Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

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In all these conferences, the Iroquois had stood by their English
allies, with a fidelity not too well merited. But, though they were
loyal towards the English, they had acted with duplicity towards the
French, and, while treating of peace with them, had attacked some of
their Indian allies, and intrigued with others. They pursued with more
persistency than ever the policy they had adopted in the time of La
Barre, that is, to persuade or frighten the tribes of the west to
abandon the French, join hands with them and the English, and send
their furs to Albany instead of Montreal; for the sagacious
confederates knew well that, if the trade were turned into this new
channel, their local position would enable them to control it. The
scheme was good; but with whatever consistency their chiefs and elders
might pursue it, the wayward ferocity of their young warriors crossed
it incessantly, and murders alternated with intrigues. On the other
hand, the western tribes, who since the war had been but ill supplied
with French goods and French brandy, knew that they could have English
goods and English rum in great abundance, and at far less cost; and
thus, in spite of hate and fear, the intrigue went on. Michillimackinac
was the focus of it, but it pervaded all the west. The position of
Frontenac was one of great difficulty, and the more so that the
intestine quarrels of his allies excessively complicated the mazes of
forest diplomacy. This heterogeneous multitude, scattered in tribes
and groups of tribes over two thousand miles of wilderness, was like a
vast menagerie of wild animals; and the lynx bristled at the wolf, and
the panther grinned fury at the bear, in spite of all his efforts to
form them into a happy family under his paternal rule.

La Motte-Cadillac commanded at Michillimackinac, Courtemanche was
stationed at Fort Miamis, and Tonty and La Forêt at the fortified rock
of St. Louis on the Illinois; while Nicolas Perrot roamed among the
tribes of the Mississippi, striving at the risk of his life to keep
them at peace with each other, and in alliance with the French. Yet a
plot presently came to light, by which the Foxes, Mascontins, and
Kickapoos were to join hands, renounce the French, and cast their
fortunes with the Iroquois and the English. There was still more
anxiety for the tribes of Michillimackinac, because the results of
their defection would be more immediate. This important post had at
the time an Indian population of six or seven thousand souls, a Jesuit
mission, a fort with two hundred soldiers, and a village of about
sixty houses, occupied by traders and _coureurs de bois_. The Indians
of the place were in relations more or less close with all the tribes
of the lakes. The Huron village was divided between two rival chiefs:
the Baron, who was deep in Iroquois and English intrigue; and the Rat,
who, though once the worst enemy of the French, now stood their
friend. The Ottawas and other Algonquins of the adjacent villages were
savages of a lower grade, tossed continually between hatred of the
Iroquois, distrust of the French, and love of English goods and
English rum. [Footnote: "Si les Outaouacs (_Ottawas_) et Hurons
concluent la paix avec l'Iroquois sans nostre participation, et
donnent chez eux l'entrée à l'Anglois pour le commerce, la Colonie est
entièrement ruinée, puisque c'est le seul (_moyen_) par lequel ce
pays-cy puisse subsister, et l'on peut asseurer que si les sauvages
goustent une fois du commerce de l'Anglois, ils rompront pour toujours
avec les François, parcequ'ils ne peuvent donner les marchandises qu'a
un prix beaucoup plus hault." _Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1696_.]

La Motte-Cadillac found that the Hurons of the Baron's band were
receiving messengers and peace belts from New York and her red allies,
that the English had promised to build a trading house on Lake Erie,
and that the Iroquois had invited the lake tribes to a grand
convention at Detroit. These belts and messages were sent, in the
Indian expression, "underground," that is, secretly; and the envoys
who brought them came in the disguise of prisoners taken by the
Hurons. On one occasion, seven Iroquois were brought in; and some of
the French, suspecting them to be agents of the negotiation, stabbed
two of them as they landed. There was a great tumult. The Hurons took
arms to defend the remaining five; but at length suffered themselves
to be appeased, and even gave one of the Iroquois, a chief, into the
hands of the French, who, says La Potherie, determined to "make an
example of him." They invited the Ottawas to "drink the broth of an
Iroquois." The wretch was made fast to a stake, and a Frenchman began
the torture by burning him with a red-hot gun-barrel. The mob of
savages was soon wrought up to the required pitch of ferocity; and,
after atrociously tormenting him, they cut him to pieces, and ate him.
[Footnote: La Potherie, II. 298.] It was clear that the more Iroquois
the allies of France could be persuaded to burn, the less would be the
danger that they would make peace with the confederacy. On another
occasion, four were tortured at once; and La Motte-Cadillac writes,
"If any more prisoners are brought me, I promise you that their fate
will be no sweeter." [Footnote: _La Motte-Cadillac à -----, 3 Aug.,
1695_. A translation of this letter will be found in Sheldon, _Early
History of Michigan_.]

The same cruel measures were practised when the Ottawas came to trade
at Montreal. Frontenac once invited a band of them to "roast an
Iroquois," newly caught by the soldiers; but as they had hamstrung
him, to prevent his escape, he bled to death before the torture began.
[Footnote: _Relation de ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable entre
les Francois et les Iroquois durant la présente année, 1695_. There is
a translation in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, IX. Compare La Potherie, who
misplaces the incident as to date.] In the next spring, the revolting
tragedy of Michillimackinac was repeated at Montreal, where four more
Iroquois were burned by the soldiers, inhabitants, and Indian allies.
"It was the mission of Canada," says a Canadian writer, "to propagate
Christianity and civilization." [Footnote: This last execution was an
act of reprisal: "J'abandonnay les 4 prisonniers aux soldats,
habitants, et sauvages, qui les bruslerent par représailles de deux du
Sault que cette nation avoit traitté de la mesme maniere." _Callières
au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1696_.]

Every effort was vain. La Motte-Cadillac wrote that matters grew worse
and worse, and that the Ottawas had been made to believe that the
French neither would nor could protect them, but meant to leave them,
to their fate. They thought that they had no hope except in peace with
the Iroquois, and had actually gone to meet them at an appointed
rendezvous. One course alone was now left to Frontenac, and this was
to strike the Iroquois with a blow heavy enough to humble them, and
teach the wavering hordes of the west that he was, in truth, their
father and their defender. Nobody knew so well as he the difficulties
of the attempt; and, deceived perhaps by his own energy, he feared
that, in his absence on a distant expedition, the governor of New York
would attack Montreal. Therefore, he had begged for more troops. About
three hundred were sent him, and with these he was forced to content
himself.

He had waited, also, for another reason. In his belief, the
re-establishment of Fort Frontenac, abandoned in a panic by Denonville,
was necessary to the success of a campaign against the Iroquois. A
party in the colony vehemently opposed the measure, on the ground that
the fort would be used by the friends of Frontenac for purposes of
trade. It was, nevertheless, very important, if not essential, for
holding the Iroquois in check. They themselves felt it to be so; and,
when they heard that the French intended to occupy it again, they
appealed to the governor of New York, who told them that, if the plan
were carried into effect, he would march to their aid with all the
power of his government. He did not, and perhaps could not, keep his
word. [Footnote: Colden, 178. Fletcher could get no men from his own
or neighboring governments. See _note_, at the end of the chapter.]

In the question of Fort Frontenac, as in every thing else, the
opposition to the governor, always busy and vehement, found its chief
representative in the intendant, who told the minister that the policy
of Frontenac was all wrong; that the public good was not its object;
that he disobeyed or evaded the orders of the king; and that he had
suffered the Iroquois to delude him by false overtures of peace. The
representations of the intendant and his faction had such effect, that
Ponchartrain wrote to the governor that the plan of re-establishing
Fort Frontenac "must absolutely be abandoned." Frontenac, bent on
accomplishing his purpose, and doubly so because his enemies opposed
it, had anticipated the orders of the minister, and sent seven hundred
men to Lake Ontario to repair the fort. The day after they left
Montreal, the letter of Ponchartrain arrived. The intendant demanded
their recall. Frontenac refused. The fort was repaired, garrisoned,
and victualled for a year.

A successful campaign was now doubly necessary to the governor, for by
this alone could he hope to avert the consequences of his audacity. He
waited no longer, but mustered troops, militia, and Indians, and
marched to attack the Iroquois. [Footnote: The above is drawn from the
correspondence of Frontenac, Champigny, La Motte-Cadillac, and
Callières, on one hand, and the king and the minister on the other.
The letters are too numerous to specify. Also, from the official
_Relation de ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable en Canada_, 1694,
1695, and _Ibid., 1695, 1696; Mémoire soumis au Ministre de ce qui
résulte des Avis reçus du Canada en 1695_; Champigny, _Mémoire
concernant le Fort de Cataracouy_; La Potherie, II. 284-302, IV. 1-80;
Colden, chaps. x., xi.]

MILITARY INEFFICIENCY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES.--"His Majesty has
subjects enough in those parts of America to drive out the French from
Canada; but they are so _crumbled into little governments_, and so
disunited, that they have hitherto afforded little assistance to each
other, and now seem in a much worse disposition to do it for the
future." This is the complaint of the Lords of Trade. Governor
Fletcher writes bitterly: "Here every little government sets up for
despotic power, and allows no appeal to the Crown, but, by a little
juggling, defeats all commands and injunctions from the King."
Fletcher's complaint was not unprovoked. The Queen had named him
commander-in-chief, during the war, of the militia of several of the
colonies, and empowered him to call on them for contingents of men,
not above 350 from Massachusetts, 250 from Virginia, 160 from
Maryland, 120 from Connecticut, 48 from Rhode Island, and 80 from
Pennsylvania. This measure excited the jealousy of the colonies, and
several of them remonstrated on constitutional grounds; but the
attorney-general, to whom the question was referred, reported that the
crown had power, under certain limitations, to appoint a
commander-in-chief. Fletcher, therefore, in his character as such,
called for a portion of the men; but scarcely one could he get. He was
met by excuses and evasions, which, especially in the case of
Connecticut, were of a most vexatious character. At last, that colony,
tired by his importunities, condescended to furnish him with
twenty-five men. With the others, he was less fortunate, though
Virginia and Maryland compounded with a sum of money. Each colony
claimed the control of its own militia, and was anxious to avoid the
establishment of any precedent which might deprive it of the right.
Even in the military management of each separate colony, there was
scarcely less difficulty. A requisition for troops from a royal
governor was always regarded with jealousy, and the provincial
assemblies were slow to grant money for their support. In 1692, when
Fletcher came to New York, the assembly gave him 300 men, for a year;
in 1693, they gave him an equal number; in 1694, they allowed him but
170, he being accused, apparently with truth, of not having made good
use of the former levies. He afterwards asked that the force at his
disposal should be increased to 500 men, to guard the frontier; and
the request was not granted. In 1697 he was recalled; and the Earl of
Bellomont was commissioned governor of New York, Massachusetts, and
New Hampshire, and captain-general, during the war, of all the forces
of those colonies, as well as of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New
Jersey. The close of the war quickly ended this military authority;
but there is no reason to believe that, had it continued, the earl's
requisitions for men, in his character of captain-general, would have
had more success than those of Fletcher. The whole affair is a
striking illustration of the original isolation of communities, which
afterwards became welded into a nation. It involved a military
paralysis almost complete. Sixty years later, under the sense of a
great danger, the British colonies were ready enough to receive a
commander-in-chief, and answer his requisitions.

A great number of documents bearing upon the above subject will be
found in the _New York Colonial Documents_, IV.


[1] On the Newfoundland expedition, the best authority is the long
diary of the chaplain Baudoin, _Journal du Voyage que j'ai fait avec
M. d'Iberville_; also, _Mémoire sur l'Entreprise de Terreneuve_, 1696.
Compare La Potherie, I. 24-52. A deposition of one Phillips, one
Roberts, and several others, preserved in the Public Record Office of
London, and quoted by Brown in his _History of Cape Breton_, makes the
French force much greater than the statements of the French writers.
The deposition also says that at the attack of St. John's "the French
took one William Brew, an inhabitant, a prisoner, and cut all round
his scalp, and then, by strength of hands, stript his skin from the
forehead to the crown, and so sent him into the fortifications,
assuring the inhabitants that they would serve them all in like manner
if they did not surrender."

St. John's was soon after reoccupied by the English.

Baudoin was one of those Acadian priests who are praised for services
"en empeschant les sauvages de faire la paix avec les Anglois, ayant
mesme esté en guerre avec eux." _Champigny au Ministre, 24 Oct.,
1694._




CHAPTER XIX.

1696-1698.

FRONTENAC ATTACKS THE ONONDAGAS.

MARCH OF FRONTENAC.--FLIGHT OF THE ENEMY.--AN IROQUOIS STOIC.--RELIEF
FOR THE ONONDAGAS.--BOASTS OF FRONTENAC.--HIS COMPLAINTS.--HIS
ENEMIES.--PARTIES IN CANADA.--VIEWS OF FRONTENAC AND THE
KING.--FRONTENAC PREVAILS.--PEACE OF RYSWICK.--FRONTENAC AND
BELLOMONT.--SCHUYLER AT QUEBEC.--FESTIVITIES.--A LAST DEFIANCE.


On the fourth of July, Frontenac left Montreal, at the head of about
twenty-two hundred men. On the nineteenth he reached Fort Frontenac,
and on the twenty-sixth he crossed to the southern shore of Lake
Ontario. A swarm of Indian canoes led the way; next followed two
battalions of regulars, in bateaux, commanded by Callières; then more
bateaux, laden with cannon, mortars, and rockets; then Frontenac
himself, surrounded by the canoes of his staff and his guard; then
eight hundred Canadians, under Ramesay; while more regulars and more
Indians, all commanded by Vaudreuil, brought up the rear. In two days
they reached the mouth of the Oswego; strong scouting-parties were
sent out to scour the forests in front; while the expedition slowly
and painfully worked its way up the stream. Most of the troops and
Canadians marched through the matted woods along the banks; while the
bateaux and canoes were pushed, rowed, paddled, or dragged forward
against the current. On the evening of the thirtieth, they reached the
falls, where the river plunged over ledges of rock which completely
stopped the way. The work of "carrying" was begun at once. The Indians
and Canadians carried the canoes to the navigable water above, and
gangs of men dragged the bateaux up the portage-path on rollers. Night
soon came, and the work was continued till ten o'clock by torchlight.
Frontenac would have passed on foot like the rest, but the Indians
would not have it so. They lifted him in his canoe upon their
shoulders, and bore him in triumph, singing and yelling, through the
forest and along the margin of the rapids, the blaze of the torches
lighting the strange procession, where plumes of officers and uniforms
of the governor's guard mingled with the feathers and scalp-locks of
naked savages.

When the falls were passed, the troops pushed on as before along the
narrow stream, and through the tangled labyrinths on either side;
till, on the first of August, they reached Lake Onondaga, and, with
sails set, the whole flotilla glided before the wind, and landed the
motley army on a rising ground half a league from the salt springs of
Salina. The next day was spent in building a fort to protect the
canoes, bateaux, and stores; and, as evening closed, a ruddy glow
above the southern forest told them that the town of Onondaga was on
fire.

The Marquis de Crisasy was left, with a detachment, to hold the fort;
and, at sunrise on the fourth, the army moved forward in order of
battle. It was formed in two lines, regulars on the right and left,
and Canadians in the centre. Callières commanded the first line, and
Vaudreuil the second. Frontenac was between them, surrounded by his
staff officers and his guard, and followed by the artillery, which
relays of Canadians dragged and lifted forward with inconceivable
labor. The governor, enfeebled by age, was carried in an arm-chair;
while Callières, disabled by gout, was mounted on a horse, brought for
the purpose in one of the bateaux. To Subercase fell the hard task of
directing the march among the dense columns of the primeval forest, by
hill and hollow, over rocks and fallen trees, through swamps, brooks,
and gullies, among thickets, brambles, and vines. It was but eight or
nine miles to Onondaga; but they were all day in reaching it, and
evening was near when they emerged from the shadows of the forest into
the broad light of the Indian clearing. The maize-fields stretched
before them for miles, and in the midst lay the charred and smoking
ruins of the Iroquois capital. Not an enemy was to be seen, but they
found the dead bodies of two murdered French prisoners. Scouts were
sent out, guards were set, and the disappointed troops encamped on the
maize-fields.

Onondaga, formerly an open town, had been fortified by the English,
who had enclosed it with a double range of strong palisades, forming a
rectangle, flanked by bastions at the four corners, and surrounded by
an outer fence of tall poles. The place was not defensible against
cannon and mortars; and the four hundred warriors belonging to it had
been but slightly reinforced from the other tribes of the confederacy,
each of which feared that the French attack might be directed against
itself. On the approach of an enemy of five times their number, they
had burned their town, and retreated southward into distant forests.

The troops were busied for two days in hacking down the maize, digging
up the _caches_, or hidden stores of food, and destroying their
contents. The neighboring tribe of the Oneidas sent a messenger to beg
peace. Frontenac replied that he would grant it, on condition that
they all should migrate to Canada, and settle there; and Vaudreuil,
with seven hundred men, was sent to enforce the demand. Meanwhile, a
few Onondaga stragglers had been found; and among them, hidden in a
hollow tree, a withered warrior, eighty years old, and nearly blind.
Frontenac would have spared him; but the Indian allies, Christians
from the mission villages, were so eager to burn him that it was
thought inexpedient to refuse them. They tied him to the stake, and
tried to shake his constancy by every torture that fire could inflict;
but not a cry nor a murmur escaped him. He defied them to do their
worst, till, enraged at his taunts, one of them gave him a mortal
stab. "I thank you," said the old Stoic, with his last breath; "but
you ought to have finished as you began, and killed me by fire. Learn
from me, you dogs of Frenchmen, how to endure pain; and you, dogs of
dogs, their Indian allies, think what you will do when you are burned
like me." [1] Vaudreuil and his detachment returned within three days,
after destroying Oneida, with all the growing corn, and seizing a
number of chiefs as hostages for the fulfilment of the demands of
Frontenac. There was some thought of marching on Cayuga, but the
governor judged it to be inexpedient; and, as it would be useless to
chase the fugitive Onondagas, nothing remained but to return home. [2]
While Frontenac was on his march, Governor Fletcher had heard of his
approach, and called the council at New York to consider what should
be done. They resolved that "it will be very grievous to take the
people from their labour; and there is likewise no money to answer the
charge thereof." Money was, however, advanced by Colonel Cortlandt and
others; and the governor wrote to Connecticut and New Jersey for their
contingents of men; but they thought the matter no concern of theirs,
and did not respond. Fletcher went to Albany with the few men he could
gather at the moment, and heard on his arrival that the French were
gone. Then he convoked the chiefs, condoled with them, and made them
presents. Corn was sent to the Onondagas and Oneidas to support them
through the winter, and prevent the famine which the French hoped
would prove their destruction.

What Frontenac feared had come to pass. The enemy had saved themselves
by flight; and his expedition, like that of Denonville, was but half
successful. He took care, however, to announce it to the king as a
triumph.

"Sire, the benedictions which Heaven has ever showered upon your
Majesty's arms have extended even to this New World; whereof we have
had visible proof in the expedition I have just made against the
Onondagas, the principal nation of the Iroquois. I had long projected
this enterprise, but the difficulties and risks which attended it made
me regard it as imprudent; and I should never have resolved to
undertake it, if I had not last year established an _entrepôt (Fort
Frontenac_) which made my communications more easy, and if I had not
known, beyond all doubt, that this was absolutely the only means to
prevent our allies from making peace with the Iroquois, and
introducing the English into their country, by which the colony would
infallibly be ruined. Nevertheless, by unexpected good fortune, the
Onondagas, who pass for masters of the other Iroquois, and the terror
of all the Indians of this country, fell into a sort of bewilderment,
which could only have come from on High; and were so terrified to see
me march against them in person, and cover their lakes and rivers with
nearly four hundred sail, that, without availing themselves of passes
where a hundred men might easily hold four thousand in check, they did
not dare to lay a single ambuscade, but, after waiting till I was five
leagues from their fort, they set it on fire with all their dwellings,
and fled, with their families, twenty leagues into the depths of the
forest. It could have been wished, to make the affair more brilliant,
that they had tried to hold their fort against us, for we were
prepared to force it and kill a great many of them; but their ruin is
not the less sure, because the famine, to which they are reduced, will
destroy more than we could have killed by sword and gun.

"All the officers and men have done their duty admirably; and
especially M. de Callières, who has been a great help to me. I know
not if your Majesty will think that I have tried to do mine, and will
hold me worthy of some mark of honor that may enable me to pass the
short remainder of my life in some little distinction; but, whether
this be so or not, I most humbly pray your Majesty to believe that I
will sacrifice the rest of my days to your Majesty's service with the
same ardor I have always felt." [Footnote: _Frontenac au Roy, 25 Oct.,
1696_.]

The king highly commended him, and sent him the cross of the Military
Order of St. Louis. Callières, who had deserved it less, had received
it several years before; but he had not found or provoked so many
defamers. Frontenac complained to the minister that his services had
been slightly and tardily requited. This was true, and it was due
largely to the complaints excited by his own perversity and violence.
These complaints still continued; but the fault was not all on one
side, and Frontenac himself had often just reason to retort them. He
wrote to Ponchartrain: "If you will not be so good as to look closely
into the true state of things here, I shall always be exposed to
detraction, and forced to make new apologies, which is very hard for a
person so full of zeal and uprightness as I am. My secretary, who is
going to France, will tell you all the ugly intrigues used to defeat
my plans for the service of the king, and the growth of the colony. I
have long tried to combat these artifices, but I confess that I no
longer feel strength to resist them, and must succumb at last, if you
will not have the goodness to give me strong support." [Footnote:
_Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1696._]

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