An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape-Breton

by Antoine Simon Maillard

To understand the following piece, it is necessary to know, that after the insidious peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the savage nations, especially the Mickmakis and Maricheets continued hostilities against the English, at the underhand instigation of the French, who meant thereby to prevent, or at least distress, as much as obstruct, our new settlements in Nova-Scotia. For this purpose, the French missionaries had their cue from their government to act the incendiaries, and, to inflame matters to the highest pitch. These being, however, sensible, that the part assigned them was a very odious one, and inconsistent with the spirit of that religion for which they profess such zeal, one of them, by way of palliation, and in order to throw the blame on the English themselves, drew up the following state of the case, between our nation and the savages, viz.

MEMORIAL OF THE Motives of the Savages, called Mickmakis and Maricheets, for continuing the War with England since the last Peace.

Dated Isle-Royal, 175-.

These nations have never been able to forget all that the English settled in North-America have done since the very first of their establishment, towards destroying them root and branch. They have especially, at every moment, before their eyes the following transactions:

In 1744, towards the end of October, Mr. Gorrhon, (perhaps Goreham) deceased, commanding a detachment of the English troops, sent to observe the retreat the French and savages were making from before Port-Royal (Annapolis) in Acadia, (Nova-Scotia): this detachment having found two huts of the Mickmaki-savages, in a remote corner, in which there were five women and three children, (two of the women were big with child) ransacked, pillaged, and burnt the two huts, and massacred the five women and three children. It is to be observed, that the two pregnant women were found with their bellies ripped open. An action which these savages cannot forget, especially as at that time they made fair war with the English. They have always looked on this deed as a singular mark of the most unheard-of cruelty. [Who would not look on it in the same light? But as no nation on earth is known to have more than ours constitutionally, a horror for such barbarities, especially in cold blood; it may be very easily presumed, that this fact was, if true, committed by some of the savages themselves, without the knowledge of the commander, or of any of the English troops.]

Five months before this action, one named Danas, or David, an English privateer, having treacherously hoisted French colors in the Streights of Fronsac, by means of a French deserter he had with him, decoyed on board his vessel the chief of the savages of Cape-Breton, called James Padanuque, with his whole family, whom he carried to Boston, where he was clapped into a dungeon the instant he was landed; from which he was only taken out to stifle him on board of a vessel, in which they pretended to return him safe to Cape-Breton. His son, at that time a boy of eight years of age, they will absolutely not release; though, since their detention of that young savage, they have frequently had prisoners sent back to them, without ransom, on condition of restoring the young man to his country: but though they accepted the condition, they never complied with it.

In the month of July, 1745, the same Danas, with the same success, employed the same decoy on a savage-family, which could not get out of their hands, but by escaping one night from their prisons.

About the same time one named Bartholomew Petitpas, an appointed savage-linguist, was carried away prisoner to Boston. The savages have several times demanded him in exchange for English prisoners they then had in their hands, of whom two were officers, to whom they gave their liberty, on condition of the Bostoners returning of Petitpas; whom, however, they not only kept prisoner, but afterwards put to death.

In the same year, 1745, a missionary of the savages of Cape Breton, Natkikouesch, Picktook, and of the island of St. John, having been invited by several letters, on the part of the commodore of the English squadron, and of the general of the land-forces, to a parley, those gentlemen desired with him, concerning the savages, repaired to Louisbourg, at that time in possession of the English, on the assurances they had given him in writing, and on the formal promises they had bound with an oath, of full liberty to return from whence he came, after having satisfied them in all they wanted of him. They detained him at Louisbourg, where they gave him a great deal of ill usage, and obliged him to embark, all sick as he was, and destitute of necessaries, on board of one of the ships of the squadron, in which he was conveyed to England, from whence he at length got to France. [Most probably he had not given the satisfaction required by those gentlemen, which had been confessedly by himself made the condition of his return.]

The same year, 1745, several bodies of the savages, deceased, and buried at Port Tholouze, were dug up again by the Bostoners, and thrown into the fire. The burying-place of the savages was demolished, and all the crosses, planted on the graves, broke into a thousand pieces.