The Old Niagara Frontier
What has been loosely called the "Niagara Frontier" embraces all the
beautiful stretch of territory south of Lakes Ontario and Erie,
extending westward quite to Cleveland, the Forest City on the latter
lake. It would be difficult to point to a tract of country in all
America the history of which is of more inherent interest than this
far-flung old-time frontier of which the Niagara River was the strategic
key. The beautiful cities now standing here, Buffalo, Cleveland, and
Toronto, as well as the ancient Falls, forever new and wonderful, bring
to this fair country, in large volume, the modern note that would drown
the memory of the long ago; but here, as elsewhere, and particularly
here, the Indian left his names upon the rivers and the shores of the
lakes, beautiful names that will neither die nor permit the days of
Iroquois, Eries, and Hurons to pass forgotten.
Historically, the Niagara frontier is memorable, firstly, because it
embraced in part the homes and hunting-grounds of the Six Nations, the
pre-eminent Indian confederacy of the continent. The French name for the
confederacy was Iroquois; their own, "Ho-de-no-sote," or the "Long
House," which extended from the Hudson to Lake Erie and from the St.
Lawrence to the valleys of the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Allegheny.
This domain was divided between the several nations by well-defined
boundary lines, called "lines of property." The famous Senecas were on
the Niagara frontier.
[Illustration: Colonel Roemer's Map of the Country of the Iroquois,
1700.]
In this pleasant land the Iroquois dwelt in palisaded villages upon the
fertile banks of the lakes and streams which watered their country.
Their houses were built within a protecting circle of palisades, and,
like all the tribes of the Iroquois family, were long and narrow, not
more than twelve or fifteen feet in width, but often exceeding one
hundred and fifty in length. They were made of two parallel rows of
poles stuck upright in the ground, of sufficient widths at the bottom to
form the floor, and bent together at the top to form the roof; the whole
was entirely covered with strips of peeled bark. At each end of the long
house was a strip of bark or a bear skin hung loosely for a door.
Within, they built their fires at intervals along the centre of the
floor, the smoke rising through the opening in the top, which served, as
well, to let in light. In every house were fires and many families, and
every family having its own fire within the space allotted to it.
Among all the Indians of the New World, there were none so politic and
intelligent, none so fierce and brave, none with so many heroic virtues
mingled with savagery, as the people of the Long House. They were a
terror to all the surrounding tribes, whether of their own or of
Algonquin speech. In 1650 they overran the country of the Huron; in 1651
they destroyed the neutral nation along the Niagara; in 1652 they
exterminated the Eries. They knew every war-path and "their war-cry was
heard westward to the Mississippi and southward to the great gulf."
They were, in fact, the conquerors of the New World, perhaps not
unjustly styled the "Romans of the West." Wrote the Jesuit Father
Ragueneau, in 1650, "My pen has no ink black enough to describe the fury
of the Iroquois." In 1715, the Tuscaroras, a branch of the Iroquois
family, in the Carolinas, united with the Five Nations, after which the
confederacy was known as the Six Nations, of which the other five tribes
were named in order of their rank, Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Oneidas,
and Cayugas.
Iroquois government was vested in a general council composed of fifty
hereditary sachems, but the order of succession was always in the female
and never in the male line. Each nation was divided into eight clans or
tribes. The spirit of the animal or bird after which the clan was named,
called its "To-tem," was the guardian spirit of the clan, and every
member used its figure in his signature as his device. It was the rule
that men and women of the same tribe could intermarry. In this manner
relationships were interlocked forever by the closest of ties. The name
of each sachemship was permanent. When a sachem died the people of the
league selected the most competent from among those of his family, who
by right inherited the title, and the one so chosen was raised in solemn
council to the high honour, and dropping his own received the name of
the sachemship. Two sachemships, however, after the death of the
original sachems ever remained vacant, those of the Onondagas and
"Ha-yo-went-ha" (Hi-a-wat-ha) immortalised by Longfellow, of the
Mohawks. Daganoweda was the founder of the league, whose head was
represented as covered with tangled serpents; Hi-a-wat-ha (meaning "he
who combs") put the head in order and this aided the formation of the
league. In honour of these great services this sachemship was afterward
held vacant.
The entire body of sachems formed the council league; their authority
was civil, confined to affairs of peace, and was advisory rather than
otherwise. Every member of the confederacy followed, to a great extent,
the dictates of his own will, controlled very much by the customs of his
people and "a sentiment that ran through their whole system of affairs
which was as inflexible as iron."
The character of the Iroquois confederacy has a bearing on the history
of the Niagara country of prime importance; while their immediate seats
were somewhat south of Niagara River itself, they were the red masters
of the eastern Great Lake region when white men came to know it,
conquering, as we have noted, the earlier red races, the Eries and
Neutrals, who lived beside Lake Erie and the Niagara River. Of these
very little is known; placed between the Iroquois on the South and the
Hurons on the North both are accounted to have been fierce and brave
peoples, for a long time able to withstand the savage inroads of the
people of the Long House. The Eries occupied the territory just south of
Lake Erie, while the Neuter or Neutral towns lay on the north side of
the lake--stretching up perhaps near to Niagara Falls. They claimed the
territory lying west of the Genesee River, and extending northward to
the Huron land about Georgian Bay as their hunting-ground, and could, it
was affirmed by Jesuits, number twelve thousand souls or four thousand
fighting men in 1641, only a decade before annihilation by the southern
foe.
Although the French applied to them the name of "neuter" [writes
Marshall, the historian of the Niagara frontier], it was always
an allusion to their neutrality between the Hurons and the
Iroquois. These contending nations traversed the territories of
the Neutral Nation in their wars against each other, and if, by
chance, they met in the wigwams or villages of this people, they
were forced to restrain their animosity and to separate in
peace.
Notwithstanding this neutrality, they waged cruel wars with other
nations, toward whom they exercised cruelties even more inhuman than
those charged upon their savage neighbours. The early missionaries
describe their customs as similar to those of the Hurons, their land as
producing Indian corn, beans, and squashes in abundance, their rivers as
abounding in fish of endless variety, and their forests as filled with
animals yielding the richest furs.
They exceeded the Hurons in stature, strength, and symmetry of form, and
wore their dress with a superior grace, and regarded their dead with
peculiar affection; hence arose a custom which is worthy of notice, and
explains the origin of the numerous burial mounds which are scattered
over this vicinity. Instead of burying the bodies of their deceased
friends, they deposited them in houses or on scaffolds erected for the
purpose. They collected the skeletons from time to time and arranged
them in their dwellings, in anticipation of the feast of the dead, which
occurred once in ten or twelve years. On this occasion the whole nation
repaired to an appointed place, each family, with the greatest apparent
affection, bringing the bones of their deceased relatives enveloped in
the choicest furs.
The final disruption between Neuters and Senecas came, it would seem,
in 1648, in the shape of a challenge sent by the latter and accepted;
the war raged until 1651, when two whole villages of Neuters were
destroyed, the largest containing more than sixteen hundred men. Father
Fremin in 1669 found Neuters still living in captivity in Gannogarae, a
Seneca town east of the Genesee. Some two years later, seemingly by
accident, a rupture between Senecas and Eries, farther to the westward,
took place, resulting in a similar Seneca victory; thus the Iroquois
came to be the masters of the Niagara country.
What this meant becomes very evident with the advance of France to this
old-time key of the continent; here lay the strongest, most civilised
Indian nations, conquerors of half a continent; what the friendship of
the Iroquois meant to these would-be white conquerors of the self-same
empire no words could express; as we have noted, the Niagara River was
the direct passageway to the Mississippi basin. It is one of the most
interesting caprices of Fate that France should have been given the
great waterway--key of the continent; now, with a friendly alliance with
the Six Nations the progress of French arms could hardly be challenged.
But France, in the early hours of her progress, and by the hand of her
best friend and wisest champion, Champlain, incurred the inveterate
hatred of these powerful New York confederates. This he did in 1609 by
joining a war-party of Algonquins of the lower St. Lawrence region on
one of their memorable raids into the Iroquois country by way of the
Richelieu River and Lake Champlain. Dr. Bourinot,[16] perhaps most
clearly of all, has explained Champlain's own comprehension of the
matter by saying that the dominating purpose of his life in New France
was the exploration of the vast region from which came the sweeping
tides of the St. Lawrence; supposing, naturally, that the Canadian red
men were to be eventually the victors in the ancient war, especially if
aided by the government of New France, it was politic for Champlain to
espouse their cause since no general scheme of exploration "could have
been attempted had he by any cold or unsympathetic conduct alienated the
Indians who guarded the waterways over which he had to pass before he
could unveil the mysteries of the Western wilderness."
In June this eventful invasion of the Iroquois country was undertaken,
and on the last day of July but one, near what was to become the
historic site of Fort Ticonderoga, a pitched battle was fought.
Champlain's own account of this the first decisive battle of America
cannot be excelled in its quaint and picturesque simplicity:
At night [he wrote] we embarked in our canoes, and, as we were
advancing noiselessly onward, we encountered a party of Iroquois
at the point of a cape which juts into the lake on the west
side. It was on the twenty-ninth of the month and about ten
o'clock at night. They, as well as we, began to shout, seizing
our arms. We withdrew to the water, and the Iroquois paddled to
the shore, arranged their canoes, and began to hew down trees
with villainous-looking axes and fortified themselves very
securely. Our party kept their canoes alongside of the other,
tied to poles, so as not to run adrift, in order to fight all
together if need be. When everything was arranged they sent two
canoes to know if their enemies wished to fight. They answered
that they desired nothing else but that there was not then light
enough to distinguish each other and that they would fight at
sunrise. This was agreed to. On both sides the night was spent
in dancing, singing, mingled with insults and taunts. Thus they
sang, danced, and insulted each other until daybreak. My
companions and I were concealed in separate canoes belonging to
the savage Montagnoes. After being equipped with light armour,
each of us took an arquebus and went ashore. I saw the enemy
leaving their barricade. They were about two hundred men, strong
and robust, who were coming toward us with a gravity and
assurance that greatly pleased me, led on by three chiefs. Ours
were marching in similar order, and told me that those who bore
the three lofty plumes were chiefs and that I must do all I
could. The moment we landed they began to run toward the enemy,
who stood firm and had not yet perceived my companions who went
into the bush with some savages. Ours commenced calling me with
a loud voice, opening the way for me and placing me at their
head, about twenty paces in advance, until I was about thirty
paces from the enemy. The moment they saw me they halted, gazing
at me and I at them. When I saw them preparing to shoot at us, I
raised my arquebus, and aiming directly at one of the chiefs,
two of them fell to the ground by this shot, and one of their
companions received a wound of which he died afterwards. I had
put four balls into my arquebus. Ours, on witnessing a shot so
favourable to them, set up such tremendous shouts that thunder
could not have been heard, and yet there was no lack of arrows
on the one side or the other. The Iroquois were greatly
astonished at seeing two men killed so instantaneously,
notwithstanding that they were provided with arrow-proof armour
woven of cotton thread and wood. This frightened them very much.
Whilst I was unloading, one of my companions fired a shot which
so astonished them anew, seeing their chiefs slain, that they
lost courage, took to flight, and abandoned the field and their
fort, hiding in the depths of the forest, whither pursuing them
I killed some others. Our savages also killed several of them
and took ten or twelve of them prisoners. The rest carried off
the wounded. These were promptly treated.
After having gained this victory, our party amused themselves
plundering Indian corn and meal from the enemy, and also their
arms which they had thrown away the better to run. And having
feasted, danced, and sung, we returned three hours afterwards
with the prisoners.[17]
[Illustration: Champlain.]
No victory could have been so costly as this; indeed, one is led to
wonder whether any battle in America ever cost more lives than this; for
one hundred and fifty years and forty-five days, or until the fall of
Quebec and New France, this strongest of Indian nations remembered
Champlain, and was the implacable enemy of the French; and, what was of
singular ill-fortune, these very Iroquois, in addition to holding the
key of the West in their grasp, lay exactly between the French and their
English rivals at the point of nearest and most vital contact. After the
Ticonderoga victory an Iroquois prisoner, previous to being burned at
the stake, chanted a song; wrote the humane Champlain, "the song was sad
to hear." For a century and a half sad songs were sung by descendants of
those Algonquin and French victors who listened in the wavering light of
that cruel fire to the song of the captive from the land of Long Houses
below the Lakes! True, the Iroquois and the French were not continually
at war through this long series of years; and French blandishments had
their effect, sometimes, even on their immemorial foe, especially at the
Seneca end of the Long House, nearest Niagara.
Six years later, in 1615, Champlain set out on his most important tour
of western discovery, largely for the purpose of fulfilling a promise
made to one of his lieutenants on the upper Ottawa to assist him in the
continual quarrel between the Hurons to the northward and the Iroquois.
Here again is forced upon our attention one of the most important
sequences of the battle of Lake Champlain. The two routes to the Great
Lakes of Montreal were by the St. Lawrence River and by the Ottawa
River. Either route the voyage was long and difficult, but by the Ottawa
the voyageur came into the "back door" of the Lakes, Georgian Bay, by a
taxing portage route; while, once stemming the St. Lawrence, Lake
Ontario was gained and, with the Niagara portage accomplished the
traveller was afloat on Lake Erie beyond which the waterway lay fair and
clear to the remotest corner of Superior. But the St. Lawrence led into
the Iroquois frontier, and the Ottawa to the country of the French
allies, the Hurons. The result was that, to a great extent, French
movement followed the northerly course; no one could bring this out more
clearly than Hinsdale and those whom he quotes:
[The Iroquois] turned the Frenchmen aside from the St. Lawrence
and the Lower Lakes to the Ottawa and Nipissing; they ruined the
fur trade "which was the life-blood of New France"; they "made
all her early years a misery and a terror"; they retarded the
growth of Absolutism until Liberty was equal to the final
struggle; and they influence our national history to this day,
since "populations formed in the ideas and habits of a feudal
monarchy, and controlled by a hierarchy profoundly hostile to
freedom of thought, would have remained a hindrance and a
stumbling-block in the way of that majestic experiment of which
America is the field."[18]
Two insignificant historical facts illustrate this power exerted on
westward movement from Canada: Lake Erie was not discovered until half a
century after Lake Superior, in fact was practically unknown even for
fifty years after Detroit was founded in 1701.
From the rendezvous in the Huron country this second army of invasion,
at the head of which rode Champlain, set out for the Iroquois land, to
carry fire and sword to the homes of the enemy and forge so much the
more firmly the chains of prejudice and hatred. Crossing Lake Ontario at
its western extremity the march was taken up from a point near Sacketts
Harbour for the Onondaga fort, which was located, probably, a few miles
south of Lake Oneida.
The importance of the campaign on the Niagara frontier history is
sufficient for us to include again Champlain's account of it:
We made about fourteen leagues in crossing to the other side of
the Lake, in a southerly direction, towards the territories of
the enemy. The Indians concealed all their canoes in the woods
near the shore. We made by land about four leagues over a sandy
beach, where I noticed a very agreeable and beautiful country,
traversed by many small streams, and two small rivers which
empty into the said Lake. Also many ponds and meadows, abounding
in an infinite variety of game, numerous vines, and fine woods,
a great number of chestnut trees, the fruit of which was yet in
its covering. Although very small, it was of good flavour. All
the canoes being thus concealed, we left the shore of the Lake,
which is about eighty leagues long and twenty-five wide, the
greater part of it being inhabited by Indians along its banks,
and continued our way by land about twenty-five or thirty
leagues. During four days we crossed numerous streams and a
river issuing from a lake which empties into that of the
_Entouhonorons_. This Lake, which is about twenty-five or thirty
leagues in circumference, contains several beautiful islands,
and is the place where our Iroquois enemies catch their fish,
which are there in great abundance. On the 9th of October, our
people being on a scout, encountered eleven Indians whom they
took prisoners, namely, four women, three boys, a girl, and
three men, who were going to the fishery, distant four leagues
from the enemies' fort. . . . The next day, about three o'clock
in the afternoon, we arrived before the fort. . . . Their
village was enclosed with four strong rows of interlaced
palisades, composed of large pieces of wood, thirty feet high,
not more than half a foot apart and near an unfailing body of
water. . . . We were encamped until the 16th of the month. . . .
As the five hundred men did not arrive, the Indians decided to
leave by an immediate retreat and began to make baskets in which
to carry the wounded, who were placed in them doubled in a heap,
and so bent and tied as to render it impossible for them to
stir, any more than an infant in its swaddling clothes, and not
without great suffering, as I can testify, having been carried
several days on the back of one of our Indians, thus tied and
imprisoned, which made me lose all patience. As soon as I had
strength to sustain myself I escaped from this prison, or to
speak plainly, from this hell.
The enemy pursued us about half a league, in order to capture
some of our rear guard, but their efforts were useless and they
withdrew. . . . The retreat was very tedious, being from
twenty-five to thirty leagues, and greatly fatigued the wounded,
and those who carried them, though they relieved each other from
time to time. On the 18th considerable snow fell which lasted
but a short time. It was accompanied with a violent wind, which
greatly incommoded us. Nevertheless we made such progress, that
we reached the banks of the lake of the _Entouhonorons_, at the
place where we had concealed our canoes, and which were found
all whole. We were apprehensive that the enemy had broken them
up.
[Illustration: Map of French Forts in America, 1750-60.]
As the roar of Niagara greets from afar the listening ears of the
innumerable host of pilgrims who come to it to-day, so the fame of the
cataract reached the first explorers of the continent long before they
came to it, indeed almost as soon as their feet touched the shore of the
New World. Four centuries ago Niagara was the wonder of the world as it
must be four centuries hence and four times four.
In May, 1535, Jacques Cartier left France on his second voyage to
America in three ships; reaching the St. Lawrence, which he so named
from the Saint, he asked concerning its sources and
was told that, after ascending many leagues among rapids and
waterfalls, he would reach a lake 140 or 150 leagues broad, at
the western extremity of which the waters were wholesome and the
winters mild; that a river emptied into it from the south, which
had its source in the country of the Iroquois; that beyond the
lake he would find a cataract and portage, then another lake
about equal to the former, which they had never explored.
This is the first known mention of Niagara Falls. Champlain mapped the
Niagara frontier, and his map of 1613 shows the position of the great
Falls; he refers to it only as a "waterfall," which was "so very high
that many kinds of fish are stunned in its descent." He probably never
saw Niagara but wrote his description from hearsay. During the half
century between Champlain's Lake Ontario tour and the coming of La Salle
and Hennepin the Niagara must have been often visited by the Catholic
missionaries, but few of them left mention of it.
In 1615, Champlain's interpreter, Etienne Brule, was sent southward to
seek aid from the Andastes and is lost to sight in the western forests
for three years; it is possible that Brule even reached the copper
region of Lake Superior at this time, and it is fairly probable that
this intrepid wanderer, first of all Frenchmen, followed the Niagara
River and gazed upon its mighty cataract. The first knowledge we have,
however, of a Frenchman's presence on Niagara River is of Father Joseph
de la Roche Dallion, who crossed it near Lewiston eleven years later,
1626. Nicolet was in the Straits of Mackinac and at Sault Ste. Marie in
1634, at the time that Champlain (now in the last year of his eventful
life) founded Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence above Quebec for the
defence of this endangered capital!
Father L'Allemant, in his _Relation_ of 1640-41, refers to the Niagara
River as the _Onaguiaahra_, and calls it the "celebrated" river of the
Neutral Nation.
Montreal was founded in 1642, simultaneously with the memorable capture
of Father Jogues, who now, first of Europeans, passed through Lake
George en route to the homes of the merciless Iroquois. In fact it was
Father Jogues who first named this beautiful sheet of water, when he
entered it on the eve of Corpus Christi, "Lake Saint Sacrament"; Sir
William Johnson, at a later date rechristened it Lake George. Jogues may
have heard the Niagara cataract.
Ragueneau, writing to France in 1648, affirmed that "North of the Eries
is a great lake, about two hundred leagues in circumference, called
Erie, formed by the discharge of the _mer-douce_, or Lake Huron, and
which falls into a third lake called Ontario, over a cataract of
frightful height." The description by La Salle's Sulpician companion,
Galinee, in 1669, is the most accurate of all early accounts. After La
Salle's visit to the Senecas the party struck westward toward Niagara.
[Illustration: Niagara Falls by Father Hennepin.
The first known picture of Niagara, dated 1697.]
We found [wrote Galinee] a river, one-eighth of a league broad
and extremely rapid, forming the outlet of communication from
Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The depth of the river (for it is
properly the St. Lawrence), is, at this place extraordinary,
for, on sounding close by the shore, we found 15 or 16 fathoms
of water. The outlet is 40 leagues long, and has, from 10 to 12
leagues above its embouchure into Lake Ontario, one of the
finest cataracts, or falls of water, in the world, for all the
Indians of whom I have enquired about it, say, that the river
falls at that place from a rock higher than the tallest pines,
that is about 200 feet. In fact we heard it from the place where
we were, although from 10 to 12 leagues distant, but the fall
gives such a momentum to the water, that its velocity prevented
our ascending the current by rowing, except with great
difficulty. At a quarter of a league from the outlet where we
were, it grows narrower, and its channel is confined between two
very high, steep, rocky banks, inducing the belief that the
navigation would be very difficult quite up to the cataract. As
to the river above the falls, the current very often sucks into
this gulf, from a great distance, deer and stags, elk and
roebucks, that suffer themselves to be drawn from such a point
in crossing the river, that they are compelled to descend the
falls, and to be overwhelmed in its frightful abyss.
Our desire to reach the little village called Ganastogue
Sonono-toua O-tin-a-oua prevented our going to view the wonder,
which I consider as so much the greater in proportion as the
river St. Lawrence is one of the largest in the world. I will
leave you to judge if that is not a fine cataract in which all
the water of that large river, having its mouth three leagues
broad, falls from a height of 200 feet, with a noise that is
heard not only at the place where we were, 10 or 12 leagues
distant, but also from the other side of Lake Ontario, opposite
its mouth, where M. Trouve told me he had heard it.
We passed the river, and finally, at the end of five days'
travel arrived at the extremity of Lake Ontario, where there is
a fine large sandy bay, at the end of which is an outlet of
another small lake which is there discharged. Into this our
guide conducted us about half a league, to a point nearest the
village, but distant from it some 5 or 6 leagues, and where we
unloaded our canoes.
The first eye-witness to describe Niagara Falls was Father Hennepin who
visited them in the winter of 1678-79, and made the first pictorial
representation of them.
Betwixt the Lake _Ontario_ and _Erie_, there is a vast and
prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprizing
and astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not
afford its Parallel. 'T is true, _Italy_ and _Suedeland_ boast
of some such Things; but we may well say they are but sorry
Patterns, when compared to this of which we now speak. At the
foot of this horrible Precipice we meet with the River
_Niagara_, which is not above half a quarter of a League broad,
but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above
this Descent, that it violently hurries down the Wild Beasts
while endeavouring to pass it, to feed on the other side; they
not being able to withstand the force of its Current, which
inevitably casts them down head-long above Six hundred foot.[19]
This wonderful Downfall is compounded of two great Cross-streams
of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle slopeing along the middle
of it. The Waters which fall from this vast height do foam and
boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an
outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when
the Wind blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be
heard above fifteen Leagues off.
The River _Niagara_ having thrown itself down this incredible
Precipice continues its impetuous course for two Leagues
together, to the great Rock above-mentioned, with an
inexpressible Rapidity: But having pass'd that, its Impetuosity
relents, gliding along more gently for two Leagues, till it
arrives at the Lake _Ontario_ or _Frontenac_.
Any Barque or greater Vessel may pass from the Fort to the foot
of this huge Rock above-mention'd. This Rock lies to the
Westward, and is cut off from the Land by the River _Niagara_,
about two Leagues farther down than the great Fall; for which
two Leagues the People are oblig'd to carry their Goods
overland; but the way is very good, and the Trees are but few,
and they chiefly Firrs and Oaks.
From the great Fall unto this Rock, which is to the West of the
River, the two Brinks of it are so prodigious high, that it
would make one tremble to look steadily upon the Water, rolling
along with a Rapidity not to be imagin'd. Were it not for this
vast Cataract, which interrupts Navigation, they might sail with
barques or greater Vessels, above four hundred and fifty Leagues
further, cross the Lake of _Hurons_, and up to the farther end
of the Lake _Illinois_; which two Lakes, we may well say, are
little Seas of fresh Water.
In 1646 Father Jogues was killed in the Long House, and though in 1647
eighteen priests were at work in the eleven missions in the West (most
of them in the Huron country), the Iroquois carried the war to their
very altars, the mission of St. Joseph being destroyed and the Hurons,
blasted as a nation, scattered to the four winds of heaven. In 1656
Mohawks even descended upon fugitive Hurons hovering about Quebec under
the very guns of Fort St. Louis; it is interesting to compare these
far-eastwardly onslaughts with the simultaneous far-eastern progress of
the French explorers, for, as the Mohawks were falling upon Quebec those
adventurous pioneers, Radisson and Grossilliers, were (it is now
believed) on the point of discovering the Mississippi River, which they
probably did in 1659.
The plan of a grand Iroquois campaign against Canada in 1660 probably
had its part in the awakening of the monarchy at home to the real state
of affairs in America; if New France was to be more than a myth
something must now be done or the entire European population of the St.
Lawrence--not yet numbering more than two thousand souls--might be swept
away as were the Hurons. The energy of Louis's famous minister,
Colbert, is now in evidence as Marquis de Tracy, special envoy, appeared
on the scene, as the population of Canada doubled in a score of months,
the Richilieu was manned with forts and an army of thirteen hundred men
invaded the Iroquois country and secured a comparatively lasting peace.
A new era dawned, renewed spirit enthused the explorer, missionary,
_coureur-de-bois_, and soldier. In 1669 the boldest man after Champlain,
as Frontenac was the most chivalrous, La Salle, crossed Lake Ontario and
in the two following years probably discovered and followed the Ohio, if
not the Mississippi itself. In 1671 the noblest soldier of the cross in
early American annals, Marquette, founded St. Ignace, and, two years
later, in company with Joliet, found and descended the "Missipi."
Simultaneously, as if to end once for all fear of Iroquois opposition,
Frontenac erected the fort named for himself near the present site of
Kingston, Canada. But French activity proved a little too successful,
for it not only awed the Iroquois but alarmed the English, who had taken
New York from the Dutch nine years before.
La Salle was in France during 1677, where he received letters-patent
concerning forts to be built south and west, in which direction "it
would seem a passage to Mexico can be discovered," while Father
Hennepin, soon to be the great discoverer's companion and mouthpiece,
was among the Senecas near the Niagara frontier gaining a useful fund of
information for the grand campaign of empire founding that La Salle had
planned with Fort Frontenac as his base of supplies.
[Footnote 16: _Canada_, p. 72, Story of the Nations Series.]
[Footnote 17: A very excellent account of the battle of Lake Champlain
is found in _The St. Lawrence River_, Ch. vi., by George Waldo Browne.]
[Footnote 18: _The Old Northwest_, p. 25. A novel, _The Road to
Frontenac_, presents a clear picture of French-Iroquois hostility on the
St. Lawrence.]
[Footnote 19: Hennepin's exaggerations add a spice to his marvellous
stories as is true of Arabella B. Buckley's _The Fairyland of
Science_ (p. 122) wherein we read: "The river Niagara first wanders
through a flat country and then reaches the Great Lake Erie in a
hollow plain. After that it flows gently down for about fifteen
miles and then the slope becomes greater and it rushes on to the
Falls of Niagara." Every age has its Hennepins!]