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The Great Republic by the Master Historians
Champlain and the Iroquois
by Bancroft, Hubert H.
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[The first permanent French settlement in America, as we have already stated,
was made by De Monts in 1605, on the coast of the Bay of Fundy, the settlement
being named Port Royal, and the country Acadia. In 1608, De Monts was granted a
monopoly of the fur-trade on the St. Lawrence River, and sent out two vessels
under Samuel Champlain, who had previously visited that region. Champlain
ascended the river to the site of the present city of Quebec, near the place
where Cartier had wintered in 1541. The colony he there established was the
first permanent French settlement in Canada. The history of this colony under
Champlain's management, of the explorations which he made, and of his hostile
relations with the Iroquois Indians, is one of the greatest interest, and reads
like a page from romance rather than the detail of sober history.
Champlain was one of the most active and earnest explorers the world has ever
known. "A true hero, after the chivalrous mediaeval type, his character was
dashed largely with the spirit of romance. Earnest, sagacious, penetrating, he
yet leaned to the marvellous; and the faith which was the life of his hard
career was somewhat prone to overstep the bounds of reason and invade the
alluring domain of fancy." In early life he had been seized with a desire to
explore those golden realms from which the Spaniards sedulously excluded the
people of other European nations. He entered the Spanish service, and made his
way to the West Indies and Mexico. He afterwards took part in the Port Royal
expedition of De Monts, and explored the New England coast. His enterprising
spirit, while of the utmost importance to the success of the Canadian colony,
brought the colonists into hostile relations with the powerful Iroquois
confederacy of Indians, and started a bitter and unrelenting war through which
the settlement was more than once threatened with annihilation.
The colony of Canada had no thought of agriculture. It was distinctively a
trading settlement, a condition conducive to adventurous excursions, in which
movements Champlain was the leading spirit. It, unlike all other American
colonies, entered at once into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the
neighboring Indian tribes, aided them in their wars, and roused the undying
enmity of powerful foes. A description of the settlement of Quebec, of
Champlain's first excursion with the Indians, of the discovery of the lake which
bears his name, and of his first encounter with the Iroquois, may be taken from
Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World."]
And now, peace being established with the Basques, and the wounded Pontgrave
busied, as far as might be, in transferring to the hold of his ship the rich
lading of the Indian canoes, Chaplain spread his sails, and once more held his
course up the St. Lawrence..
Above the point of the Island of Orleans, a constriction of the vast channel
narrows it to a mile: on one hand the green heights of Point Levi; on the other,
the cliffs of Quebec. Here a small stream, the St. Charles, enters the St.
Lawrence, and in the angle between them rises the promontory, on two sides a
natural fortress. Land among the walnut-trees that formed a belt between the
cliffs and the St. Lawrence. Climb the steep height, now bearing aloft its
ponderous load of churches, convents, dwellings, ramparts, and batteries,--there
was an accessible point, a rough passage, gullied downward where Prescott Gate
now opens on the Lower Town.. Two centuries and a half have quickened the
solitude with swarming life, covered the deep bosom of the river with barge and
steamer and gliding sail, and reared cities and villages on the site of forests;
but nothing can destroy the surpassing grandeur of the scene..
A few weeks passed, and a pile of wooden buildings rose on the brink of the St.
Lawrence, on or near the site of the market-place of the Lower Town of Quebec.
The pencil of Champlain, always regardless of proportion and perspective, has
preserved its semblance. A strong wooden wall, surmounted by a gallery loop-
holed for musketry, enclosed three buildings, containing quarters for himself
and his men, together with a court-yard, from one side of which rose a tall
dove-cot, like a belfry. A moat surrounded the whole, and two or three small
cannon were planted on salient platforms towards the river. There was a large
magazine near at hand, and a part of the adjacent ground was laid out as a
garden..
It was on the eighteenth of September that Pontgrave set sail, leaving Champlain
with twenty-eight men to hold Quebec through the winter. Three weeks later, and
shores and hills glowed with gay prognostics of approaching desolation,--the
yellow and scarlet of the maples, the deep purple of the ash, the garnet hue of
young oaks, the bonfire blaze of the tupelo at the water's edge, and the golden
plumage of birch saplings in the fissure of the cliff. It was a short-lived
beauty. The forest dropped its festal robes. Shrivelled and faded, they rustled
to the earth. The crystal air and laughing sun of October passed away, and
November sank upon the shivering waste, chill and sombre as the tomb..
One would gladly know how the founders of Quebec spent the long hours of their
first winter; but on this point the only man among them, perhaps, who could
write, has not thought it necessary to enlarge. He himself beguiled his leisure
with trapping foxes, or hanging a dead dog from a tree and watching the hungry
martens in their efforts to reach it. Towards the close of winter, all found
abundant employment in nursing themselves or their neighbors, for the inevitable
scurvy broke out with virulence. At the middle of May only eight men of the
twenty-eight were alive, and of these half were suffering from disease.. Great
was the joy of Champlain when he saw a sail-boat rounding the Point of Orleans,
betokening that the spring had brought with it the longed-for succors.
[Pontgrave had returned with supplies and emigrants. After a consultation it was
decided that he should remain in charge of Quebec while Champlain entered upon
his meditated explorations, by which he hoped to find a practicable way to
China. It was the same dream of a passage to the Pacific that had animated so
many of his predecessors.]
But there was a lion in the path. The Indian tribes, war-hawks of the
wilderness, to whom peace was unknown, infested with their scalping-parties the
streams and pathways of the forest, increasing tenfold its inseparable risks.
That to all these hazards Champlain was more than indifferent, his after-career
bears abundant witness; yet now an expedient for evading them offered itself, so
consistent with his instincts that he was fain to accept it. Might he not
anticipate surprises, join a war-party, and fight his way to discovery?
During the last autumn a young chief from the banks of the then unknown Ottawa
had been at Quebec; and, amazed at what he saw, he had begged Champlain to join
him in the spring against his enemies. These enemies were a formidable race of
savages, the Iroquois, or Five Confederate Nations, dwelling in fortified
villages within limits now embraced by the State of New York.
[The Canadian foes of this confederacy were the Hurons, a tribe of their own
race, the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence region, and the Montagnais, a less
energetic tribe of the same region. With these Indians Champlain joined himself
in a projected expedition against their powerful enemies.]
It was past the middle of May, and the expected warriors from the upper country
had not come,--a delay which seems to have given Champlain little concern, for,
without waiting longer, he set forth with no better allies than a band of
Montagnais. But as he moved up the St. Lawrence he saw, thickly clustered in the
bordering forest, the lodges of an Indian camp, and, landing, found his Huron
and Algonquin allies. Few of them had ever seen a white man. They surrounded the
steel-clad strangers in speechless wonderment. Chaplain asked for their chief,
and the staring throng moved with him towards a lodge where sat, not one chief,
but two, for each band had its own. There were feasting, smoking, speeches; and,
the needful ceremony over, all descended together to Quebec; for the strangers
were bent on seeing those wonders of architecture whose fame had pierced the
recesses of their forests.
[On May 28 the expedition again set out, passing down the St. Lawrence to the
"Riviere des Iroquois," since called the Richelieu, or the St. John. Here the
warriors encamped for two days, hunted, fished, feasted, and quarrelled, three-
fourths of the party seceding, while the rest pursued their course. Champlain
outsailed his allies. But he soon found himself in impassable rapids, and was
obliged to return. The Indians had lied to him, with the story that his shallop
could traverse the river unobstructed.]
But should he abandon the adventure, and forego the discovery of that great
lake, studded with islands and bordered with a fertile land of forests, which
his red companions had traced in outline and by word and sign had painted to his
fancy.. He directed Marais, with the boat and the greater part of the men, to
return to Quebec, while he, with two who offered to follow him, should proceed
in the Indian canoes.
The warriors lifted their canoes from the water, and in long procession through
the forest, under the flickering sun and shade, bore them on their shoulders
around the rapids to the smooth stream above. Here the chiefs made a muster of
their forces, counting twenty-four canoes and sixty warriors. All embarked
again, and advanced once more, by marsh, meadow, forest, and scattered islands,
then full of game, for it was an uninhabited land, the warpath and battle-ground
of hostile tribes. The warriors observed a certain system in their advance. Some
were in front as a vanguard, others formed the main body, while an equal number
were in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the subsistence of the
whole; for, though they had a provision of parched maize pounded into meal, they
kept it for use when, from the vicinity of the enemy, hunting should become
impossible.
Late in the day they landed and drew up their canoes, ranging them closely side
by side. All was life and bustle. Some stripped sheets of bark, to cover their
camp-sheds; others gathered wood,--the forest was full of dead, dry trees;
others felled the living trees, for a barricade. They seem to have had steel
axes, obtained by barter from the French; for in less than two hours they had
made a strong defensive work, a half-circle in form, open on the river side,
where their canoes lay on the strand, and large enough to enclose all their huts
and sheds. Some of their number had gone forward as scouts, and, returning,
reported no signs of an enemy. This was the extent of their precautions, for
they placed no guard, but all, in full security, stretched themselves to sleep,-
-a vicious custom from which the lazy warrior of the forest rarely departs.
[An important part of the subsequent proceedings was the operation of the
medicine-man, who entered his magic lodge and invoked the spirits in mumbling
tones, while his dusky audience listened in awe and wonder. Suddenly the lodge
rocked with violence to and fro,--as alleged, by the power of the spirits,
through Champlain could see the first of the medicine-man shaking the poles. The
diviner was now seized with convulsions, and invoked the spirit in an unknown
language, while the answer came in squeaking and feeble accents. This mummery
over, the chief stuck sticks in the earth in a certain order, each stick
representing a warrior and indicating his position in the expected battle. They
all gathered round and studied the sticks, then formed, broke, and reformed
their ranks with alacrity and skill.]
Again the canoes advanced, the river widening as they went. Great islands
appeared, leagues in extent,--Isle a la Motte, Long Island, Grande Isle.
Channels where ships might float and broad reaches of expanding water stretched
between them, and Champlain entered the lake which preserves his name to
posterity. Cumberland Head was passed, and from the opening of the great channel
between Grande Isle and the main he could look forth on the wilderness sea.
Edged with woods, the tranquil flood spread southward beyond the sight. Far on
the left the forest ridges of the Green Mountains were heaved against the sun,
patches of snow still glistening on their tops; and on the right rose the
Adirondacks, haunts in these later years of amateur sportsmen from counting-
rooms or college halls, nay, of adventurous beauty, with sketch-book and pencil.
Then the Iroquois made them their hunting-ground; and beyond, in the valleys of
the Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Genesee, stretched the long line of their five
cantons and palisaded towns..
The progress of the party was becoming dangerous. They changed their mode of
advance, and moved only in the night.. At twilight they embarked again, paddling
their cautious way till the eastern sky began to redden. Their goal was the
rocky promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterwards built. Thence they
would pass the outlet of Lake George, and launch their canoes again on that Como
of the wilderness.. Landing at the future site of Fort William Henry, they would
carry their canoes through the forest to the river Hudson, and, descending it,
attack, perhaps, some outlying town of the Mohawks..
The allies were spared so long a progress. On the morning of the twenty-ninth of
July, after paddling all night, they hid as usual in the forest on the western
shore, not far from Crown Point. The warriors stretched themselves to their
slumbers, and Champlain, after walking for a time through the surrounding woods,
returned to take his repose on a pile of spruce boughs..
It was ten o'clock in the evening, when they descried dark objects in motion on
the lake before them. These were a flotilla of Iroquois canoes, heavier and
slower than theirs, for they were made of oak bark (or more probably elm bark).
Each party saw the other, and the mingled war-cries pealed over the darkened
water. The Iroquois, who were near the shore, having no stomach for an aquatic
battle, landed, and, making night hideous with their clamors, began to barricade
themselves. Champlain could see them in the woods laboring like beavers, hacking
down trees with iron axes taken from the Canadian tribes in war, and with stone
hatchets of their own making. The allies remained on the lake, a bowshot from
the hostile barricade, their canoes made fast together by poles lashed across.
All night they danced with as much vigor as the frailty of their vessels would
permit, their throats making amends for the enforced restraint of their limbs.
It was agreed on both sides that the fight should be deferred till daybreak; but
meanwhile a commerce of abuse, sarcasm, menace, and boasting gave unceasing
exercise to the lungs and fancy of the combatants,--"much," says Champlain,
"like the besiegers and besieged in a beleaguered town."
As day approached, he and his two followers put on the light armor of the time.
Champlain wore the doublet and long hose then in vogue. Over the doublet he
buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back-piece, while his thighs were
protected by cuisses of steel, and his head by a plumed casque. Across his
shoulder lay the straps of his bandoleer, or ammunition-box; at his side was his
sword, and in his hand his arquebuse, which he had loaded with four balls. Such
was the equipment of this ancient Indian-fighter, whose exploits date eleven
years before the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth, and sixty-six years before
King Philip's War.
Each of the three Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, and, as it grew light, they
kept themselves hidden, either by lying in the bottom, or covering themselves
with an Indian robe. The canoes approached the shore, and all landed without
opposition at some distance from the Iroquois, whom they presently could see
filing out of their barricade, tall, strong men, some two hundred in number, of
the boldest and fiercest warriors of North America. They advanced through the
forest with a steadiness which excited the admiration of Champlain. Among them
could be seen several chiefs, made conspicuous by their tall plumes. Some bore
shields of wood and hide, and some were covered with a kind of armor made of
tough twigs interlaced with a vegetable fibre supposed by Champlain to be
cotton.
The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion, and
opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and, advancing
before his red companions-in-arms, stood revealed to the astonished gaze of the
Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute
amazement. But his arquebuse was levelled; the report startled the woods, a
chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then there
rose from the allies a yell, which, says Champlain, would have drowned a
thunder-clap, and the forest was full of whizzing arrows. For a moment, the
Iroquois stood firm and sent back their arrows lustily; but when another and
another gunshot came from the thickets on their flank, they broke and fled in
uncontrollable terror. Swifter than hounds, the allies tore through the bushes
in pursuit. Some of the Iroquois were killed; more were taken. Camp, canoes,
provisions, all were abandoned, and many weapons flung down in the panic flight.
The arquebuse had done its work. The victory was complete. .
The victors made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph. Three or four
days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu. Here they separated; the Hurons
and the Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward route, each with a share
of prisoners for future torments. At parting they invited Champlain to visit
their towns and aid them again in their wars, -- an invitation which this
paladin of the woods failed not to accept.
[Thus ended the first Indian battle in the northern United States, the fruitful
seed of an abundant crop of future disasters. The subsequent history of
Champlain may be rapidly epitomized. In the next year (1610) he took part in
another successful war-expedition. In 1611 he founded the city of Montreal. The
year 1613 he employed in an exploration of the Ottawa River, deceived by a
statement that it led to a great lake which was connected with the North Sea. In
1614 he made another long journey, up the Ottawa, then overland to Lake Huron,
and then south, in company with a war-party of Hurons, to the Iroquois country,
where an attack was made on a strong fortification. The assault proved a
failure. The Iroquois defended themselves valiantly, and finally drove off their
foes, Champlain being twice wounded. In 1629, twenty years after the settlement
of Quebec, it contained less than a hundred persons, and these the prey of a
severe famine, from whose consequences they were saved only by a surrender of
the place to the English, then at war with France. At the end of the war it was
restored to France. The history of Canada during the remainder of the century is
largely made up of the revenge taken by the Iroquois for their earlier
disasters. Their dreaded foe, Champlain, died in 1635. He had aided in making a
treaty of peace between the Hurons and the Iroquois in 1622, but in 1648 the
latter broke the truce, and suddenly fell upon the French and their allies,
slaughtering the whites without distinction of sex or age, and causing a
complete dispersal of the Hurons, who ceased to exist as a separate tribe. For
years afterwards the Iroquois remained lords of the situation, keeping the
French shut up in their fortified posts, while their allies were left without
succor. The Algonquins were dispersed, the Eries obliterated, and the war ended
in 1672, after more than twenty years' duration, in the conquest of the
Andastes, a powerful Huron tribe. In 1687 the war was renewed, through a
treacherous act of Denonville, the Canadian governor, and in the succeeding year
the Iroquois made a descent on the Island of Montreal, which they laid waste,
and carried off two hundred prisoners. This brings us to the era of war between
the French and the English, in which the services of the Indians were freely
called into requisition, and desolating raids and massacres abounded.]
Francis Parkman
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