Parkman Vol. 5, Chapter 19

A successful campaign was now doubly necessary to the governor, for by this alone could he hope to avert the consequences of his audacity.

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 18.

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.

[“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’à 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. [1] 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.” [2]

[1: La Potherie, II. 298.]

[2: 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 practiced 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. [3] 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.” [4]

[3: Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable entre les François 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.]

[4: 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 manière.” 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.

[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 everything 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.

[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.]

Chapter 19

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.

From Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, Chapter 19 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.

MORE INFORMATION