King William's War

  King William’s War

  The First Contest For North America, 1689–1697

  MICHAEL G. LARAMIE

  WESTHOLME

  Yardley

  ©2017 Michael G. Laramie

  Map by Tracy Dungan ©2017 Westholme Publishing

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Westholme Publishing, LLC

  904 Edgewood Road

  Yardley, Pennsylvania 19067

  Visit our Web site at www.westholmepublishing.com

  ISBN: 978-1-59416-632-5

  Also available in hardcover.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59416-623-5 (electronic)

  For my mother, Priscilla Boissoneault, and my grandmother Althea Decato.

  Contents

  LIST OF MAPS

  PREFACE

  PART ONE

  New Worlds, 1604–1688

  1. The Beaver Wars

  2. New France and New Netherland

  3. The King’s Hand

  4. The French and the Five Nations

  5. Rivals to the North

  6. Denonville’s Expedition

  7. Acadia and New England

  PART TWO

  Grand Alliance, 1689–1691

  8. The Glorious Revolution

  9. The Wabanaki and the Iroquois

  10. Three Wars, One Name

  11. The Reduction of Canada

  12. Winthrop’s Folly

  13. The Battles of La Prairie

  14. A Shifting Tide

  PART THREE

  Attrition, 1692–1695

  15. Disunity and Discord

  16. The Mohawk Expedition

  17. Missed Opportunities

  18. Stalemate in the East

  19. The Peace Offensive

  20. Frontenac and the Onondaga

  PART FOUR

  Uncertain Peace, 1696–1697

  21. The Fall of Pemaquid

  22. Iberville

  23. The War at the Top of the World

  24. The Treaty of Ryswick

  CONCLUSION: KING WILLIAM’S WAR AND THE FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICA

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  INDEX

  LIST OF MAPS

  Northeastern North America, 1690

  The location of Fort Orange, c. 1639

  New Netherlands, New England, New France, and the colony of Virginia in 1647

  The route of Tracy’s expedition in 1666

  Pais des Illinois, 1718

  Montreal to Fort St. Louis, 1688

  Eastern portion of Lake Ontario, c. 1690

  Hudsons Straits and Bay in 1662

  Montreal and Three Rivers north to James Bay, 1688

  French and English forts along the Nelson and Hayes Rivers, 1682

  Lake Ontario, 1688

  French and English coastal settlements from Boston to Canso, Nova Scotia

  The Wabanaki Confederacy and nearby tribes

  Area around Montreal, 1744

  Falmouth Neck, 1770

  Siege of Quebec, 1690

  The Great Carrying Place, 1709

  Boston harbor, 1705

  Commodore Thomas Gillam’s attempt on Placentia, September 1692

  Avalon Peninsula

  Defenses and layout of St. John harbor, 1799

  Hudson Bay, James Bay, and the Hudson Straits, 1703

  Preface

  King William’s War is the first of two books, with a companion volume on Queen Anne’s War planned to follow. The two conflicts may, in many ways, be thought of as one conflict with a five-year pause; thus with this break included, France and England were at war from 1688 to 1715. The European part of these conflicts, known as the War of the League of Augsburg and the War of Spanish Succession, was punctuated by battles like Steenkirk, Blenheim, and Malplaquet—any one of which dwarfed the scale of colonial military involvement. Although much can be found on these conflicts fought in Europe, the same cannot be said for their colonial components.

  Certainly King William’s War was markedly different from its European counterpart. Smaller populations and the vast areas upon which these numbers were scattered dictated as much. Manpower shortages, supply nightmares, and transportation issues on the frontier dominated the conflict on both sides and proved just as challenging as defeating the enemy, but these aside, there were even greater distinctions that dictated the character of the conflict in North America. King William’s War was actually three conflicts. The first of these was a long-running feud between the Iroquois Confederacy, New France, and New France’s native allies. Fueled by English guns and money as well as the confederacy’s desire to divert the French fur trade toward their English trading partners in Albany, this conflict had started with the opening pages of the French colony. To the east another conflict would be captured under the banner of King William’s War. The pro-French Wabanaki of Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick had previously fought a war with New England. English expansion and French urgings, aided by foolish moves and political blunders on the part of New England, erupted into a second Wabanaki war on the eve of King William’s War. Thus, these two proxy wars fought by the English and the French through their native allies officially became one with news of a declaration of war between France and England in 1689.

  While much has been said and written on the last French and Indian War (1754–1763), or the Old French War as it is sometimes stylized, very little has been said on the colonial conflicts that preceded it. Yet the foundations for this last war, which resulted in the conquest of Canada, are readily seen in the first contest between the two colonial powers in King William’s War. The patterns of these conflicts for the next seventy years, and the goals and objectives of both sides are laid here, as well as the fermenting attitude that the two colonies could not coexist. Throw in a change of monarchs, witch trials, pirates, questionable decisions by both crowns and colonial leaders, treasure hunters, adventurers, explorers, a seventeenth-century military jack-of-all-trades by the name of Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, as well as the original American ranger in Major Benjamin Church, and you have a recipe for an unusual and seldom told story. I hope it strikes your interest as well.

  Part One

  New Worlds

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Beaver Wars

  ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1609, a small Dutch vessel named the Half Moon dropped anchor near modern Albany, New York. The vessel better known for its captain, Henry Hudson, had spent several weeks sailing up the narrow waters of the Great North River, which the Hudson River was known as for many years to come. Hudson’s journey had come to an end at Albany. Although the river extended north for many more miles small boats sent forward reported “it to be at an end for shipping,” having “found but seven foot water, and unconstant soundings.” It was but one of many disappointments for the explorer who had previously charted Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. With another dead end before him, a few days were spent trading for beaver and otter pelts with the local Mahican before Hudson retraced his steps, never to return to the river that would one day bear his name. Although the explorer would not know it, this short and seemingly benign event was to have a profound impact on the future of North America.

  News of the discovery and the promise of the lucrative fur trade attracted a number of Dutch vessels to the area over th
e next few years, and as each vessel returned with more furs the decision was reached to erect a permanent establishment at this location. In the summer of 1614 small bands of Mahican watched from the banks of the river as a handful of Dutch traders erected Fort Nassau on Castle Island. The region’s first fort was an unassuming structure built like many early North American forts—by men with little or no formal training in the art of military fortification. In its completed form the stronghold was nothing more than a square palisade, measuring fifty feet to a side with an eighteen-foot-wide moat dug about its perimeter and a drawbridge at the main gate. Inside this stockade sat a thirty-six-by-twenty-six-foot trading house, which not only harbored the trade goods but acted as the living quarters for the dozen or so traders who occupied the post. A pair of light cannon sat within the fort’s parade ground for defense, while eleven pierriers, small swivel guns designed to fire rock projectiles, lined the structure’s walls.

  As it was, Fort Nassau’s days were numbered. The low-lying Castle Island, while seemingly an excellent defensive choice, was subject to the annual ravages of the Hudson River. In the spring of 1617 the fort was so badly damaged by floodwaters that its occupants were forced to abandon the structure and build a new one on the west bank of the river a few miles south of the old site.1

  In 1624 the second Fort Nassau was replaced by a larger structure to better accommodate the burgeoning fur trade. Fort Orange, as it was called, was moved back up the river almost opposite the old Fort Nassau on Castle Island. A four-bastioned structure measuring 150 feet to a side, it was of earth and wood construction. A pair of fifteen-foot parallel walls, made in the same fashion as Fort Nassau, were erected, tracing out the fort’s perimeter. At this point the walls were braced with cross members and the intervening space between them was filled in with earth, most likely taken from the moat that surrounded the fort on three sides. A rampart or walkway was then fashioned in the area between the two walls by placing planks on horizontal cross members, which were then secured to the palisades on either side. It is not clear exactly how thick the walls of Fort Orange were made, but given that one citizen who had a dwelling within the fort petitioned to cut a door in the curtain wall to allow easier access to his home, one suspects that they were thinner rather than thicker. Protruding diamond-shaped bastions were placed at each corner of the structure to allow the defenders to sweep the walls with gunfire and serve as firing platforms for the fort’s eight large stone firing guns.

  While bands of Mahican watched in curiosity, and soon began frequenting Fort Orange to trade their pelts for European goods, other visitors arrived as well. Foremost among these tribes were the Mohawk and their Iroquois brothers. Clustered in fortified villages stretching from the Mohawk River in the east, through the reaches of upper New York, to the northeastern shores of Lake Erie, the Iroquois, or “the people of the long house” as they were known, were a confederacy of five nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the largest and most western tribe, the Seneca. Bound by a military and trade alliance the Five Nations was among the most successful and powerful native confederations in North America. They were also a people at a crossroads.

  The establishment of New France in 1609 had brought a new adversary. The founder of the French colony, Samuel de Champlain, had, for obvious geographical reasons, allied himself with the Iroquois’s traditional northern enemies, the Huron and the Algonquin. The result was a string of defeats for the Iroquois, who had nothing to counter the influence of French firearms. Elsewhere, the Iroquois were beginning to encounter similar problems. Their enemies to the south, the Susquehannock, had established trade connections with the English of Virginia, while to the east the Mahican had developed a source of European goods not only from the Dutch at Fort Orange but from the English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay colony as well. Although at the moment this arrangement was hardly an iron ring, it was clear to the Iroquois leadership that one day it would be if they did not act and establish their own direct link to European goods.

  With a path agreed upon, the Iroquois secured their southern border with the Susquehannock via peace delegations and gifts. This left only one task to execute their plan. In 1622 a Mohawk delegation approached the French and their Algonquin allies with overtures of peace. The proposition immediately appealed to Champlain, who wanted nothing more than a reliable flow of furs from his allies, and at his insistence a formal treaty was signed in 1624. With their northern flank now secure, the Iroquois, under Mohawk leadership, launched the confederacy into a four-year struggle with the Mahican to obtain control of the upper Hudson valley.2

  The conclusion of hostilities in late 1628 left the Mohawk in firm control of the area about Fort Orange. Strangely, the Mohawk-Mahican conflict never seriously interrupted the fur trade at Fort Orange, and with the cessation of hostilities the flow of furs steadily increased over the next generation. The increase in trade, however, was not without its price. There were plenty of beaver and otter in the woodland and Finger Lakes region of New York, just not enough to sustain Dutch demand.3

  By 1640 the Mohawk hunting grounds were exhausted. The situation placed the Dutch in a political dilemma. There were plenty of Indian nations with furs for sale, particularly the Canadian ones; the problem was that the Iroquois had no intention of giving these nations access to Fort Orange. Nor were the Dutch in a position to open a direct trade route to these tribes, for even attempting to do so would bring the wrath of their Iroquois trading partners down upon the infant colony. For the Iroquois the situation was worse. At the moment they were able to obtain their furs from their western brothers, but this was only a stopgap measure. The furs they so desperately needed lay just out of their reach, within the domain of the tribes of the Great Lakes and Canada. The Iroquois initially pursued a peaceful path toward obtaining the object of their desire. On several occasions the Huron and upper lake tribes were approached in hopes of forming a trading alliance, but in each instance a treaty never materialized. The failure was due in part to French influences, but fundamentally it had more to do with the fact that these tribes were no more interested in trading through a middleman than the Iroquois were.4

  With the Huron proving uncooperative the Iroquois approached the French in early June 1641. A delegation of nearly five hundred Iroquois arrived before the town of Three Rivers carrying with them two French prisoners. The leader of the delegation called for peace between the French and the Iroquois and for an opening of trade between the two nations. As a symbol of their true intentions the Iroquois promptly returned the French prisoners. When Governor Charles Hualt de Montmagny arrived a few days later the matter had become clearer. Although the Iroquois wanted peace with the French and wished to erect trading posts in both countries, effectively ending the commercial rivalry between the two, such a peace was not to include the French Huron and Algonquin allies.

  The sincerity of the delegation was soon in doubt when a number of Iroquois warriors seized several Algonquin canoes and made their occupants prisoners, although they had openly stated that they would refrain from any such actions during the negotiations. The Iroquois then insisted that the French provide them with guns to demonstrate their friendship. When Montmagny rejected the idea of abandoning New France’s allies, and then refused to provide the requested firearms, matters quickly degenerated. The Iroquois became enraged that “Onontio had not given them arquebuses to eat,” and began taking an aggressive posture, even going so far as showering arrows upon the French vessels anchored before Three Rivers. At that point “the Governor resolved to give them arquebuses to eat, but not in the way that they asked,” one chronicler of the event noted. Montmagny ordered the cannon and swivel guns aboard the small craft to fire on the Iroquois position across the river. The Iroquois soon took flight and eventually escaped a French pursuit under the cover of darkness.

  It was a poor attempt to split the French from their allies but hardly a setback for the Five Nations. If they could not obtain what th
ey wanted through diplomacy, then they would obtain it through other means. War parties soon began raiding the Huron and upper lake tribes’ trade routes to Montreal, but this was merely a preliminary step toward the complete conquest of this trade.

  In this new approach the Iroquois had allies. If the Dutch did not directly encourage the Iroquois, they certainly facilitated their efforts. Although there were severe punishments in place for selling firearms to the natives, between 1643 and 1645 the warriors of the longhouse obtained no less than four hundred Dutch-made muskets. The matter was in part a by-product of a 1640 decision to remove the Dutch East India Company’s fur trade monopoly. The aim was to promote free trade and encourage settlement in New Netherland. In this regard it succeeded but not in the fashion that was hoped. Instead of attracting settlers who might supplement their income with the occasional foray into the fur trade—but who in general would be more concerned with occupations that would expand the agricultural and industrial base of the colony—the act created an influx of individuals lured by the quick returns and high profits associated with the fur trade. This in turn made the existing ban on selling firearms to the natives almost impossible to enforce. The author of the “Journal of the New Netherlands,” observed the net effects on one of the communities near Fort Orange:

  The inhabitants of Renselaerswyck who were as many traders as persons, perceiving that the Mohawk were craving for guns, which some of them had already received from the English, paying for each as many as twenty beavers and for a pound of powder as much as ten to twelve guilders, they came down in greater numbers than was their wont where people were well supplied with guns, purchasing these at a fair price, thus realizing great profit; afterwards they obtained some from their Heer Patroon for their self-defence in time of need, as we suppose. This extraordinary gain was not kept long a secret, the traders coming from Holland soon got scent of it, and from time to time brought over great quantities, so that the Mohawk in a short time were seen with firelocks, powder and lead in proportion. Four hundred armed men knew how to use their advantage, especially against their enemies dwelling along the river of Canada, against whom they have now achieved many profitable forays where before they derived little advantage; this causes them also to be respected by the surrounding Indians even as far as the sea coast, who must generally pay them tribute.5