1690-1694.
The War in Acadia.
State of that Colony • The Abenakis • Acadia and New England • Pirates
• Baron de Saint-Castin • Pentegoet • The English Frontier • The French
and the Abenakis • Plan of the War • Capture of York • Villebon • Grand
War-party • Attack of Wells • Pemaquid rebuilt • John Nelson • A Broken
Treaty • Villieu and Thury • Another War-party • Massacre at Oyster
River.
Amid domestic strife, the war with England and the Iroquois still went
on. The contest for territorial mastery was fourfold: first, for the
control of the west; secondly, for that of Hudson's Bay; thirdly, for
that of Newfoundland; and, lastly, for that of Acadia. All these vast and
widely sundered regions were included in the government of Frontenac.
Each division of the war was distinct from the rest, and each had a
character of its own. As the contest for the west was wholly with New
York and her Iroquois allies, so the contest for Acadia was wholly with
the "Bostonnais," or people of New England.
Acadia, as the French at this time understood the name, included Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and the greater part of Maine. Sometimes they
placed its western boundary at the little River St. George, and sometimes
at the Kennebec. Since the wars of D'Aulnay and La Tour, this wilderness
had been a scene of unceasing strife; for the English drew their eastern
boundary at the St. Croix, and the claims of the rival nationalities
overlapped each other. In the time of Cromwell, Sedgwick, a New England
officer, had seized the whole country. The peace of Breda restored it to
France: the Chevalier de Grandfontaine was ordered to reoccupy it, and
the king sent out a few soldiers, a few settlers, and a few women as
their wives. [1] Grandfontaine held the nominal command for a time,
followed by a succession of military chiefs, Chambly, Marson, and La
Vallière. Then Perrot, whose malpractices had cost him the government of
Montreal, was made governor of Acadia; and, as he did not mend his ways,
he was replaced by Meneval. [2]
[1] In 1671, 30 garçons and 30 filles were sent by the king to Acadia, at
the cost of 6,000 livres. État. de Dépenses, 1671.
[2] Grandfontaine, 1670; Chambly, 1673; Marson, 1678; La Vallière, the
same year, Marson having died; Perrot, 1684; Meneval, 1687. The last
three were commissioned as local governors, in subordination to the
governor-general. The others were merely military commandants.
One might have sailed for days along these lonely coasts, and seen no
human form. At Canseau, or Chedabucto, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia,
there was a fishing station and a fort; Chibuctou, now Halifax, was a
solitude; at La Hêve there were a few fishermen; and thence, as you
doubled the rocks of Cape Sable, the ancient haunt of La Tour, you would
have seen four French settlers, and an unlimited number of seals and
seafowl. Ranging the shore by St. Mary's Bay, and entering the Strait of
Annapolis Basin, you would have found the fort of Port Royal, the chief
place of all Acadia. It stood at the head of the basin, where De Monts
had planted his settlement nearly a century before. Around the fort and
along the neighboring river were about ninety-five small houses; and at
the head of the Bay of Fundy were two other settlements, Beaubassin and
Les Mines, comparatively stable and populous. At the mouth of the St.
John were the abandoned ruins of La Tour's old fort; and on a spot less
exposed, at some distance up the river, stood the small wooden fort of
Jemsec, with a few intervening clearings. Still sailing westward, passing
Mount Desert, another scene of ancient settlement, and entering Penobscot
Bay, you would have found the Baron de Saint-Castin with his Indian harem
at Pentegoet, where the town of Castine now stands. All Acadia was
comprised in these various stations, more or less permanent, together
with one or two small posts on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the huts of
an errant population of fishermen and fur traders. In the time of
Denonville, the colonists numbered less than a thousand souls. The king,
busied with nursing Canada, had neglected its less important dependency.
[3]
[3] The census taken by order of Meules in 1686 gives a total of 885
persons, of whom 592 were at Port Royal, and 127 at Beaubassin. By the
census of 1693, the number had reached 1,009.
Rude as it was, Acadia had charms, and it has them still: in its
wilderness of woods and its wilderness of waves; the rocky ramparts that
guard its coasts; its deep, still bays and foaming headlands; the
towering cliffs of the Grand Menan; the innumerable islands that cluster
about Penobscot Bay; and the romantic highlands of Mount Desert, down
whose gorges the sea-fog rolls like an invading host, while the spires of
fir-trees pierce the surging vapors like lances in the smoke of battle.
Leaving Pentegoet, and sailing westward all day along a solitude of
woods, one might reach the English outpost of Pemaquid, and thence, still
sailing on, might anchor at evening off Casco Bay, and see in the glowing
west the distant peaks of the White Mountains, spectral and dim amid the
weird and fiery sunset.
Inland Acadia was all forest, and vast tracts of it are a primeval forest
still. Here roamed the Abenakis with their kindred tribes, a race wild as
their haunts. In habits they were all much alike. Their villages were on
the waters of the Androscoggin, the Saco, the Kennebec, the Penobscot,
the St. Croix, and the St. John; here in spring they planted their corn,
beans, and pumpkins, and then, leaving them to grow, went down to the sea
in their birch canoes. They returned towards the end of summer, gathered
their harvest, and went again to the sea, where they lived in abundance
on ducks, geese, and other water-fowl. During winter, most of the women,
children, and old men remained in the villages; while the hunters ranged
the forest in chase of moose, deer, caribou, beavers, and bears.
Their summer stay at the seashore was perhaps the most pleasant, and
certainly the most picturesque, part of their lives. Bivouacked by some
of the innumerable coves and inlets that indent these coasts, they passed
their days in that alternation of indolence and action which is a second
nature to the Indian. Here in wet weather, while the torpid water was
dimpled with rain-drops, and the upturned canoes lay idle on the pebbles,
the listless warrior smoked his pipe under his roof of bark, or launched
his slender craft at the dawn of the July day, when shores and islands
were painted in shadow against the rosy east, and forests, dusky and
cool, lay waiting for the sunrise.
The women gathered raspberries or whortleberries in the open places of
the woods, or clams and oysters in the sands and shallows, adding their
shells as a contribution to the shell-heaps that have accumulated for
ages along these shores. The men fished, speared porpoises, or shot
seals. A priest was often in the camp watching over his flock, and saying
mass every day in a chapel of bark. There was no lack of altar candles,
made by mixing tallow with the wax of the bayberry, which abounded among
the rocky hills, and was gathered in profusion by the squaws and
children.
The Abenaki missions were a complete success. Not only those of the tribe
who had been induced to migrate to the mission villages of Canada, but
also those who remained in their native woods, were, or were soon to
become, converts to Romanism, and therefore allies of France. Though less
ferocious than the Iroquois, they were brave, after the Indian manner,
and they rarely or never practised cannibalism.
Some of the French were as lawless as their Indian friends. Nothing is
more strange than the incongruous mixture of the forms of feudalism with
the independence of the Acadian woods. Vast grants of land were made to
various persons, some of whom are charged with using them for no other
purpose than roaming over their domains with Indian women. The only
settled agricultural population was at Port Royal, Beaubassin, and the
Basin of Minas. The rest were fishermen, fur traders, or rovers of the
forest. Repeated orders came from the court to open a communication with
Quebec, and even to establish a line of military posts through the
intervening wilderness, but the distance and the natural difficulties of
the country proved insurmountable obstacles. If communication with Quebec
was difficult, that with Boston was easy; and thus Acadia became largely
dependent on its New England neighbors, who, says an Acadian officer,
"are mostly fugitives from England, guilty of the death of their late
king, and accused of conspiracy against their present sovereign; others
of them are pirates, and they are all united in a sort of independent
republic." [4] Their relations with the Acadians were of a mixed sort.
They continually encroached on Acadian fishing grounds, and we hear at
one time of a hundred of their vessels thus engaged. This was not all.
The interlopers often landed and traded with the Indians along the coast.
Meneval, the governor, complained bitterly of their arrogance. Sometimes,
it is said, they pretended to be foreign pirates, and plundered vessels
and settlements, while the aggrieved parties could get no redress at
Boston. They also carried on a regular trade at Port Royal and Les Mines
or Grand Pré, where many of the inhabitants regarded them with a degree
of favor which gave great umbrage to the military authorities, who,
nevertheless, are themselves accused of seeking their own profit by
dealings with the heretics; and even French priests, including Petit, the
curé of Port Royal, are charged with carrying on this illicit trade in
their own behalf, and in that of the seminary of Quebec. The settlers
caught from the "Bostonnais" what their governor stigmatizes as English
and parliamentary ideas, the chief effect of which was to make them
restive under his rule. The Church, moreover, was less successful in
excluding heresy from Acadia than from Canada. A number of Huguenots
established themselves at Port Royal, and formed sympathetic relations
with the Boston Puritans. The bishop at Quebec was much alarmed. "This is
dangerous," he writes. "I pray your Majesty to put an end to these
disorders." [5]
[4] Mémoire du Sieur Bergier, 1685.
[5] L'Évêque au Roy, 10 Nov., 1683. For the preceding pages, the
authorities are chiefly the correspondence of Grandfontaine, Marson, La
Vallière, Meneval, Bergier, Goutins, Perrot, Talon, Frontenac, and other
officials. A large collection of Acadian documents, from the archives of
Paris, is in my possession. I have also examined the Acadian collections
made for the government of Canada and for that of Massachusetts.
A sort of chronic warfare of aggression and reprisal, closely akin to
piracy, was carried on at intervals in Acadian waters by French private
armed vessels on one hand, and New England private armed vessels on the
other. Genuine pirates also frequently appeared. They were of various
nationality, though usually buccaneers from the West Indies. They preyed
on New England trading and fishing craft, and sometimes attacked French
settlements. One of their most notorious exploits was the capture of two
French vessels and a French fort at Chedabucto by a pirate, manned in
part, it is said, from Massachusetts. [6] A similar proceeding of earlier
date was the act of Dutchmen from St. Domingo. They made a descent on the
French fort of Pentegoet, on Penobscot Bay. Chambly, then commanding for
the king in Acadia, was in the place. They assaulted his works, wounded
him, took him prisoner, and carried him to Boston, where they held him at
ransom. His young ensign escaped into the woods, and carried the news to
Canada; but many months elapsed before Chambly was released. [7]
[6] Meneval, Mémoire, 1688; Denonville, Mémoire, 18 Oct., 1688;
Procès-verbal du Pillage de Chedabucto; Relation de la Boullaye, 1688.
[7] Frontenac au Ministre, 14 Nov., 1674; Frontenac à Leverett,
gouverneur de Baston, 24 Sept., 1674; Frontenac to the Governor and
Council of Massachusetts, 25 May, 1675 (see 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 64);
Colbert à Frontenac, 15 May, 1675. Frontenac supposed the assailants to
be buccaneers. They had, however, a commission from William of Orange.
Hutchinson says that the Dutch again took Pentegoet in 1676, but were
driven off by ships from Boston, as the English claimed the place for
themselves.
This young ensign was Jean Vincent de l'Abadie, Baron de Saint-Castin, a
native of Béarn, on the slopes of the Pyrenees, the same rough, strong
soil that gave to France her Henri IV. When fifteen years of age, he came
to Canada with the regiment of Carignan-Salières, ensign in the company
of Chambly; and, when the regiment was disbanded, he followed his natural
bent, and betook himself to the Acadian woods. At this time there was a
square bastioned fort at Pentegoet, mounted with twelve small cannon; but
after the Dutch attack it fell into decay. [8] Saint-Castin, meanwhile,
roamed the woods with the Indians, lived like them, formed connections
more or less permanent with their women, became himself a chief, and
gained such ascendency over his red associates that, according to La
Hontan, they looked upon him as their tutelary god. He was bold, hardy,
adroit, tenacious; and, in spite of his erratic habits, had such capacity
for business, that, if we may believe the same somewhat doubtful
authority, he made a fortune of three or four hundred thousand crowns.
His gains came chiefly through his neighbors of New England, whom he
hated, but to whom he sold his beaver skins at an ample profit. His
trading house was at Pentegoet, now called Castine, in or near the old
fort; a perilous spot, which he occupied or abandoned by turns, according
to the needs of the time. Being a devout Catholic he wished to add a
resident priest to his establishment for the conversion of his Indian
friends; but, observes Father Petit of Port Royal, who knew him well, "he
himself has need of spiritual aid to sustain him in the paths of virtue."
[9] He usually made two visits a year to Port Royal, where he gave
liberal gifts to the church of which he was the chief patron, attended
mass with exemplary devotion, and then, shriven of his sins, returned to
his squaws at Pentegoet. Perrot, the governor, maligned him; the motive,
as Saint-Castin says, being jealousy of his success in trade, for Perrot
himself traded largely with the English and the Indians. This, indeed,
seems to have been his chief occupation; and, as Saint-Castin was his
principal rival, they were never on good terms. Saint-Castin complained
to Denonville. "Monsieur Petit," he writes, "will tell you every thing. I
will only say that he (Perrot) kept me under arrest from the twenty-first
of April to the ninth of June, on pretence of a little weakness I had for
some women, and even told me that he had your orders to do it: but that
is not what troubles him; and as I do not believe there is another man
under heaven who will do meaner things through love of gain, even to
selling brandy by the pint and half-pint before strangers in his own
house, because he does not trust a single one of his servants,--I see
plainly what is the matter with him. He wants to be the only merchant in
Acadia." [10]
[8] On its condition in 1670, Estat du Fort et Place de Pentegoet fait en
l'année 1670, lorsque les Anglois l'ont rendu. In 1671, fourteen soldiers
and eight laborers were settled near the fort. Talon au Ministre, 2 Nov.,
1671. In the next year, Talon recommends an envoi de filles for the
benefit of Pentegoet. Mémoire sur le Canada, 1672. As late as 1698, we
find Acadian officials advising the reconstruction of the fort.
[9] Petit in Saint-Vallier, Estat de l'Église, 39 (1856).
[10] Saint-Castin à Denonville, 2 Juiliet, 1687.
Perrot was recalled this very year; and his successor, Meneval, received
instructions in regard to Saint-Castin, which show that the king or his
minister had a clear idea both of the baron's merits and of his failings.
The new governor was ordered to require him to abandon "his vagabond life
among the Indians," cease all trade with the English, and establish a
permanent settlement. Meneval was farther directed to assure him that, if
he conformed to the royal will, and led a life "more becoming a
gentleman," he might expect to receive proofs of his Majesty's approval.
[11]
[11] Instruction du Roy au Sieur de Meneval, 5 Avril, 1687.
In the next year, Meneval reported that he had represented to
Saint-Castin the necessity of reform, and that in consequence he had
abandoned his trade with the English, given up his squaws, married, and
promised to try to make a solid settlement. [12] True he had reformed
before, and might need to reform again; but his faults were not of the
baser sort: he held his honor high, and was free-handed as he was bold.
His wife was what the early chroniclers would call an Indian princess;
for she was the daughter of Madockawando, chief of the Penobscots.
[12] Mémoire du Sieur de Meneval sur l'Acadie, 10 Sept., 1688.
So critical was the position of his post at Pentegoet that a strong fort
and a sufficient garrison could alone hope to maintain it against the
pirates and the "Bostonnais." Its vicissitudes had been many. Standing on
ground claimed by the English, within territory which had been granted to
the Duke of York, and which, on his accession to the throne, became a
part of the royal domain, it was never safe from attack. In 1686, it was
plundered by an agent of Dongan. In 1687, it was plundered again; and in
the next year Andros, then royal governor, anchored before it in his
frigate, the "Rose," landed with his attendants, and stripped the
building of all it contained, except a small altar with pictures and
ornaments, which they found in the principal room. Saint-Castin escaped
to the woods; and Andros sent him word by an Indian that his property
would be carried to Pemaquid, and that he could have it again by becoming
a British subject. He refused the offer. [13]
[13] Mémoire présenté au Roy d'Angleterre, 1687; Saint-Castin à
Denonville, 7 Juillet, 1687; Hutchinson Collection, 562, 563; Andros
Tracts, I. 118.
The rival English post of Pemaquid was destroyed, as we have seen, by the
Abenakis in 1689; and, in the following year, they and their French
allies had made such havoc among the border settlements that nothing was
left east of the Piscataqua except the villages of Wells, York, and
Kittery. But a change had taken place in the temper of the savages,
mainly due to the easy conquest of Port Royal by Phips, and to an
expedition of the noted partisan Church by which they had suffered
considerable losses. Fear of the English on one hand, and the attraction
of their trade on the other, disposed many of them to peace. Six chiefs
signed a truce with the commissioners of Massachusetts, and promised to
meet them in council to bury the hatchet for ever.
The French were filled with alarm. Peace between the Abenakis and the
"Bostonnais" would be disastrous both to Acadia and to Canada, because
these tribes held the passes through the northern wilderness, and, so
long as they were in the interest of France, covered the settlements on
the St. Lawrence from attack. Moreover, the government relied on them to
fight its battles. Therefore, no pains were spared to break off their
incipient treaty with the English, and spur them again to war. Villebon,
a Canadian of good birth, one of the brothers of Portneuf, was sent by
the king to govern Acadia. Presents for the Abenakis were given him in
abundance; and he was ordered to assure them of support, so long as they
fought for France. [14] He and his officers were told to join their
war-parties; while the Canadians, who followed him to Acadia, were
required to leave all other employments and wage incessant war against
the English borders. "You yourself," says the minister, "will herein set
them so good an example, that they will be animated by no other desire
than that of making profit out of the enemy: there is nothing which I
more strongly urge upon you than to put forth all your ability and
prudence to prevent the Abenakis from occupying themselves in any thing
but war, and by good management of the supplies which you have received
for their use to enable them to live by it more to their advantage than
by hunting." [15]
[14] Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sieur de Villebon, 1691.
[15] "Comme vostre principal objet doit estre de faire la guerre sans
relâche aux Anglois, il faut que vostre plus particulière application
soit de detourner de tout autre employ les François qui sont avec vous,
en leur donnant de vostre part un si bon exemple en cela qu'ils ne soient
animez que du désir de chercher à faire du proffit sur les ennemis. Je
n'ay aussy rien à vous recommander plus fortement que de mettre en usage
tout ce que vous pouvez avoir de capacité et de prudence afin que les
Canibas (Abenakis) ne s'employent qu'à la guerre, et que par l'économie
de ce que vous avez à leur fournir ils y puissent trouver leur
subsistance et plus d'avantage qu'à la chasse." Le Ministre à Villebon,
Avril, 1692. Two years before, the king had ordered that the Abenakis
should be made to attack the English settlements.
Armed with these instructions, Villebon repaired to his post, where he
was joined by a body of Canadians under Portneuf. His first step was to
reoccupy Port Royal; and, as there was nobody there to oppose him, he
easily succeeded. The settlers renounced allegiance to Massachusetts and
King William, and swore fidelity to their natural sovereign. [16] The
capital of Acadia dropped back quietly into the lap of France; but, as
the "Bostonnais" might recapture it at any time, Villebon crossed to the
St. John, and built a fort high up the stream at Naxouat, opposite the
present city of Fredericton. Here no "Bostonnais" could reach him, and he
could muster war-parties at his leisure.
[16] Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession du Port Royal, 27 Sept.,
1691.
One thing was indispensable. A blow must be struck that would encourage
and excite the Abenakis. Some of them had had no part in the truce, and
were still so keen for English blood that a deputation of their chiefs
told Frontenac at Quebec that they would fight, even if they must head
their arrows with the bones of beasts. [17] They were under no such
necessity. Guns, powder, and lead were given them in abundance; and
Thury, the priest on the Penobscot, urged them to strike the English. A
hundred and fifty of his converts took the war-path, and were joined by a
band from the Kennebec. It was January; and they made their way on
snow-shoes along the frozen streams, and through the deathly solitudes of
the winter forest, till, after marching a month, they neared their
destination, the frontier settlement of York. In the afternoon of the
fourth of February, they encamped at the foot of a high hill, evidently
Mount Agamenticus, from the top of which the English village lay in
sight. It was a collection of scattered houses along the banks of the
river Agamenticus and the shore of the adjacent sea. Five or more of them
were built for defence, though owned and occupied by families like the
other houses. Near the sea stood the unprotected house of the chief man
of the place, Dummer, the minister. York appears to have contained from
three to four hundred persons of all ages, for the most part rude and
ignorant borderers.
[17] Paroles des Sauvages de la Mission de Pentegoet.
The warriors lay shivering all night in the forest, not daring to make
fires. In the morning, a heavy fall of snow began. They moved forward,
and soon heard the sound of an axe. It was an English boy chopping wood.
They caught him, extorted such information as they needed, then
tomahawked him, and moved on, till, hidden by the forest and the thick
snow, they reached the outskirts of the village. Here they divided into
two parties, and each took its station. A gun was fired as a signal, upon
which they all yelled the war-whoop, and dashed upon their prey. One
party mastered the nearest fortified house, which had scarcely a defender
but women. The rest burst into the unprotected houses, killing or
capturing the astonished inmates. The minister was at his door, in the
act of mounting his horse to visit some distant parishioners, when a
bullet struck him dead. He was a graduate of Harvard College, a man
advanced in life, of some learning, and greatly respected. The French
accounts say that about a hundred persons, including women and children,
were killed, and about eighty captured. Those who could, ran for the
fortified houses of Preble, Harmon, Alcock, and Norton, which were soon
filled with the refugees. The Indians did not attack them, but kept well
out of gun-shot, and busied themselves in pillaging, killing horses and
cattle, and burning the unprotected houses. They then divided themselves
into small bands, and destroyed all the outlying farms for four or five
miles around.
The wish of King Louis was fulfilled. A good profit had been made out of
the enemy. The victors withdrew into the forest with their plunder and
their prisoners, among whom were several old women and a number of
children from three to seven years old. These, with a forbearance which
does them credit, they permitted to return uninjured to the nearest
fortified house, in requital, it is said, for the lives of a number of
Indian children spared by the English in a recent attack on the
Androscoggin. The wife of the minister was allowed to go with them; but
her son remained a prisoner, and the agonized mother went back to the
Indian camp to beg for his release. They again permitted her to return;
but, when she came a second time, they told her that, as she wanted to be
a prisoner, she should have her wish. She was carried with the rest to
their village, where she soon died of exhaustion and distress. One of the
warriors arrayed himself in the gown of the slain minister, and preached
a mock sermon to the captive parishioners. [18]
[18] The best French account of the capture of York is that of Champigny
in a letter to the minister, 5 Oct., 1692. His information came from an
Abenaki chief, who was present. The journal of Villebon contains an
exaggerated account of the affair, also derived from Indians. Compare the
English accounts in Mather, Williamson, and Niles. These writers make the
number of slain and captives much less than that given by the French. In
the contemporary journal of Rev. John Pike, it is placed at 48 killed and
73 taken.
Two fortified houses of this period are still (1875) standing at York.
They are substantial buildings of squared timber, with the upper story
projecting over the lower, so as to allow a vertical fire on the heads of
assailants. In one of them some of the loopholes for musketry are still
left open. They may or may not have been originally enclosed by
palisades.
Leaving York in ashes, the victors began their march homeward; while a
body of men from Portsmouth followed on their trail, but soon lost it,
and failed to overtake them. There was a season of feasting and
scalp-dancing at the Abenaki towns; and then, as spring opened, a hundred
of the warriors set out to visit Villebon, tell him of their triumph, and
receive the promised gifts from their great father the king. Villebon and
his brothers, Portneuf, Neuvillette, and Desîles, with their Canadian
followers, had spent the winter chiefly on the St. John, finishing their
fort at Naxouat, and preparing for future operations. The Abenaki
visitors arrived towards the end of April, and were received with all
possible distinction. There were speeches, gifts, and feasting; for they
had done much, and were expected to do more. Portneuf sang a war-song in
their language; then he opened a barrel of wine: the guests emptied it in
less than fifteen minutes, sang, whooped, danced, and promised to repair
to the rendezvous at Saint-Castin's station of Pentegoet. [19] A grand
war-party was afoot; and a new and withering blow was to be struck
against the English border. The guests set out for Pentegoet, followed by
Portneuf, Desîles, La Brognerie, several other officers, and twenty
Canadians. A few days after, a large band of Micmacs arrived; then came
the Malicite warriors from their village of Medoctec; and at last Father
Baudoin appeared, leading another band of Micmacs from his mission of
Beaubassin. Speeches, feasts, and gifts were made to them all; and they
all followed the rest to the appointed rendezvous.
[19] Villebon, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à l'Acadie, 1691, 1692.
At the beginning of June, the site of the town of Castine was covered
with wigwams and the beach lined with canoes. Malecites and Micmacs,
Abenakis from the Penobscot and Abenakis from the Kennebec, were here,
some four hundred warriors in all. [20] Here, too, were Portneuf and his
Canadians, the Baron de Saint-Castin and his Indian father-in-law,
Madockawando, with Moxus, Egeremet, and other noted chiefs, the terror of
the English borders. They crossed Penobscot Bay, and marched upon the
frontier village of Wells.
[20] Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Sept., 1692.
Wells, like York, was a small settlement of scattered houses along the
sea-shore. The year before, Moxus had vainly attacked it with two hundred
warriors. All the neighboring country had been laid waste by a murderous
war of detail, the lonely farm-houses pillaged and burned, and the
survivors driven back for refuge to the older settlements. [21] Wells had
been crowded with these refugees; but famine and misery had driven most
of them beyond the Piscataqua, and the place was now occupied by a
remnant of its own destitute inhabitants, who, warned by the fate of
York, had taken refuge in five fortified houses. The largest of these,
belonging to Joseph Storer, was surrounded by a palisade, and occupied by
fifteen armed men, under Captain Convers, an officer of militia. On the
ninth of June, two sloops and a sail-boat ran up the neighboring creek,
bringing supplies and fourteen more men. The succor came in the nick of
time. The sloops had scarcely anchored, when a number of cattle were seen
running frightened and wounded from the woods. It was plain that an enemy
was lurking there. All the families of the place now gathered within the
palisades of Storer's house, thus increasing his force to about thirty
men; and a close watch was kept throughout the night.
[21] The ravages committed by the Abenakis in the preceding year among
the scattered farms of Maine and New Hampshire are said by Frontenac to
have been "impossible to describe." Another French writer says that they
burned more than 200 houses.
In the morning, no room was left for doubt. One John Diamond, on his way
from the house to the sloops, was seized by Indians and dragged off by
the hair. Then the whole body of savages appeared swarming over the
fields, so confident of success that they neglected their usual tactics
of surprise. A French officer, who, as an old English account says, was
"habited like a gentleman," made them an harangue: they answered with a
burst of yells, and then attacked the house, firing, screeching, and
calling on Convers and his men to surrender. Others gave their attention
to the two sloops, which lay together in the narrow creek, stranded by
the ebbing tide. They fired at them for a while from behind a pile of
planks on the shore, and threw many fire-arrows without success, the men
on board fighting with such cool and dexterous obstinacy that they held
them all at bay, and lost but one of their own number. Next, the
Canadians made a huge shield of planks, which they fastened vertically to
the back of a cart. La Brognerie with twenty-six men, French and Indians,
got behind it, and shoved the cart towards the stranded sloops. It was
within fifty feet of them, when a wheel sunk in the mud, and the machine
stuck fast. La Brognerie tried to lift the wheel, and was shot dead. The
tide began to rise. A Canadian tried to escape, and was also shot. The
rest then broke away together, some of them, as they ran, dropping under
the bullets of the sailors.
The whole force now gathered for a final attack on the garrison house.
Their appearance was so frightful, and their clamor so appalling, that
one of the English muttered something about surrender. Convers returned,
"If you say that again, you are a dead man." Had the allies made a bold
assault, he and his followers must have been overpowered; but this mode
of attack was contrary to Indian maxims. They merely leaped, yelled,
fired, and called on the English to yield. They were answered with
derision. The women in the house took part in the defence, passed
ammunition to the men, and sometimes fired themselves on the enemy. The
Indians at length became discouraged, and offered Convers favorable
terms. He answered, "I want nothing but men to fight with." An Abenaki
who spoke English cried out: "If you are so bold, why do you stay in a
garrison house like a squaw? Come out and fight like a man!" Convers
retorted, "Do you think I am fool enough to come out with thirty men to
fight five hundred?" Another Indian shouted, "Damn you, we'll cut you
small as tobacco before morning." Convers returned a contemptuous
defiance.
After a while, they ceased firing, and dispersed about the neighborhood,
butchering cattle and burning the church and a few empty houses. As the
tide began to ebb, they sent a fire-raft in full blaze down the creek to
destroy the sloops; but it stranded, and the attempt failed. They now
wreaked their fury on the prisoner Diamond, whom they tortured to death,
after which they all disappeared. A few resolute men had foiled one of
the most formidable bands that ever took the war-path in Acadia. [22]
[22] Villebon, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à l'Acadie, 1691, 1692;
Mather, Magnalia, II. 613; Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. 67; Williamson,
History of Maine, I. 631; Bourne, History of Wells, 213; Niles, Indian
and French Wars, 229. Williamson, like Sylvanus Davis, calls Portneuf
Burneffe or Burniffe. He, and other English writers, call La Brognerie
Labocree. The French could not recover his body, on which, according to
Niles and others, was found a pouch "stuffed full of relics, pardons, and
indulgences." The prisoner Diamond told the captors that there were
thirty men in the sloops. They believed him, and were cautious
accordingly. There were, in fact, but fourteen. Most of the fighting was
on the tenth. On the evening of that day, Convers received a
reinforcement of six men. They were a scouting party, whom he had sent a
few days before in the direction of Salmon River. Returning, they were
attacked, when near the garrison house, by a party of Portneuf's Indians.
The sergeant in command instantly shouted, "Captain Convers, send your
men round the hill, and we shall catch these dogs." Thinking that Convers
had made a sortie, the Indians ran off, and the scouts joined the
garrison without loss.
The warriors dispersed to their respective haunts; and, when a band of
them reached the St. John, Villebon coolly declares that he gave them a
prisoner to burn. They put him to death with all their ingenuity of
torture. The act, on the part of the governor, was more atrocious, as it
had no motive of reprisal, and as the burning of prisoners was not the
common practice of these tribes. [23]
[23] "Le 18me (Août) un sauvage anglois fut pris au bas de la rivière de
St. Jean. Je le donnai à nos sauvages pour estre brulé, ce qu'ils firent
le lendemain. On ne peut rien adjouter aux tourmens qu'ils luy firent
souffrir." Villebon, Journal, 1691, 1692.
The warlike ardor of the Abenakis cooled after the failure at Wells, and
events that soon followed nearly extinguished it. Phips had just received
his preposterous appointment to the government of Massachusetts. To the
disgust of its inhabitants, the stubborn colony was no longer a republic.
The new governor, unfit as he was for his office, understood the needs of
the eastern frontier, where he had spent his youth; and he brought a
royal order to rebuild the ruined fort at Pemaquid. The king gave the
order, but neither men, money, nor munitions to execute it; and
Massachusetts bore all the burden. Phips went to Pemaquid, laid out the
work, and left a hundred men to finish it. A strong fort of stone was
built, the abandoned cannon of Casco mounted on its walls, and sixty men
placed in garrison.
The keen military eye of Frontenac saw the danger involved in the
re-establishment of Pemaquid. Lying far in advance of the other English
stations, it barred the passage of war-parties along the coast, and was a
standing menace to the Abenakis. It was resolved to capture it. Two ships
of war, lately arrived at Quebec, the "Poli" and the "Envieux," were
ordered to sail for Acadia with above four hundred men, take on board two
or three hundred Indians at Pentegoet, reduce Pemaquid, and attack Wells,
Portsmouth, and the Isles of Shoals; after which, they were to scour the
Acadian seas of "Bostonnais" fishermen.
At this time, a gentleman of Boston, John Nelson, captured by Villebon
the year before, was a prisoner at Quebec. Nelson was nephew and heir of
Sir Thomas Temple, in whose right he claimed the proprietorship of
Acadia, under an old grant of Oliver Cromwell. He was familiar both with
that country and with Canada, which he had visited several times before
the war. As he was a man of birth and breeding, and a declared enemy of
Phips, and as he had befriended French prisoners, and shown especial
kindness to Meneval, the captive governor of Acadia, he was treated with
distinction by Frontenac, who, though he knew him to be a determined
enemy of the French, lodged him at the château, and entertained him at
his own table. [24] Madockawando, the father-in-law of Saint-Castin, made
a visit to Frontenac; and Nelson, who spoke both French and Indian,
contrived to gain from him and from other sources a partial knowledge of
the intended expedition. He was not in favor at Boston; for, though one
of the foremost in the overthrow of Andros, his creed and his character
savored more of the Cavalier than of the Puritan. This did not prevent
him from risking his life for the colony. He wrote a letter to the
authorities of Massachusetts, and then bribed two soldiers to desert and
carry it to them. The deserters were hotly pursued, but reached their
destination, and delivered their letter. The two ships sailed from
Quebec; but when, after a long delay at Mount Desert, they took on board
the Indian allies and sailed onward to Pemaquid, they found an armed ship
from Boston anchored in the harbor. Why they did not attack it, is a
mystery. The defences of Pemaquid were still unfinished, the French force
was far superior to the English, and Iberville, who commanded it, was a
leader of unquestionable enterprise and daring. Nevertheless, the French
did nothing, and soon after bore away for France. Frontenac was
indignant, and severely blamed Iberville, whose sister was on board his
ship, and was possibly the occasion of his inaction. [25]
[24] Champigny au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1693.
[25] Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1693.
Thus far successful, the authorities of Boston undertook an enterprise
little to their credit. They employed the two deserters, joined with two
Acadian prisoners, to kidnap Saint-Castin, whom, next to the priest
Thury, they regarded as their most insidious enemy. The Acadians revealed
the plot, and the two soldiers were shot at Mount Desert. Nelson was sent
to France, imprisoned two years in a dungeon of the Château of Angoulême,
and then placed in the Bastile. Ten years passed before he was allowed to
return to his family at Boston. [26]
[26] Lagny, Mémoire sur l'Acadie, 1692; Mémoire sur l'Enlèvement de
Saint-Castin; Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1693; Relation de ce qui
s'est passè de plus remarquable, 1690, 1691 (capture of Nelson);
Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Sept., 1692; Champigny au Ministre, 15 Oct.,
1692. Champigny here speaks of Nelson as the most audacious of the
English, and the most determined on the destruction of the French.
Nelson's letter to the authorities of Boston is printed in Hutchinson, I.
338. It does not warn them of an attempt against Pemaquid, of the
rebuilding of which he seems not to have heard, but only of a design
against the seaboard towns. Compare N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 555. In the
same collection is a Memorial on the Northern Colonies, by Nelson, a
paper showing much good sense and penetration. After an imprisonment of
four and a half years, he was allowed to go to England on parole; a
friend in France giving security of 15,000 livres for his return, in case
of his failure to procure from the king an order for the fulfilment of
the terms of the capitulation of Port Royal. (Le Ministre à Bégon, 13
Jan., 1694.) He did not succeed, and the king forbade him to return. It
is characteristic of him that he preferred to disobey the royal order,
and thus incur the high displeasure of his sovereign, rather than break
his parole and involve his friend in loss. La Hontan calls him a "fort
galant homme." There is a portrait of him at Boston, where his
descendants are represented by the prominent families of Derby and
Borland.
The French failure at Pemaquid completed the discontent of the Abenakis;
and despondency and terror seized them when, in the spring of 1693,
Convers, the defender of Wells, ranged the frontier with a strong party
of militia, and built another stone fort at the falls of the Saco. In
July, they opened a conference at Pemaquid; and, in August, thirteen of
their chiefs, representing, or pretending to represent, all the tribes
from the Merrimac to the St. Croix, came again to the same place to
conclude a final treaty of peace with the commissioners of Massachusetts.
They renounced the French alliance, buried the hatchet, declared
themselves British subjects, promised to give up all prisoners, and left
five of their chief men as hostages. [27] The frontier breathed again.
Security and hope returned to secluded dwellings buried in a treacherous
forest, where life had been a nightmare of horror and fear; and the
settler could go to his work without dreading to find at evening his
cabin burned and his wife and children murdered. He was fatally deceived,
for the danger was not past.
[27] For the treaty in full, Mather, Magnalia, II. 625.
It is true that some of the Abenakis were sincere in their pledges of
peace. A party among them, headed by Madockawando, were dissatisfied with
the French, anxious to recover their captive countrymen, and eager to
reopen trade with the English. But there was an opposing party, led by
the chief Taxous, who still breathed war; while between the two was an
unstable mob of warriors, guided by the impulse of the hour. [28] The
French spared no efforts to break off the peace. The two missionaries,
Bigot on the Kennebec and Thury on the Penobscot, labored with unwearied
energy to urge the savages to war. The governor, Villebon, flattered
them, feasted them, adopted Taxous as his brother, and, to honor the
occasion, gave him his own best coat. Twenty-five hundred pounds of
gunpowder, six thousand pounds of lead, and a multitude of other
presents, were given this year to the Indians of Acadia. [29] Two of
their chiefs had been sent to Versailles. They now returned, in gay
attire, their necks hung with medals, and their minds filled with
admiration, wonder, and bewilderment.
[28] The state of feeling among the Abenakis is shown in a letter of
Thury to Frontenac, 11 Sept., 1694, and in the journal of Villebon for
1693.
[29] Estat de Munitions, etc., pour les Sauvages de l'Acadie, 1693.
The special duty of commanding Indians had fallen to the lot of an
officer named Villieu, who had been ordered by the court to raise a
war-party and attack the English. He had lately been sent to replace
Portneuf, who had been charged with debauchery and peculation. Villebon,
angry at his brother's removal, was on ill terms with his successor; and,
though he declares that he did his best to aid in raising the war-party,
Villieu says, on the contrary, that he was worse than indifferent. The
new lieutenant spent the winter at Naxouat, and on the first of May went
up in a canoe to the Malicite village of Medoctec, assembled the chiefs,
and invited them to war. They accepted the invitation with alacrity.
Villieu next made his way through the wilderness to the Indian towns of
the Penobscot. On the ninth, he reached the mouth of the Mattawamkeag,
where he found the chief Taxous, paddled with him down the Penobscot,
and, at midnight on the tenth, landed at a large Indian village, at or
near the place now called Passadumkeag. Here he found a powerful ally in
the Jesuit Vincent Bigot, who had come from the Kennebec, with three
Abenakis, to urge their brethren of the Penobscot to break off the peace.
The chief envoy denounced the treaty of Pemaquid as a snare; and Villieu
exhorted the assembled warriors to follow him to the English border,
where honor and profit awaited them. But first he invited them to go back
with him to Naxouat to receive their presents of arms, ammunition, and
every thing else that they needed.
They set out with alacrity. Villieu went with them, and they all arrived
within a week. They were feasted and gifted to their hearts' content; and
then the indefatigable officer led them back by the same long and weary
routes which he had passed and repassed before, rocky and shallow
streams, chains of wilderness lakes, threads of water writhing through
swamps where the canoes could scarcely glide among the water-weeds and
alders. Villieu was the only white man. The governor, as he says, would
give him but two soldiers, and these had run off. Early in June, the
whole flotilla paddled down the Penobscot to Pentegeot. Here the Indians
divided their presents, which they found somewhat less ample than they
had imagined. In the midst of their discontent, Madockawando came from
Pemaquid with news that the governor of Massachusetts was about to
deliver up the Indian prisoners in his hands, as stipulated by the
treaty. This completely changed the temper of the warriors. Madockawando
declared loudly for peace, and Villieu saw all his hopes wrecked. He
tried to persuade his disaffected allies that the English only meant to
lure them to destruction, and the missionary Thury supported him with his
utmost eloquence. The Indians would not be convinced; and their trust in
English good faith was confirmed, when they heard that a minister had
just come to Pemaquid to teach their children to read and write. The news
grew worse and worse. Villieu was secretly informed that Phips had been
off the coast in a frigate, invited Madockawando and other chiefs on
board, and feasted them in his cabin, after which they had all thrown
their hatchets into the sea, in token of everlasting peace. Villieu now
despaired of his enterprise, and prepared to return to the St. John; when
Thury, wise as the serpent, set himself to work on the jealousy of
Taxous, took him aside, and persuaded him that his rival, Madockawando,
had put a slight upon him in presuming to make peace without his consent.
"The effect was marvellous," says Villieu. Taxous, exasperated, declared
that he would have nothing to do with Madockawando's treaty. The fickle
multitude caught the contagion, and asked for nothing but English scalps;
but, before setting out, they must needs go back to Passadumkeag to
finish their preparations.
Villieu again went with them, and on the way his enterprise and he nearly
perished together. His canoe overset in a rapid at some distance above
the site of Bangor: he was swept down the current, his head was dashed
against a rock, and his body bruised from head to foot. For five days he
lay helpless with fever. He had no sooner recovered than he gave the
Indians a war-feast, at which they all sang the war-song, except
Madockawando and some thirty of his clansmen, whom the others made the
butt of their taunts and ridicule. The chief began to waver. The officer
and the missionary beset him with presents and persuasion, till at last
he promised to join the rest.
It was the end of June when Villieu and Thury, with one Frenchman and a
hundred and five Indians, began their long canoe voyage to the English
border. The savages were directed to give no quarter, and told that the
prisoners already in their hands would insure the safety of their
hostages in the hands of the English. [30] More warriors were to join
them from Bigot's mission on the Kennebec. On the ninth of July, they
neared Pemaquid; but it was no part of their plan to attack a garrisoned
post. The main body passed on at a safe distance; while Villieu
approached the fort, dressed and painted like an Indian, and accompanied
by two or three genuine savages, carrying a packet of furs, as if on a
peaceful errand of trade. Such visits from Indians had been common since
the treaty; and, while his companions bartered their beaver skins with
the unsuspecting soldiers, he strolled about the neighborhood and made a
plan of the works. The party was soon after joined by Bigot's Indians,
and the united force now amounted to two hundred and thirty. They held a
council to determine where they should make their attack, but opinions
differed. Some were for the places west of Boston, and others for those
nearer at hand. Necessity decided them. Their provisions were gone, and
Villieu says that he himself was dying of hunger. They therefore resolved
to strike at the nearest settlement, that of Oyster River, now Durham,
about twelve miles from Portsmouth. They cautiously moved forward, and
sent scouts in advance, who reported that the inhabitants kept no watch.
In fact, a messenger from Phips had assured them that the war was over,
and that they could follow their usual vocations without fear.
[30] Villebon, Mémoire, Juillet, 1694; Instruction du Sr. de Villebon au
Sr. de Villieu.
Villieu and his band waited till night, and then made their approach.
There was a small village; a church; a mill; twelve fortified houses,
occupied in most cases only by families; and many unprotected
farm-houses, extending several miles along the stream. The Indians
separated into bands, and, stationing themselves for a simultaneous
attack at numerous points, lay patiently waiting till towards day. The
moon was still bright when the first shot gave the signal, and the
slaughter began. The two palisaded houses of Adams and Drew, without
garrisons, were taken immediately, and the families butchered. Those of
Edgerly, Beard, and Medar were abandoned, and most of the inmates
escaped. The remaining seven were successfully defended, though several
of them were occupied only by the families which owned them. One of
these, belonging to Thomas Bickford, stood by the river near the lower
end of the settlement. Roused by the firing, he placed his wife and
children in a boat, sent them down the stream, and then went back alone
to defend his dwelling. When the Indians appeared, he fired on them,
sometimes from one loophole and sometimes from another, shouting the word
of command to an imaginary garrison, and showing himself with a different
hat, cap, or coat, at different parts of the building. The Indians were
afraid to approach, and he saved both family and home. One Jones, the
owner of another of these fortified houses, was wakened by the barking of
his dogs, and went out, thinking that his hog-pen was visited by wolves.
The flash of a gun in the twilight of the morning showed the true nature
of the attack. The shot missed him narrowly; and, entering the house
again, he stood on his defence, when the Indians, after firing for some
time from behind a neighboring rock, withdrew and left him in peace.
Woodman's garrison house, though occupied by a number of men, was
attacked more seriously, the Indians keeping up a long and brisk fire
from behind a ridge where they lay sheltered; but they hit nobody, and at
length disappeared. [31]
[31] Woodman's garrison house is still standing, having been carefully
preserved by his descendants.
Among the unprotected houses, the carnage was horrible. A hundred and
four persons, chiefly women and children half naked from their beds, were
tomahawked, shot, or killed by slower and more painful methods. Some
escaped to the fortified houses, and others hid in the woods.
Twenty-seven were kept alive as prisoners. Twenty or more houses were
burned; but, what is remarkable, the church was spared. Father Thury
entered it during the massacre, and wrote with chalk on the pulpit some
sentences, of which the purport is not preserved, as they were no doubt
in French or Latin.
Thury said mass, and then the victors retreated in a body to the place
where they had hidden their canoes. Here Taxous, dissatisfied with the
scalps that he and his band had taken, resolved to have more; and with
fifty of his own warriors, joined by others from the Kennebec, set out on
a new enterprise. "They mean," writes Villieu in his diary, "to divide
into bands of four or five, and knock people in the head by surprise,
which cannot fail to produce a good effect." [32] They did in fact fall a
few days after on the settlements near Groton, and killed some forty
persons.
[32] "Casser des testes à la surprise après s'estre divisés en plusieurs
bandes de quatre au cinq, ce qui ne peut manquer de faire un bon effect."
Villieu, Relation.
Having heard from one of the prisoners a rumor of ships on the way from
England to attack Quebec, Villieu thought it necessary to inform
Frontenac at once. Attended by a few Indians, he travelled four days and
nights, till he found Bigot at an Abenaki fort on the Kennebec. His
Indians were completely exhausted. He took others in their place, pushed
forward again, reached Quebec on the twenty-second of August, found that
Frontenac had gone to Montreal, followed him thither, told his story, and
presented him with thirteen English scalps. [33] He had displayed in the
achievement of his detestable exploit an energy, perseverance, and
hardihood rarely equalled; but all would have been vain but for the help
of his clerical colleague Father Pierre Thury. [34]
[33] "Dans cette assemblée M. de Villieu avec 4 sauvages qu'il avoit
amenés de l'Accadie présenta à Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac 13
chevelures angloises." Callières au Ministre, 19 Oct., 1694.
[34] The principal authority for the above is the very curious Relation
du Voyage fait par le Sieur de Villieu ... pour faire la Guerre aux
Anglois au printemps de l'an 1694. It is the narrative of Villieu
himself, written in the form of a journal, with great detail. He also
gives a brief summary in a letter to the minister, 7 Sept. The best
English account is that of Belknap, in his History of New Hampshire.
Cotton Mather tells the story in his usual unsatisfactory and ridiculous
manner. Pike, in his journal, says that ninety-four persons in all were
killed or taken. Mather says, "ninety four or a hundred." The Provincial
Record of New Hampshire estimates it at eighty. Charlevoix claims two
hundred and thirty, and Villieu himself but a hundred and thirty-one.
Champigny, Frontenac, and Callières, in their reports to the court, adopt
Villieu's statements. Frontenac says that the success was due to the
assurances of safety which Phips had given the settlers.
In the Massachusetts archives is a letter to Phips, written just after
the attack. The devastation extended six or seven miles. There are also a
number of depositions from persons present, giving a horrible picture of
the cruelties practised.
The Indian tribes of Acadia.--The name Abenaki is generic, and of very
loose application. As employed by the best French writers at the end of
the seventeenth century, it may be taken to include the tribes from the
Kennebec eastward to the St. John. These again may be sub-divided as
follows. First, the Canibas (Kenibas), or tribes of the Kennebec and
adjacent waters. These with kindred neighboring tribes on the Saco, the
Androscoggin, and the Sheepscot, have been held by some writers to be the
Abenakis proper, though some of them, such as the Sokokis or Pequawkets
of the Saco, spoke a dialect distinct from the rest. Secondly, the tribes
of the Penobscot, called Tarratines by early New England writers, who
sometimes, however, give this name a more extended application. Thirdly,
the Malicites (Marechites) of the St. Croix and the St. John. These, with
the Penobscots or Tarratines, are the Etchemins of early French waiters.
All these tribes speak dialects of Algonquin, so nearly related that they
understand each other with little difficulty. That eminent Indian
philologist, Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, writes to me: "The Malicite, the
Penobscot, and the Kennebec, or Caniba, are dialects of the same
language, which may as well be called Abenaki. The first named differs
more considerably from the other two than do these from each other. In
fact the Caniba and the Penobscot are merely provincial dialects, with no
greater difference than is found in two English counties." The case is
widely different with the Micmacs, the Souriquois of the French, who
occupy portions of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and who speak a
language which, though of Algonquin origin, differs as much from the
Abenaki dialects as Italian differs from French, and was once described
to me by a Malicite (Passamaquoddy) Indian as an unintelligible jargon.