Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

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The dispute now assumed a new phase. James II. at length consented to
own the Iroquois as his subjects, ordering Dongan to protect them, and
repel the French by force of arms, should they attack them again.
[Footnote: _Warrant, authorizing Governor Dongan to protect the Five
Nations_, 10 _Nov_., 1687, _N. Y. Col. Docs_., III. 503.] At the same
time, conferences were opened at London between the French ambassador
and the English commissioners appointed to settle the questions at
issue. Both disputants claimed the Iroquois as subjects, and the
contest wore an aspect more serious than before.

The royal declaration was a great relief to Dongan. Thus far he had
acted at his own risk; now he was sustained by the orders of his king.
He instantly assumed a warlike attitude; and, in the next spring,
wrote to the Earl of Sunderland that he had been at Albany all winter,
with four hundred infantry, fifty horsemen, and eight hundred Indians.
This was not without cause, for a report had come from Canada that the
French were about to march on Albany to destroy it. "And now, my
Lord," continues Dongan, "we must build forts in ye countrey upon ye
great Lakes, as ye French doe, otherwise we lose ye Countrey, ye Bever
trade, and our Indians." [Footnote: _Dongan to Sunderland, Feb.,_
1688, _N.Y. Col. Docs.,_ III. 510.] Denonville, meanwhile, had begun
to yield, and promised to send back McGregory and the men captured
with him. [Footnote: _Denonville à Dongan_, 2 _Oct._, 1687. McGregory
soon arrived, and Dongan sent him back to Canada as an emissary with a
civil message to Denonville. _Dongan to Denonville,_ 10 _Nov._, 1687.]
Dongan, not satisfied, insisted on payment for all the captured
merchandise, and on the immediate demolition of Fort Niagara. He added
another demand, which must have been singularly galling to his rival.
It was to the effect that the Iroquois prisoners seized at Fort
Frontenac, and sent to the galleys in France, should be surrendered as
British subjects to the English ambassador at Paris or the secretary
of state in London. [Footnote: _Dongan to Denonville,_ 31 _Oct._,
1687; _Dongan's First Demand of the French Agents, N. Y. Col. Docs.,_
III. 515, 520.]

Denonville was sorely perplexed. He was hard pressed, and eager for
peace with the Iroquois at any price; but Dongan was using every means
to prevent their treating of peace with the French governor until he
had complied with all the English demands. In this extremity,
Denonville sent Father Vaillant to Albany, in the hope of bringing his
intractable rival to conditions less humiliating. The Jesuit played
his part with ability, and proved more than a match for his adversary
in dialectics; but Dongan held fast to all his demands. Vaillant tried
to temporize, and asked for a truce, with a view to a final settlement
by reference to the two kings. [Footnote: The papers of this
discussion will be found in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., III.] Dongan referred
the question to a meeting of Iroquois chiefs, who declared in reply
that they would make neither peace nor truce till Fort Niagara was
demolished and all the prisoners restored. Dongan, well pleased,
commended their spirit, and assured them that King James, "who is the
greatest man the sunn shines uppon, and never told a ly in his life,
has given you his Royall word to protect you." [Footnote: _Dongan's
Reply to the Five Nations, Ibid_., III. 535.] Vaillant returned from
his bootless errand; and a stormy correspondence followed between the
two governors. Dongan renewed his demands, then protested his wish for
peace, extolled King James for his pious zeal, and declared that he
was sending over missionaries of his own to convert the Iroquois.
[Footnote: _Dongan to Denonville_, 17 _Feb_., 1688, _Ibid_., III.
519.] What Denonville wanted was not their conversion by Englishmen,
but their conversion by Frenchmen, and the presence in their towns of
those most useful political agents, the Jesuits. [Footnote: "II y a
une nécessité indispensable pour les intérais de la Religion et de la
Colonie de restablir les missionaires Jesuites dans tous les villages
Iroquois: si vous ne trouvés moyen de faire retourner ces Pères dans
leurs anciennes missions, vous devés en attendre beaucoup de malheur
pour cette Colonie; car je dois vous dire que jusqu'icy c'est leur
habilité qui a soutenu les affaires du pays par leur sçavoir-faire à
gouverner les esprits de ces barbares, qui ne sont Sauvages que de
nom." _Denonville, Mémoire adressé au Ministre_, 9 _Nov_., 1688.] He
replied angrily, charging Dongan with preventing the conversion of the
Iroquois by driving off the French missionaries, and accusing him,
farther, of instigating the tribes of New York to attack Canada.
[Footnote: _Denonville à Dongan_, 24 _Avril_, 1688; _Ibid._, 12 _Mai_,
1688. Whether the charge is true is questionable. Dongan had just
written that, if the Iroquois did harm to the French, he was ordered
to offer satisfaction, and had already done so.] Suddenly there was a
change in the temper of his letters. He wrote to his rival in terms of
studied civility; declared that he wished he could meet him, and
consult with him on the best means of advancing the cause of true
religion; begged that he would not refuse him his friendship; and
thanked him in warm terms for befriending some French prisoners whom
he had saved from the Iroquois, and treated with great kindness.
[Footnote: _Denonville à Dongan,_ 18 _Juin_, 1688; _Ibid._, 5
_Juillet_, 1688; _Ibid._, 20 _Aug._, 1088. "Je n'ai donc qu'à vous
asseurer que toute la Colonie a une très-parfaite reconnoissance des
bons offices que ces pauvres malheureux ont reçu de vous et de vos
peuples."]

This change was due to despatches from Versailles, in which Denonville
was informed that the matters in dispute would soon be amicably
settled by the commissioners; that he was to keep on good terms with
the English commanders, and, what pleased him still more, that the
king of England was about to recall Dongan. [Footnote: _Mémoire pour
servir d'Instruction au Sr. Marquis de Denonville_, 8 _Mars_, 1688;
_Le Roy à Denonville, même date_; _Seignelay à Denonville, même date._
Louis XIV. had demanded Dongan's recall. How far this had influenced
the action of James II. it is difficult to say.] In fact, James II.
had resolved on remodelling his American colonies. New York, New
Jersey, and New England had been formed into one government under Sir
Edmund Andros; and Dongan was summoned home, where a regiment was
given him, with the rank of major-general of artillery. Denonville
says that, in his efforts to extend English trade to the Great Lakes
and the Mississippi, his late rival had been influenced by motives of
personal gain. Be this as it may, he was a bold and vigorous defender
of the claims of the British crown.

Sir Edmund Andros now reigned over New York; and, by the terms of his
commission, his rule stretched westward to the Pacific. The usual
official courtesies passed between him and Denonville; but Andros
renewed all the demands of his predecessor, claimed the Iroquois as
subjects, and forbade the French to attack them. [Footnote: _Andros to
Denonville_, 21 _Aug._, 1688; _Ibid._, 29 _Sept._, 1688.] The new
governor was worse than the old. Denonville wrote to the minister: "I
send you copies of his letters, by which you will see that the spirit
of Dongan has entered into the heart of his successor, who may be less
passionate and less interested, but who is, to say the least, quite as
much opposed to us, and perhaps more dangerous by his suppleness and
smoothness than the other was by his violence. What he has just done
among the Iroquois, whom he pretends to be under his government, and
whom he prevents from coming to meet me, is a certain proof that
neither he nor the other English governors, nor their people, will
refrain from doing this colony all the harm they can." [Footnote:
_Mémoire de l'Estat Présent des Affaires de ce Pays depuis le 10me
Aoust, 1688, jusq'au dernier Octobre de la mesme année_. He declares
that the English are always "itching for the western trade," that
their favorite plan is to establish a post on the Ohio, and that they
have made the attempt three times already.]

While these things were passing, the state of Canada was deplorable,
and the position of its governor as mortifying as it was painful. He
thought with good reason that the maintenance of the new fort at
Niagara was of great importance to the colony, and he had repeatedly
refused the demands of Dongan and the Iroquois for its demolition. But
a power greater than sachems and governors presently intervened. The
provisions left at Niagara, though abundant, were atrociously bad.
Scurvy and other malignant diseases soon broke out among the soldiers.
The Senecas prowled about the place, and no man dared venture out for
hunting, fishing, or firewood. [Footnote: Denonville, _Mémoire du_ 10
_Aoust_, 1688.] The fort was first a prison, then a hospital, then a
charnel-house, till before spring the garrison of a hundred men was
reduced to ten or twelve. In this condition, they were found towards
the end of April by a large war-party of friendly Miamis, who entered
the place and held it till a French detachment at length arrived for
its relief. [Footnote: _Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en Canada depuis
l'année_ 1682. The writer was an officer of the detachment, and
describes what he saw. Compare La Potherie, II. 210; and La Hontan, I.
131 (1709).] The garrison of Fort Frontenac had suffered from the same
causes, though not to the same degree. Denonville feared that he
should be forced to abandon them both. The way was so long and so
dangerous, and the governor had grown of late so cautious, that he
dreaded the risk of maintaining such remote communications. On second
thought, he resolved to keep Frontenac and sacrifice Niagara. He
promised Dongan that he would demolish it, and he kept his word.
[Footnote: _Denonville à Dongan_, 20 _Aoust_, 1688; _Procès-verbal of
the Condition of Fort Niagara_, 1688; _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. 380. The
palisades were torn down by Denonville's order on the 15th of
September. The rude dwellings and storehouses which they enclosed,
together with a large wooden cross, were left standing. The commandant
De Troyes had died, and, Captain Desbergères had been sent to succeed
him.]

He was forced to another and a deeper humiliation. At the imperious
demand of Dongan and the Iroquois, he begged the king to send back the
prisoners entrapped at Fort Frontenac, and he wrote to the minister:
"Be pleased, Monseigneur, to remember that I had the honor to tell you
that, in order to attain the peace necessary to the country, I was
obliged to promise that I would beg you to send back to us the
prisoners I sent you last year. I know you gave orders that they
should be well treated, but I am informed that, though they were well
enough treated at first, your orders were not afterwards executed with
the same fidelity. If ill treatment has caused them all to die,--for
they are people who easily fall into dejection, and who die of
it,--and if none of them come back, I do not know at all whether we
can persuade these barbarians not to attack us again." [Footnote:
Denonville, _Mémoire de_ 10 _Aoust_, 1688.]

What had brought the marquis to this pass? Famine, destitution,
disease, and the Iroquois were making Canada their prey. The fur trade
had been stopped for two years; and the people, bereft of their only
means of subsistence, could contribute nothing to their own defence.
Above Three Rivers, the whole population was imprisoned in stockade
forts hastily built in every seigniory. [Footnote: In the Dépot des
Cartes de la Marine, there is a contemporary manuscript map, on which
all these forts are laid down.] Here they were safe, provided that
they never ventured out; but their fields were left untilled, and the
governor was already compelled to feed many of them at the expense of
the king. The Iroquois roamed among the deserted settlements or
prowled like lynxes about the forts, waylaying convoys and killing or
capturing stragglers. Their war-parties were usually small; but their
movements were so mysterious and their attacks so sudden, that they
spread a universal panic through the upper half of the colony. They
were the wasps which Denonville had failed to kill. "We should
succumb," wrote the distressed governor, "if our cause were not the
cause of God. Your Majesty's zeal for religion, and the great things
you have done for the destruction of heresy, encourage me to hope that
you will be the bulwark of the Faith in the new world as you are in
the old. I cannot give you a truer idea of the war we have to wage
with the Iroquois than by comparing them to a great number of wolves
or other ferocious beasts, issuing out of a vast forest to ravage the
neighboring settlements. The people gather to hunt them down; but
nobody can find their lair, for they are always in motion. An abler
man than I would be greatly at a loss to manage the affairs of this
country. It is for the interest of the colony to have peace at any
cost whatever. For the glory of the king and the good of religion, we
should be glad to have it an advantageous one; and so it would have
been, but for the malice of the English and the protection they have
given our enemies." [Footnote: _Denonville au Roy_, 1688; _Ibid._,
_Mémoire du_ 10 _Aoust_, 1688; _Ibid._, _Mémoire du_ 9 _Nov._, 1688.]

And yet he had, one would think, a reasonable force at his disposal.
His thirty-two companies of regulars were reduced by this time to
about fourteen hundred men, but he had also three or four hundred
Indian converts, besides the militia of the colony, of whom he had
stationed a large body under Vaudreuil at the head of the Island of
Montreal. All told, they were several times more numerous than the
agile warriors who held the colony in terror. He asked for eight
hundred more regulars. The king sent him three hundred. Affairs grew
worse, and he grew desperate. Rightly judging that the best means of
defence was to take the offensive, he conceived the plan of a double
attack on the Iroquois, one army to assail the Onondagas and Cayugas,
another the Mohawks and Oneidas. [Footnote: _Plan for the Termination
of the Iroquois War_, _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. 375.] Since to reach the
Mohawks as he proposed, by the way of Lake Champlain, he must pass
through territory indisputably British, the attempt would be a
flagrant violation of the treaty of neutrality. Nevertheless, he
implored the king to send him four thousand soldiers to accomplish it.
[Footnote: Denonville, _Mémoire du_ 8 _Août_, 1688.] His fast friend,
the bishop, warmly seconded his appeal. "The glory of God is
involved," wrote the head of the church, "for the Iroquois are the
only tribe who oppose the progress of the gospel. The glory of the
king is involved, for they are the only tribe who refuse to recognize
his grandeur and his might. They hold the French in the deepest
contempt; and, unless they are completely humbled within two years,
his Majesty will have no colony left in Canada." [Footnote:
Saint-Vallier, _Mémoire sur les Affaires du Canada pour Monseigneur le
Marquis de Seignelay_.] And the prelate proceeds to tell the minister
how, in his opinion, the war ought to be conducted. The appeal was
vain. "His Majesty agrees with you," wrote Seignelay, "that three or
four thousand men would be the best means of making peace, but he
cannot spare them now. If the enemy breaks out again, raise the
inhabitants, and fight as well as you can till his Majesty is prepared
to send you troops." [Footnote: _Mémoire du Ministre adressé à
Denonville_, 1 _Mai_, 1680.]

A hope had dawned on the governor. He had been more active of late in
negotiating than in fighting, and his diplomacy had prospered more
than his arms. It may be remembered that some of the Iroquois
entrapped at Fort Frontenac had been given to their Christian
relatives in the mission villages. Here they had since remained.
Denonville thought that he might use them as messengers to their
heathen countrymen, and he sent one or more of them to Onondaga with
gifts and overtures of peace. That shrewd old politician, Big Mouth,
was still strong in influence at the Iroquois capital, and his name
was great to the farthest bounds of the confederacy. He knew by
personal experience the advantages of a neutral position between the
rival European powers, from both of whom he received gifts and
attentions; and he saw that what was good for him was good for the
confederacy, since, if it gave itself to neither party, both would
court its alliance. In his opinion, it had now leaned long enough
towards the English; and a change of attitude had become expedient.
Therefore, as Denonville promised the return of the prisoners, and was
plainly ready to make other concessions, Big Mouth, setting at naught
the prohibitions of Andros, consented to a conference with the French.
He set out at his leisure for Montreal, with six Onondaga, Cayuga, and
Oneida chiefs; and, as no diplomatist ever understood better the
advantage of negotiating at the head of an imposing force, a body of
Iroquois warriors, to the number, it is said, of twelve hundred, set
out before him, and silently took path to Canada.

The ambassadors paddled across the lake and presented themselves
before the commandant of Fort Frontenac, who received them with
distinction, and ordered Lieutenant Perelle to escort them to
Montreal. Scarcely had the officer conducted his august charge five
leagues on their way, when, to his amazement, he found himself in the
midst of six hundred Iroquois warriors, who amused themselves for a
time with his terror, and then accompanied him as far as Lake St.
Francis, where he found another body of savages nearly equal in
number. Here the warriors halted, and the ambassadors with their
escort gravely pursued their way to meet Denonville at Montreal.
[Footnote: _Relation des Évenements de la Guerre_, 30 _Oct_., 1688.]

Big Mouth spoke haughtily, like a man who knew his power. He told the
governor that he and his people were subjects neither of the French
nor of the English; that they wished to be friends of both; that they
held their country of the Great Spirit; and that they had never been
conquered in war. He declared that the Iroquois knew the weakness of
the French, and could easily exterminate them; that they had formed a
plan of burning all the houses and barns of Canada, killing the
cattle, setting fire to the ripe grain, and then, when the people were
starving, attacking the forts; but that he, Big Mouth, had prevented
its execution. He concluded by saying that he was allowed but four
days to bring back the governor's reply; and that, if he were kept
waiting longer, he would not answer for what might happen. [Footnote:
_Declaration of the Iroquois in presence of M. de Denonville, N. Y.
Col. Docs._, IX. 384; _Relation des Evénements de la Guerre_, 30
_Oct_., 1688; Belmont, _Histoire du Canada_.] Though it appeared by
some expressions in his speech that he was ready to make peace only
with the French, leaving the Iroquois free to attack the Indian allies
of the colony, and though, while the ambassadors were at Montreal,
their warriors on the river above actually killed several of the
Indian converts, Denonville felt himself compelled to pretend
ignorance of the outrage. [Footnote: _Callières à Seignelay, Jan._,
1689.] A declaration of neutrality was drawn up, and Big Mouth affixed
to it the figures of sundry birds and beasts as the signatures of
himself and his fellow-chiefs. [Footnote: See the signatures in _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, IX. 385, 386.] He promised, too, that within a certain
time deputies from the whole confederacy should come to Montreal and
conclude a general peace.

The time arrived, and they did not appear. It became known, however,
that a number of chiefs were coming from Onondaga to explain the
delay, and to promise that the deputies should soon follow. The chiefs
in fact were on their way. They reached La Famine, the scene of La
Barre's meeting with Big Mouth; but here an unexpected incident
arrested them, and completely changed the aspect of affairs. Among the
Hurons of Michillimackinac there was a chief of high renown named
Kondiaronk, or the Rat. He was in the prime of life, a redoubted
warrior, and a sage counsellor. The French seem to have admired him
greatly. "He is a gallant man," says La Hontan, "if ever there was
one;" while Charlevoix declares that he was the ablest Indian the
French ever knew in America, and that he had nothing of the savage but
the name and the dress. In spite of the father's eulogy, the moral
condition of the Rat savored strongly of the wigwam. He had given
Denonville great trouble by his constant intrigues with the Iroquois,
with whom he had once made a plot for the massacre of his neighbors,
the Ottawas, under cover of a pretended treaty. [Footnote: Nicolas
Perrot, 143.] The French had spared no pains to gain him; and he had
at length been induced to declare for them, under a pledge from the
governor that the war should never cease till the Iroquois were
destroyed. During the summer, he raised a party of forty warriors, and
came down the lakes in quest of Iroquois scalps. [Footnote:
_Denonville à Seignelay_, 9 _Nov._, 1688. La Hontan saw the party set
out, and says that there were about a hundred of them.] On the way, he
stopped at Fort Frontenac to hear the news, when, to his amazement,
the commandant told him that deputies from Onondaga were coming in a
few days to conclude peace, and that he had better go home at once.

"It is well," replied the Rat.

He knew that for the Hurons it was not well. He and his tribe stood
fully committed to the war, and for them peace between the French and
the Iroquois would be a signal of destruction, since Denonville could
not or would not protect his allies. The Rat paddled off with his
warriors. He had secretly learned the route of the expected deputies;
and he shaped his course, not, as he had pretended, for
Michillimackinac, but for La Famine, where he knew that they would
land. Having reached his destination, he watched and waited four or
five days, till canoes at length appeared, approaching from the
direction of Onondaga. On this, the Rat and his friends hid themselves
in the bushes.

The new comers were the messengers sent as precursors of the embassy.
At their head was a famous personage named Decanisora, or
Tegannisorens, with whom were three other chiefs, and, it seems, a
number of warriors. They had scarcely landed when the ambushed Hurons
gave them a volley of bullets, killed one of the chiefs, wounded all
the rest, and then, rushing upon them, seized the whole party except a
warrior who escaped with a broken arm. Having secured his prisoners,
the Rat told them that he had acted on the suggestion of Denonville,
who had informed him that an Iroquois war-party was to pass that way.
The astonished captives protested that they were envoys of peace. The
Rat put on a look of amazement, then of horror and fury, and presently
burst into invectives against Denonville for having made him the
instrument of such atrocious perfidy. "Go, my brothers," he exclaimed,
"go home to your people. Though there is war between us, I give you
your liberty. Onontio has made me do so black a deed that I shall
never be happy again till your five tribes take a just vengeance upon
him." After giving them guns, powder, and ball, he sent them on their
way, well pleased with him and filled with rage against the governor.

In accordance with Indian usage, he, however, kept one of them to be
adopted, as he declared, in place of one of his followers whom he had
lost in the skirmish; then, recrossing the lake, he went alone to Fort
Frontenac, and, as he left the gate to rejoin his party, he said
coolly, "I have killed the peace: we shall see how the governor will
get out of this business." [Footnote: "Il dit, J'ai tué la paix."
Belmont, _Histoire du Canada_. "Le Rat passa ensuite seul à Catarakouy
(_Fort Frontenac_) sans vouloir dire le tour qu'il avoit fait, dit
seulement estant hors de la porte, en s'en allant, Nous verrons comme
le gouverneur se tirera d'affaire." Denonville.] Then, without loss of
time, he repaired to Michillimackinac, and gave his Iroquois prisoner
to the officer in command. No news of the intended peace had yet
reached that distant outpost; and, though the unfortunate Iroquois
told the story of his mission and his capture, the Rat declared that
it was a crazy invention inspired by the fear of death, and the
prisoner was immediately shot by a file of soldiers. The Rat now sent
for an old Iroquois who had long been a prisoner at the Huron village,
telling him with a mournful air that he was free to return to his
people, and recount the cruelty of the French, who, had put their
countryman to death. The liberated Iroquois faithfully acquitted
himself of his mission. [1]

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