DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.--FALL OF TIONNONTOGEN.
In the summer following De Courselle's expedition, ten deputies from the
nations of the Iroquois League met at Quebec, and signed a treaty of
peace. In addition to strange pictures which were the marks of the
Indian chiefs, the document bears the signature of Daniel de Courselle,
Governor of Canada, and that of "Lord de Tracy, member of his Majesty's
councils and Lieutenant-General of his armies both in the Islands and
mainland of South and North America." The treaty is also signed by the
Jesuits, Le Mercier and Chaumonot, as interpreters of the Iroquois and
Huron languages. It states that the orator and chief, called Soenres,
announced "the object of the Embassy by ten talks expressed by as many
presents," and also that he brought letters from the officers of New
Netherland. The substance of his harangue was that the Indians wanted
peace, and they asked that blackgowns might be sent to teach them. They
promised to listen to their preaching and to adore the God of the
French. They also offered to trade with the Canadians by way of Lake St.
Sacrament, and assured them of a welcome in their lodges. What more
could be desired? But, alas! scarcely were the ambassadors two or three
days' journey from Quebec, when news came of the surprisal by the
Mohawks of some Frenchmen belonging to Fort St. Anne who had gone to the
chase, and of the murder of a captain in the Carignan regiment.
The time for peace had not yet come. The Mohawks had not been fairly
represented in the embassy; they were far from being awed by the
fruitless march of De Courselle to the Mohawk Valley. The French had yet
to strike the decisive blow. M. de Tracy resolved, "despite his advanced
age, to lead in person against these Barbarians an army composed of six
hundred soldiers drafted from all the companies, and of six hundred
_habitans_ of the country," to which were added one hundred Huron and
Algonquin savages. This was more than twice the number of the original
army of De Courselle, who, still bent on victory, determined to
accompany this second expedition. The general rendezvous was at Fort St.
Anne, newly built, as had been planned, on an island in Lake Champlain.
On the 3d of October, 1666, all were ready to start. Three hundred
vessels were there to bear them over the placid bosom of the lake, whose
wooded shores were now aglow with October coloring. The vessels were
light batteaux and bark canoes, which could be carried from lake to lake
and from stream to stream. There was great difficulty at the carries,
however, with two small cannon which they took with them for the purpose
of forcing the Iroquois fortifications. Grown wiser by experience, they
also made sure of their guides.
The expedition moved forward as secretly and noiselessly as possible
through Lake Champlain and then Lake George; but the quick eye of an
Iroquois hunter, high on a mountain, espied the fleet of batteaux on
the lake, and bounding through the forest to the first, or Turtle,
castle on the Mohawk, his cry of alarm startled the people of
Gandawague, and Tekakwitha among the rest, from their accustomed
occupations. Hastily gathering together their treasures, they fled at
once to Andagoron, the Castle of the Bears. Thence, after spreading the
alarm through the outlying hamlets and holding a hurried consultation,
they all retired to Tionnontogen, the third, or Castle of the Wolves,
hidden behind the Nose. There they stored an abundant supply of grain,
and prepared to defend themselves. This castle of Tionnontogen was the
strongest of their fortifications. It had a triple palisade. The spot
where it stood can easily be found at the present day. One has but to
leave the West Shore Railway at Spraker's Basin,--a small station on the
south side of the Mohawk River, just east of Canajoharie and Palatine
Bridge,--then follow a road which winds up the hill to a farm a few rods
distant, which was owned in 1885 by Mitchell. Like the other
village-sites, already described, it is on high ground, or the
upper-river terrace. Near the farm-house is a large spring, surrounded
by shade-trees, in the centre of a meadow. It is now frequented
principally by thirsty cows; but it was once the chief water-supply of
the Mohawk castle. Behind the house is a perfectly level plateau; from
it the land descends on its northern side by steep terraces to the
Mohawk, and to the west it sinks rapidly into a picturesque ravine,
where strawberries, wintergreen berries, rare ferns, and little pink
flowers grow in abundance. Flat Creek flows through the ravine. On this
plateau many iron hatchets and wagon-loads of Indian relics of various
kinds have been found.[33]
There the castle of Tionnontogen stood at the time of De Tracy's
expedition. The view up the river at that point is extensive
and beautiful; but in the opposite direction, or down the river, a
sharp turn of the valley shuts out from sight the narrow opening or
pass between the Nose and the other similar mountain on the south
side of the river, which, as one travels round the bend, seems to
approach and finally to overlap it. The name of the castle was
significant,--Tionnontogen, or "Two Mountains approaching." Where else
could it possibly have been in the whole valley but right there by the
Nose? Their friends, the Oneidas, lay to the westward of them, and their
enemies mostly to the eastward; it was but natural, then, that they
should build their principal fort far enough up the river to bring it
behind the overlapping mountains. In order to reach Tionnontogen the
army of De Tracy had to come through that narrow pass. The people who
were lying in wait at the castle, though on high ground, would not
therefore be able to see their enemies approaching till they had rounded
the Nose, and were close upon them.
After disembarking at the head of the lake, De Tracy led his army, by
way of an Indian trail, southeasterly about nine miles to Glenn's
Falls,[34] where he crossed the Hudson, thence passing south of Moreau
Pond and east of Mount McGregor, through Doe's Corners, near Stiles
Hill, and then near Glen Mitchell to Saratoga Springs, following
substantially the present highway along the base of the ridge of hills
south of Mount McGregor. From Saratoga the expedition passed near
Ballston, and thence slightly curving seems to have proceeded in a very
direct course to the Mohawk castles, which lay off to the westward. One
of the trails leading in that direction struck the Mohawk River at
Kinaquariones, or Hoffman's Ferry, and another at Amsterdam. From this
latter point, a short march up the Mohawk Valley brought De Tracy to
Gandawague. One after another, he captured the deserted towns of the
Mohawks without striking a single blow. First Gandawague, then
Andagoron,--both on the south side of the river,--with possibly one or
more smaller towns, fell into his hands; and on he went to Tionnontogen,
marching proudly up the valley with his two cannon, brought with such
difficulty from Canada, and his Algonquin allies, who had faithfully
guided him into the very heart of the Mohawk country, and his brave army
of twelve hundred picked men, armed _cap-a-pie_ in all the panoply of
civilized warfare. Never before was anything like it seen in that wild
region. Only three or four hundred Mohawk warriors, all told, were
gathered behind the palisades of Tionnontogen to oppose him. There was
no time to summon their allies, the Oneidas, to their assistance. The
movements of the French had been too rapid. They had only time to crowd
together the women and children into their strongest fortress of
defence, and there await the result, whatever it might be.
Could the Mohawks soon forget the ruin that the French soldiers wrought
on their way from Gandawague? Even the child Tekakwitha must have been
stirred with a feeling of indignation and a cruel sense of wrong, as
that foreign army came nearer and nearer to her place of refuge, moving
steadily on through her own fair valley, with a march like the march of
fate,--destroying all that came in its way, wreaking its vengeance on
corn-field and cabin, in baffled fury at finding no foe to slay. With
ever increasing horror and anxious bewilderment, she watched and waited
with her people in the castle of Tionnontogen. Her uncle and all the
Canienga warriors had staked everything they possessed on its defence.
They had stored their provisions for the winter carefully away inside of
its stout palisade. It was, as already mentioned, a triple palisade,
twenty feet in height, and flanked by four bastions; that is to say,
there were three distinct rows of upright posts encircling the town.[35]
The main or central wall of thick-set overlapping palisadoes had an
inner and an outer platform, or scaffolding, near the top, running all
the way round. These platforms, being nineteen or twenty feet above the
ground, extended horizontally from the central to the inner and outer
walls of palisadoes. The latter were higher, and not so compact as the
central wall. These outside palisadoes, reaching almost to a man's
height above the platform, were set short spaces apart, and covered near
the top with a solid surface of thick bark. This protected the warriors
when they stood high on the outer platform to fire their guns and aim
their arrows at the enemy over the top of this bark breastwork. Just
behind them, on the inner and adjoining platform, were numerous bark
tanks containing an abundant supply of water to be used in extinguishing
any fire that might be started at the base of the palisade. This was the
form of attack they most dreaded. To make the approach more difficult,
they also dug trenches between the walls of palisadoes, and especially
on the outer side, heaping up the earth at the base of the
fortifications. Then, too, before the enemy could get at the palisade at
all, they had to break through a low bark fence which stood some
distance outside of the triple wall, built there for the purpose of
breaking the force of an attack. If the foe succeeded in starting a fire
at the base of the main wall, a flood of water was poured down at once
through holes in the high platform by the warriors who were defending
the castle. In cases of this kind the women assisted by keeping up the
supply of water. Such were the methods of defence in use at Tionnontogen
in 1666. They had proved effectual against all the efforts of savage
foes. But let us see if they prove equally so against the skilful
manoeuvres of De Tracy's civilized army, now close at hand? Tekakwitha's
uncle may have had his doubts as to this; but nevertheless the bark
tanks were well filled, and all was made ready to give the foe a defiant
reception. The warriors were in fighting gear, and hourly waiting the
attack.
It was just at this time that several Indian captives of other tribes
held by these Mohawks were brought out to be tortured and burned with
solemn rites in the public square of Tionnontogen; thus they hoped to
propitiate their war-god, Aireskoi. Tekakwitha would not on any account
show herself during this ceremony, as she never had the cruel spirit
which the savage women often showed. Chauchetiere tells us that she
could not endure to see harm done to any one, and that she thought it a
sin to go to see a man burned.
This heathen rite was scarcely over, when the women and children were
suddenly withdrawn from Tionnontogen Castle; a council of war, it seems,
had changed the plans of the braves. Those who could not fight were
hurried off to the higher hills behind the fortified plateau, and
concealed in the woods; the warriors alone remained in the town. As the
advancing army of De Tracy came within reach of their bullets and
arrows, they kept up a sharp fire from the palisade; but they no sooner
saw the French soldiers deliberately pause, plant their cannon, and
prepare to attack their wooden castle in regular form, than the utter
hopelessness of the contest dawned fully upon them. Without waiting to
receive the opening fire of the French cannon, they quickly deserted
their primitive fortifications, leaving behind them a few helpless old
men who did not wish to move and the half-roasted victims of the demon's
sacrifice. De Tracy lost no time in taking possession of this last
stronghold of the Canienga nation; without loss of life he and his army
entered Tionnontogen Castle in triumph.
The child Tekakwitha, concealed in the forest near at hand, must have
heard the solemn swell of the _Te Deum_ as it rose with one accord,
full, rich, and clear, from the ranks of the conquering army. Never
before had she heard that strange, sweet chorus of sound. The Mohawk
Valley had often echoed with the war-whoop and the shriek of the
tortured captive; it had rung at times with the harvest-song, and had
caught up the wailing chant of the League over many a dead chief's body.
But the solemn music of the _Te Deum_ which now reached her ears was
unlike any of these, and the tall cross that the soldiers of France
raised over the ashes of Aireskoi's fire in the public square of
Tionnontogen cast unfamiliar shadows on the long Mohawk cabins clustered
silent and empty within the triple wall. Father Raffeix, the chaplain,
said Mass there, thinking perhaps of Isaac Jogues, and praying for the
heathen Indians who were hiding in the forest. He did not then know how
soon the rustic chapel of St. Mary of the Mohawks would be standing
there with open door to welcome them to prayer. While this first Mass
was being said at Tionnontogen, the Mohawk warriors, moody and sullen,
were gathered near their families. A low and mournful wail from the
women called the attention of all to the blazing palisades of
Tionnontogen. The crackling fire kindled by their enemies lit up with a
lurid glare the now retiring army of De Tracy, for he speedily retraced
his steps, and was soon hidden from view behind the mountains at the
Nose. As he moved on down the valley whence he came, the armor of his
twelve hundred men flashed back again and again the blaze of a ruined
Mohawk town; all their castles were burned. At the "Fort of
Andaraque,"--to use the words of an old document (probably meaning
Gandawague),--De Tracy paused on the 17th of October to take solemn
possession of the conquered country in the name of the King of France.
In token thereof, he planted another cross, and near it a post, to which
he affixed the arms of Louis XIV. Tekakwitha, with her aunts and her
mother's friend Tegonhatsihongo, must have seen these emblems at the
door of the smoking palisade when they went back to find what was left
of their blackened lodges on the bank of Auries Creek.
De Tracy, the gray-haired conqueror, now returned to Canada; and the
unhappy Mohawks, in straggling bands, sought out their desolated
homes,--secure in life and limb, to be sure, but bereft of all
provisions for the winter. No golden ears of corn hung, as usual, from
their lodge-poles. They had no furs, no beans, no nut-oil. They were
forced to live in temporary huts, and to wait in hunger and cold for the
coming of the spring-time. Thus, in sorrow and destitution, Tekakwitha
passed a dreary winter among the ruins of Gandawague, doing her best as
usual to put things in order. During this time she lived on what roots
and berries could be found, and a scant allowance of the game her uncle
caught. Spring came at last; and a busy one it was for the houseless
Mohawks. With the genial warmth that quickly followed, there came also a
strange, new gleam of light to the young Tekakwitha.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] The most interesting of these are in the collection of Mr. Frey, of
Palatine Bridge.
[34] The march of De Tracy as here given was traced out by General Clark
from a copy which he has of a map relating to the expeditions of De
Tracy and De Courselle. The original map is preserved in the Paris
archives.
[35] See Appendix, Note E, "Indian Defensive Works."