King William's War Read online

  With this approach in mind it is not difficult to see why the Mohawk refrained from attacking the Algonquin and kept to the terms of the peace treaty. As long as French trade passed through their hands they could reserve any attack on the Algonquin, using it later to coerce and intimidate the Huron and any other tribe (all while not violating the terms of the treaty) should they attempt to bypass trade with the Mohawk. And once this French trade was established, nothing stopped them from negotiating another secret arrangement with the French, under the threat of a wider war, to punish other tribes who refused to cooperate—a fact that would be clearly demonstrated when they destroyed the Algonquin while the French watched and did nothing.

  It was a remarkable plan, worthy of the machinations of any court in Europe, but at its heart was the newly enacted trade agreement with the French. Without this, the plan would quickly crumble. Unfortunately for the Mohawk, two elements disrupted their ambitions. The first was the fur fleet that arrived at Montreal in September 1646. Although it was agreed under the peace treaty that the Mohawk would have access to this commerce, not a single fur in the record haul found its way to them. The conclusion seemed clear; the French and their allies had no intention of living up to the commercial terms of the peace treaty. This event might have been smoothed over and the French reminded of the consequences of such actions short of a resumption of hostilities, but a second element diverted this path: the political interests and jealousies of the remaining members of the confederacy. The Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca had watched the Mohawk efforts closely while still carrying on their war to capture the fur trade. Certainly political pressure had been brought to bear on the Mohawk to break the treaty and return to the warpath, but until the French or their allies had violated the treaty the Mohawk put aside such pressures in lieu of obtaining the tribe’s greater goal. Now with clear evidence of French duplicity before them, these pressures tipped the balance. The treaty was discarded and the tribe’s direction shifted back toward war.

  Of course, Father Jogues and his fellow ambassador Jean de Lalande knew nothing of this change of heart. The Jesuit had returned to Quebec in the summer of 1646, and after a few months’ stay, he and his companion were but a few days’ journey from their Mohawk mission when they encountered a large Mohawk war party on their way to strike at Fort Richelieu. The two, now treated as captives, were carried back to the Mohawk village of Osseronon by the expedition. Although a popular figure within the tribe it was not enough to spare Jogues’s life. Before any objections could be raised, both he and Lalande were assassinated on October 18 and their bodies thrown into the Mohawk River.

  With the reentry of the Mohawk into the conflict the question now became where and when the Iroquois should strike. The confederacy would certainly return to its old tactics and shut down the fur trade to New France, but for the moment the Iroquois briefly turned their attention to Fort Orange. Kieft had been replaced by Governor Peter Stuyvesant, an old soldier and the former governor of Curacoa. “Wooden Leg,” as the Mohawk began calling him after his artificial appendage, began his tenure on a curious note by attempting to stop the illegal sale of guns to the natives. Several individuals were accused and arrested for being involved in the contraband trade, but few were actually punished. The issue had become too confused to enforce a coherent policy. For a moment the Mohawk and their Iroquois brothers pondered the motives of the Dutch aristocrat but only for a moment. Whatever his public display, Stuyvesant found himself under orders to continue the arms trade with the Mohawk so as not to upset these valuable allies. There was really little choice given that the new peace treaty between the Mohawk and the French not only threatened to shift the fur trade north if the flow of guns did not continue but also opened up the very real possibility that their trading partners might turn on the colony if this should happen.11

  The Huron, upon learning in the spring of 1647 that the peace treaty was no longer in place, turned to direct peace negotiations with the Onondaga. In fact the Huron, which like the Iroquois was a confederacy of four nations, did not seem overly alarmed by the resumption of hostilities with the Mohawk. On the surface this was understandable. During the peace a great deal of wealth and goods had made their way into the Huron Confederacy. Nor were the Huron a weak opponent. Although perhaps not as aggressive as their adversaries, their numbers roughly matched those of the Iroquois, and if the allied Algonquin were counted their numbers actually surpassed those of the Iroquois. They were also equipped with firearms through their French allies, although the price the French demanded for these weapons limited the number in the tribe’s hands. Taken together this helped redefine Huron strategy. First they would approach the Onondaga with overtures of peace in hopes of politically dividing their opponents. This would be followed by the old principle of encircling the Iroquois through cementing an alliance with the Susquehannock. It was a sound plan and strangely effective enough to cause the demise of the Huron nation.

  The Huron overtures to both the Susquehannock and the Onondaga bore fruit. The Susquehannock were pleased to renew their old alliance with the Huron, a tactic that had been used before to moderate the ambitions of the Five Nations. The Onondaga were also interested in what the Huron had to say. This smaller Iroquois tribe was not as heavily involved in the ongoing conflict, nor were they in the position to accept the losses involved in a protracted military operation. Also, just like the Mohawk, an Onondaga-sponsored truce with the Huron and the French elevated the tribe’s status within the confederacy, while a prolonged war did nothing but weaken their position.

  The initial response on both fronts to the Huron efforts had the net effect of pushing the Huron leadership closer toward complacency. A false sense of security took hold of the tribe’s attitude toward the conflict. This was further reinforced by the seemingly difficult logistics encountered by their enemy. Given the distances involved and the time required to cover these distances, a large Iroquois army could not in any practical form mask its movements from the Huron scouts. Thus, ample warning would always be forthcoming should a large-scale invasion be mounted against the Huron villages. This coupled with the ongoing diplomatic efforts and the strength of the Huron Confederacy seemed to squash any fears another conflict might bring.

  The Huron, however, had miscalculated their adversaries’ fear. Seizing or blocking the French fur trade was one thing, but as the Mohawk and Seneca looked toward the developing situation they soon realized that this was now a secondary consideration. The renewal of the Huron-Susquehannock alliance coupled with the influence the Huron maintained over the Neutral nations of the west had now encircled the confederacy, posing a threat to its very existence. Just as importantly, diplomatic efforts had swayed the Onondaga toward neutrality, and news now reached both tribes that the Cayuga were also interested in peace negotiations with the Huron. If this effort reached fruition, how long would it be before the Oneida followed suit? A politically divided confederacy would leave an isolated Mohawk in the east and an isolated Seneca in the west, both vulnerable and unable to come to the assistance of the other and both encircled by their enemies. For these two tribes the matter was no longer about the fur trade but the future of the confederacy.

  The Mohawk and Seneca were in a difficult position. The Dutch were more than happy to provide weapons and materials but showed no interest in becoming involved in a conflict with New France while the participation of the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and even the Oneida was questionable at best. Neither tribe wavered from the task before them, however, and throughout 1647 and 1648 both Seneca and Mohawk war parties descended upon the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys, looking to reestablish their former blockade. In this regard they met with mixed results. The Seneca scored some success against the Huron when they raided the frontier village of St. Joseph, but a large Mohawk war party to the east was defeated in the vicinity of Three Rivers when it tried to intercept a Huron fur fleet. Perhaps the best gauge of the Seneca and Mohawk efforts over this period can be s
een in the number of furs reaching New France in 1648. A large Huron fur fleet of some 60 canoes and 250 men reached Three Rivers in July, while the fur trade at Tadoussac, farther down the St. Lawrence, exceeded its previous year’s totals.

  For the leadership of the Mohawk and Seneca it was clear that their current efforts had failed to stem the flow of furs reaching New France, nor was it sufficient to alter Huron policy toward the confederacy, even though efforts by the two tribes had cut off communications between the Huron, the Neutral nations, the Onondaga, and the Susquehannock. What was required was a more perilous undertaking, one that would strike at the heart of the Huron Confederacy and eliminate the Huron from the equation once and for all. After some debate it was agreed that two large war parties, one Seneca and the other Mohawk, would both strike at the main Huron villages near Georgian Bay. With a plan agreed upon there was still a logistical matter to overcome. The Huron were correct in their assessment that any large Iroquois army moving north would be seen long before it reached Huron territory, thus leaving the Huron ample time to prepare a defense. To deal with this problem it was agreed that Mohawk and Seneca forces would move north in the fall of 1648, conduct their normal raiding operations, and then winter in the area. This would leave both forces in a position to strike at the Huron early the next spring, when they least expected such an attack.

  The destruction, or perhaps better stated dispersion, of the Huron nation began on March 16, 1649, when a joint Seneca-Mohawk war party, nearly a thousand strong, fell upon the Huron village of St. Ignace. The surprise was near total and only a handful of Huron escaped into the snowy night to warn the nearby village of St. Louis three miles to the northwest. Leaving a small detachment to secure their prize the Iroquois war party marched on St. Louis the next morning. Warned by the survivors of the previous night’s attack most of the inhabitants had fled, but some eighty Huron braves chose to defend the town’s walls. Their heroic defense blunted the Iroquois attack, but in the end it was simply overwhelmed, and by noon St. Louis was in flames.

  With this the Seneca and Mohawk retired to St. Ignace and prepared for their next operation. A half dozen miles away lay the strategic Huron town of St. Marie, a fortified mission and trading center that housed several thousand Huron. It was agreed, after detachments returned from scouting the village, that this would be the next target. But as the Iroquois assembled for their trek on the morning of March 18, 150 Huron warriors launched a counterattack on St. Louis. The brazen move caught the Iroquois off guard, and the rest of the day was consumed in fighting off this effort, which whittled the Huron detachment down to only a handful of survivors.

  While the inhabitants of St. Marie abandoned their homes, and the Huron braves within the village prepared for the oncoming onslaught, the Seneca and Mohawk sachems held council within the confines of St. Louis. The Huron counterattack, pressed home with reckless abandon, had rattled the Iroquois chieftains. They were deep within Huron territory, and now fears that the Huron were massing for a larger stroke derailed their plans to assault St. Marie. Thinking better of their position, the Iroquois war party departed the morning of March 19, but not before they tied their prisoners to the structures within St. Ignace and then put the town to the torch. Some seven hundred Petun, allies of the Huron, pursued the retreating Iroquois war party for several days but always at a distance for fear of being outnumbered and short on supplies.

  The Seneca-Mohawk offensive had dealt the Huron a severe blow, burning two villages and killing some three hundred warriors at their own loss of perhaps half that number, but militarily it was hardly a death blow, and certainly as they made a hasty retreat south, the Seneca and Mohawk must have felt that they had missed an opportunity to crush their enemy. But as fate would have it, fear would complete what they could not.

  Although the threat was gone, panic took hold. The Iroquois attack, on a scale never seen before, had struck at the heart of the Huron nation during a season in which warfare was not conducted. The tales of horror continued to magnify as they spread from one village to another, and although militarily little had been lost, any sense of security was shattered. The Huron were no longer safe, for the men of the longhouse would be back, of this they were all sure. The psychology of flight ruled supreme and was the only option left in the minds of most. Father Ragueneau at St. Louis attempted to quell the rumors with reason, but it had little effect. One by one over the next two months the Huron burned their villages, a task that would have taken five times the number of Iroquois warriors that burned just two, and abandoned their homelands. Some took refuge with the Neutral nations, others with the Ottawa and Petun. A few hundred undertook the long trek to Quebec to become known as the Huron of Lorette, the only members of a once-mighty tribe to still bear its name. Some, resigned to their fate, surrendered to the Iroquois, but the bulk, some eight thousand in number, retreated to the Jesuit mission on nearby St. Joseph Island (today Christian Island). Ragueneau, realizing that the barren isle could not sustain its new population, urged a migration north toward the Ottawa, but the Huron were not interested in his words. Here many spent the summer in perpetual fear having “postponed death rather than prolonged life, by living either in the woods on a few bitter roots and wild fruits.” Although the Jesuit fathers distributed what supplies they had among the refugees, nothing could prevent the impending misery that winter brought. “It was a frightful thing to see,” one Jesuit recorded, “instead of men, dying skeletons, walking more like shadows of the dead than like bodies of the living. . . . Many who, aided by our alms, escaped the scourge of hunger, were attacked by a contagious disease, which in a few days made great slaughter, especially among the children. There remained nothing but war to ruin them altogether, and this failed not; and thus they were at the same time smitten with all three scourges.”12

  By spring what little was left of the original eight thousand departed the isle and scattered to the four points of the wind. The Huron nation was no more.

  CHAPTER TWO

  New France and New Netherland

  HOWEVER SURPRISED THE IROQUOIS might have been by the sudden collapse of the Huron Confederacy, it did not translate into hesitation. In the fall of 1649 the warriors of the longhouse shifted their attention toward the Petun and the Neutral nations. The first of these, the Petun, had no intention of going without a fight. News of an advancing Iroquois force reached the Petun homeland in early December. Not waiting to share their neighbor’s fate a large Petun war party left the village of St. Jean to intercept the Iroquois. It proved a fatal mistake when two days later the Iroquois detachment they sought fell upon the town. When the Petun war party returned they found the village a smoldering ruin, and after a brief delay to gather together what was left, the remainder of the tribe, like the Huron, abandoned their homelands before the Iroquois onslaught.

  The Neutral nations were simply a victim of geography. They posed no real threat to the Iroquois, and although most of their trade was conducted with the Huron, they showed little sympathy toward the latter when they sought refuge from their enemies. Although the Neutrals were not hostile to the Iroquois, they occupied a strategic position south of the Petun, between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, which blocked the confederacy’s westward expansion toward the fur-rich territories of the upper Great Lakes. An obvious target, all that was required was an excuse on the part of the Five Nations to begin the conquest. Several were fabricated in quick order, and by the spring of 1651 Mohawk and Seneca war parties were striking at the villages of the Neutral nations. The Neutrals struck back at the nearby Seneca, burning one of the Seneca’s frontier settlements and massacring its inhabitants, but it was already too late. By the summer of 1652 the Neutrals had gone the way of the Huron and the Petun, seeking shelter where they could find it with nearby tribes.

  For New France all indications were that 1653 would bring a dark shadow down upon the colony. Their traditional allies and trading partners to the west had been routed, and for the last five years not a
single fur fleet had descended the Ottawa nor reached Montreal. The small towns and hamlets along the St. Lawrence were under constant threat, calling into question their meager defenses and prompting plans for their evacuation. Even the defenses of the larger towns were suspect. The previous year a party of Oneida and Mohawk had routed a detachment of French near the outskirts of Three Rivers. The governor of the town, Duplessis Bouchart, and two other defenders fell in the skirmish while more than a dozen were captured. Nor were Quebec and the fledgling settlements of Montreal any exception, as Mohawk war parties pressed upon both in a running barrage of raids and false alarms that left the fields untended and the citizens sleepless. It seemed clear to all that the Iroquois were massing for a final push that would drive the French into the sea.

  Instead, the opposite occurred. News first reached the colony in the spring of 1653 that the Seneca were interested in brokering a peace. The recent destruction of the Huron, Petun, and Neutrals had alarmed the Seneca’s western neighbors the Erie, or Cat nation as they were known, and the latter had launched a series of attacks in a preemptive effort to dissuade Seneca expansion in their direction. According to the reports, it seemed the Cayuga were also interested in a truce. Such rumors were reinforced in late June when a party of sixty Onondaga arrived before the gates of Montreal. They came “to learn whether the hearts of the French would be inclined to peace.” A portion of the delegation was whisked off to Quebec to treat with the new colonial governor, John de Lauson, while the remainder departed to speak with the Oneida with the intent of convincing the latter to join in the negotiations.1