1687-1689

IROQUOIS REVENGE

DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY AND THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE

ST. HELEN'S ISLAND A MILITARY STATION—FORT FRONTENAC—DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY—THE FEAST—INDIANS FOR THE GALLEYS OF FRANCE—THE WAR MARCH AGAINST THE SENECAS—THE RETURN—MONTREAL AN INCLOSED FORTRESS—DE CALLIERES' PLAN FOR THE INVASION OF NEW YORK—THE STRUGGLE FOR TRADE SUPREMACY—MONTREAL BESIEGED—KONDIARONK, THE RAT, KILLS THE PEACE—DENONVILLE RECALLED—CALLIERES' PLAN FAILS—THE MASSACRE AT LACHINE—DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY REVENGED. NOTE: THE EXPLOIT AT THE RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES.

In the commencement of the summer of 1687, Denonville, who had made his preparations secretly and had received reinforcements of 800 men with 168,000 livres in money or supplies from France, determined to carry to a finish his long projected war policy against the Iroquois supported by the English under Dongan, by stealing upon them unawares. St. Helen's Island opposite Montreal was the scene of a great military camp. Thither the new intendant, de Champigny-Noroy—the successor of de Meulles, who had been recalled upon the complaints of the governor—had gone on June 7th with the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, lately arrived in the colony with the title of commander of the forces. The army of four battalions, commanded by the Governor de Denonville in person, was composed, says Bibaud, of 800 regular soldiers, about a thousand Canadians and 300 Indians, mostly from the missions of Sault St. Louis and the Mountain. M. de CalliÈres, the governor of Montreal, also was there. It started on June 11th on 200 flatboats and as many birch bark canoes, and struggling against the rapids made its way for Fort Frontenac. Just after the departure the 800 regulars arrived from France and were left at Montreal to protect the settler. We have not usually related the details of these expeditions from Montreal and its vicinity, but the opening incident on this occasion, known as Denonville's treachery, resulting in the massacre of Lachine on August 25, 1689, was so fateful in its dire results for Montreal that it must be told.

Arriving at Fort Frontenac, it was found that there were in the neighbourhood a number of Iroquois of the two neutral villages of KentÉ (QuintÉ) and Ganneious or Ganeyout, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, forming a sort of colony, where the Sulpicians of Montreal had established their mission. They were on excellent terms with the garrison of Fort Frontenac and hunted and fished for them. These Denonville determined to seize, partially because of the fear that they might communicate with their relatives, the hostile Seneca Iroquois, but principally because he wished to satisfy the desire of Louis XIV that the Iroquois prisoners of war should be sent to France to be put in the galleys, "because," said the royal letters, "the savages being strong and robust, they will serve usefully on our convict gangs."

Accordingly by various artifices, such as by the invitation to a feast, the unsuspecting and friendly Indians were enticed to the fort by the advances of the new intendant, Champigny, and then seized, the men being sent to Quebec and then deported to the galleys in France. [138] This was a breach of faith, unjustifiable according to the natural law of nations; these men could in no way have been called prisoners of war. The other Indians were deeply incensed at this treason and they brooded over it long and deeply. A sad incident in the story is that the Jesuit missionary Lamberville was unwittingly the instrument used to induce the Onondaga chief to accept the invitation to a parley at Fort Frontenac. When the news of the capture was made known, he was summoned before a council of the angry Iroquois. The magnanimity of the Iroquois saved his life. One of them addressed him thus: "You cannot but agree that all sorts of reasons, authorize us to treat you as an enemy, but we cannot agree to that; we know you too well not to be persuaded that your heart has had no part in the treason against us in which you have shared, and we are not unjust enough to punish you for a crime of which we believe you are innocent, and for which without doubt you are in despair for having been the instrument. But it is not fitting that you should remain here, for when once our young men have sung the war cry, they will see in you for the future nothing but a traitor, who has delivered our chiefs to the most disgraceful slavery. Then fury will fall on you and we shall not be able any longer to save you." [139] They gave him guides and sent him back to Denonville. [140]

Meanwhile La Durantaye arrived with news of the capture of the Dutch and English traders under Rosenboom and Major Patrick McGregor, who had been carried to Niagara and afterward to Quebec, a proceeding which mightily angered the English governor of New York, Dongan. The war soon began; the rendezvous was at Irondequoit Bay on the borders of the Seneca country. There were gathered the armies of Denonville, joined by the flotilla of La Durantaye, with Duluth and his cousin Tonti, who had come from Niagara, the Ottawas from Michillimackinac and savages of every nation. There were the regulars from France, the Canadian militia under de CalliÈres of Montreal, the Jesuit chaplains, the Sulpician, de Belmont, from Montreal, the noblesse, the Christian Indians from the Montreal district, the hardy explorer Nicholas Perrot and others, such as Le Moyne de Longueuil. Nearly three thousand men, red and white, were under Denonville on July 12, when the march against the Senecas began and most men of note in the colony seemed to be there. On the 24th of July the army returned to the fortified fort at Irondequoit Bay and shortly descended to Montreal, victorious in name. But the Senecas were only scotched, not killed.

The expedition returned to Montreal in August. In October the Iroquois, to the number of 200, attacked the upper part of Montreal, where they burned five houses and killed six habitants. The consequence was that de CalliÈres (the governor) caused a redoubt to be constructed in each seignory, so that the troops quartered there and the inhabitants could find refuge in the hour of attack. A contemporary writer says that there were twenty-eight such forts in the government of Montreal. A corps of 120 men picked from the coureurs de bois was placed at Lachine, but the great massacre there was not to occur till 1689. Thus Montreal was virtually enclosed in de CalliÈres' palisaded picket. "New troops were called for from France and the plan of the next campaign was to advance with two columns in distinct expeditions against the Iroquois.

"The possession of New York by the French as a desirable acquisition was advocated by the leading men in Canada more than ever." De CalliÈres, the governor of Montreal, was conceiving a plan for such an invasion. [141]

This became more popular as James II, on November 10, 1687, formally claimed the Iroquois as subjects and ordered Dongan to protect them. This was the beginning of the long struggle between the two powers, the supremacy of the west being the bone of contention, for the trade of which the English were always "itching." As this trade was Montreal's support we may realize the anxiety present during the next year, 1688. For two years the trade had been stopped. Montreal was again in a siege. The Iroquois moved about mysteriously in small bands, and paralyzed agriculture. The early history of Montreal was being reproduced; yet the country had far more troops than formerly. At the head of the Island of Montreal a large body of militia under Vaudreuil was on guard. In the midst of this anxiety negotiations took place with the great and crafty diplomatist, Big Mouth, the chief of the Onondagas, who on the promise of Denonville to return the prisoners captured up west, made his way to Montreal, in spite of the prohibitions of Sir Edward Andros, who had now succeeded Dongan, with six Onondaga, Cayuga and Oneida chiefs; but, it is said, he had sent ahead a force of 1,200 men. He arrived at Montreal on June 8, 1688. A declaration of neutrality was drawn up and he promised that within a certain time the whole confederacy should come to Montreal to conclude a general peace. They never came. For, although they were on their way, Kondiaronk, surnamed the Rat, the renowned chief of the Hurons at Michillimackinac, a most astute man, treacherously "killed" the peace as he boasted, by intercepting and firing on them, pretending he had been prompted to this action by Denonville. Thus he aroused the Iroquois against the French. For his fear was that should peace be concluded with the Iroquois, the French allies, such as the Hurons, would not be protected against their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois. Hence Montreal never saw the delegation. But the danger still hovered around, although Denonville with false security still wrote to France that there was hope of peace. The Iroquois, however, had not forgotten his treachery at Fort Frontenac. Their brethren in the galleys of France called for vengeance.

The winter of 1688 and part of the summer of 1689 passed quietly enough. Changes had occurred in the government. Denonville received his recall by a letter of May 31, 1689, being needed for the war in Europe. St. Vallier had been consecrated bishop of Quebec on January 25th. Count Frontenac was named governor for a second time. De CalliÈres, the governor of Montreal, being replaced in his absence by de Vaudreuil, was in France communicating his ambitious plans of conquering New York as the only means of preserving the colony. [142] Incidentally he was to be New York's new governor. It could be done, he argued, with the forces in Canada, 1,000 regulars and 600 militia, and two royal ships of war. The king modified the scheme and adopted it, but it never came into execution. The long delay in the preparation of the ships and the unexpectedly long passage of CalliÈres and Frontenac across the Atlantic, caused by head winds, ruined the enterprise. The two governors did not reach Quebec until October 12th, bringing back with them from the galleys of France the remnant of the Iroquois. Thence they left on October 20th and arrived at Montreal on October 27th, where Denonville, with Duluth in charge of the garrison, was still making the last arrangements for maintaining the peace of Montreal before departing for France. But this was not to be till after the horrible massacre of reprisal, so long threatened, that fell upon the island at Lachine on the night of August 5, 1689.

The story of the disaster at Lachine, saddening the last days of Denonville, must now be told in the graphic words of Parkman (Frontenac, pp. 177-181).

"On the night before the 4th and 5th of August a violent hailstorm burst over Lake St. Louis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence, a little above Montreal. Concealed by the tempest and the darkness, 1,500 warriors landed at Lachine and silently posted themselves about the houses of the sleeping settlers, then screeched the war whoop and began the most frightful massacre in Canadian history. The houses were burned and men, women and children indiscriminately butchered. In the neighbourhood were three stockade forts, called RÉmy, Rolland and La PrÉsentation; and they all had garrisons. There was also an encampment of 200 regulars about three miles distant, under an officer named Subercasse, then absent from Montreal on a visit to Denonville, who had lately arrived with his wife and family. At four o'clock in the morning the troops in this encampment heard a cannon shot from one of the forts. They were at once ordered under arms. Soon after, they saw a man running toward them just escaped from the butchery. He told his story and passed on with the news to Montreal, six miles distant. Then several fugitives appeared, chased by a band of Iroquois who gave up the pursuit at sight of the soldiers but pillaged several houses before their eyes. The day was well advanced before Subercasse arrived. He ordered the troops to march. About a hundred armed inhabitants had joined them and they moved together toward Lachine. Here they found the houses still burning and the bodies of the inmates strewn among them or hanging from the stakes where they had been tortured. They learned from a French surgeon, escaped from the enemy, that the Iroquois were all encamped a mile and a half further on, behind a tract of forest. Subercasse, whose force had been strengthened by troops from the forts, resolved to attack them; and had he been allowed to do so, he would probably have punished them severely, for most of them were hopelessly drunk with brandy taken from the houses of the traders. Sword in hand, at the head of his men, the daring officer entered the forest; but at that moment a voice from the rear commanded him to halt. It was that of the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, just come from Montreal, with positive orders from Denonville to run no risks and stand solely on the defensive. Subercasse was furious. High words passed between him and Vaudreuil, but he was forced to obey.