The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac

by Charles W. Colby

In the spring of 1690 Frontenac dispatched a force of a hundred and fifty men to reinforce the garrison at Michilimackinac. On their way westward these troops encountered a band of Iroquois and fortunately killed a number of them. The scalps were an ocular proof of success; and Perrot, who was of the party, knew how to turn the victory to its best use by encouraging the Ottawas to torture an Iroquois prisoner. The breach thus made between the Ottawas and the Five Nations distinctly widened as soon as word came that the French had destroyed Schenectady. Thus this dreadful raid against the English did not fail of its psychological effect, as may be gathered from one of the immediate consequences. Early in August there appeared on Lake St Louis a vast flotilla of canoes, which at first caused the afflicted habitants to fear that the Iroquois were upon them again. Instead of this it was a great band of friendly savages from the West, drawn from all the trading tribes and bringing a cargo of furs of far more than the usual value. Frontenac himself chanced to be in Montreal at this fortunate moment. The market was held and concluded to mutual satisfaction, but the crowning event of the meeting was a council, at which, after an exchange of harangues, Frontenac entered into the festivities of the savages as though he were one of themselves (August 1690). The governor's example was followed by his leading officers. Amid the chanting of the war-song and the swinging of the tomahawk the French renewed their alliance with the Indians of the West. All were to fight until the Iroquois were destroyed. Even the Ottawas, who had been coquetting with the Senecas, now came out squarely and said that they would stand by Onontio.

Here, at last, was a real answer to the Lachine massacre. The challenge had been fairly given, and now it was not a Denonville who made the reply. There followed three years of incessant warfare between the Iroquois and the French, which furnished a fair test of the strength that each side could muster when fighting at its best. The Five Nations had made up their minds. The cares of diplomacy they threw to the winds. They were on the war-path, united and determined. The French, on their side, had Frontenac for leader and many outrages to avenge. It was war of the wilderness in its most unrelenting form, with no mercy expected or asked. The general result can be quickly stated. The Iroquois got their fill of war, and Frontenac destroyed their power as a central, dominating, terrorizing confederacy.

The measure of this achievement is to be sought in the difficulties which were overcome. Despite the eighty years of its existence the colony was still so poor that regularity in the arrival of supplies from France was a matter of vital importance. From the moment war began English cruisers hovered about the mouth of the St Lawrence, ready to pounce upon the supply-ships as they came up the river. Sometimes the French boats escaped; sometimes they were captured; but from this interruption of peaceful oversea traffic Canada suffered grievously. Another source of weakness was the interruption of agriculture which followed in the train of war. As a rule the Iroquois spent the winter in hunting deer, but just as the ground was ready for its crop they began to show themselves in the parishes near Montreal, picking off the habitants in their farms on the edge of the forest, or driving them to the shelter of the stockade. These forays made it difficult and dangerous to till the soil, with a corresponding shrinkage in the volume of the crop. Almost every winter famine was imminent in some part of the colony, and though spring was welcome for its own sake, it invariably brought the Iroquois. A third calamity was the interruption of the fur trade. Ordinarily the great cargoes descended the Ottawa in fleets of from one hundred to two hundred canoes. But the savages of the West well knew that when they embarked with their precious bales upon a route which was infested by the Iroquois, they gave hostages to fortune. In case of a battle the cargo was a handicap, since they must protect it as well as themselves. In case they were forced to flee for their lives, they lost the goods which it had cost so much effort to collect. In these circumstances the tribes of Michilimackinac would not bring down their furs unless they felt certain that the whole course of the Ottawa was free from danger. In seasons when they failed to come, the colony had nothing to export and penury became extreme. At best the returns from the fur trade were precarious. In 1690 and 1693 there were good markets; in 1691 and 1692 there were none at all.

From time to time Frontenac received from France both money and troops, but neither in sufficient quantity to place him where he could deal the Iroquois one final blow. Thus one year after another saw a war of skirmishes and minor raids, sufficiently harassing and weakening to both sides, but with results which were disappointing because inconclusive. The hero of this border warfare is the Canadian habitant, whose farm becomes a fort and whose gun is never out of reach. Nor did the men of the colony display more courage than their wives and daughters. The heroine of New France is the woman who rears from twelve to twenty children, works in the fields and cooks by day, and makes garments and teaches the catechism in the evening. It was a community which approved of early marriage—a community where boys and girls assumed their responsibilities very young. Youths of sixteen shouldered the musket. Madeleine de Verchères was only fourteen when she defended her father's fort against the Iroquois with a garrison of five, which included two boys and a man of eighty (October 1692).

A detailed chronicle of these raids and counter-raids would be both long and complicated, but in addition to the incidents which have been mentioned there remain three which deserve separate comment—Peter Schuyler's invasion of Canada in 1691, the activities of the Abnakis against New England, and Frontenac's invasion of the Onondaga country in 1696.

We have already seen that in 1690 an attempt was made by John Schuyler to avenge the massacre at Schenectady. The results of this effort were insignificant, but its purpose was not forgotten; and in 1691 the Anglo-Dutch of the Hudson attempted once more to make their strength felt on the banks of the St Lawrence. This time the leader was Peter Schuyler, whose force included a hundred and twenty English and Dutch, as against the forty who had attacked Canada in the previous summer. The number of Indian allies was also larger than on the former occasion, including both Mohawks and Mohegans. Apart from its superior numbers and much harder fighting, the second expedition of the English was similar to the first. Both followed Lake Champlain and the Richelieu; both reached Laprairie, opposite Montreal; both were forced to retreat without doing any great damage to their enemies. There is this notable difference, however, that the French were in a much better state of preparation than they had been during the previous summer. The garrison at Laprairie now numbered above seven hundred, while a flying squadron of more than three hundred stood ready to attack the English on their retreat to the Richelieu. On the whole, Schuyler was fortunate to escape as lightly as he did. Forty of his party were killed in a hot battle, but he made his retreat in good order after inflicting some losses on the French (August 1, 1691). Although Schuyler's retreat was skilfully conducted, his original object had been far more ambitious than to save his men from extermination. The French missed a chance to injure their foe more seriously than they had done at Schenectady. At the same time, this second English invasion was so far from successful that the New France of Frontenac suffered no further attack from the side of Albany.

While Callières and Valrennes were repulsing Peter Schuyler from Laprairie, the French in another part of Frontenac's jurisdiction were preparing for the offensive. The centre of this activity was the western part of Acadia—that is, the large and rugged region which is watered by the Penobscot and the Kennebec. Here dwelt the Abnakis, a tribe of Algonquin origin, among whom the Jesuits had established a mission and made many converts. Throughout Acadia the French had established friendly relations with the Indians, and as the English settlements began to creep from New Hampshire to the mouth of the Kennebec, the interval between the rival zones of occupation became so narrow as to admit of raiding. Phips's capture of Port Royal had alarmed some of the Abnakis, but most of them held fast to the French connection and were amenable to presents. It soon proved that all they needed was leadership, which was amply furnished by the Baron de Saint-Castin and Father Thury.

Saint-Castin was a very energetic French trader, of noble birth, who had established himself at Pentegoet on Penobscot Bay—a point which, after him, is now called Castine. Father Thury was the chief of the mission priests in the western part of Acadia, but though an ecclesiastic he seems to have exalted patriotism above religion. That he did his best to incite his converts against the English is beyond question. Urged on by him and Saint-Castin, the savages of the Penobscot and the Kennebec proceeded with enthusiasm to destroy the English settlements which lay within their reach. In the course of successive raids which extended from 1692 to 1694 they descended upon York, Wells, and Oyster Bay, always with the stealth and swiftness which marked joint operations of the French and Indians. The settlements of the English were sacked, the inhabitants were either massacred or carried into captivity, and all those scenes were re-enacted which had marked the success of Frontenac's three war-parties in 1690. Thus New England was exposed to attack from the side of Acadia no less than from that of Canada. Incidentally Canada and Acadia were drawn into closer connection by the vigour which Frontenac communicated to the war throughout all parts of his government.

But the most vivid event of Frontenac's life after the defence of Quebec against Phips was the great expedition which he led in person against the Onondagas. It was an exploit which resembles Denonville's attack upon the Senecas, with the added interest that Frontenac was in his seventy-seventh year when he thus carried the war into the heart of the enemy's country. As a physical tour de force this campaign was splendid, and it enables us, better than any other event, to appreciate the magnificent energy which Frontenac threw into the fulfilment of his task. With over two thousand men, and an equipment that included cannon and mortars, he advanced from the south shore of Lake Ontario against the chief stronghold of the Iroquois. At the portage the Indians would not permit their aged, indomitable Onontio to walk, but insisted that he should remain seated in his canoe, while they carried it from the pool below the fall to the dead water above. All the French saw of the stronghold they had come to attack was the flame which consumed it. Following the example of the Senecas, the Onondagas, when they saw that the invader was at hand, set fire to their palisade and wigwams, gathered up what property was portable, and took to the woods. Pursuit was impossible. All that could be done was to destroy the corn and proceed against the settlement of the Oneidas. After this, with its maize, had been consumed, Frontenac considered whether he should attack the Cayugas, but he decided against this extension of the campaign. Unlike Denonville, he was at war with the English as well as with the Iroquois, and may have thought it imprudent to risk surprise at a point so far from his base. While it was disappointing that the Onondagas did not wait to be destroyed by the cannon which with so much effort had been brought against them, this expedition was a useful proof of strength and produced a good moral effect throughout the colony as well as among the western tribes.