readinesse in the Spring to invade Canida by water."
[6] The Mohawks were of the same mind. Their elders came down to Albany
to condole with their Dutch and English friends on the late disaster.
"We are come," said their orator, "with tears in our eyes, to lament the
murders committed at Schenectady by the perfidious French. Onontio comes
to our country to speak of peace, but war is at his heart. He has broken
into our house at both ends, once among the Senecas and once here; but
we hope to be revenged. Brethren, our covenant with you is a silver
chain that cannot rust or break. We are of the race of the bear; and the
bear does not yield, so long as there is a drop of blood in his body.
Let us all be bears. We will go together with an army to ruin the
country of the French. Therefore, send in all haste to New England. Let
them be ready with ships and great guns to attack by water, while we
attack by land." [7] Schuyler did not trust his red allies, who,
however, seem on this occasion to have meant what they said. He lost no
time in sending commissioners to urge the several governments of New
England to a combined attack on the French.
[6] Schuyler, Wessell, and Van Rensselaer to the Governor and Council of
Massachusetts, 15 Feb., 1690, in Andros Tracts, III. 114.
[7] Propositions made by the Sachems of ye. Maquase (Mohawk) Castles to
ye. Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonality of ye. Citty of Albany, ye. 25 day
of february, 1690, in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 164-169.
New England needed no prompting to take up arms; for she presently
learned to her cost that, though feeble and prostrate, Canada could
sting. The war-party which attacked Schenectady was, as we have seen,
but one of three which Frontenac had sent against the English borders.
The second, aimed at New Hampshire, left Three Rivers on the
twenty-eighth of January, commanded by François Hertel. It consisted of
twenty-four Frenchmen, twenty Abenakis of the Sokoki band, and five
Algonquins. After three months of excessive hardship in the vast and
rugged wilderness that intervened, they approached the little settlement
of Salmon Falls on the stream which separates New Hampshire from Maine;
and here for a moment we leave them, to observe the state of this
unhappy frontier.
It was twelve years and more since the great Indian outbreak, called
King Philip's War, had carried havoc through all the borders of New
England. After months of stubborn fighting, the fire was quenched in
Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut; but in New Hampshire and Maine
it continued to burn fiercely till the treaty of Casco, in 1678. The
principal Indians of this region were the tribes known collectively as
the Abenakis. The French had established relations with them through the
missionaries; and now, seizing the opportunity, they persuaded many of
these distressed and exasperated savages to leave the neighborhood of
the English, migrate to Canada, and settle first at Sillery near Quebec
and then at the falls of the Chaudière. Here the two Jesuits, Jacques
and Vincent Bigot, prime agents in their removal, took them in charge;
and the missions of St. Francis became villages of Abenaki Christians,
like the village of Iroquois Christians at Saut St. Louis. In both
cases, the emigrants were sheltered under the wing of Canada; and they
and their tomahawks were always at her service. The two Bigots spared no
pains to induce more of the Abenakis to join these mission colonies.
They were in good measure successful, though the great body of the tribe
still clung to their ancient homes on the Saco, the Kennebec, and the
Penobscot. [8]
[8] The Abenaki migration to Canada began as early as the autumn of 1675
(Relation, 1676-77). On the mission of St. Francis on the Chaudière, see
Bigot, Relation, 1684; Ibid., 1685. It was afterwards removed to the
river St. Francis.
There were ten years of critical and dubious peace along the English
border, and then the war broke out again. The occasion of this new
uprising is not very clear, and it is hardly worth while to look for it.
Between the harsh and reckless borderer on the one side, and the fierce
savage on the other, a single spark might at any moment set the frontier
in a blaze. The English, however, believed firmly that their French
rivals had a hand in the new outbreak; and, in fact, the Abenakis told
some of their English captives that Saint-Castin, a French adventurer on
the Penobscot, gave every Indian who would go to the war a pound of
gunpowder, two pounds of lead, and a supply of tobacco. [9] The trading
house of Saint-Castin, which stood on ground claimed by England, had
lately been plundered by Sir Edmund Andros, and some of the English had
foretold that an Indian war would be the consequence; but none of them
seem at this time to have suspected that the governor of Canada and his
Jesuit friends had any part in their woes. Yet there is proof that this
was the case; for Denonville himself wrote to the minister at Versailles
that the successes of the Abenakis on this occasion were due to the
"good understanding which he had with them," by means of the two
brothers Bigot and other Jesuits. [10]
[9] Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., I. 326. Compare N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 282,
476.
[10] "En partant de Canada, j'ay laissé une très grande disposition à
attirer au Christianisme la plus grande partie des sauvages Abenakis qui
abitent les bois du voisinage de Baston. Pour cela il faut les attirer à
la mission nouvellement établie près Québec sous le nom de S. François
de Sale. Je l'ai vue en peu de temps au nombre de six cents âmes venues
du voisinage de Baston. Je l'ay laissée en estat d'augmenter beaucoup si
elle est protegée; j'y ai fait quelque dépense qui n'est pas inutile. La
bonne intelligence que j'ai eue avec ces sauvages par les soins des
Jésuites, et surtout des deux pères Bigot frères a fait le succès de
toutes les attaques qu'ils ont faites sur les Anglois cet esté, aux
quels ils ont enlevé 16 forts, outre celuy de Pemcuit (Pemaquid) ou il y
avoit 20 pièces de canon, et leur ont tué plus de 200 hommes."
Denonville au Ministre, Jan., 1690.
It is to be observed that this Indian outbreak began in the summer of
1688, when there was peace between France and England. News of the
declaration of war did not reach Canada till July, 1689. (Belmont.)
Dover and other places were attacked in June of the same year.
The intendant Champigny says that most of the Indians who attacked the
English were from the mission villages near Quebec. Champigny au
Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689. He says also that he supplied them with
gunpowder for the war.
The "forts" taken by the Indians on the Kennebec at this time were
nothing but houses protected by palisades. They were taken by treachery
and surprise. Lettre du Père Thury, 1689. Thury says that 142 men,
women, and children were killed.
Whatever were the influences that kindled and maintained the war, it
spread dismay and havoc through the English settlements. Andros at first
made light of it, and complained of the authorities of Boston, because
in his absence they had sent troops to protect the settlers; but he soon
changed his mind, and in the winter went himself to the scene of action
with seven hundred men. Not an Indian did he find. They had all
withdrawn into the depths of the frozen forest. Andros did what he
could, and left more than five hundred men in garrison on the Kennebec
and the Saco, at Casco Bay, Pemaquid, and various other exposed points.
He then returned to Boston, where surprising events awaited him. Early
in April, news came that the Prince of Orange had landed in England.
There was great excitement. The people of the town rose against Andros,
whom they detested as the agent of the despotic policy of James II. They
captured his two forts with their garrisons of regulars, seized his
frigate in the harbor, placed him and his chief adherents in custody,
elected a council of safety, and set at its head their former governor,
Bradstreet, an old man of eighty-seven. The change was disastrous to the
eastern frontier. Of the garrisons left for its protection the winter
before, some were partially withdrawn by the new council; while others,
at the first news of the revolution, mutinied, seized their officers,
and returned home. [11] These garrisons were withdrawn or reduced,
partly perhaps because the hated governor had established them, partly
through distrust of his officers, some of whom were taken from the
regulars, and partly because the men were wanted at Boston. The order of
withdrawal cannot be too strongly condemned. It was a part of the
bungling inefficiency which marked the military management of the New
England governments from the close of Philip's war to the peace of
Utrecht.
[11] Andros, Account of Forces in Maine, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 85.
Compare Andros Tracts, I. 177; Ibid., II. 181, 193, 207, 213, 217;
Ibid., III. 232; Report of Andros in N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 722. The
order for the reduction of the garrisons and the return of the suspected
officers was passed at the first session of the council of safety, 20
April. The agents of Massachusetts at London endeavored to justify it.
See Andros Tracts, III. 34. The only regular troops in New England were
two companies brought by Andros. Most of them were kept at Boston,
though a few men and officers were sent to the eastern garrison. These
regulars were regarded with great jealousy, and denounced as "a crew
that began to teach New England to Drab, Drink, Blaspheme, Curse, and
Damm." Ibid., II. 59.
In their hatred of Andros, many of the people of New England held the
groundless and foolish belief that he was in secret collusion with the
French and Indians. Their most dangerous domestic enemies were some of
their own traders, who covertly sold arms and ammunition to the Indians.
When spring opened, the Indians turned with redoubled fury against the
defenceless frontier, seized the abandoned stockades, and butchered the
helpless settlers. Now occurred the memorable catastrophe at Cocheco, or
Dover. Two squaws came at evening and begged lodging in the palisaded
house of Major Waldron. At night, when all was still, they opened the
gates and let in their savage countrymen. Waldron was eighty years old.
He leaped from his bed, seized his sword, and drove back the assailants
through two rooms; but, as he turned to snatch his pistols, they stunned
him by the blow of a hatchet, bound him in an arm-chair, and placed him
on a table, where after torturing him they killed him with his own
sword.
The crowning event of the war was the capture of Pemaquid, a stockade
work, mounted with seven or eight cannon. Andros had placed in it a
garrison of a hundred and fifty-six men, under an officer devoted to
him. Most of them had been withdrawn by the council of safety; and the
entire force of the defenders consisted of Lieutenant James Weems and
thirty soldiers, nearly half of whom appear to have been absent at the
time of the attack. [12] The Indian assailants were about a hundred in
number, all Christian converts from mission villages. By a sudden rush,
they got possession of a number of houses behind the fort, occupied only
by women and children, the men being at their work. [13] Some ensconced
themselves in the cellars, and others behind a rock on the seashore,
whence they kept up a close and galling fire. On the next day, Weems
surrendered, under a promise of life, and, as the English say, of
liberty to himself and all his followers. The fourteen men who had
survived the fire, along with a number of women and children, issued
from the gate, upon which some were butchered on the spot, and the rest,
excepting Weems and a few others, were made prisoners. In other
respects, the behavior of the victors is said to have been creditable.
They tortured nobody, and their chiefs broke the rum barrels in the
fort, to prevent disorder. Father Thury, a priest of the seminary of
Quebec, was present at the attack; and the assailants were a part of his
Abenaki flock. Religion was one of the impelling forces of the war. In
the eyes of the Indian converts, it was a crusade against the enemies of
God. They made their vows to the Virgin before the fight; and the
squaws, in their distant villages on the Penobscot, told unceasing
beads, and offered unceasing prayers for victory. [14]
[12] Andros in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 85. The original commanding
officer, Brockholes, was reputed a "papist." Hence his removal. Andros
Tracts, III. 35. Andros says that but eighteen men were left in the
fort. A list of them in the archives of Massachusetts, certified by
Weems himself, shows that there were thirty. Doubt is thrown on this
certificate by the fact that the object of it was to obtain a grant of
money in return for advances of pay made by Weems to his soldiers. Weems
was a regular officer. A number of letters from him, showing his
condition before the attack, will be found in Johnston, History of
Bristol, Bremen, and Pemaquid.
[13] Captivity of John Gyles. Gyles was one of the inhabitants.
[14] Thury, Relation du Combat des Canibas. Compare Hutchinson, Hist.
Mass., I. 352, and Mather, Magnalia, II. 590 (ed. 1853). The murder of
prisoners after the capitulation has been denied. Thury incidentally
confirms the statement, when, after saying that he exhorted the Indians
to refrain from drunkenness and cruelty, he adds that, in consequence,
they did not take a single scalp, and "tuèrent sur le champ ceux qu'ils
voulurent tuer."
English accounts place the number of Indians at from two to three
hundred. Besides the persons taken in the fort, a considerable number
were previously killed, or captured in the houses and fields. Those who
were spared were carried to the Indian towns on the Penobscot, the seat
of Thury's mission. La Motte-Cadillac, in his Mémoire sur l'Acadie,
1692, says that 80 persons in all were killed; an evident exaggeration.
He adds that Weems and six men were spared at the request of the chief,
Madockawando. The taking of Pemaquid is remarkable as one of the very
rare instances in which Indians have captured a fortified place
otherwise than by treachery or surprise. The exploit was undoubtedly due
to French prompting. We shall see hereafter with what energy and success
Thury incited his flock to war.
The war now ran like wildfire through the settlements of Maine and New
Hampshire. Sixteen fortified houses, with or without defenders, are said
to have fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the extensive district
then called the county of Cornwall was turned to desolation.
Massachusetts and Plymouth sent hasty levies of raw men, ill-armed and
ill-officered, to the scene of action. At Casco Bay, they met a large
body of Indians, whom they routed after a desultory fight of six hours;
and then, as the approaching winter seemed to promise a respite from
attack, most of them were withdrawn and disbanded.
It was a false and fatal security. Through snow and ice and storm,
Hertel and his band were moving on their prey. On the night of the
twenty-seventh of March, they lay hidden in the forest that bordered the
farms and clearings of Salmon Falls. Their scouts reconnoitred the
place, and found a fortified house with two stockade forts, built as a
refuge for the settlers in case of alarm. Towards daybreak, Hertel,
dividing his followers into three parties, made a sudden and
simultaneous attack. The settlers, unconscious of danger, were in their
beds. No watch was kept even in the so-called forts; and, when the
French and Indians burst in, there was no time for their few tenants to
gather for defence. The surprise was complete; and, after a short
struggle, the assailants were successful at every point. They next
turned upon the scattered farms of the neighborhood, burned houses,
barns, and cattle, and laid the entire settlement in ashes. About thirty
persons of both sexes and all ages were tomahawked or shot; and
fifty-four, chiefly women and children, were made prisoners. Two Indian
scouts now brought word that a party of English was advancing to the
scene of havoc from Piscataqua, or Portsmouth, not many miles distant.
Hertel called his men together, and began his retreat. The pursuers, a
hundred and forty in number, overtook him about sunset at Wooster River,
where the swollen stream was crossed by a narrow bridge. Hertel and his
followers made a stand on the farther bank, killed and wounded a number
of the English as they attempted to cross, kept up a brisk fire on the
rest, held them in check till night, and then continued their retreat.
The prisoners, or some of them, were given to the Indians, who tortured
one or more of the men, and killed and tormented children and infants
with a cruelty not always equalled by their heathen countrymen. [15]
[15] The archives of Massachusetts contain various papers on the
disaster at Salmon Falls. Among them is the report of the authorities of
Portsmouth to the governor and council at Boston, giving many
particulars, and asking aid. They estimate the killed and captured at
upwards of eighty, of whom about one fourth were men. They say that
about twenty houses were burnt, and mention but one fort. The other,
mentioned in the French accounts, was, probably a palisaded house.
Speaking of the combat at the bridge, they say, "We fought as long as we
could distinguish friend from foe. We lost two killed and six or seven
wounded, one mortally." The French accounts say fourteen. This letter is
accompanied by the examination of a French prisoner, taken the same day.
Compare Mather, Magnalia, II. 595; Belknap, Hist. New Hampshire, I. 207;
Journal of Rev. John Pike (Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soc. 1875); and
the French accounts of Monseignat and La Potherie. Charlevoix adds
various embellishments, not to be found in the original sources. Later
writers copy and improve upon him, until Hertel is pictured as charging
the pursuers sword in hand, while the English fly in disorder before
him.
Hertel continued his retreat to one of the Abenaki villages on the
Kennebec. Here he learned that a band of French and Indians had lately
passed southward on their way to attack the English fort at Casco Bay,
on the site of Portland. Leaving at the village his eldest son, who had
been badly wounded at Wooster River, he set out to join them with
thirty-six of his followers. The band in question was Frontenac's third
war-party. It consisted of fifty French and sixty Abenakis from the
mission of St. Francis; and it had left Quebec in January, under a
Canadian officer named Portneuf and his lieutenant, Courtemanche. They
advanced at their leisure, often stopping to hunt, till in May they were
joined on the Kennebec by a large body of Indian warriors. On the
twenty-fifth, Portneuf encamped in the forest near the English forts,
with a force which, including Hertel's party, the Indians of the
Kennebec, and another band led by Saint-Castin from the Penobscot,
amounted to between four and five hundred men. [16]
[16] Declaration of Sylvanus Davis; Mather, Magnalia, II. 603.
Fort Loyal was a palisade work with eight cannon, standing on rising
ground by the shore of the bay, at what is now the foot of India Street
in the city of Portland. Not far distant were four blockhouses and a
village which they were designed to protect. These with the fort were
occupied by about a hundred men, chiefly settlers of the neighborhood,
under Captain Sylvanus Davis, a prominent trader. Around lay rough and
broken fields stretching to the skirts of the forest half a mile
distant. Some of Portneuf's scouts met a straggling Scotchman, and could
not resist the temptation of killing him. Their scalp-yells alarmed the
garrison, and thus the advantage of surprise was lost. Davis resolved to
keep his men within their defences, and to stand on his guard; but there
was little or no discipline in the yeoman garrison, and thirty young
volunteers under Lieutenant Thaddeus Clark sallied out to find the
enemy. They were too successful; for, as they approached the top of a
hill near the woods, they observed a number of cattle staring with a
scared look at some object on the farther side of a fence; and, rightly
judging that those they sought were hidden there, they raised a cheer,
and ran to the spot. They were met by a fire so close and deadly that
half their number were shot down. A crowd of Indians leaped the fence
and rushed upon the survivors, who ran for the fort; but only four, all
of whom were wounded, succeeded in reaching it. [17]
[17] Relation de Monseignat; La Potherie, III. 79.
The men in the blockhouses withdrew under cover of night to Fort Loyal,
where the whole force of the English was now gathered along with their
frightened families. Portneuf determined to besiege the place in form;
and, after burning the village, and collecting tools from the abandoned
blockhouses, he opened his trenches in a deep gully within fifty yards
of the fort, where his men were completely protected. They worked so
well that in three days they had wormed their way close to the palisade;
and, covered as they were in their burrows, they lost scarcely a man,
while their enemies suffered severely. They now summoned the fort to
surrender. Davis asked for a delay of six days, which was refused; and
in the morning the fight began again. For a time the fire was sharp and
heavy. The English wasted much powder in vain efforts to dislodge the
besiegers from their trenches; till at length, seeing a machine loaded
with a tar-barrel and other combustibles shoved against their palisades,
they asked for a parley. Up to this time, Davis had supposed that his
assailants were all Indians, the French being probably dressed and
painted like their red allies. "We demanded," he says, "if there were
any French among them, and if they would give us quarter. They answered
that they were Frenchmen, and that they would give us good quarter. Upon
this, we sent out to them again to know from whence they came, and if
they would give us good quarter for our men, women, and children, both
wounded and sound, and (to demand) that we should have liberty to march
to the next English town, and have a guard for our defence and safety;
then we would surrender; and also that the governour of the French
should hold up his hand and swear by the great and ever living God that
the several articles should be performed: all which he did solemnly
swear."
The survivors of the garrison now filed through the gate, and laid down
their arms. They with their women and children were thereupon abandoned
to the Indians, who murdered many of them, and carried off the rest.
When Davis protested against this breach of faith, he was told that he
and his countrymen were rebels against their lawful king, James II.
After spiking the cannon, burning the fort, and destroying all the
neighboring settlements, the triumphant allies departed for their
respective homes, leaving the slain unburied where they had fallen. [18]
[18] Their remains were buried by Captain Church, three years later.
On the capture of Fort Loyal, compare Monseignat and La Potherie with
Mather, Magnalia, II. 603, and the Declaration of Sylvanus Davis, in 3
Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 101. Davis makes curious mistakes in regard to
French names, his rustic ear not being accustomed to the accents of the
Gallic tongue. He calls Courtemanche, Monsieur Corte de March, and
Portneuf, Monsieur Burniffe or Burneffe. To these contemporary
authorities may be added the account given by Le Clercq, Établissement
de la Foy, II. 393, and a letter from Governor Bradstreet of
Massachusetts to Jacob Leisler in Doc. Hist. N. Y., II. 259. The French
writers of course say nothing of any violation of faith on the part of
the victors, but they admit that the Indians kept most of the prisoners.
Scarcely was the fort taken, when four English vessels appeared in the
harbor, too late to save it. Willis, in his History of Portland (ed.
1865), gives a map of Fort Loyal and the neighboring country. In the
Massachusetts archives is a letter from Davis, written a few days before
the attack, complaining that his fort is in wretched condition.
Davis with three or four others, more fortunate than their companions,
was kept by the French, and carried to Canada. "They were kind to me,"
he says, "on my travels through the country. I arrived at Quebeck the
14th of June, where I was civilly treated by the gentry, and soon
carried to the fort before the governour, the Earl of Frontenack."
Frontenac told him that the governor and people of New York were the
cause of the war, since they had stirred up the Iroquois against Canada,
and prompted them to torture French prisoners. [19] Davis replied that
New York and New England were distinct and separate governments, each of
which must answer for its own deeds; and that New England would gladly
have remained at peace with the French, if they had not set on the
Indians to attack her peaceful settlers. Frontenac admitted that the
people of New England were not to be regarded in the same light with
those who had stirred up the Indians against Canada; but he added that
they were all rebels to their king, and that if they had been good
subjects there would have been no war. "I do believe," observes the
captive Puritan, "that there was a popish design against the Protestant
interest in New England as in other parts of the world." He told
Frontenac of the pledge given by his conqueror, and the violation of it.
"We were promised good quarter," he reports himself to have said, "and a
guard to conduct us to our English; but now we are made captives and
slaves in the hands of the heathen. I thought I had to do with
Christians that would have been careful of their engagements, and not to
violate and break their oaths. Whereupon the governour shaked his head,
and, as I was told, was very angry with Burniffe (Portneuf)."
[19] I am unable to discover the foundation of this last charge.
Frontenac was pleased with his prisoner, whom he calls a bonhomme. He
told him in broken English to take courage, and promised him good
treatment; to which Davis replied that his chief concern was not for
himself, but for the captives in the hands of the Indians. Some of these
were afterwards ransomed by the French, and treated with much kindness,
as was also Davis himself, to whom the count gave lodging in the
château.
The triumphant success of his three war-parties produced on the Canadian
people all the effect that Frontenac had expected. This effect was very
apparent, even before the last two victories had become known. "You
cannot believe, Monseigneur," wrote the governor, speaking of the
capture of Schenectady, "the joy that this slight success has caused,
and how much it contributes to raise the people from their dejection and
terror."
One untoward accident damped the general joy for a moment. A party of
Iroquois Christians from the Saut St. Louis had made a raid against the
English borders, and were returning with prisoners. One evening, as they
were praying at their camp near Lake Champlain, they were discovered by
a band of Algonquins and Abenakis who were out on a similar errand, and
who, mistaking them for enemies, set upon them and killed several of
their number, among whom was Kryn, the great Mohawk, chief of the
mission of the Saut. This mishap was near causing a rupture between the
best Indian allies of the colony; but the difference was at length
happily adjusted, and the relatives of the slain propitiated by gifts.
[20]
[20] The attacking party consisted of some of the Abenakis and
Algonquins who had been with Hertel, and who had left the main body
after the destruction of Salmon Falls. Several of them were killed in
the skirmish, and among the rest their chief, Hopehood, or Wohawa, "that
memorable tygre," as Cotton Mather calls him.