A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 11

Raids and counter raids went on. Of the part which the English took in the fighting, something will be said presently. So far as the struggle was between the French and the Five Nations, the scene of action was either the Ottawa river, or the angle between the Richelieu and the St. Lawrence. Always important, as being the direct trade route from Lake Huron, the Ottawa was more important now, seeing that there was a larger population in Canada than in bygone days dependent on the fur trade, and that since Denonville's abortive expedition against the Senecas, the ma.s.sacre of Lachine, and the evacuation of Fort Frontenac, the French had lost command of the upper St. Lawrence.

The corner of land lying between Chambly on the Richelieu and Montreal was the old battlefield of French and Iroquois. By this line, before Tracy's expedition of 1666, the Mohawks had raided Canada; by this line, once more, their war-parties came. Below the Three Rivers, at Quebec and in its neighbourhood, there was no fear of the Indians, though there was both apprehension and reality of English invasion, and distress from English blockade of Canadian trade. But in the upper half of the colony, of which Montreal was the centre, there was no security for life or property outside fortifications and stockades.

[Sidenote: _Madeleine de Vercheres._]

Some twenty miles below Montreal, on the southern bank of the St.

Lawrence, in the troubled belt of land between that river and the Richelieu, was the Seigniory of Vercheres. {115} There was on it a fort and a blockhouse, which, in the last week of October, 1692, was the scene of one of the most picturesque episodes in all the annals of border warfare. The Seignior, a military man, was absent, the fort was nearly empty, for the able-bodied men were working in the fields, when the Iroquois came down on the place. The Seignior's daughter, Madeleine de Vercheres, a girl of fourteen, took charge of the fort, having for a garrison, over and above women and children, two terrified soldiers, one hired man-servant, one refugee settler, an old man of eighty, and two small boys, her brothers. She gave the command, she placed each at his post, she misled the savages by a show of imaginary force, and watching day and night she held them at bay, until, at the end of a week, a party of soldiers came to her relief from Montreal. Years afterwards the tale of the siege was taken down from her own lips; and her name lives, and deserves to live, in the history of Canada. The girl's heroism is the chief, but not the only, point of the story. That the Mohawks should have prowled round the fort for a week without seriously attempting to take it, and without finding out that it was nearly defenceless, shows how helpless and stupid these noted warriors were when face to face with a fortification. On the other hand, that a post, only twenty miles distant from Montreal, was left for a week without relief, proves how paralysed, or at least how weakened, were the French by a long series of Indian incursions. This was in Frontenac's time; but Frontenac had the English on his hands, and was short of men. Had it been otherwise, there would have been no beleaguering of girls in forts, and Canada would have lost a pretty story.

[Sidenote: _Revival of the French cause._]

As it was, the scale soon turned in favour of the French. In dead of winter, at the beginning of 1693, a mixed body of Canadians and Indians broke in upon the Mohawk towns, and, in spite of a somewhat disastrous retreat, inflicted considerable loss on their persistent enemies; while later {116} in the year, at the bidding of the st.u.r.dy old Governor, a strong party of _coureurs de bois_ came down the Ottawa, convoying a long pent-up and most welcome cargo of furs. This 'gave as universal joy to Canada as the arrival of the galleons give in Spain';[11] and Frontenac was hailed as the father of the people.

[Footnote 11: Colden's _History of the Five Nations_ (3rd ed.), vol.

i, chap. ix, p. 159.]

[Sidenote: _The Iroquois complain of English inaction._]

More soldiers came out from France, and the Iroquois began to lose heart. Many of their warriors had fallen, and not a few, converted by the Jesuits, had settled in Canada, being known to their heathen countrymen as the 'praying Indians.'[12] From the English colonies little or no help had come, beyond supplies of arms and ammunition.

The councils at Albany produced on the English side pretentious speeches, criticism, encouragement, and promises which were never fulfilled; but the words of the Indians were more to the point, 'the whole burden of the war lies on us alone ... we alone cannot continue the war against the French by reason of the recruits they daily receive from the other side the Great Lake.'[13] They had been faithful to the English alliance, more faithful than the English deserved, and more faithful than any civilized nation would have been under like circ.u.mstances; but they tired of fighting singlehanded, and the chain of the covenant began to rust.

[Footnote 12: The converted Iroquois were settled at Caughnawaga, which was on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, at the Sault St.

Louis, and directly opposite Lachine. They were often called Caughnawagas.]

[Footnote 13: Colden, vol. i, chap. x, p. 176.]

[Sidenote: _Their policy towards the French._]

[Sidenote: _Barbarity of Frontenac._]

In default of active aid from the English, there were two policies open to them--to make terms with the French, and to detach from the French cause the Indian tribes of the lakes. They pursued both policies at once: they invited Frontenac to meet them and the English at Albany; he refused. He refused also to come to a meeting at Onondaga. {117} They then sent a deputation to Quebec in 1694; and Frontenac offered a peace which should include the Indian allies of the French and exclude the English. Two nations of the confederacy were ready to accept these terms; the other three rejected them, and there was no peace. In the meantime the Iroquois intrigued with the Lake Indians, and, attracted by the prospect of English goods, the latter came near exchanging the French alliance for combination with the Five Nations and the English. To prevent this result, Frontenac and his officers had resort to infamous methods. Not only at the forest post of Michillimackinac, but at Montreal itself, the French compelled the wavering Indians to burn Iroquois prisoners to death, in order to make peace impossible, and joined themselves in the torture and butchery. Few worse instances of barbarous policy are recorded in history.

[Sidenote: _Fort Frontenac reoccupied._]

Such means alone would not attain the desired end. Nothing, the Governor knew, would avail except acknowledged mastery over the Five Nations. The most obvious confession of weakness on the French side in Denonville's disastrous time had been the evacuation of Fort Frontenac; and never had Denonville's successor slackened his determination to reoccupy the post, which, if he had arrived in Canada a day or two earlier, would not have been abandoned. The time came in the summer of 1695. A force, secretly and quickly gathered, was sent up from Montreal; the walls of the fort still standing were repaired; and the Iroquois were startled by the news that the post, which they most dreaded, and which most menaced their confederacy, was again manned by a French garrison. Frontenac was just in time.

The day after the expedition started, orders came from France that the fort should not be reoccupied; but he refused to recall his troops, and set himself to justify, by further measures, his disobedience to the home Government.

[Sidenote: _Frontenac's expedition against the Five Nations._]

In July, 1696, he set out from Montreal at the head of {118} over 2,000 men. The military strength of Canada was well represented; there were French soldiers of the line, Canadian militia, and friendly Indians. With the old Governor went his best officers--Callieres leading the van of the march, Vaudreuil bringing up the rear. The force reached Fort Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario, and, landing at the mouth of the Oswego river, worked their way up, by stream and lake and portage, towards the goal of the expedition--Onondaga, the central town and meeting-place of the Five Nations. What had happened before happened again. The Indians retreated into the forest before superior numbers, leaving the French a barren conquest over the smouldering ashes of the native town and the standing corn. The Oneidas' village and maize fields were also laid waste, and then the invaders retraced their steps.

[Sidenote: _Death of Frontenac._]

Though the expedition was recorded by the French as a success, Frontenac had done no more than Denonville in his march against the Senecas, and a writer on the English side contemptuously refers to it as 'a kind of heroic dotage'.[14] The show of force, however, seems to have had the effect of inclining the Iroquois to peace, of proving once more that the French were more active than the English, and that the arm of _Onontio_ was longer than that of the Governor of New York. Early in 1698 came news of the Peace of Ryswick. The Five Nations were subjects neither of England nor of France, but both Canada and New York claimed them. St.u.r.dily to the last, Frontenac repelled English pretensions and half-hearted Indian advances; but the hand of death was upon him, and on November 28, 1698, he died at Quebec, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

[Footnote 14: Colden, vol. i, chap. xii, p. 202.]

[Sidenote: _His services to Canada._]

He had rid Canada in a great measure from the scourge of murdering savages. He had humbled the Iroquois to some extent; he had certainly won their respect. How he withstood the English in open warfare, and how he {119} encouraged Frenchmen of his own bold type to explore and to claim the far West, remains to be told. He was a great man for the time and place, great in fearlessness, in self-reliance, in foresight, and in unflinching tenacity of purpose. The element of bombast and arrogance in his character helped him, as it helped other Frenchmen, whose names have lived, in handling native races. As a ruler of wild men, whether coloured or white, he was unsurpa.s.sed. The ruthlessness of his policy has left a stain upon his memory; but he gave life and confidence to Canada in time of trouble, and but for him there would have been no future for New France.

[Sidenote: _The Iroquois make peace with the French._]

His deeds and his character bore fruit immediately after his death.

At the invitation of his successor, Callieres, a general meeting of all the Indian tribes was held at Montreal, in 1701, to which the Iroquois condescended to send representatives. Peace was made; and the French, whom the Five Nations had brought to the brink of ruin, emerged from the contest as acknowledged arbitrators between the native races of North America.

[Sidenote: _Causes which inclined the Iroquois to peace. Loss of numbers._]

Thus, with the close of the seventeenth century, came in effect the close of the life-and-death struggle between the Five Nation Indians and the Canadian settlers. What were the causes which brought the Iroquois to terms? The first and most potent was loss of numbers.

Continual bloodshed had reduced the male population of the confederates by half;[15] and mixture by adoption, it may well be supposed, had brought some alloy into the old fighting breed. When white men meet coloured men in war, there is always the same tale to tell. The white men suffer reverses, as long as they are a handful, and until the native race has lost a certain proportion of its warriors. Then strength, and knowledge, and discipline prevail; and the issue is no longer in doubt. But no other coloured race in the history of colonization fought with Europeans, man for man, like the Iroquois, and never {120} submitting, treated sullenly as equals only when the white race were absolutely superior in numbers. Big battalions in the end usually determine the course of history. They certainly decided the fate of North America. Numerical strength turned the scale in favour of the French, as against the Iroquois. It subsequently turned the scale in favour of the English, as against the French.

[Footnote 15: See Parkman's _Count Frontenac_, last page, note.]

[Sidenote: _Personality of Frontenac._]

The second cause which influenced the Iroquois was Frontenac's personality. In dealing with him the Indians dealt, and knew that they dealt, with a man who in the greatest straits would never give way an inch. There was no compromise in his policy. He meant to be master; the savages knew it, and respected him accordingly. He did not live to complete his work, and it was not thoroughly completed; but he lived long enough to cripple the Five Nations, and after his time their strength declined.

[Sidenote: _Shortcomings of the English._]

A third cause was the failure of the English. They missed their opportunities. The path of English colonization has been strewn with lost opportunities. The end has been achieved in most cases, and in most parts of the world; but it has been achieved only after long years of toil, expense, and loss of life, which a little foresight might well have avoided. There was no Frontenac on the English side, no man who went in advance of his Government, who framed and forced a strong policy. One Governor of New York, the Irishman Dongan, was active and determined, but those who came after did little. The element of compromise in the English character, and in the policy of the English Government, made itself felt. Colony was jealous of colony, petty legislatures wrangled, and farmers resented being called to fight instead of sowing or harvesting their crops. Over and above all, whether as friends or as foes, the Frenchmen stretched out their right hands to the native races of North America; the English lived their lives apart, and for the time they paid the penalty.

{121} [Sidenote: _Founding of Detroit._]

[Sidenote: _La Mothe Cadillac._]

Thus the Five Nations made peace with the French at Montreal. At the very same time, at Albany,[16] they gave the English a t.i.tle to the lake regions. In the year 1686, by Denonville's orders, Du Luth, with a party of _coureurs de bois_, established a French outpost on the strait (Detroit) between Lakes Huron and Erie,[17] his object being to prevent the fur trade of the upper lakes pa.s.sing down that way to the Iroquois country, and thence to the English market at Albany. The post was not maintained; but some years afterwards a more permanent occupation took place. Frontenac had died; but he left behind him men trained in his school, keen on a forward policy, on holding in the interests of France and in their own the pa.s.ses of the West. Such a man was La Mothe Cadillac, who in 1694 had been sent to take command at Michillimackinac. He urged upon the French Government the importance of controlling the outlet from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, and, having obtained their consent, was the founder of the city of Detroit. He began the work in July, 1701, but before his expedition actually reached the place, the Five Nations took alarm, recognizing that Detroit, like Fort Frontenac, would limit their range and endanger their power.

[Footnote 16: The great meeting at Montreal was held on Aug. 4, 1701.

The deed of cession referred to in the text was dated July 19, 1701.]

[Footnote 17: See above, p. 111.]

[Sidenote: _The Iroquois cede their hunting-grounds to the King of England._]

They sent representatives of all their nations to Albany, and there, on July 19, 1701, ceded to the King of England their 'beaver hunting-ground,' retaining for themselves the right of free hunting.

The deed was of the most formal character, attested by the totem marks of all the Five Nations.[18] It is an interesting doc.u.ment, setting forth that the Iroquois had already subjected themselves and their lands 'on this side of Cataraqui (Ontario) lake wholly to the Crown of {122} England,' and conveying to the King a wide area to the north of the lake, which the Five Nations claimed as their hunting-ground in right of conquest. The tract was estimated at 800 miles in length by 400 in breadth, extending on the north to Lake Superior, on the west to Chicago, and it specifically included Detroit,[19] the French designs on which were stated as the reason for making the cession. A white man's hand must have drawn the deed.

It gave away the Iroquois entirely. Hitherto they had stubbornly rejected any English claim to sovereignty. Brother the Governor of New York had been, but not father, and no allegiance had been offered to the King of England; but in the conveyance William III figured as 'the great lord and master' of the Five Nations, and on paper the acknowledgement of British sovereignty was complete.

[Footnote 18: A certified copy in ma.n.u.script sent home at the time may be seen at the Record Office, and a printed copy is included in the New York doc.u.ments.]

[Footnote 19: Spoken of in the deed in one place as 'Tiengsachrondio alias Fort de Tret.']

It was a piece of parchment only, and as such and no more the Iroquois probably regarded it; but it embodied a small element of fact. These hardheaded, hardhanded Indians were gradually being worn down by the white men on either side, owing such measure of independence as they still retained not so much to their own fighting strength as to the constant enmity between Great Britain and France.

When war broke out again, after Queen Anne's accession, they remained for the most part neutral; what they had claimed and conveyed as their hunting-ground pa.s.sed more and more under French control, while, as the result of Marlborough's victories on the other side of the Atlantic, their own land and its cantons was awarded to Great Britain in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht.[20]

[Footnote 20: Clause xv of the Treaty of Utrecht ran as follows: 'The subjects of France inhabiting Canada, and others, shall hereafter give no hinderance or molestation to the Five Nations or Cantons of Indians subject to the dominion of Great Britain nor to the other natives of America who are friends to the same.']

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of New England, New York & Central Canada, showing the Waterways]