The Mohawk Expedition

Early in February, three hundred men under Dorvilliers were sent by Frontenac to surprise the Iroquois in their hunting-grounds.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. Continuing Chapter 14.

Schuyler’s official return shows that his party consisted of 120 whites, 80 Mohawks, and 66 River Indians (Mohegans): 266 in all. The French writer Bénac places the whole at 280, and the intendant Champigny at 300. The other French estimates of the English force are greatly exaggerated. Schuyler’s strength was reduced by 27 men left to guard the canoes, and by a number killed or disabled at La Prairie. The force under Valrenne was additional to the 700 or 800 men at La Prairie (Relation, 1682-1712). Schuyler reported his loss in killed at 21 whites, 16 Mohawks, and 6 Mohegans, besides many wounded. The French statements of it are enormously in excess of this and are irreconcilable with each other.

He was at Three Rivers at a ball when news of the disaster at La Prairie damped the spirits of the company, which, however, were soon revived by tidings of the fight under Valrenne and the retreat of the English, who were reported to have left two hundred dead on the field. Frontenac wrote an account of the affair to the minister, with high praise of Valrenne and his band, followed by an appeal for help. “What with fighting and hardship, our troops and militia are wasting away.” “The enemy is upon us by sea and land.” “Send us a thousand men next spring, if you want the colony to be saved.” “We are perishing by inches; the people are in the depths of poverty; the war has doubled prices so that nobody can live.” “Many families are without bread. The inhabitants desert the country, and crowd into the towns.” [1] A new enemy appeared in the following summer, almost as destructive as the Iroquois. This was an army of caterpillars, which set at naught the maledictions of the clergy, and made great havoc among the crops. It is recorded that along with the caterpillars came an unprecedented multitude of squirrels, which, being industriously trapped or shot, proved a great help to many families.

[1: Lettres de Frontenac et de Champigny, 1691, 1692.]

Alarm followed alarm. It was reported that Phips was bent on revenge for his late discomfiture, that great armaments were afoot, and that a mighty host of “Bostonnais” was preparing another descent. Again, and again Frontenac begged that one bold blow should be struck to end these perils and make King Louis master of the continent, by dispatching a fleet to seize New York. If this were done, he said, it would be easy to take Boston and the “rebels and old republican leaven of Cromwell” who harbored there; then burn the place, and utterly destroy it. [2] Villebon, governor of Acadia, was of the same mind. “No town,” he told the minister, “could be burned more easily. Most of the houses are covered with shingles, and the streets are very narrow.” [3] But the king could not spare a squadron equal to the attempt; and Frontenac was told that he must wait. The troops sent him did not supply his losses. [4] Money came every summer in sums which now seem small but were far from being so in the eyes of the king, who joined to each remittance a lecture on economy and a warning against extravagance. [5]

[2: Frontenac in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 496, 506.]

[3: Villebon in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 507.]

[4: The returns show 1,313 regulars in 1691, and 1,120 in 1692.]

[5: Lettres du Roy et du Ministre, 1690-1694. In 1691, the amount allowed for extraordinaires de guerre was 99,000 livres (francs). In 1692, it was 193,000 livres, a part of which was for fortifications. In the following year, no less than 750,000 livres were drawn for Canada, “ce qui ne se pourroit pas supporter, si cela continuoit de la mesme force,” writes the minister. (Le Ministre à Frontenac, 13 Mars, 1694.) This last sum probably included the pay of the troops.]

The intendant received his share of blame on these occasions, and he usually defended himself vigorously. He tells his master that “war-parties are necessary, but very expensive. We rarely pay money; but we must give presents to our Indians, and fit out the Canadians with provisions, arms, ammunition, moccasins, snow-shoes, sledges, canoes, capotes, breeches, stockings, and blankets. This costs a great deal, but without it we should have to abandon Canada.” The king complained that, while the great sums he was spending in the colony turned to the profit of the inhabitants, they contributed nothing to their own defense. The complaint was scarcely just; for, if they gave no money, they gave their blood with sufficient readiness. Excepting a few merchants, they had nothing else to give; and, in the years when the fur trade was cut off, they lived chiefly on the pay they received for supplying the troops and other public services. Far from being able to support the war, they looked to the war to support them.

[“Sa Majesté fait depuis plusieurs années des sacrifices immenses en Canada. L’avantage en demeure presque tout entier au profit des habitans et des marchands qui y resident. Ces dépenses se font pour leur seureté et pour leur conservation. Il est juste que ceux qui sont en estat secourent le public.” Mémoire du Roy, 1693. “Les habitans de la colonie ne contribuent en rien à tout ce que Sa Majesté fait pour leur conservation, pendant que ses sujets du Royaume donnent tout ce qu’ils ont pour son service.” Le Ministre à Frontenac, 13 Mars, 1694.]

The work of fortifying the vital points of the colony, Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, received constant stimulus from the alarms of attack, and, above all, from a groundless report that ten thousand “Bostonnais” had sailed for Quebec. The sessions of the council were suspended, and the councilors seized pick and spade. The old defenses of the place were reconstructed on a new plan, made by the great engineer Vauban. The settlers were mustered together from a distance of twenty leagues, and compelled to labor, with little or no pay, till a line of solid earthworks enclosed Quebec from Cape Diamond to the St. Charles. Three Rivers and Montreal were also strengthened. The cost exceeded the estimates and drew upon Frontenac and Champigny fresh admonitions from Versailles.

[Lettres du Roy et du Ministre, 1693, 1694. Cape Diamond was now for the first time included within the line of circumvallation at Quebec. A strong stone redoubt, with sixteen cannon, was built upon its summit.]

In 1854, in demolishing a part of the old wall between the fort of Quebec and the adjacent “Governor’s Garden,” a plate of copper was found with a Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation:

In the year of Grace, 1693, under the reign of the Most August, Most Invincible, and Most Christian King, Louis the Great, Fourteenth of that name, the Most Excellent and Most Illustrious Lord, Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, twice Viceroy of all New France, after having three years before repulsed, routed, and completely conquered the rebellious inhabitants of New England, who besieged this town of Quebec, and who threatened to renew their attack this year, constructed, at the charge of the king, this citadel, with the fortifications therewith connected, for the defense of the country and the safety of the people, and for confounding yet again a people perfidious towards God and towards its lawful king. And he has laid this first stone.”

The bounties on scalps and prisoners were another occasion of royal complaint. Twenty crowns had been offered for each male white prisoner, ten crowns for each female, and ten crowns for each scalp, whether Indian or English. [6] The bounty on prisoners produced an excellent result, since instead of killing them the Indian allies learned to bring them to Quebec. If children, they were placed in the convents; and, if adults, they were distributed to labor among the settlers. Thus, though the royal letters show that the measure was one of policy, it acted in the interest of humanity. It was not so with the bounty on scalps. The Abenaki, Huron, and Iroquois converts brought in many of them; but grave doubts arose whether they all came from the heads of enemies. [7] The scalp of a Frenchman was not distinguishable from the scalp of an Englishman and could be had with less trouble. Partly for this reason, and partly out of economy, the king gave it as his belief that a bounty of one crown was enough; though the governor and the intendant united in declaring that the scalps of the whole Iroquois confederacy would be a good bargain for his Majesty at ten crowns apiece. [8]

[6: Champigny au Ministre, 21 Sept., 1692.]

[7: Relation de 1682-1712.]

[8: Mémoire du Roy aux Sieurs Frontenac et Champigny, 1693; Frontenac et Champigny au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1693. The bounty on prisoners was reduced in the same proportion, showing that economy was the chief object of the change.]

The river Ottawa was the main artery of Canada, and to stop it was to stop the flow of her life blood. The Iroquois knew this; and their constant effort was to close it so completely that the annual supply of beaver skins would be prevented from passing, and the colony be compelled to live on credit. It was their habit to spend the latter part of the winter in hunting among the forests between the Ottawa and the upper St. Lawrence, and then, when the ice broke up, to move in large bands to the banks of the former stream, and lie in ambush at the Chaudière, the Long Saut, or other favorable points, to waylay the passing canoes. On the other hand, it was the constant effort of Frontenac to drive them off and keep the river open; an almost impossible task. Many conflicts, great and small, took place with various results but, in spite of every effort, the Iroquois blockade was maintained more than two years. The story of one of the expeditions made by the French in this quarter will show the hardship of the service, and the moral and physical vigor which it demanded.

Early in February, three hundred men under Dorvilliers were sent by Frontenac to surprise the Iroquois in their hunting-grounds. When they were a few days out, their leader scalded his foot by the upsetting of a kettle at their encampment near Lake St. Francis; and the command fell on a youth named Beaucour, an officer of regulars, accomplished as an engineer, and known for his polished wit. The march through the snow-clogged forest was so terrible that the men lost heart. Hands and feet were frozen; some of the Indians refused to proceed, and many of the Canadians lagged behind. Shots were heard, showing that the enemy were not far off; but cold, hunger, and fatigue had overcome the courage of the pursuers, and the young commander saw his followers on the point of deserting him. He called them together and harangued them in terms so animating that they caught his spirit, and again pushed on. For four hours more they followed the tracks of the Iroquois snow-shoes, till they found the savages in their bivouac, set upon them, and killed or captured nearly all. There was a French slave among them, scarcely distinguishable from his owners. It was an officer named La Plante, taken at La Chine three years before. “He would have been killed like his masters,” says La Hontan, “if he had not cried out with all his might, ‘Miséricorde, sauvez-moi, je suis Français'” [9] Beaucour brought his prisoners to Quebec, where Frontenac ordered that two of them should be burned. One stabbed himself in prison; the other was tortured by the Christian Hurons on Cape Diamond, defying them to the last. Nor was this the only instance of such fearful reprisal. In the same year, a number of Iroquois captured by Vaudreuil were burned at Montreal at the demand of the Canadians and the mission Indians, who insisted that their cruelties should be paid back in kind. It is said that the purpose was answered, and the Iroquois deterred for a while from torturing their captives. [10]

[9: La Potherie, III. 156; Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus considérable en Canada, 1691, 1692; La Hontan, I. 233.]

[10: Relation, 1682-1712.]

From Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, Chapter 14 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.

If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.

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