The Niagara River

by Archer Butler Hulbert

The abdication of De Nonville at Niagara marks, as nothing else perhaps can, the rise of English influence along the Lakes and among the crafty Iroquois. Slowly but surely this influence made itself felt among the Six Nations in the attempt to swing the entire current of the fur trade from the north-west through the Long House to New York.

With the destruction of the little fort built by De Nonville, however, it becomes clear that when on the same basis the English were no match for the French, so far as winning the redskins to their interests was concerned; it may be that with the withdrawal of the French there followed a natural diminution of English anxiety and activity in the matter: whether this was true or not there immediately ensued a notable increase of French attention to the Six Nations who, after all, controlled the destinies of this key of the continent. As days of war and days of peace came and went the governors both of New York and Quebec sought permission to fortify the Niagara River, but the eighteenth century dawned with no step taken by either side, though each had most jealously been watching the other.

It was characteristic of Frenchmen, however, to meet and mingle with the Indians as the English seldom did; it was not wholly out of the common, indeed, for them to adopt Indian dress and customs and be, in turn, adopted into some Indian tribe. Through the fortunate influence exerted by one of these adopted sons of the wilderness was New France now able to refortify the strategic Niagara region, temporarily besting England in the contest for the supremacy here. Chabert Joncaire, taken prisoner by the Senecas and adopted into their tribe, married an Indian woman and became an important factor among the warriors and war councils of the western end of the Long House. In the year 1700 Joncaire became a missionary for the French political cause, and he seems to have managed affairs so diplomatically that he in no wise lost caste among the Iroquois, for six years later they suggested to him "to establish himself among them, granting him liberty to select on their territory the place most acceptable to himself for the purpose of living and in peace, even to remove their villages to the neighbourhood of his residence in order to protect him."[24]

In the next decade France made considerable headway in undoing the miserable work of De Nonville by disarming the hostility of the Iroquois, especially with the Senecas who held the Niagara frontier, through Joncaire, who in 1719 was sent to "try the minds of the Seneca nation and ascertain if it would permit the building of a French house in their country." As a result, in 1720, Joncaire built a bark cabin at Lewiston which he called "Magazine Royal." In November of that year, according to English report, which was undoubtedly exaggerated through prejudice, the "cabin" is described as a blockhouse forty feet in length and thirty in width, enclosed with palisades, musket-proof and provided with port-holes. The location of this post signifies of itself alone the larger strategic nature of Niagara geographically, for it was not at the mouth of the river but at the beginning of the portage around the Rapids and Falls, at Lewiston, just where La Salle's storehouse, built in 1679, had stood. It is believed that the former building had disappeared by this time. Charlevoix, who came here the next year, 1721, confounds the sites of De Nonville's fort and the "Magazine Royal." Mr. Porter brings out well the office of Joncaire's cabin, in which, by the way, a few soldiers were maintained as "traders" by saying:

. . . The trade in furs was brisk, the Indians from the north, west, and south coming there to barter. The chain of friendship with the Senecas was kept bright by friendly intercourse with their warriors, who constantly came there; French trading vessels came often to its rude wharf bringing merchandise to Frontenac and returning laden with furs. Thus the English for the first time failed to overcome the French, while the English in New York did not delay their expostulations regarding what they called French incroachment at Niagara; but so far were they from being successful that the French were able within four years to begin a more important fortification on the site of the "Magazine Royal."

Stones on the Site of Joncaire's Cabin under Lewiston Heights, where the Magazine Royal was Erected in 1719.

American history furnishes many illustrations of the genius of the French coureurs-de-bois for winning to themselves the friendship of the Indians, but perhaps there is no specific illustration of this more clear than this reabsorption of the Niagara region after having once abandoned it. Said Sir Guy Carleton:

France did not depend upon the number of her troops, but upon the discretion of her officers who, learned the language of her natives, distributed the king's presents, excited no jealousy, entirely gained the affections of an ignorant, credulous, but brave people, whose ruling passions are independence, gratitude, and revenge.