Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

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Lamberville's constant effort was to prevent a rupture. He wrote with
every opportunity to the governor, painting the calamities that war
would bring, and warning him that it was vain to hope that the league
could be divided, and its three eastern tribes kept neutral, while the
Senecas were attacked. He assured him, on the contrary, that they
would all unite to fall upon Canada, ravaging, burning, and butchering
along the whole range of defenceless settlements. "You cannot believe,
Monsieur, with what joy the Senecas learned that you might possibly
resolve on war. When they heard of the preparations at Fort Frontenac,
they said that the French had a great mind to be stripped, roasted,
and eaten; and that they will see if their flesh, which they suppose
to have a salt taste, by reason of the salt which we use with our
food, be as good as that of their other enemies." [Footnote:
_Lamberville to La Barre_, 11 _July_, 1684, in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., IX.
253.] Lamberville also informs the governor that the Senecas have made
ready for any emergency, buried their last year's corn, prepared a
hiding place in the depth of the forest for their old men, women, and
children, and stripped their towns of every thing that they value; and
that their fifteen hundred warriors will not shut themselves up in
forts, but tight under cover, among trees and in the tall grass, with
little risk to themselves and extreme danger to the invader. "There is
no profit," he says, "in fighting with this sort of banditti, whom you
cannot catch, but who will catch many of your people. The Onondagas
wish to bring about an agreement. Must the father and the children,
they ask, cut each other's throats?"

The Onondagas, moved by the influence of the Jesuit and the gifts of
La Barre, did in fact wish to act as mediators between their Seneca
confederates and the French; and to this end they invited the Seneca
elders to a council. The meeting took place before the arrival of
Viele, and lasted two days. The Senecas were at first refractory, and
hot for war, but at length consented that the Onondagas might make
peace for them, if they could; a conclusion which was largely due to
the eloquence of Big Mouth.

The first act of Viele was a blunder. He told the Onondagas that the
English governor was master of their country; and that, as they were
subjects of the king of England, they must hold no council with the
French without permission. The pride of Big Mouth was touched. "You
say," he exclaimed to the envoy, "that we are subjects of the king of
England and the Duke of York; but we say that we are brothers. We must
take care of ourselves. The coat of arms which you have fastened to
that post cannot defend us against Onontio. We tell you that we shall
bind a covenant chain to our arm and to his. We shall take the Senecas
by one hand and Onontio by the other, and their hatchet and his sword
shall be thrown into deep water." [Footnote: Colden, _Five Nations_,
80 (1727).]

Thus well and manfully did Big Mouth assert the independence of his
tribe, and proclaim it the arbiter of peace. He told the warriors,
moreover, to close their ears to the words of the Dutchman, who spoke
as if he were drunk; [Footnote: _Lamberville to La Barre_, 28 _Aug_.,
1684, in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., IX. 257.] and it was resolved at last
that he, Big Mouth, with an embassy of chiefs and elders, should go
with Le Moyne to meet the French governor.

While these things were passing at Onondaga, La Barre had finished his
preparations, and was now in full campaign. Before setting out, he had
written to the minister that he was about to advance on the enemy,
with seven hundred Canadians, a hundred and thirty regulars, and two
hundred mission Indians; that more Indians were to join him on the
way; that Du Lhut and La Durantaye were to meet him at Niagara with a
body of _coureurs de bois_ and Indians from the interior; and that,
"when we are all united, we will perish or destroy the enemy."
[Footnote: _La Barre au Ministre_, 9 _July_, 1684.] On the same day,
he wrote to the king: "My purpose is to exterminate the Senecas; for
otherwise your Majesty need take no farther account of this country,
since there is no hope of peace with them, except when they are driven
to it by force. I pray you do not abandon me; and be assured that I
shall do my duty at the head of your faithful colonists." [Footnote:
_La Barre au Roy, même date_.]

A few days after writing these curiously incoherent epistles, La Barre
received a letter from his colleague, Meules, who had no belief that
he meant to fight, and was determined to compel him to do so, if
possible. "There is a report," wrote the intendant, "that you mean to
make peace. It is doing great harm. Our Indian allies will despise us.
I trust the story is untrue, and that you will listen to no overtures.
The expense has been enormous. The whole population is roused."
[Footnote: _Meules à La Barre_, 15 _July_, 1684.] Not satisfied with
this, Meules sent the general a second letter, meant, like the first,
as a tonic and a stimulant. "If we come to terms with the Iroquois,
without first making them feel the strength of our arms, we may expect
that, in future, they will do every thing they can to humiliate us,
because we drew the sword against them, and showed them our teeth. I
do not think that any course is now left for us but to carry the war
to their very doors, and do our utmost to reduce them to such a point
that they shall never again be heard of as a nation, but only as our
subjects and slaves. If, after having gone so far, we do not fight
them, we shall lose all our trade, and bring this country to the brink
of ruin. The Iroquois, and especially the Senecas, pass for great
cowards. The Reverend Father Jesuit, who is at Prairie de la
Madeleine, told me as much yesterday; and, though he has never been
among them, he assured me that he has heard everybody say so. But,
even if they were brave, we ought to be very glad of it; since then we
could hope that they would wait our attack, and give us a chance to
beat them. If we do not destroy them, they will destroy us. I think
you see but too well that your honor and the safety of the country are
involved in the results of this war." [Footnote: _Meules à La Barre_,
14 _Août_, 1684. This and the preceding letter stand, by a copyist's
error, in the name of La Barre. They are certainly written by Meules.]

While Meules thus wrote to the governor, he wrote also to the
minister, Seignelay, and expressed his views with great distinctness.
"I feel bound in conscience to tell you that nothing was ever heard of
so extraordinary as what we see done in this country every day. One
would think that there was a divided empire here between the king and
the governor; and, if things should go on long in this way, the
governor would have a far greater share than his Majesty. The persons
whom Monsieur la Barre has sent this year to trade at Fort Frontenac
have already shared with him from ten to twelve thousand crowns." He
then recounts numerous abuses and malversations on the part of the
governor. "In a word, Monseigneur, this war has been decided upon in
the cabinet of Monsieur the general, along with six of the chief
merchants of the country. If it had not served their plans, he would
have found means to settle every thing; but the merchants made him
understand that they were in danger of being plundered, and that,
having an immense amount of merchandise in the woods in nearly two
hundred canoes fitted out last year, it was better to make use of the
people of the country to carry on war against the Senecas. This being
done, he hopes to make extraordinary profits without any risk, because
one of two things will happen: either we shall gain some considerable
advantage over the savages, as there is reason to hope, if Monsieur
the general will but attack them in their villages; or else we shall
make a peace which will keep every thing safe for a time. These are
assuredly the sole motives of this war, which has for principle and
end nothing but mere interest. He says himself that there is good
fishing in troubled waters. [2]

"With all our preparations for war, and all the expense in which
Monsieur the general is involving his Majesty, I will take the liberty
to tell you, Monseigneur, though I am no prophet, that I discover no
disposition on the part of Monsieur the general to make war against
the aforesaid savages. In my belief, he will content himself with
going in a canoe as far as Fort Frontenac, and then send for the
Senecas to treat of peace with them, and deceive the people, the
intendant, and, if I may be allowed with all possible respect to say
so, his Majesty himself.

"P. S.--I will finish this letter, Monseigneur, by telling you that he
set out yesterday, July 10th, with a detachment of two hundred men.
All Quebec was filled with grief to see him embark on an expedition of
war _tête-à-tête_ with the man named La Chesnaye. Everybody says that
the war is a sham, that these two will arrange every thing between
them, and, in a word, do whatever will help their trade. The whole
country is in despair to see how matters are managed." [Footnote:
_Meules au Ministre_, 8-11 _Juillet_, 1684.]

After a long stay at Montreal, La Barre embarked his little army at La
Chine, crossed Lake St. Louis, and began the ascent of the upper St.
Lawrence, In one of the three companies of regulars which formed a
part of the force was a young subaltern, the Baron la Hontan, who has
left a lively account of the expedition. Some of the men were in flat
boats, and some were in birch canoes. Of the latter was La Hontan,
whose craft was paddled by three Canadians. Several times they
shouldered it through the forest to escape the turmoil of the rapids.
The flat boats could not be so handled, and were dragged or pushed up
in the shallow water close to the bank, by gangs of militia men,
toiling and struggling among the rocks and foam. The regulars,
unskilled in such matters, were spared these fatigues, though
tormented night and day by swarms of gnats and mosquitoes, objects of
La Hontan's bitterest invective. At length the last rapid was passed,
and they moved serenely on their way, threaded the mazes of the
Thousand Islands, entered what is now the harbor of Kingston, and
landed under the palisades of Fort Frontenac.

Here the whole force was soon assembled, the regulars in their tents,
the Canadian militia and the Indians in huts and under sheds of bark.
Of these red allies there were several hundred: Abenakis and
Algonquins from Sillery, Hurons from Lorette, and converted Iroquois
from the Jesuit mission of Saut St. Louis, near Montreal. The camp of
the French was on a low, damp plain near the fort; and here a
malarious fever presently attacked them, killing many and disabling
many more. La Hontan says that La Barre himself was brought by it to
the brink of the grave. If he had ever entertained any other purpose
than that of inducing the Senecas to agree to a temporary peace, he
now completely abandoned it. He dared not even insist that the
offending tribe should meet him in council, but hastened to ask the
mediation of the Onondagas, which the letters of Lamberville had
assured him that they were disposed to offer. He sent Le Moyne to
persuade them to meet him on their own side of the lake, and, with
such of his men as were able to move, crossed to the mouth of Salmon
River, then called La Famine.

The name proved prophetic. Provisions fell short from bad management
in transportation, and the men grew hungry and discontented. September
had begun; the place was unwholesome, and the malarious fever of Fort
Frontenac infected the new encampment. The soldiers sickened rapidly.
La Barre, racked with suspense, waited impatiently the return of Le
Moyne. We have seen already the result of his mission, and how he and
Lamberville, in spite of the envoy of the English governor, gained
from the Onondaga chiefs the promise to meet Onontio in council. Le
Moyne appeared at La Famine on the third of the month, bringing with
him Big Mouth and thirteen other deputies. La Barre gave them a feast
of bread, wine, and salmon trout, and on the morning of the fourth the
council began.

Before the deputies arrived, the governor had sent the sick men
homeward in order to conceal his helpless condition; and he now told
the Iroquois that he had left his army at Fort Frontenac, and had come
to meet them attended only by an escort. The Onondaga politician was
not to be so deceived. He, or one of his party, spoke a little French;
and during the night, roaming noiselessly among the tents, he
contrived to learn the true state of the case from the soldiers.

The council was held on an open spot near the French encampment. La
Barre was seated in an arm-chair. The Jesuit Bruyas stood by him as
interpreter, and the officers were ranged on his right and left. The
Indians sat on the ground in a row opposite the governor; and two
lines of soldiers, forming two sides of a square, closed the
intervening space. Among the officers was La Hontan, a spectator of
the whole proceeding. He may be called a man in advance of his time;
for he had the caustic, sceptical, and mocking spirit which a century
later marked the approach of the great revolution, but which was not a
characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV. He usually told the truth
when he had no motive to do otherwise, and yet was capable at times of
prodigious mendacity. [Footnote: La Hontan attempted to impose on his
readers a marvellous story of pretended discoveries beyond the
Mississippi; and his ill repute in the matter of veracity is due
chiefly to this fabrication. On the other hand, his account of what he
saw in the colony is commonly in accord with the best contemporary
evidence.] There is no reason to believe that he indulged in it on the
present occasion, and his account of what he now saw and heard may
probably be taken as substantially correct. According to him, La Barre
opened the council as follows:--

"The king my master, being informed that the Five Nations of the
Iroquois have long acted in a manner adverse to peace, has ordered me
to come with an escort to this place, and to send Akouessan (_Le
Moyne_) to Onondaga to invite the principal chiefs to meet me. It is
the wish of this great king that you and I should smoke the calumet of
peace together, provided that you promise, in the name of the Mohawks,
Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, to give entire satisfaction
and indemnity to his subjects, and do nothing in future which may
occasion rupture."

Then he recounted the offences of the Iroquois. First, they had
maltreated and robbed French traders in the country of the Illinois;
"wherefore," said the governor, "I am ordered to demand reparation,
and in case of refusal to declare war against you."

Next, "the warriors of the Five Nations have introduced the English
into the lakes which belong to the king my master, and among the
tribes who are his children, in order to destroy the trade of his
subjects, and seduce these people from the obedience they owe him. I
am willing to forget this; but, should it happen again, I am expressly
ordered to declare war against you."

Thirdly, "the warriors of the Five Nations have made sundry barbarous
inroads into the country of the Illinois and Miamis, seizing, binding,
and leading into captivity an infinite number of these savages in time
of peace. They are the children of my king, and are not to remain your
slaves. They must at once be set free and sent home. If you refuse to
do this, I am expressly ordered to declare war against you."

La Barre concluded by assuring Big Mouth, as representing the Five
Nations of the Iroquois, that the French would leave them in peace if
they made atonement for the past, and promised good conduct for the
future; but that, if they did not heed his words, their villages
should be burned, and they themselves destroyed. He added, though he
knew the contrary, that the governor of New York would join him in war
against them.

During the delivery of this martial harangue, Big Mouth sat silent and
attentive, his eyes fixed on the bowl of his pipe. When the
interpreter had ceased, he rose, walked gravely two or three times
around the lines of the assembly, then stopped before the governor,
looked steadily at him, stretched his tawny arm, opened his capacious
jaws, and uttered himself as follows:--

"Onontio, I honor you, and all the warriors who are with me honor you.
Your interpreter has ended his speech, and now I begin mine. Listen to
my words.

"Onontio, when you left Quebec, you must have thought that the heat of
the sun had burned the forests that make our country inaccessible to
the French, or that the lake had overflowed them so that we could not
escape from our villages. You must have thought so, Onontio; and
curiosity to see such a fire or such a flood must have brought you to
this place. Now your eyes are opened; for I and my warriors have come
to tell you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks
are all alive. I thank you in their name for bringing back the calumet
of peace which they gave to your predecessors; and I give you joy that
you have not dug up the hatchet which has been so often red with the
blood of your countrymen.

"Listen, Onontio. I am not asleep. My eyes are open; and by the sun
that gives me light I see a great captain at the head of a band of
soldiers, who talks like a man in a dream. He says that he has come to
smoke the pipe of peace with the Onondagas; but I see that he came to
knock them in the head, if so many of his Frenchmen were not too weak
to fight. I see Onontio raving in a camp of sick men, whose lives the
Great Spirit has saved by smiting them with disease. Our women had
snatched war-clubs, and our children and old men seized bows and
arrows to attack your camp, if our warriors had not restrained them,
when your messenger, Akouessan, appeared in our village."

He next justified the pillage of French traders on the ground, very
doubtful in this case, that they were carrying arms to the Illinois,
enemies of the confederacy; and he flatly refused to make reparation,
telling La Barre that even the old men of his tribe had no fear of the
French. He also avowed boldly that the Iroquois had conducted English
traders to the lakes. "We are born free," he exclaimed, "we depend
neither on Onontio nor on Corlaer. We have the right to go
whithersoever we please, to take with us whomever we please, and buy
and sell of whomever we please. If your allies are your slaves or your
children, treat them like slaves or children, and forbid them to deal
with anybody but your Frenchmen.

"We have knocked the Illinois in the head, because they cut down the
tree of peace and hunted the beaver on our lands. We have done less
than the English and the French, who have seized upon the lands of
many tribes, driven them away, and built towns, villages, and forts in
their country.

"Listen, Onontio. My voice is the voice of the Five Tribes of the
Iroquois. When they buried the hatchet at Cataraqui (_Fort Frontenac_)
in presence of your predecessor, they planted the tree of peace in the
middle of the fort, that it might be a post of traders and not of
soldiers. Take care that all the soldiers you have brought with you,
shut up in so small a fort, do not choke this tree of peace. I assure
you in the name of the Five Tribes that our warriors will dance the
dance of the calumet under its branches; and that they will sit quiet
on their mats and never dig up the hatchet, till their brothers,
Onontio and Corlaer, separately or together, make ready to attack the
country that the Great Spirit has given to our ancestors."

The session presently closed; and La Barre withdrew to his tent,
where, according to La Hontan, he vented his feelings in invective,
till reminded that good manners were not to be expected from an
Iroquois. Big Mouth, on his part, entertained some of the French at a
feast which he opened in person by a dance. There was another session
in the afternoon, and the terms of peace were settled in the evening.
The tree of peace was planted anew; La Barre promised not to attack
the Senecas; and Big Mouth, in spite of his former declaration,
consented that they should make amends for the pillage of the traders.
On the other hand, he declared that the Iroquois would fight the
Illinois to the death; and La Barre dared not utter a word in behalf
of his allies. The Onondaga next demanded that the council fire should
be removed from Fort Frontenac to La Famine, in the Iroquois country.
This point was yielded without resistance; and La Barre promised to
decamp and set out for home on the following morning. [Footnote: The
articles of peace will be found in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., IX. 236.
Compare _Memoir of M. de la Barre regarding the War against the
Senecas, ibid_., 239. These two documents do not agree as to date, one
placing the council on the 4th and the other on the 5th.]

Such was the futile and miserable end of the grand expedition. Even
the promise to pay for the plundered goods was contemptuously broken.
[Footnote: This appears from the letters of Denonville, La Barre's
successor.] The honor rested with the Iroquois. They had spurned the
French, repelled the claims of the English, and by act and word
asserted their independence of both.

La Barre embarked and hastened home in advance of his men. His camp
was again full of the sick. Their comrades placed them, shivering with
ague fits, on board the flat-boats and canoes; and the whole force,
scattered and disordered, floated down the current to Montreal.
Nothing had been gained but a thin and flimsy truce, with new troubles
and dangers plainly visible behind it. The better to understand their
nature, let us look for a moment at an episode of the campaign.

When La Barre sent messengers with gifts and wampum belts to summon
the Indians of the Upper Lakes to join in the war, his appeal found a
cold response. La Durantaye and Du Lhut, French commanders in that
region, vainly urged the surrounding tribes to lift the hatchet. None
but the Hurons would consent, when, fortunately, Nicolas Perrot
arrived at Michillimackinac on an errand of trade. This famous
_coureur de bois_--a very different person from Perrot, governor of
Montreal--was well skilled in dealing with Indians. Through his
influence, their scruples were overcome; and some five hundred
warriors, Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawatamies, and Foxes, were
persuaded to embark for the rendezvous at Niagara, along with a
hundred or more Frenchmen. The fleet of canoes, numerous as a flock of
blackbirds in autumn, began the long and weary voyage. The two
commanders had a heavy task. Discipline was impossible. The French
were scarcely less wild than the savages. Many of them were painted
and feathered like their red companions, whose ways they imitated with
perfect success. The Indians, on their part, were but half-hearted for
the work in hand, for they had already discovered that the English
would pay twice as much for a beaver skin as the French; and they
asked nothing better than the appearance of English traders on the
lakes, and a safe peace with the Iroquois, which should open to them
the market of New York. But they were like children with the passions
of men, inconsequent, fickle, and wayward. They stopped to hunt on the
shore of Michigan, where a Frenchman accidentally shot himself with
his own gun. Here was an evil omen. But for the efforts of Perrot,
half the party would have given up the enterprise, and paddled home.
In the Strait of Detroit there was another hunt, and another accident.
In firing at a deer, an Indian wounded his own brother. On this the
tribesmen of the wounded man proposed to kill the French, as being the
occasion of the mischance. Once more the skill of Perrot prevailed;
but when they reached the Long Point of Lake Erie, the Foxes, about a
hundred in number, were on the point of deserting in a body. As
persuasion failed, Perrot tried the effect of taunts. "You are
cowards," he said to the naked crew, as they crowded about him with
their wild eyes and long lank hair. "You do not know what war is: you
never killed a man and you never ate one, except those that were given
you tied hand and foot." They broke out against him in a storm of
abuse. "You shall see whether we are men. We are going to fight the
Iroquois; and, unless you do your part, we will knock you in the
head." "You will never have to give yourselves the trouble," retorted
Perrot, "for at the first war-whoop you will all run off." He gained
his point. Their pride was roused, and for the moment they were full
of fight. [Footnote: _La Potherie_, II. 159 (ed. 1722). Perrot
himself, in his _Moeurs des Sauvages_, briefly mentions the incident.]

Immediately after, there was trouble with the Ottawas, who became
turbulent and threatening, and refused to proceed. With much ado, they
were persuaded to go as far as Niagara, being lured by the rash
assurance of La Durantaye that three vessels were there, loaded with a
present of guns for them. They carried their canoes by the cataract,
launched them again, paddled to the mouth of the river, and looked for
the vessels in vain. At length a solitary sail appeared on the lake.
She brought no guns, but instead a letter from La Barre, telling them
that peace was made, and that they might all go home. Some of them had
paddled already a thousand miles, in the hope of seeing the Senecas
humbled. They turned back in disgust, filled with wrath and scorn
against the governor and all the French. Canada had incurred the
contempt, not only of enemies, but of allies. There was danger that
these tribes would repudiate the French alliance, welcome the English
traders, make peace at any price with the Iroquois, and carry their
beaver skins to Albany instead of Montreal.

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