The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac

by Charles W. Colby

The domain of the Five Nations was not the only part of America where French and English clashed. The presence of the English in Hudson Bay excited deep resentment at Quebec and Montreal. Here Denonville ventured to break the peace as Dongan had not dared to do. With Denonville's consent and approval, a band of Canadians left Montreal in the spring of 1686, fell upon three of the English posts—Fort Hayes, Fort Rupert, Fort Albany—and with some bloodshed dispossessed their garrisons. Well satisfied with this exploit, Denonville in 1687 turned his attention to the chastisement of the Iroquois.

The forces which he brought together for this task were greatly superior to any that had been mustered in Canada before. Not only were they adequate in numbers, but they comprised an important band of coureurs de bois, headed by La Durantaye, Tonty, Du Lhut, and Nicolas Perrot—men who equalled the Indians in woodcraft and surpassed them in character. The epitaph of Denonville as a governor is written in the failure of this great expedition to accomplish its purpose.

The first blunder occurred at Fort Frontenac before mobilization had been completed. There were on the north shore of Lake Ontario two Iroquois villages, whose inhabitants had been in part baptized by the Sulpicians and were on excellent terms with the garrison of the fort. In a moment of insane stupidity Denonville decided that the men of these settlements should be captured and sent to France as galley slaves. Through the ruse of a banquet they were brought together and easily seized. By dint of a little further effort two hundred Iroquois of all ages and both sexes were collected at Fort Frontenac as prisoners—and some at least perished by torture. But, when executing this dastardly plot, Denonville did not succeed in catching all the friendly Iroquois who lived in the neighbourhood of his fort. Enough escaped to carry the authentic tale to the Five Nations, and after that there could be no peace till there had been revenge. Worst of all, the French stood convicted of treachery and falseness.

Having thus blighted his cause at the outset, Denonville proceeded with his more serious task of smiting the Iroquois in their own country. Considering the extent and expense of his preparations, he should have planned a complete destruction of their power. Instead of this he attempted no more than an attack upon the Senecas, whose operations against the Illinois and in other quarters had made them especially objectionable. The composite army of French and Indians assembled at Irondequoit Bay on July 12—a force brought together at infinite pains and under circumstances which might never occur again. Marching southwards they fought a trivial battle with the Senecas, in which half a dozen on the French side were killed, while the Senecas are said to have lost about a hundred in killed and wounded. The rest of the tribe took to the woods. As a result of this easy victory the triumphant allies destroyed an Iroquois village and all the corn which it contained, but the political results of the expedition were worse than nothing. Denonville made no attempt to destroy the other nations of the confederacy. Returning to Lake Ontario he built a fort at Niagara, which he had promised Dongan he would not do, and then returned to Montreal. The net results of this portentous effort were a broken promise to the English, an act of perfidy towards the Iroquois, and an insignificant success in battle.

In 1688 Denonville's decision to abandon Fort Niagara slightly changed the situation. The garrison had suffered severe losses through illness and the post proved too remote for successful defence. So this matter settled itself. The same season saw the recall of Dongan through the consolidation of New England, New York, and New Jersey under Sir Edmund Andros. But in essentials there was no change. Andros continued Dongan's policy, of which, in fact, he himself had been the author. And, even though no longer threatened by the French from Niagara, the savages had reason enough to hate and distrust Denonville.

Yet despite these untoward circumstances all hope of peace between the French and the Five Nations had not been destroyed. The Iroquois loved their revenge and were willing to wait for it, but caution warned them that it would not be advantageous to destroy the French for the benefit of the English. Moreover, in the long course of their relations with the French they had, as already mentioned, formed a high opinion of men like Le Moyne and Lamberville, while they viewed with respect the exploits of Tonty, La Durantaye, and Du Lhut.

Moved by these considerations and a love of presents, Grangula, of the Onondagas, was in the midst of negotiations for peace with the French, which might have ended happily but for the stratagem of the Huron chief Kondiaronk, called 'The Rat.' The remnant of Hurons and the other tribes centring at Michilimackinac did not desire a peace of the French and Iroquois which would not include themselves, for this would mean their own certain destruction. The Iroquois, freed of the French, would surely fall on the Hurons. All the Indians distrusted Denonville, and Kondiaronk suspected, with good reason, that the Hurons were about to be sacrificed. Denonville, however, had assured Kondiaronk that there was to be war to the death against the Iroquois, and on this understanding he went with a band of warriors to Fort Frontenac. There he learned that peace would be concluded between Onontio and the Onondagas—in other words, that the Iroquois would soon be free to attack the Hurons and their allies. To avert this threatened destruction of his own people, he set out with his warriors and lay in ambush for a party of Onondaga chiefs who were on their way to Montreal. Having killed one and captured almost all the rest, he announced to his Iroquois prisoners that he had received orders from Denonville to destroy them. When they explained that they were ambassadors, he feigned surprise and said he could no longer be an accomplice to the wickedness of the French. Then he released them all save one, in order that they might carry home this tale of Denonville's second treachery. The one Iroquois Kondiaronk retained on the plea that he wished to adopt him. Arrived at Michilimackinac, he handed over the captive to the French there, who, having heard nothing of the peace, promptly shot him. An Iroquois prisoner, whom Kondiaronk secretly released for the purpose, conveyed to the Five Nations word of this further atrocity.

The Iroquois prepared to deliver a hard blow. On August 5, 1689, they fell in overwhelming force upon the French settlement at Lachine. Those who died by the tomahawk were the most fortunate. Charlevoix gives the number of victims at two hundred killed and one hundred and twenty taken prisoner. Girouard's examination of parish registers results in a lower estimate—namely, twenty-four killed at Lachine and forty-two at La Chesnaye, a short time afterwards. Whatever the number, it was the most dreadful catastrophe which the colony had yet suffered.

Such were the events which, in seven years, had brought New France to the brink of ruin. But she was not to perish from the Iroquois. In October 1689 Frontenac returned to take Denonville's place.