1684.] HIS ANGER AND HIS FEARS. 91 Salle's fort of St. Louis on the river Illinois, a measure which, while gratifying the passions and the greed of himself and his allies, would greatly increase the danger of rupture with the Iroquois. Late in the season, he despatched seven canoes and fourteen men, with goods to the value of fifteen or sixteen thousand livres, to trade with the tribes of the Mississippi. As he had sown, so he reaped. The seven canoes passed through the country of the Illinois. A large war-party of Senecas and Cayugas invaded it in February. La Barre had told their chiefs that they were welcome to plunder the canoes of La Salle. The Iroquois were not discriminating. They fell upon the governor's canoes, seized all the goods, and captured the men.1 Then they attacked Baugis at Fort St. Louis. The place, perched on a rock, was strong, and they were beaten off; but the act was one of open war. When La Barre heard the news, he was furious.2 He trembled for the vast amount of goods which he and his fellow-speculators had sent to Michilimackinac 1 There appears no doubt that La Barre brought this upon himself. His successor, Denonville, writes that the Iroquois declared that in plundering the canoes they thought they were executing the orders they had received to plunder La Salle's people. (Denonville, Mémoire adressé au Ministre sur les Affaires de la Nouvelle France, 10 Août, 1688.) The Iroquois told Dongan, in 1684, "that they had not don any thing to the French but what Monsr. dela Barr Ordered them, which was that if they mett with any French hunting without his passe to take what they had from them." Dongan to Denonville, 9 September, 1687. 2 "Ce qui mit M. de la Barre en fureur." Belmont, Histoire du Canada. - to call and the lakes. There was but one resource, out the militia, muster the Indian allies, advance to Lake Ontario, and dictate peace to the Senecas, at the head of an imposing force; or, failing in this, to attack and crush them. A small vessel lying at Quebec was despatched to France, with urgent appeals for immediate aid, though there was little hope that it could arrive in time. She bore a long letter, half piteous, half bombastic, from La Barre to the King. He declared that extreme necessity and the despair of the people had forced him into war, and protested that he should always think it a privilege to lay down his life for his Majesty. "I cannot refuse to your country of Canada, and your faithful subjects, to throw myself, with unequal forces, against the foe, while at the same time begging your aid for a poor, unhappy people on the point of falling victims to a nation of barbarians." He says that the total number of men in Canada capable of bearing arms is about two thousand; that he received last year a hundred and fifty raw recruits; and that he wants, in addition, seven or eight hundred good soldiers. "Recall me," he concludes, "if you will not help me, for I cannot bear to see the country perish in my hands." At the same time, he declares his intention to attack the Senecas, with or without help, about the middle of August.1 Here we leave him for a while, scared, excited, and blustering. 1 La Barre au Roy, 5 Juin, 1684. CHAPTER VI. 1684. LA BARRE AND THE IROQUOIS. DONGAN. -NEW YORK AND ITS INDIAN NEIGHBORS. THE RIVAL GOVERNORS. DONGAN AND THE IROQUOIS. MISSION TO ONON WARNINGS OF LAMBERLA BARRE TAKES THE FIELD: DAGA. AN IROQUOIS POLITICIAN. - HIS MOTIVES. THE MARCH. PESTILENCE.- COUNCIL AT LA FAMINE. THE IROQUOIS DEFIANT. HUMILIATION OF LA BARRE. THE INDIAN ALLIES.-THEIR RAGE AND DISAPPOINTMENT. RECALL OF LA BARRE. THE Dutch colony of New Netherland had now become the English colony of New York. Its proprietor, the Duke of York, afterwards James II. of England, had appointed Colonel Thomas Dongan its governor. He was a Catholic Irish gentleman of high rank, nephew of the famous Earl of Tyrconnel, and presumptive heir to the earldom of Limerick. He had served in France, was familiar with its language, and partial to its King and its nobility; but he nevertheless gave himself with vigor to the duties of his new trust. The Dutch and English colonists aimed at a share in the western fur-trade, hitherto a monopoly of Canada; and it is said that Dutch traders had already ventured among the tribes of the Great Lakes, boldly poaching on the French preserves. Dongan did his utmost to promote their interests, so far at least as was consistent with his instructions from the Duke of York, enjoining him to give the French governor no just cause of offence.1 For several years past, the Iroquois had made forays against the borders of Maryland and Virginia, plundering and killing the settlers; and a declared rupture between those colonies and the savage confederates had more than once been imminent. The English believed that these hostilities were instigated by the Jesuits in the Iroquois villages. There is no proof whatever of the accusation; but it is certain that it was the interest of Canada to provoke a war which might, sooner or later, involve New York. In consequence of a renewal of such attacks, Lord Howard of Effingham, governor of Virginia, came to Albany in the summer of 1684, to hold a council with the Iroquois. 1 Sir John Werden to Dongan, 4 December, 1684; N. Y. Col. Docs., iii. 353. Werden was the duke's secretary. Dongan has been charged with instigating the Iroquois to attack the French. The Jesuit Lamberville, writing from Onondaga, says, on the contrary, that he hears that the "governor of New England [New York], when the Mohawk chiefs asked him to continue the sale of powder to them, replied that it should be continued so long as they would not make war on Christians." Lamberville à La Barre. 10 Février, 1684. The French ambassador at London complained that Dongan excited the Iroquois to war, and Dongan denied the charge. N. Y. Col. Docs., iii. 506, 509. 1684.] ENGLISH AND IROQUOIS. 95 The Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas were the offending tribes. They all promised friendship for the future. A hole was dug in the courtyard of the council-house, each of the three threw a hatchet into it, and Lord Howard and the representative of Maryland added two others; then the hole was filled, the song of peace was sung, and the high contracting parties stood pledged to mutual accord.1 The Mohawks were also at the council, and the Senecas soon after arrived; so that all the confederacy was present by its deputies. Not long before, La Barre, then in the heat of his martial preparations, had sent a messenger to Dongan with a letter, informing him that, as the Senecas and Cayugas had plundered French canoes and assaulted a French fort, he was compelled to attack them, and begging that the Dutch and English colonists should be forbidden to supply them with arms.2 This letter produced two results, neither of them agreeable to the writer: first, the Iroquois were fully warned of the designs of the French; and, secondly, Dongan gained the opportunity he wanted of asserting the claim of his King to sovereignty over the confederacy, and possession of the whole country south of the Great Lakes. He added that if the Iroquois had done wrong, he would require them, as British subjects, to make reparation; and he urged La Barre, for the sake of peace between the two 1 Report of Conferences at Albany, in Colden, History of the Five Nations, 50 (ed. 1727, Shea's reprint). 2 La Barre à Dongan, 15 Juin, 1684. |