The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac

by Charles W. Colby

Onontio, in setting out from Quebec, you must have fancied that the scorching beams of the sun had burnt down the forests which render our country inaccessible to the French; or else that the inundations of the lake had surrounded our cottages and confined us as prisoners. This certainly was your thought; and it could be nothing else but the curiosity of seeing a burnt or drowned country that moved you to undertake a journey hither. But now you have an opportunity of being undeceived, for I and my warriors come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are not yet destroyed. I return you thanks in their name for bringing into their country the calumet of peace, which your predecessor received from their hands. At the same time I congratulate you on having left under ground the tomahawk which has so often been dyed with the blood of the French. I must tell you, Onontio, that I am not asleep. My eyes are open, and the sun which vouchsafes the light gives me a clear view of a great captain at the head of a troop of soldiers, who speaks as if he were asleep. He pretends that he does not approach this lake with any other view than to smoke the calumet with the Onondagas. But Grangula knows better. He sees plainly that Onontio meant to knock them on the head if the French arms had not been so much weakened....

You must know, Onontio, that we have robbed no Frenchman, save those who supplied the Illinois and the Miamis (our enemies) with muskets, powder, and ball.... We have conducted the English to our lakes in order to trade with the Ottawas and the Hurons; just as the Algonquins conducted the French to our five cantons, in order to carry on a commerce that the English lay claim to as their right. We are born freemen and have no dependence either upon the Onontio or the Corlaer [the English governor]. We have power to go where we please, to conduct whom we will to the places we resort to, and to buy and sell where we think fit.... We fell upon the Illinois and the Miamis because they cut down the trees of peace that served for boundaries and came to hunt beavers upon our lands.... We have done less than the English and French, who without any right have usurped the lands they are now possessed of.

I give you to know, Onontio, that my voice is the voice of the five Iroquois cantons. This is their answer. Pray incline your ear and listen to what they represent.

The Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks declare that they buried the tomahawk in the presence of your predecessor, in the very centre of the fort, and planted the Tree of Peace in the same place. It was then stipulated that the fort should be used as a place of retreat for merchants and not a refuge for soldiers. Be it known to you, Onontio, that so great a number of soldiers, being shut up in so small a fort, do not stifle and choke the Tree of Peace. Since it took root so easily it would be evil to stop its growth and hinder it from shading both your country and ours with its leaves. I assure you, in the name of the five nations, that our warriors will dance the calumet dance under its branches and will never dig up the axe to cut it down—till such time as the Onontio and the Corlaer do separately or together invade the country which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors.'[[2]]

When Le Moyne and the Jesuits had interpreted this speech La Barre 'retired to his tent and stormed and blustered.' But Grangula favoured the spectators with an Iroquois dance, after which he entertained several of the Frenchmen at a banquet. 'Two days later,' writes La Hontan, 'he and his warriors returned to their own country, and our army set out for Montreal. As soon as the General was on board, together with the few healthy men that remained, the canoes were dispersed, for the militia straggled here and there, and every one made the best of his way home.'

With this ignominious adventure the career of La Barre ends. The reports which Meulles sent to France produced a speedy effect in securing his dismissal from office. 'I have been informed,' politely writes the king, 'that your years do not permit you to support the fatigues inseparable from your office of governor and lieutenant-general in Canada.'

La Barre's successor, the Marquis de Denonville, arrived at Quebec in August 1685. Like La Barre, he was a soldier; like Frontenac, he was an aristocrat as well. From both these predecessors, however, he differed in being free from the reproach of using his office to secure personal profits through the fur trade. No governor in all the annals of New France was on better terms with the bishop and the Jesuits. He possessed great bravery. There is much to show that he was energetic. None the less he failed, and his failure was more glaring than that of La Barre. He could not hold his ground against the Iroquois and the English.

It has been pointed out already that when La Barre assumed office the problems arising from these two sources were more difficult than at any previous date; but the situation which was serious in 1682 and had become critical by 1685 grew desperate in the four years of Denonville's sway. The one over-shadowing question of this period was the Iroquois peril, rendered more and more acute by the policy of the English.

The greatest mistake which Denonville made in his dealings with the Iroquois was to act deceitfully. The savages could be perfidious themselves, but they were not without a conception of honour and felt genuine respect for a white man whose word they could trust. Denonville, who in his private life displayed many virtues, seemed to consider that he was justified in acting towards the savages as the exigency of the moment prompted. Apart from all considerations of morality this was bad judgment.

In his dealings with the English Denonville had little more success than in his dealings with the Indians. Dongan was a thorn in his side from the first, although their correspondence opened, on both sides, with the language of compliment. A few months later its tone changed, particularly after Dongan heard that Denonville intended to build a fort at Niagara. Against a project so unfriendly Dongan protested with emphasis. In reply Denonville disclaimed the intention, at the same time alleging that Dongan was giving shelter at Albany to French deserters. A little later they reach the point of sarcasm. Denonville taxes Dongan with selling rum to the Indians. Dongan retorts that at least English rum is less unwholesome than French brandy. Beneath these epistolary compliments there lies the broad fact that Dongan stood firm by his principle that the extension of French rule to the south of Lake Ontario should not be tolerated. He ridicules the basis of French pretensions, saying that Denonville might as well claim China because there are Jesuits at the Chinese court. The French, he adds, have no more right to the country because its streams flow into Lake Ontario than they have to the lands of those who drink claret or brandy. It is clear that Dongan fretted under the restrictions which were imposed upon him by the friendship between England and France. He would have welcomed an order to support his arguments by force. Denonville, on his side, with like feelings, could not give up the claim to suzerainty over the land of the Iroquois.