Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

F >> Francis Parkman >> Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV




Rude as it was, Acadia had charms, and it has them still: in its
wilderness of woods and its wilderness of waves; the rocky ramparts
that guard its coasts; its deep, still bays and foaming headlands; the
towering cliffs of the Grand Menan; the innumerable islands that
cluster about Penobscot Bay; and the romantic highlands of Mount
Desert, down whose gorges the sea-fog rolls like an invading host,
while the spires of fir-trees pierce the surging vapors like lances in
the smoke of battle.

Leaving Pentegoet, and sailing westward all day along a solitude of
woods, one might reach the English outpost of Pemaquid, and thence,
still sailing on, might anchor at evening off Casco Bay, and see in
the glowing west the distant peaks of the White Mountains, spectral
and dim amid the weird and fiery sunset.

Inland Acadia was all forest, and vast tracts of it are a primeval
forest still. Here roamed the Abenakis with their kindred tribes, a
race wild as their haunts. In habits they were all much alike. Their
villages were on the waters of the Androscoggin, the Saco, the
Kennebec, the Penobscot, the St. Croix, and the St. John; here in
spring they planted their corn, beans, and pumpkins, and then, leaving
them to grow, went down to the sea in their birch canoes. They
returned towards the end of summer, gathered their harvest, and went
again to the sea, where they lived in abundance on ducks, geese, and
other water-fowl. During winter, most of the women, children, and old
men remained in the villages; while the hunters ranged the forest in
chase of moose, deer, caribou, beavers, and bears.

Their summer stay at the seashore was perhaps the most pleasant, and
certainly the most picturesque, part of their lives. Bivouacked by
some of the innumerable coves and inlets that indent these coasts,
they passed their days in that alternation of indolence and action
which is a second nature to the Indian. Here in wet weather, while the
torpid water was dimpled with rain-drops, and the upturned canoes lay
idle on the pebbles, the listless warrior smoked his pipe under his
roof of bark, or launched his slender craft at the dawn of the July
day, when shores and islands were painted in shadow against the rosy
east, and forests, dusky and cool, lay waiting for the sunrise.

The women gathered raspberries or whortleberries in the open places of
the woods, or clams and oysters in the sands and shallows, adding
their shells as a contribution to the shell-heaps that have
accumulated for ages along these shores. The men fished, speared
porpoises, or shot seals. A priest was often in the camp watching over
his flock, and saying mass every day in a chapel of bark. There was no
lack of altar candles, made by mixing tallow with the wax of the
bayberry, which abounded among the rocky hills, and was gathered in
profusion by the squaws and children.

The Abenaki missions were a complete success. Not only those of the
tribe who had been induced to migrate to the mission villages of
Canada, but also those who remained in their native woods, were, or
were soon to become, converts to Romanism, and therefore allies of
France. Though less ferocious than the Iroquois, they were brave,
after the Indian manner, and they rarely or never practised
cannibalism.

Some of the French were as lawless as their Indian friends. Nothing is
more strange than the incongruous mixture of the forms of feudalism
with the independence of the Acadian woods. Vast grants of land were
made to various persons, some of whom are charged with using them for
no other purpose than roaming over their domains with Indian women.
The only settled agricultural population was at Port Royal,
Beaubassin, and the Basin of Minas. The rest were fishermen, fur
traders, or rovers of the forest. Repeated orders came from the court
to open a communication with Quebec, and even to establish a line of
military posts through the intervening wilderness, but the distance
and the natural difficulties of the country proved insurmountable
obstacles. If communication with Quebec was difficult, that with
Boston was easy; and thus Acadia became largely dependent on its New
England neighbors, who, says an Acadian officer, "are mostly fugitives
from England, guilty of the death of their late king, and accused of
conspiracy against their present sovereign; others of them are
pirates, and they are all united in a sort of independent republic."
[Footnote: _Mémoire du Sieur Bergier_, 1685.] Their relations with the
Acadians were of a mixed sort. They continually encroached on Acadian
fishing grounds, and we hear at one time of a hundred of their vessels
thus engaged. This was not all. The interlopers often landed and
traded with the Indians along the coast. Meneval, the governor,
complained bitterly of their arrogance. Sometimes, it is said, they
pretended to be foreign pirates, and plundered vessels and
settlements, while the aggrieved parties could get no redress at
Boston. They also carried on a regular trade at Port Royal and Les
Mines or Grand Pré, where many of the inhabitants regarded them with a
degree of favor which gave great umbrage to the military authorities,
who, nevertheless, are themselves accused of seeking their own profit
by dealings with the heretics; and even French priests, including
Petit, the curé of Port Royal, are charged with carrying on this
illicit trade in their own behalf, and in that of the seminary of
Quebec. The settlers caught from the "Bostonnais" what their governor
stigmatizes as English and parliamentary ideas, the chief effect of
which was to make them restive under his rule. The Church, moreover,
was less successful in excluding heresy from Acadia than from Canada.
A number of Huguenots established themselves at Port Royal, and formed
sympathetic relations with the Boston Puritans. The bishop at Quebec
was much alarmed. "This is dangerous," he writes. "I pray your Majesty
to put an end to these disorders." [Footnote: _L'Évêque au Roy_, 10
_Nov_., 1683. For the preceding pages, the authorities are chiefly the
correspondence of Grandfontaine, Marson, La Vallière, Meneval,
Bergier, Goutins, Perrot, Talon, Frontenac, and other officials. A
large collection of Acadian documents, from the archives of Paris, is
in my possession. I have also examined the Acadian collections made
for the government of Canada and for that of Massachusetts.]

A sort of chronic warfare of aggression and reprisal, closely akin to
piracy, was carried on at intervals in Acadian waters by French
private armed vessels on one hand, and New England private armed
vessels on the other. Genuine pirates also frequently appeared. They
were of various nationality, though usually buccaneers from the West
Indies. They preyed on New England trading and fishing craft, and
sometimes attacked French settlements. One of their most notorious
exploits was the capture of two French vessels and a French fort at
Chedabucto by a pirate, manned in part, it is said, from
Massachusetts. [Footnote: Meneval, _Mémoire_, 1688; Denonville,
_Mémoire_, 18 _Oct_., 1688; _Procès-verbal du Pillage de Chedabucto;
Relation de la Boullaye_, 1688.] A similar proceeding of earlier date
was the act of Dutchmen from St. Domingo. They made a descent on the
French fort of Pentegoet, on Penobscot Bay. Chambly, then commanding
for the king in Acadia, was in the place. They assaulted his works,
wounded him, took him prisoner, and carried him to Boston, where they
held him at ransom. His young ensign escaped into the woods, and
carried the news to Canada; but many months elapsed before Chambly was
released. [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre_, 14 _Nov_., 1674;
_Frontenac à Leverett, gouverneur de Baston_, 24 _Sept_., 1674;
_Frontenac to the Governor and Council of Massachusetts_, 25 _May_,
1675 (see 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, I. 64); _Colbert à Frontenac_, 15
_May_, 1675. Frontenac supposed the assailants to be buccaneers. They
had, however, a commission from William of Orange. Hutchinson says
that the Dutch again took Pentegoet in 1676, but were driven off by
ships from Boston, as the English claimed the place for themselves.]

This young ensign was Jean Vincent de l'Abadie, Baron de Saint-Castin,
a native of Béarn, on the slopes of the Pyrenees, the same rough,
strong soil that gave to France her Henri IV. When fifteen years of
age, he came to Canada with the regiment of Carignan-Salières, ensign
in the company of Chambly; and, when the regiment was disbanded, he
followed his natural bent, and betook himself to the Acadian woods. At
this time there was a square bastioned fort at Pentegoet, mounted with
twelve small cannon; but after the Dutch attack it fell into decay.
[Footnote: On its condition in 1670, _Estat du Fort et Place de
Pentegoet fait en l'année 1670, lorsque les Anglois l'ont rendu_. In
1671, fourteen soldiers and eight laborers were settled near the fort.
_Talon au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1671_. In the next year, Talon recommends
an _envoi de filles_ for the benefit of Pentegoet. _Mémoire sur le
Canada, 1672_. As late as 1698, we find Acadian officials advising the
reconstruction of the fort.] Saint-Castin, meanwhile, roamed the woods
with the Indians, lived like them, formed connections more or less
permanent with their women, became himself a chief, and gained such
ascendency over his red associates that, according to La Hontan, they
looked upon him as their tutelary god. He was bold, hardy, adroit,
tenacious; and, in spite of his erratic habits, had such capacity for
business, that, if we may believe the same somewhat doubtful
authority, he made a fortune of three or four hundred thousand crowns.
His gains came chiefly through his neighbors of New England, whom he
hated, but to whom he sold his beaver skins at an ample profit. His
trading house was at Pentegoet, now called Castine, in or near the old
fort; a perilous spot, which he occupied or abandoned by turns,
according to the needs of the time. Being a devout Catholic he wished
to add a resident priest to his establishment for the conversion of
his Indian friends; but, observes Father Petit of Port Royal, who knew
him well, "he himself has need of spiritual aid to sustain him in the
paths of virtue." [Footnote: Petit in Saint-Vallier, _Estat de
l'Église_, 39 (1856).] He usually made two visits a year to Port
Royal, where he gave liberal gifts to the church of which he was the
chief patron, attended mass with exemplary devotion, and then, shriven
of his sins, returned to his squaws at Pentegoet. Perrot, the
governor, maligned him; the motive, as Saint-Castin says, being
jealousy of his success in trade, for Perrot himself traded largely
with the English and the Indians. This, indeed, seems to have been his
chief occupation; and, as Saint-Castin was his principal rival, they
were never on good terms. Saint-Castin complained to Denonville.
"Monsieur Petit," he writes, "will tell you every thing. I will only
say that he (_Perrot_) kept me under arrest from the twenty-first of
April to the ninth of June, on pretence of a little weakness I had for
some women, and even told me that he had your orders to do it: but
that is not what troubles him; and as I do not believe there is
another man under heaven who will do meaner things through love of
gain, even to selling brandy by the pint and half-pint before
strangers in his own house, because he does not trust a single one of
his servants,--I see plainly what is the matter with him. He wants to
be the only merchant in Acadia." [Footnote: _Saint-Castin à
Denonville_, 2 _Juiliet_, 1687.]

Perrot was recalled this very year; and his successor, Meneval,
received instructions in regard to Saint-Castin, which show that the
king or his minister had a clear idea both of the baron's merits and
of his failings. The new governor was ordered to require him to
abandon "his vagabond life among the Indians," cease all trade with
the English, and establish a permanent settlement. Meneval was farther
directed to assure him that, if he conformed to the royal will, and
led a life "more becoming a gentleman," he might expect to receive
proofs of his Majesty's approval. [Footnote: _Instruction du Roy au
Sieur de Meneval_, 5 _Avril_, 1687.]

In the next year, Meneval reported that he had represented to
Saint-Castin the necessity of reform, and that in consequence he had
abandoned his trade with the English, given up his squaws, married,
and promised to try to make a solid settlement. [Footnote: _Mémoire du
Sieur de Meneval sur l'Acadie_, 10 _Sept_., 1688.] True he had
reformed before, and might need to reform again; but his faults were
not of the baser sort: he held his honor high, and was free-handed as
he was bold. His wife was what the early chroniclers would call an
Indian princess; for she was the daughter of Madockawando, chief of
the Penobscots.

So critical was the position of his post at Pentegoet that a strong
fort and a sufficient garrison could alone hope to maintain it against
the pirates and the "Bostonnais." Its vicissitudes had been many.
Standing on ground claimed by the English, within territory which had
been granted to the Duke of York, and which, on his accession to the
throne, became a part of the royal domain, it was never safe from
attack. In 1686, it was plundered by an agent of Dongan. In 1687, it
was plundered again; and in the next year Andros, then royal governor,
anchored before it in his frigate, the "Rose," landed with his
attendants, and stripped the building of all it contained, except a
small altar with pictures and ornaments, which they found in the
principal room. Saint-Castin escaped to the woods; and Andros sent him
word by an Indian that his property would be carried to Pemaquid, and
that he could have it again by becoming a British subject. He refused
the offer. [Footnote: _Mémoire présenté au Roy d'Angleterre_, 1687;
_Saint-Castin à Denonville_, 7 _Juillet_, 1687; _Hutchinson
Collection_, 562, 563; _Andros Tracts_, I. 118.]

The rival English post of Pemaquid was destroyed, as we have seen, by
the Abenakis in 1689; and, in the following year, they and their
French allies had made such havoc among the border settlements that
nothing was left east of the Piscataqua except the villages of Wells,
York, and Kittery. But a change had taken place in the temper of the
savages, mainly due to the easy conquest of Port Royal by Phips, and
to an expedition of the noted partisan Church by which they had
suffered considerable losses. Fear of the English on one hand, and the
attraction of their trade on the other, disposed many of them to
peace. Six chiefs signed a truce with the commissioners of
Massachusetts, and promised to meet them in council to bury the
hatchet for ever.

The French were filled with alarm. Peace between the Abenakis and the
"Bostonnais" would be disastrous both to Acadia and to Canada, because
these tribes held the passes through the northern wilderness, and, so
long as they were in the interest of France, covered the settlements
on the St. Lawrence from attack. Moreover, the government relied on
them to fight its battles. Therefore, no pains were spared to break
off their incipient treaty with the English, and spur them again to
war. Villebon, a Canadian of good birth, one of the brothers of
Portneuf, was sent by the king to govern Acadia. Presents for the
Abenakis were given him in abundance; and he was ordered to assure
them of support, so long as they fought for France. [Footnote:
_Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sieur de Villebon_, 1691.] He
and his officers were told to join their war-parties; while the
Canadians, who followed him to Acadia, were required to leave all
other employments and wage incessant war against the English borders.
"You yourself," says the minister, "will herein set them so good an
example, that they will be animated by no other desire than that of
making profit out of the enemy: there is nothing which I more strongly
urge upon you than to put forth all your ability and prudence to
prevent the Abenakis from occupying themselves in any thing but war,
and by good management of the supplies which you have received for
their use to enable them to live by it more to their advantage than by
hunting." [1]

Armed with these instructions, Villebon repaired to his post, where he
was joined by a body of Canadians under Portneuf. His first step was
to reoccupy Port Royal; and, as there was nobody there to oppose him,
he easily succeeded. The settlers renounced allegiance to
Massachusetts and King William, and swore fidelity to their natural
sovereign. [Footnote: _Procès-verbal de la Prise de Possession du Port
Royal_, 27 _Sept_., 1691.] The capital of Acadia dropped back quietly
into the lap of France; but, as the "Bostonnais" might recapture it at
any time, Villebon crossed to the St. John, and built a fort high up
the stream at Naxouat, opposite the present city of Fredericton. Here
no "Bostonnais" could reach him, and he could muster war-parties at
his leisure.

One thing was indispensable. A blow must be struck that would
encourage and excite the Abenakis. Some of them had had no part in the
truce, and were still so keen for English blood that a deputation of
their chiefs told Frontenac at Quebec that they would fight, even if
they must head their arrows with the bones of beasts. [Footnote:
_Paroles des Sauvages de la Mission de Pentegoet_.] They were under no
such necessity. Guns, powder, and lead were given them in abundance;
and Thury, the priest on the Penobscot, urged them to strike the
English. A hundred and fifty of his converts took the war-path, and
were joined by a band from the Kennebec. It was January; and they made
their way on snow-shoes along the frozen streams, and through the
deathly solitudes of the winter forest, till, after marching a month,
they neared their destination, the frontier settlement of York. In the
afternoon of the fourth of February, they encamped at the foot of a
high hill, evidently Mount Agamenticus, from the top of which the
English village lay in sight. It was a collection of scattered houses
along the banks of the river Agamenticus and the shore of the adjacent
sea. Five or more of them were built for defence, though owned and
occupied by families like the other houses. Near the sea stood the
unprotected house of the chief man of the place, Dummer, the minister.
York appears to have contained from three to four hundred persons of
all ages, for the most part rude and ignorant borderers.

The warriors lay shivering all night in the forest, not daring to make
fires. In the morning, a heavy fall of snow began. They moved forward,
and soon heard the sound of an axe. It was an English boy chopping
wood. They caught him, extorted such information as they needed, then
tomahawked him, and moved on, till, hidden by the forest and the thick
snow, they reached the outskirts of the village. Here they divided
into two parties, and each took its station. A gun was fired as a
signal, upon which they all yelled the war-whoop, and dashed upon
their prey. One party mastered the nearest fortified house, which had
scarcely a defender but women. The rest burst into the unprotected
houses, killing or capturing the astonished inmates. The minister was
at his door, in the act of mounting his horse to visit some distant
parishioners, when a bullet struck him dead. He was a graduate of
Harvard College, a man advanced in life, of some learning, and greatly
respected. The French accounts say that about a hundred persons,
including women and children, were killed, and about eighty captured.
Those who could, ran for the fortified houses of Preble, Harmon,
Alcock, and Norton, which were soon filled with the refugees. The
Indians did not attack them, but kept well out of gun-shot, and busied
themselves in pillaging, killing horses and cattle, and burning the
unprotected houses. They then divided themselves into small bands, and
destroyed all the outlying farms for four or five miles around.

The wish of King Louis was fulfilled. A good profit had been made out
of the enemy. The victors withdrew into the forest with their plunder
and their prisoners, among whom were several old women and a number of
children from three to seven years old. These, with a forbearance
which does them credit, they permitted to return uninjured to the
nearest fortified house, in requital, it is said, for the lives of a
number of Indian children spared by the English in a recent attack on
the Androscoggin. The wife of the minister was allowed to go with
them; but her son remained a prisoner, and the agonized mother went
back to the Indian camp to beg for his release. They again permitted
her to return; but, when she came a second time, they told her that,
as she wanted to be a prisoner, she should have her wish. She was
carried with the rest to their village, where she soon died of
exhaustion and distress. One of the warriors arrayed himself in the
gown of the slain minister, and preached a mock sermon to the captive
parishioners. [2]

Leaving York in ashes, the victors began their march homeward; while a
body of men from Portsmouth followed on their trail, but soon lost it,
and failed to overtake them. There was a season of feasting and
scalp-dancing at the Abenaki towns; and then, as spring opened, a
hundred of the warriors set out to visit Villebon, tell him of their
triumph, and receive the promised gifts from their great father the
king. Villebon and his brothers, Portneuf, Neuvillette, and Desîles,
with their Canadian followers, had spent the winter chiefly on the St.
John, finishing their fort at Naxouat, and preparing for future
operations. The Abenaki visitors arrived towards the end of April, and
were received with all possible distinction. There were speeches,
gifts, and feasting; for they had done much, and were expected to do
more. Portneuf sang a war-song in their language; then he opened a
barrel of wine: the guests emptied it in less than fifteen minutes,
sang, whooped, danced, and promised to repair to the rendezvous at
Saint-Castin's station of Pentegoet. [Footnote: Villebon, _Journal de
ce qui s'est passé à l'Acadie_, 1691, 1692.] A grand war-party was
afoot; and a new and withering blow was to be struck against the
English border. The guests set out for Pentegoet, followed by
Portneuf, Desîles, La Brognerie, several other officers, and twenty
Canadians. A few days after, a large band of Micmacs arrived; then
came the Malicite warriors from their village of Medoctec; and at last
Father Baudoin appeared, leading another band of Micmacs from his
mission of Beaubassin. Speeches, feasts, and gifts were made to them
all; and they all followed the rest to the appointed rendezvous.

At the beginning of June, the site of the town of Castine was covered
with wigwams and the beach lined with canoes. Malecites and Micmacs,
Abenakis from the Penobscot and Abenakis from the Kennebec, were here,
some four hundred warriors in all. [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre_,
15 _Sept_., 1692.] Here, too, were Portneuf and his Canadians, the
Baron de Saint-Castin and his Indian father-in-law, Madockawando, with
Moxus, Egeremet, and other noted chiefs, the terror of the English
borders. They crossed Penobscot Bay, and marched upon the frontier
village of Wells.

Wells, like York, was a small settlement of scattered houses along the
sea-shore. The year before, Moxus had vainly attacked it with two
hundred warriors. All the neighboring country had been laid waste by a
murderous war of detail, the lonely farm-houses pillaged and burned,
and the survivors driven back for refuge to the older settlements.
[Footnote: The ravages committed by the Abenakis in the preceding year
among the scattered farms of Maine and New Hampshire are said by
Frontenac to have been "impossible to describe." Another French writer
says that they burned more than 200 houses.] Wells had been crowded
with these refugees; but famine and misery had driven most of them
beyond the Piscataqua, and the place was now occupied by a remnant of
its own destitute inhabitants, who, warned by the fate of York, had
taken refuge in five fortified houses. The largest of these, belonging
to Joseph Storer, was surrounded by a palisade, and occupied by
fifteen armed men, under Captain Convers, an officer of militia. On
the ninth of June, two sloops and a sail-boat ran up the neighboring
creek, bringing supplies and fourteen more men. The succor came in the
nick of time. The sloops had scarcely anchored, when a number of
cattle were seen running frightened and wounded from the woods. It was
plain that an enemy was lurking there. All the families of the place
now gathered within the palisades of Storer's house, thus increasing
his force to about thirty men; and a close watch was kept throughout
the night.

In the morning, no room was left for doubt. One John Diamond, on his
way from the house to the sloops, was seized by Indians and dragged
off by the hair. Then the whole body of savages appeared swarming over
the fields, so confident of success that they neglected their usual
tactics of surprise. A French officer, who, as an old English account
says, was "habited like a gentleman," made them an harangue: they
answered with a burst of yells, and then attacked the house, firing,
screeching, and calling on Convers and his men to surrender. Others
gave their attention to the two sloops, which lay together in the
narrow creek, stranded by the ebbing tide. They fired at them for a
while from behind a pile of planks on the shore, and threw many
fire-arrows without success, the men on board fighting with such cool
and dexterous obstinacy that they held them all at bay, and lost but
one of their own number. Next, the Canadians made a huge shield of
planks, which they fastened vertically to the back of a cart. La
Brognerie with twenty-six men, French and Indians, got behind it, and
shoved the cart towards the stranded sloops. It was within fifty feet
of them, when a wheel sunk in the mud, and the machine stuck fast. La
Brognerie tried to lift the wheel, and was shot dead. The tide began
to rise. A Canadian tried to escape, and was also shot. The rest then
broke away together, some of them, as they ran, dropping under the
bullets of the sailors.

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