Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

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"It is certain," wrote Denonville; "that, if the English had not been
stopped and pillaged, the Hurons and Ottawas would have revolted and
cut the throats of all our Frenchmen." [Footnote: _Denonville au
Ministre_, 25 _Août_, 1687.] As it was, La Durantaye's exploit
produced a revulsion of feeling, and many of the Indians consented to
follow him. He lost no time in leading them down the lake to join Du
Lhut at Detroit; and, when Tonty arrived, they all paddled for
Niagara. On the way, they met McGregory with a party about equal to
that of Rooseboom. He had with him a considerable number of Ottawa and
Huron prisoners whom the Iroquois had captured, and whom he meant to
return to their countrymen as a means of concluding the long projected
triple alliance between the English, the Iroquois, and the tribes of
the lakes. This bold scheme was now completely crushed. All the
English were captured and carried to Niagara, whence they and their
luckless precursors were sent prisoners to Quebec.

La Durantaye and his companions, with a hundred and eighty _coureurs
de bois_ and four hundred Indians, waited impatiently at Niagara for
orders from the governor. A canoe despatched in haste from Fort
Frontenac soon appeared; and they were directed to repair at once to
the rendezvous at Irondequoit Bay, on the borders of the Seneca
country. [Footnote: The above is drawn from papers in _N. Y. Col.
Docs_., III. 436, IX. 324, 336, 346, 405; Saint-Vallier, _État
Présent_, 92; Denonville, _Journal_; Belmont, _Histoire du Canada_; La
Potherie, II. chap. xvi; La Hontan. I. 96. Colden's account is
confused and incorrect.]

Denonville was already on his way thither. On the fourth of July, he
had embarked at Fort Frontenac with four hundred bateaux and canoes,
crossed the foot of Lake Ontario, and moved westward along the
southern shore. The weather was rough, and six days passed before he
descried the low headlands of Irondequoit Bay. Far off on the
glimmering water, he saw a multitude of canoes advancing to meet him.
It was the flotilla of La Durantaye. Good management and good luck had
so disposed it that the allied bands, concentring from points more
than a thousand miles distant, reached the rendezvous on the same day.
This was not all. The Ottawas of Michillimackinac, who refused to
follow La Durantaye, had changed their minds the next morning,
embarked in a body, paddled up the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, crossed
to Toronto, and joined the allies at Niagara. White and red,
Denonville now had nearly three thousand men under his command.
[Footnote: _Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en Canada depuis 1682_;
_Captain Duplessis's Plan for the Defence of Canada_, in _N. Y. Col.
Docs_., IX. 447.] All were gathered on the low point of land that
separates Irondequoit Bay from Lake Ontario. "Never," says an
eye-witness, "had Canada seen such a sight; and never, perhaps, will
she see such a sight again. Here was the camp of the regulars from
France, with the general's head-quarters; the camp of the four
battalions of Canadian militia, commanded by the _noblesse_ of the
country; the camp of the Christian Indians; and, farther on, a swarm
of savages of every nation. Their features were different, and so were
their manners, their weapons, their decorations, and their dances.
They sang and whooped and harangued in every accent and tongue. Most
of them wore nothing but horns on their heads, and the tails of beasts
behind their backs. Their faces were painted red or green, with black
or white spots; their ears and noses were hung with ornaments of iron;
and their naked bodies were daubed with figures of various sorts of
animals." [Footnote: The first part of the extract is from Belmont;
the second, from Saint-Vallier.]

These were the allies from the upper lakes. The enemy, meanwhile, had
taken alarm. Just after the army arrived, three Seneca scouts called
from the edge of the woods, and demanded what they meant to do. "To
fight you, you blockheads," answered a Mohawk Christian attached to
the French. A volley of bullets was fired at the scouts; but they
escaped, and carried the news to their villages. [Footnote:
_Information received from several Indians_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs_.,
III. 444.] Many of the best warriors were absent. Those that remained,
four hundred or four hundred and fifty by their own accounts, and
eight hundred by that of the French, mustered in haste; and, though
many of them were mere boys, they sent off the women and children, hid
their most valued possessions, burned their chief town, and prepared
to meet the invaders.

On the twelfth, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Denonville began
his march, leaving four hundred men in a hastily built fort to guard
the bateaux and canoes. Troops, officers, and Indians, all carried
their provisions at their backs. Some of the Christian Mohawks guided
them; but guides were scarcely needed, for a broad Indian trail led
from the bay to the great Seneca town, twenty-two miles southward.
They marched three leagues through the open forests of oak, and
encamped for the night. In the morning, the heat was intense. The men
gasped in the dead and sultry air of the woods, or grew faint in the
pitiless sun, as they waded waist-deep through the rank grass of the
narrow intervales. They passed safely through two dangerous defiles,
and, about two in the afternoon, began to enter a third. Dense forests
covered the hills on either hand. La Durantaye with Tonty and his
cousin Du Lhut led the advance, nor could all Canada have supplied
three men better for the work. Each led his band of _coureurs de
bois_, white Indians, without discipline, and scarcely capable of it,
but brave and accustomed to the woods. On their left were the Iroquois
converts from the missions of Saut St. Louis and the Mountain of
Montreal, fighting under the influence of their ghostly prompters
against their own countrymen. On the right were the pagan Indians from
the west. The woods were full of these painted spectres, grotesquely
horrible in horns and tail; and among them flitted the black robe of
Father Engelran, the Jesuit of Michillimackinac. Nicolas Perrot and
two other bush-ranging Frenchmen were assigned to command them, but in
fact they obeyed no man. These formed the vanguard, eight or nine
hundred in all, under an excellent officer, Callières, governor of
Montreal. Behind came the main body under Denonville, each of the four
battalions of regulars alternating with a battalion of Canadians. Some
of the regulars wore light armor, while the Canadians were in plain
attire of coarse cloth or buckskin. Denonville, oppressed by the heat,
marched in his shirt. "It is a rough life," wrote the marquis, "to
tramp afoot through the woods, carrying one's own provisions in a
haversack, devoured by mosquitoes, and faring no better than a mere
soldier." [Footnote: _Denonville au Ministre_, 8 _Juin_, 1687.] With
him was the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, who had just arrived from France
in command of the eight hundred men left to guard the colony, and who,
eager to take part in the campaign, had pushed forward alone to join
the army. Here, too, were the Canadian seigniors at the head of their
vassals, Berthier, La Valterie, Granville, Longueuil, and many more. A
guard of rangers and Indians brought up the rear.

Scouts thrown out in front ran back with the report that they had
reached the Seneca clearings, and had seen no more dangerous enemy
than three or four women in the cornfields. This was a device of the
Senecas to cheat the French into the belief that the inhabitants were
still in the town. It had the desired effect. The vanguard pushed
rapidly forward, hoping to surprise the place, and ignorant that,
behind the ridge of thick forests on their right, among a tangled
growth of beech-trees in the gorge of a brook, three hundred ambushed
warriors lay biding their time.

Hurrying forward through the forest, they left the main body behind,
and soon reached the end of the defile. The woods were still dense on
their left and front; but on their right lay a great marsh, covered
with alder thickets and rank grass. Suddenly the air was filled with
yells, and a rapid though distant fire was opened from the thickets
and the forest. Scores of painted savages, stark naked, some armed
with swords and some with hatchets, leaped screeching from their
ambuscade, and rushed against the van. Almost at the same moment a
burst of whoops and firing sounded in the defile behind. It was the
ambushed three hundred supporting the onset of their countrymen in
front; but they had made a fatal mistake. Deceived by the numbers of
the vanguard, they supposed it to be the whole army, never suspecting
that Denonville was close behind with sixteen hundred men. It was a
surprise on both sides. So dense was the forest that the advancing
battalions could see neither the enemy nor each other. Appalled by the
din of whoops and firing, redoubled by the echoes of the narrow
valley, the whole army was seized with something like a panic. Some of
the officers, it is said, threw themselves on the ground in their
fright. There were a few moments of intense bewilderment. The various
corps became broken and confused, and moved hither and thither without
knowing why. Denonville behaved with great courage. He ran, sword in
hand, to where the uproar was greatest, ordered the drums to beat the
charge, turned back the militia of Berthier who were trying to escape,
and commanded them and all others whom he met to fire on whatever
looked like an enemy. He was bravely seconded by Callières, La
Valterie, and several other officers. The Christian Iroquois fought
well from the first, leaping from tree to tree, and exchanging shots
and defiance with their heathen countrymen; till the Senecas, seeing
themselves confronted by numbers that seemed endless, abandoned the
field, after heavy loss, carrying with them many of their dead and all
of their wounded. [Footnote: For authorities, see note at the end of
the chapter. The account of Charlevoix is contradicted at several
points by the contemporary writers.] Denonville made no attempt to
pursue. He had learned the dangers of this blind warfare of the woods;
and he feared that the Senecas would waylay him again in the labyrinth
of bushes that lay between him and the town. "Our troops," he says,
"were all so overcome by the extreme heat and the long march that we
were forced to remain where we were till morning. We had the pain of
witnessing the usual cruelties of the Indians, who cut the dead bodies
into quarters, like butchers' meat, to put into their kettles, and
opened most of them while still warm to drink the blood. Our rascally
Ottawas particularly distinguished themselves by these barbarities, as
well as by cowardice; for they made off in the fight. We had five or
six men killed on the spot, and about twenty wounded, among whom was
Father Engelran, who was badly hurt by a gun-shot. Some prisoners who
escaped from the Senecas tell us that they lost forty men killed
outright, twenty-five of whom we saw butchered. One of the escaped
prisoners saw the rest buried, and he saw also more than sixty very
dangerously wounded." [Footnote: _Denonville au Ministre_, 25 _Août_,
1687. In his journal, written afterwards, he says that the Senecas
left twenty-seven dead on the field, and carried off twenty more,
besides upwards of sixty mortally wounded.]

In the morning, the troops advanced in order of battle through a marsh
covered with alders and tall grass, whence they had no sooner emerged
than, says Abbé Belmont, "we began to see the famous Babylon of the
Senecas, where so many crimes have been committed, so much blood
spilled, and so many men burned. It was a village or town of bark, on
the top of a hill. They had burned it a week before. We found nothing
in it but the graveyard and the graves, full of snakes and other
creatures; a great mask, with teeth and eyes of brass, and a bearskin
drawn over it, with which they performed their conjurations."
[Footnote: Belmont. A few words are added from Saint-Vallier.] The
fire had also spared a number of huge receptacles of bark, still
filled with the last season's corn; while the fields around were
covered with the growing crop, ripening in the July sun. There were
hogs, too, in great number; for the Iroquois did not share the
antipathy with which Indians are apt to regard that unsavory animal,
and from which certain philosophers have argued their descent from the
Jews.

The soldiers killed the hogs, burned the old corn, and hacked down the
new with their swords. Next they advanced to an abandoned Seneca fort
on a hill half a league distant, and burned it, with all that it
contained. Ten days were passed in the work of havoc. Three
neighboring villages were levelled, and all their fields laid waste.
The amount of corn destroyed was prodigious. Denonville reckons it at
the absurdly exaggerated amount of twelve hundred thousand bushels.

The Senecas, laden with such of their possessions as they could carry
off, had fled to their confederates in the east; and Denonville did
not venture to pursue them. His men, feasting without stint on green
corn and fresh pork, were sickening rapidly, and his Indian allies
were deserting him. "It is a miserable business," he wrote, "to
command savages, who, as soon as they have knocked an enemy in the
head, ask for nothing but to go home and carry with them the scalp,
which they take off like a skull-cap. You cannot believe what trouble
I had to keep them till the corn was cut."

On the twenty-fourth, he withdrew, with all his army, to the fortified
post at Irondequoit Bay, whence he proceeded to Niagara, in order to
accomplish his favorite purpose of building a fort there. The troops
were set at work, and a stockade was planted on the point of land at
the eastern angle between the River Niagara and Lake Ontario, the site
of the ruined fort built by La Salle nine years before. [Footnote:
_Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession de Niagara_, 31 _Juillet_,
1687. There are curious errors of date in this document regarding the
proceedings of La Salle.] Here he left a hundred men, under the
Chevalier de Troyes, and, embarking with the rest of the army,
descended to Montreal.

The campaign was but half a success. Joined to the capture of the
English traders on the lakes, it had, indeed, prevented the defection
of the western Indians, and in some slight measure restored their
respect for the French, of whom, nevertheless, one of them was heard
to say that they were good for nothing but to make war on hogs and
corn. As for the Senecas, they were more enraged than hurt. They could
rebuild their bark villages in a few weeks; and, though they had lost
their harvest, their confederates would not let them starve.
[Footnote: The statement of some later writers, that many of the
Senecas died during the following winter in consequence of the loss of
their corn, is extremely doubtful. Captain Duplessis, in his _Plan for
the Defence of Canada_, 1690, declares that not one of them perished
of hunger.] A converted Iroquois had told the governor before his
departure that, if he overset a wasps' nest, he must crush the wasps,
or they would sting him. Denonville left the wasps alive.

* * * * *

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SENECAS.--The chief authorities on
this matter are the journal of Denonville, of which there is a
translation in the _Colonial Documents of New York_, IX.; the letters
of Denonville to the Minister; the _État Présent de l'Église de la
Colonie Française_, by Bishop Saint-Vallier; the _Recueil de ce qui
s'est passé en Canada au Sujet de la Guerre, tant des Anglais que des
Iroquois, depuis l'année 1682_; and the excellent account by Abbé
Belmont in his chronicle called _Histoire du Canada_. To these may be
added La Hontan, Tonty, Nicolas Perrot, La Potherie, and the Senecas
examined before the authorities of Albany, whose statements are
printed in the _Colonial Documents_, III. These are the original
sources. Charlevoix drew his account from a portion of them. It is
inexact, and needs the correction of his learned annotator, Mr. Shea.
Colden, Smith, and other English writers follow La Hontan.

The researches of Mr. O. H. Marshall, of Buffalo, have left no
reasonable doubt as to the scene of the battle, and the site of the
neighboring town. The Seneca ambuscade was on the marsh and the hills
immediately north and west of the present village of Victor; and their
chief town, called Gannagaro by Denonville, was on the top of
Boughton's Hill, about a mile and a quarter distant. Immense
quantities of Indian remains were formerly found here, and many are
found to this day. Charred corn has been turned up in abundance by the
plough, showing that the place was destroyed by fire. The remains of
the fort burned by the French are still plainly visible on a hill a
mile and a quarter from the ancient town. A plan of it will be found
in Squier's _Aboriginal Monuments of New York_. The site of the three
other Seneca towns destroyed by Denonville, and called Totiakton,
Gannondata, and Gannongarae, can also be identified. See Marshall, in
_Collections N. Y. Hist. Soc., 2d Series_, II. Indian traditions of
historical events are usually almost worthless; but the old Seneca
chief Dyunehogawah, or "John Blacksmith," who was living a few years
ago at the Tonawanda reservation, recounted to Mr. Marshall with
remarkable accuracy the story of the battle as handed down from his
ancestors who lived at Gannagaro, close to the scene of action.
Gannagaro was the Canagorah of Wentworth Greenalgh's Journal. The old
Seneca, on being shown a map of the locality, placed his finger on the
spot where the fight took place, and which Avas long known to the
Senecas by the name of Dyagodiyu, or "The Place of a Battle." It
answers in the most perfect manner to the French contemporary
descriptions.

[1] The authorities for the above are Denonville, Champigny, Abbé
Belmont, Bishop Saint-Vallier, and the author of _Recueil de ce qui
s'est passé en Canada au Sujet de la Guerre, etc., depuis l'année_
1682.

Belmont, who accompanied the expedition, speaks of the affair with
indignation, which was shared by many French officers. The bishop, on
the other hand, mentions the success of the stratagem as a reward
accorded by Heaven to the piety of Denonville. _État Présent de
l'Église_, 91, 92 (reprint, 1856).

Denonville's account, which is sufficiently explicit, is contained in
the long journal of the expedition which he sent to the court, and in
several letters to the minister. Both Belmont and the author of the
_Recueil_ speak of the prisoners as having been "pris par l'appât d'un
festin."

Mr. Shea, usually so exact, has been led into some error by
confounding the different acts of this affair. By Denonville's
official journal, it appears that, on the 19th June, Perré, by his
order, captured several Indians on the St. Lawrence; that, on the 25th
June, the governor, then at Rapide Plat on his way up the river,
received a letter from Champigny, informing him that he had seized all
the Iroquois near Fort Frontenac; and that, on the 3d July, Perré,
whom Denonville had sent several days before to attack Ganneious,
arrived with his prisoners.

[2] I have ventured to give this story on the sole authority of
Charlevoix, for the contemporary writers are silent concerning it. Mr.
Shea thinks that it involves a contradiction of date; but this is
entirely due to confounding the capture of prisoners by Perré at
Ganneious on July 3d with the capture by Champigny at Fort Frontenac
about June 20th. Lamberville reached Denonville's camp, one day's
journey from the fort, on the evening of the 29th. (_Journal of
Denonville_.) This would give four and a half days for news of the
treachery to reach Onondaga, and four and a half days for the Jesuit
to rejoin his countrymen.

Charlevoix, with his usual carelessness, says that the Jesuit Milet
had also been used to lure the Iroquois into the snare, and that he
was soon after captured by the Oneidas, and delivered by an Indian
matron. Milet's captivity did not take place till 1689-90.




CHAPTER IX.

1687-1689.

THE IROQUOIS INVASION.

ALTERCATIONS.--ATTITUDE OF DONGAN.--MARTIAL PREPARATION.--PERPLEXITY
OF DENONVILLE.--ANGRY CORRESPONDENCE.--RECALL OF DONGAN.--SIR EDMUND
ANDROS.--HUMILIATION OF DENONVILLE.--DISTRESS OF CANADA.--APPEALS FOR
HELP.--IROQUOIS DIPLOMACY.--A HURON MACCHIAVEL.--THE CATASTROPHE.--
FEROCITY OF THE VICTORS.--WAR WITH ENGLAND.--RECALL OF DENONVILLE.


When Dongan heard that the French had invaded the Senecas, seized
English traders on the lakes, and built a fort at Niagara, his wrath
was kindled anew. He sent to the Iroquois, and summoned them to meet
him at Albany; told the assembled chiefs that the late calamity had
fallen upon them because they had held councils with the French
without asking his leave; forbade them to do so again, and informed
them that, as subjects of King James, they must make no treaty, except
by the consent of his representative, the governor of New York. He
declared that the Ottawas and other remote tribes were also British
subjects; that the Iroquois should unite with them, to expel the
French from the west; and that all alike should bring down their
beaver skins to the English at Albany. Moreover, he enjoined them to
receive no more French Jesuits into their towns, and to call home
their countrymen whom these fathers had converted and enticed to
Canada. "Obey my commands," added the governor, "for that is the only
way to eat well and sleep well, without fear or disturbance." The
Iroquois, who wanted his help, seemed to assent to all he said. "We
will fight the French," exclaimed their orator, "as long as we have a
man left." [Footnote: _Dongan's Propositions to the Five Nations;
Answer of the Five Nations, N. Y. Col. Docs_., III. 438, 441.]

At the same time, Dongan wrote to Denonville demanding the immediate
surrender of the Dutch and English captured on the lakes. Denonville
angrily replied that he would keep the prisoners, since Dongan had
broken the treaty of neutrality by "giving aid and comfort to the
savages." The English governor, in return, upbraided his correspondent
for invading British territory. "I will endevour to protect his
Majesty's subjects here from your unjust invasions, till I hear from
the King, my Master, who is the greatest and most glorious Monarch
that ever set on a Throne, and would do as much to propagate the
Christian faith as any prince that lives. He did not send me here to
suffer you to give laws to his subjects. I hope, notwithstanding all
your trained souldiers and greate Officers come from Europe, that our
masters at home will suffer us to do ourselves justice on you for the
injuries and spoyle you have committed on us; and I assure you, Sir,
if my Master gives leave, I will be as soon at Quebeck as you shall be
att Albany. What you alleage concerning my assisting the Sinnakees
(_Senecas_) with arms and ammunition to warr against you was never
given by mee untill the sixt of August last, when understanding of
your unjust proceedings in invading the King my Master's territorys in
a hostill manner, I then gave them powder, lead, and armes, and united
the five nations together to defend that part of our King's dominions
from your jnjurious invasion. And as for offering them men, in that
you doe me wrong, our men being all buisy then at their harvest, and I
leave itt to your judgment whether there was any occasion when only
foure hundred of them engaged with your whole army. I advise you to
send home all the Christian and Indian prisoners the King of England's
subjects you unjustly do deteine. This is what I have thought fitt to
answer to your reflecting and provoking letter." [Footnote: _Dongan to
Denonville, 9 Sept._, 1687, in _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ III. 472.]

As for the French claims to the Iroquois country and the upper lakes,
he turned them to ridicule. They were founded, in part, on the
missions established there by the Jesuits. "The King of China,"
observes Dongan, "never goes anywhere without two Jessuits with him. I
wonder you make not the like pretence to that Kingdome." He speaks
with equal irony of the claim based on discovery: "Pardon me if I say
itt is a mistake, except you will affirme that a few loose fellowes
rambling amongst Indians to keep themselves from starving gives the
French a right to the Countrey." And of the claim based on
geographical divisions: "Your reason is that some rivers or rivoletts
of this country run out into the great river of Canada. O just God!
what new, farr-fetched, and unheard-of pretence is this for a title
to a country. The French King may have as good a pretence to all those
Countrys that drink clarett and Brandy." _Dongan's Fourth Paper to the
French Agents, N. Y. Col. Docs_., III. 528. In spite of his sarcasms,
it is clear that the claim of prior discovery and occupation was on
the side of the French.

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