Montcalm and Wolfe Part 3

The Iroquois, or Five Nations, sometimes called Six Nations after the Tuscaroras joined them, had been a power of high importance in American international politics. In a certain sense they may be said to have held the balance between their French and English neighbors; but their relative influence had of late declined. So many of them had emigrated and joined the tribes of the Ohio, that the centre of Indian population had pa.s.sed to that region. Nevertheless, the Five Nations were still strong enough in their ancient abodes to make their alliance an object of the utmost consequence to both the European rivals. At the western end of their "Long House," or belt of confederated villages, Joncaire intrigued to gain them for France; while in the east he was counteracted by the young colonel of militia, William Johnson, who lived on the Mohawk, and was already well skilled in managing Indians. Johnson sometimes lost his temper; and once wrote to Governor Clinton to complain of the "confounded wicked things the French had infused into the Indians' heads; among the rest that the English were determined, the first opportunity, to destroy them all. I a.s.sure your Excellency I had hard work to beat these and several other cursed villanous things, told them by the French, out of their heads."[26]

[Footnote 26: _Johnson to Clinton, 28 April_, 1749.]

In former times the French had hoped to win over the Five Nations in a body, by wholesale conversion to the Faith; but the attempt had failed.

They had, however, made within their own limits an asylum for such converts as they could gain, whom they collected together at Caughnawaga, near Montreal, to the number of about three hundred warriors.[27] These could not be trusted to fight their kinsmen, but willingly made forays against the English borders. Caughnawaga, like various other Canadian missions, was divided between the Church, the army, and the fur-trade. It had a chapel, fortifications, and storehouses; two Jesuits, an officer, and three chief traders. Of these last, two were maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Desauniers; and one of the Jesuits, their friend Father Tournois, was their partner in business.

They carried on by means of the Mission Indians, and in collusion with influential persons in the colony, a trade with the Dutch at Albany, illegal, but very profitable.[28]

[Footnote 27: The estimate of a French official report, 1736, and of Sir William Johnson, 1763.]

[Footnote 28: _La Jonquiere au Ministre, 27 Fev. 1750. Ibid., 29 Oct.

1751. Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, 1751. Notice biographique de la Jonquiere_. La Jonquifere, governor of Canada, at last broke up their contraband trade, and ordered Tournois to Quebec.]

Besides this Iroquois mission, which was chiefly composed of Mohawks and Oneidas, another was now begun farther westward, to win over the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. This was the establishment of Father Piquet, which Celoron had visited in its infancy when on his way to the Ohio, and again on his return. Piquet was a man in the prime of life, of an alert, vivacious countenance, by no means unprepossessing;[29] an enthusiastic schemer, with great executive talents; ardent, energetic, vain, self-confident, and boastful. The enterprise seems to have been of his own devising; but it found warm approval from the Government.[30] La Presentation, as he called the new mission, stood on the bank of the River Oswegatchie where it enters the St. Lawrence. Here the rapids ceased, and navigation was free to Lake Ontario. The place commanded the main river, and could bar the way to hostile war-parties or contraband traders. Rich meadows, forests, and abundance of fish and game, made it attractive to Indians, and the Oswegatchie gave access to the Iroquois towns. Piquet had chosen his site with great skill. His activity was admirable. His first stockade was burned by Indian incendiaries; but it rose quickly from its ashes, and within a year or two the mission of La Presentation had a fort of palisades flanked with blockhouses, a chapel, a storehouse, a barn, a stable, ovens, a saw-mill, broad fields of corn and beans, and three villages of Iroquois, containing, in all, forty-nine bark lodges, each holding three or four families, more or less converted to the Faith; and, as time went on, this number increased. The Governor had sent a squad of soldiers to man the fort, and five small cannon to mount upon it. The place was as safe for the new proselytes as it was convenient and agreeable. The Pennsylvanian interpreter, Conrad Weiser, was told at Onondaga, the Iroquois capital, that Piquet had made a hundred converts from that place alone; and that, "having clothed them all in very fine clothes, laced with silver and gold, he took them down and presented them to the French Governor at Montreal, who received them very kindly, and made them large presents."[31]

[Footnote 29: I once saw a contemporary portrait of him at the mission of Two Mountains, where he had been stationed.]

[Footnote 30: _Rouille a la Jonquiere_, 1749. The Intendant Bigot gave him money and provisions. _N.Y. Col. Docs., X_. 204.]

[Footnote 31: _Journal of Conrad Weiser,_ 1750.]

Such were some of the temporal attractions of La Presentation. The nature of the spiritual instruction bestowed by Piquet and his fellow-priests may be partly inferred from the words of a proselyte warrior, who declared with enthusiasm that he had learned from the Sulpitian missionary that the King of France was the eldest son of the wife of Jesus Christ.[32] This he of course took in a literal sense, the mystic idea of the Church as the spouse of Christ being beyond his savage comprehension. The effect was to stimulate his devotion to the Great Onontio beyond the sea, and to the lesser Onontio who represented him as Governor of Canada.

[Footnote 32: Lalande, _Notice de L'Abbe Piquet, in Lettres edifiantes_.

See also Ta.s.se in _Revue Canadienne,_ 1870, p. 9.]

Piquet was elated by his success; and early in 1752 he wrote to the Governor and Intendant: "It is a great miracle that, in spite of envy, contradiction, and opposition from nearly all the Indian villages, I have formed in less than three years one of the most flouris.h.i.+ng missions in Canada. I find myself in a position to extend the empire of my good masters, Jesus Christ and the King, even to the extremities of this new world; and, with some little help from you, to do more than France and England have been able to do with millions of money and all their troops."[33]

[Footnote 33: _Piquet a la Jonquiere et Bigot, 8 Fev._ 1752. See Appendix A. In spite of Piquet's self-laudation, and in spite also of the detraction of the author of the _Memoires sur le Canada,_ 1749-1760, there can be no doubt of his practical capacity and his fertility of resource. Duquesne, when governor of the colony, highly praises "ses talents et son activite pour le service de Sa Majeste."]

The letter from which this is taken was written to urge upon the Government a scheme in which the zealous priest could see nothing impracticable. He proposed to raise a war-party of thirty-eight hundred Indians, eighteen hundred of whom were to be drawn from the Canadian missions, the Five Nations, and the tribes of the Ohio, while the remaining two thousand were to be furnished by the Flatheads, or Choctaws, who were at the same time to be supplied with missionaries.

The united force was first to drive the English from the Ohio, and next attack the Dog Tribe, or Cherokees, who lived near the borders of Virginia, with the people of which they were on friendly terms. "If,"

says Piquet, "the English of Virginia give any help to this last-named tribe,--which will not fail to happen,--they [_the war-party_] will do their utmost against them, through a grudge they bear them by reason of some old quarrels." In other words, the missionary hopes to set a host of savages to butchering English settlers in time of peace![34] His wild project never took effect, though the Governor, he says, at first approved it.

[Footnote 34: Appendix A.]

In the preceding year the "Apostle of the Iroquois," as he was called, made a journey to muster recruits for his mission, and kept a copious diary on the way. By accompanying him, one gets a clear view of an important part of the region in dispute between the rival nations. Six Canadians paddled him up the St. Lawrence, and five Indian converts followed in another canoe. Emerging from among the Thousand Islands, they stopped at Fort Frontenac, where Kingston now stands. Once the place was a great resort of Indians; now none were here, for the English post of Oswego, on the other side of the lake, had greater attractions.

Piquet and his company found the pork and bacon very bad, and he complains that "there was not brandy enough in the fort to wash a wound." They crossed to a neighboring island, where they were soon visited by the chaplain of the fort, the storekeeper, his wife, and three young ladies, glad of an excursion to relieve the monotony of the garrison. "My hunters," says Piquet, "had supplied me with means of giving them a pretty good entertainment. We drank, with all our hearts, the health of the authorities, temporal and ecclesiastical, to the sound of our musketry, which was very well fired, and delighted the islanders." These islanders were a band of Indians who lived here.

Piquet gave them a feast, then discoursed of religion, and at last persuaded them to remove to the new mission.

During eight days he and his party coasted the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, with various incidents, such as an encounter between his dog Cerberus and a wolf, to the disadvantage of the latter, and the meeting with "a very fine negro of twenty-two years, a fugitive from Virginia."

On the twenty-sixth of June they reached the new fort of Toronto, which offered a striking contrast to their last stopping-place. "The wine here is of the best; there is nothing wanting in this fort; everything is abundant, fine, and good." There was reason for this. The Northern Indians were flocking with their beaver-skins to the English of Oswego; and in April, 1749, an officer named Portneuf had been sent with soldiers and workmen to build a stockaded trading-house at Toronto, in order to intercept them,--not by force, which would have been ruinous to French interests, but by a tempting supply of goods and brandy.[35]

Thus the fort was kept well stocked, and with excellent effect. Piquet found here a band of Mississagas, who would otherwise, no doubt, have carried their furs to the English. He was strongly impelled to persuade them to migrate to La Presentation; but the Governor had told him to confine his efforts to other tribes; and lest, he says, the ardor of his zeal should betray him to disobedience, he reimbarked, and encamped six leagues from temptation.

[Footnote 35: On Toronto, _La Jonquiere et Bigot au Ministre, 1749. La Jonquiere au Ministre, 30 Aout, 1750. N.Y. Col. Docs. X_. 201, 246.]

Two days more brought him to Niagara, where he was warmly received by the commandant, the chaplain, and the storekeeper,--the triumvirate who ruled these forest outposts, and stood respectively for then: three vital principles, war, religion, and trade. Here Piquet said ma.s.s; and after resting a day, set out for the trading-house at the portage of the cataract, recently built, like Toronto, to stop the Indians on their way to Oswego.[36] Here he found Joncaire, and here also was encamped a large band of Senecas; though, being all drunk, men, women, and children, they were in no condition to receive the Faith, or appreciate the temporal advantages that attended it. On the next morning, finding them partially sober, he invited them to remove to La Presentation; "but as they had still something left in their bottles, I could get no answer till the following day." "I pa.s.s in silence," pursues the missionary, "an infinity of talks on this occasion. Monsieur de Joncaire forgot nothing that could help me, and behaved like a great servant of G.o.d and the King. My recruits increased every moment. I went to say my breviary while my Indians and the Senecas, without loss of time, a.s.sembled to hold a council with Monsieur de Joncaire." The result of the council was an entreaty to the missionary not to stop at Oswego, lest evil should befall him at the hands of the English. He promised to do as they wished, and presently set out on his return to Fort Niagara, attended by Joncaire and a troop of his new followers. The journey was a triumphal progress. "Whenever was pa.s.sed a camp or a wigwam, the Indians saluted me by firing their guns, which happened so often that I thought all the trees along the way were charged with gunpowder; and when we reached the fort, Monsieur de Becancour received us with great ceremony and the firing of cannon, by which my savages were infinitely flattered."

[Footnote 36: _La Jonquiere au Ministre, 23 Fev. 1750. Ibid., 6 Oct_.

1751. Compare _Colonial Records of Pa_., V. 508.]

His neophytes were gathered into the chapel for the first time in their lives, and there rewarded with a few presents. He now prepared to turn homeward, his flock at the mission being left in his absence without a shepherd; and on the sixth of July he embarked, followed by a swarm of canoes. On the twelfth they stopped at the Genesee, and went to visit the Falls, where the city of Rochester now stands. On the way, the Indians found a populous resort of rattlesnakes, and attacked the gregarious reptiles with great animation, to the alarm of the missionary, who trembled for his bare-legged retainers. His fears proved needless. Forty-two dead snakes, as he avers, requited the efforts of the sportsmen, and not one of them was bitten. When he returned to camp in the afternoon he found there a canoe loaded with kegs of brandy. "The English," he says, "had sent it to meet us, well knowing that this was the best way to cause disorder among my new recruits and make them desert me. The Indian in charge of the canoe, who had the look of a great rascal, offered some to me first, and then to my Canadians and Indians. I gave out that it was very probably poisoned, and immediately embarked again."

He encamped on the fourteenth at Sodus Bay, and strongly advises the planting of a French fort there. "Nevertheless," he adds, "it would be still better to destroy Oswego, and on no account let the English build it again." On the sixteenth he came in sight of this dreaded post.

Several times on the way he had met fleets of canoes going thither or returning, in spite of the rival attractions of Toronto and Niagara.

No English establishment on the continent was of such ill omen to the French. It not only robbed them of the fur-trade, by which they lived, but threatened them with military and political, no less than commercial, ruin. They were in constant dread lest s.h.i.+ps of war should be built here, strong enough to command Lake Ontario, thus separating Canada from Louisiana, and cutting New France asunder. To meet this danger, they soon after built at Fort Frontenac a large three-masted vessel, mounted with heavy cannon; thus, as usual, forestalling their rivals by promptness of action.[37] The ground on which Oswego stood was claimed by the Province of New York, which alone had control of it; but through the purblind apathy of the a.s.sembly, and their incessant quarrels with the Governor, it was commonly left to take care of itself. For some time they would vote no money to pay the feeble little garrison; and Clinton, who saw the necessity of maintaining it, was forced to do so on his own personal credit.[38] "Why can't your Governor and your great men [_the a.s.sembly_] agree?" asked a Mohawk chief of the interpreter, Conrad Weiser.[39]

[Footnote 37: _Lieutenant Lindesay to Johnson, July, 1751._]

[Footnote 38: _Clinton to Lords of Trade, 30 July, 1750._]

[Footnote 39: _Journal of Conrad Weiser, 1750._]

Piquet kept his promise not to land at the English fort; but he approached in his canoe, and closely observed it. The sh.o.r.es, now covered by the city of Oswego, were then a desolation of bare hills and fields, studded with the stumps of felled trees, and hedged about with a grim border of forests. Near the strand, by the mouth of the Onondaga, were the houses of some of the traders; and on the higher ground behind them stood a huge blockhouse with a projecting upper story. This building was surrounded by a rough wall of stone, with flankers at the angles, forming what was called the fort.[40] Piquet reconnoitred it from his canoe with the eye of a soldier. "It is commanded," he says, "on almost every side; two batteries, of three twelve-pounders each, would be more than enough to reduce it to ashes." And he enlarges on the evils that arise from it. "It not only spoils our trade, but puts the English into communication with a vast number of our Indians, far and near. It is true that they like our brandy better than English rum; but they prefer English goods to ours, and can buy for two beaver-skins at Oswego a better silver bracelet than we sell at Niagara for ten."

[Footnote 40: Compare _Doc. Hist. N.Y._, I. 463.]

The burden of these reflections was lightened when he approached Fort Frontenac. "Never was reception more solemn. The Nip.i.s.sings and Algonkins, who were going on a war-party with Monsieur Beletre, formed a line of their own accord, and saluted us with three volleys of musketry, and cries of joy without end. All our little bark vessels replied in the same way. Monsieur de Vercheres and Monsieur de Valtry ordered the cannon of the fort to be fired; and my Indians, transported with joy at the honor done them, shot off their guns incessantly, with cries and acclamations that delighted everybody." A goodly band of recruits joined him, and he pursued his voyage to La Presentation, while the canoes of his proselytes followed in a swarm to their new home; "that establishment"--thus in a burst of enthusiasm he closes his Journal--"that establishment which I began two years ago, in the midst of opposition; that establishment which may be regarded as a key of the colony; that establishment which officers, interpreters, and traders thought a chamaera,--that establishment, I say, forms already a mission of Iroquois savages whom I a.s.sembled at first to the number of only six, increased last year to eighty-seven, and this year to three hundred and ninety-six, without counting more than a hundred and fifty whom Monsieur Chabert de Joncaire is to bring me this autumn. And I certify that thus far I have received from His Majesty--for all favor, grace, and a.s.sistance--no more than a half pound of bacon and two pounds of bread for daily rations; and that he has not yet given a pin to the chapel, which I have maintained out of my own pocket, for the greater glory of my masters, G.o.d and the King."[41]

[Footnote 41: _Journal qui peut servir de Memoire et de Relation du Voyage que j'ay fait sur le Lac Ontario pour attirer au nouvel etabliss.e.m.e.nt de La Presentation les Sauvages Iroquois des Cinq Nations, 1751_. The last pa.s.sage given above is condensed in the rendering, as the original is extremely involved and ungrammatical.]

In his late journey he had made the entire circuit of Lake Ontario.

Beyond lay four other inland oceans, to which Fort Niagara was the key.

As that all-essential post controlled the pa.s.sage from Ontario to Erie, so did Fort Detroit control that from Erie to Huron, and Fort Michillimackinac that from Huron to Michigan; while Fort Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior, had lately received a garrison, and changed from a mission and trading-station to a post of war.[42] This immense extent of inland navigation was safe in the hands of France so long as she held Niagara. Niagara lost, not only the lakes, but also the Valley of the Ohio was lost with it. Next in importance was Detroit. This was not a military post alone, but also a settlement; and, except the hamlets about Fort Chartres, the only settlement that France owned in all the West. There were, it is true, but a few families; yet the hope of growth seemed good; for to such as liked a wilderness home, no spot in America had more attraction. Father Bonnecamp stopped here for a day on his way back from the expedition of Celoron. "The situation," he says, "is charming. A fine river flows at the foot of the fortifications; vast meadows, asking only to be tilled, extend beyond the sight. Nothing can be more agreeable than the climate. Winter lasts hardly two months. European grains and fruits grow here far better than in many parts of France. It is the Touraine and Beauce of Canada."[43]

The white flag of the Bourbons floated over the compact little palisaded town, with its population of soldiers and fur-traders; and from the blockhouses which served as bastions, one saw on either hand the small solid dwellings of the _habitants_, ranged at intervals along the margin of the water; while at a little distance three Indian villages--Ottawa, Pottawattamie, and Wyandot--curled their wigwam smoke into the pure summer air.[44]

[Footnote 42: _La Jonquiere au Ministre, 24 Aout, 1750_.]

[Footnote 43: _Relation du Voiage de la Belle Riviere, 1749_.]

[Footnote 44: A plan of Detroit is before me, made about this time by the engineer Lery.]

When Celoron de Bienville returned from the Ohio, he went, with a royal commission, sent him a year before, to command at Detroit.[45] His late chaplain, the very intelligent Father Bonnecamp, speaks of him as fearless, energetic, and full of resource; but the Governor calls him haughty and insubordinate. Great efforts were made, at the same time, to build up Detroit as a centre of French power in the West. The methods employed were of the debilitating, paternal character long familiar to Canada. All emigrants with families were to be carried thither at the King's expense; and every settler was to receive in free gift a gun, a hoe, an axe, a ploughshare, a scythe, a sickle, two augers, large and small, a sow, six hens, a c.o.c.k, six pounds of powder, and twelve pounds of lead; while to these favors were added many others. The result was that twelve families were persuaded to go, or about a twentieth part of the number wanted.[46] Detroit was expected to furnish supplies to the other posts for five hundred miles around, control the neighboring Indians, thwart English machinations, and drive off English interlopers.

[Footnote 45: _Le Ministre a la Jonquiere et Bigot, 14 Mai, 1749. Le Ministre a Celoron, 23 Mai, 1749_.]

[Footnote 46: _Ordonnance du 2 Jan. 1750. La Jonquiere et Bigot au Ministre, 1750_. Forty-six persons of all ages and both s.e.xes had been induced by La Galissoniere to go the year before. _Lettres communes de la Jonquiere et Bigot, 1749_. The total fixed population of Detroit and its neighborhood in 1750 is stated at four hundred and eighty-three souls. In the following two years, a considerable number of young men came of their own accord, and Celoron wrote to Montreal to ask for girls to marry them.]

La Galissoniere no longer governed Canada. He had been honorably recalled, and the Marquis de la Jonquiere sent in his stead.[47] La Jonquiere, like his predecessor, was a naval officer of high repute; he was tall and imposing in person, and of undoubted capacity and courage; but old and, according to his enemies, very avaricious.[48] The Colonial Minister gave him special instructions regarding that thorn in the side of Canada, Oswego. To attack it openly would be indiscreet, as the two nations were at peace; but there was a way of dealing with it less hazardous, if not more lawful. This was to attack it vicariously by means of the Iroquois. "If Abbe Piquet succeeds in his mission," wrote the Minister to the new Governor, "we can easily persuade these savages to destroy Oswego. This is of the utmost importance; but act with great caution."[49] In the next year the Minister wrote again: "The only means that can be used for such an operation in time of peace are those of the Iroquois. If by making these savages regard such an establishment [_Oswego_] as opposed to their liberty, and, so to speak, a usurpation by which the English mean to get possession of their lands, they could be induced to undertake its destruction, an operation of the sort is not to be neglected; but M. le Marquis de la Jonquiere should feel with what circ.u.mspection such an affair should be conducted, and he should labor to accomplish it in a manner not to commit himself."[50] To this La Jonquiere replies that it will need time; but that he will gradually bring the Iroquois to attack and destroy the English post. He received stringent orders to use every means to prevent the English from encroaching, but to act towards them at the same time "with the greatest politeness."[51] This last injunction was scarcely fulfilled in a correspondence which he had with Clinton, governor of New York, who had written to complain of the new post at the Niagara portage as an invasion of English territory, and also of the arrest of four English traders in the country of the Miamis. Niagara, like Oswego, was in the country of the Five Nations, whom the treaty of Utrecht declared "subject to the dominion of Great Britain."[52] This declaration, preposterous in itself, was binding on France, whose plenipotentiaries had signed the treaty. The treaty also provided that the subjects of the two Crowns "shall enjoy full liberty of going and coming on account of trade," and Clinton therefore demanded that La Jonquiere should disavow the arrest of the four traders and punish its authors. The French Governor replied with great asperity, spurned the claim that the Five Nations were British subjects, and justified the arrest.[53] He presently went further. Rewards were offered by his officers for the scalps of Croghan and of another trader named Lowry.[54] When this reached the ears of William Johnson, on the Mohawk, he wrote to Clinton in evident anxiety for his own scalp: "If the French go on so, there is no man can be safe in his own house; for I can at any time get an Indian to kill any man for a small matter. Their going on in that manner is worse than open war."

[Footnote 47: _Le Ministre a la Galissoniere, 14 Mai, 1749_.]

[Footnote 48: _Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760_. The charges made here and elsewhere are denied, somewhat faintly, by a descendant of La Jonquiere in his elaborate _Notice biographique_ of his ancestor.]

[Footnote 49: _Le Ministre a La Jonquiere, Mai, 1749_. The instructions given to La Jonquiere before leaving France also urge the necessity of destroying Oswego.]

[Footnote 50: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres; a MM. de la Jonquiere et Bigot, 15 Avril, 1750_. See Appendix A. for original.]

[Footnote 51: _Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, 1750_.]