[5] On these negotiations, and their antecedents, Callières, Relation de ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable en Canada depuis Sept., 1692, jusqu'au Départ des Vaisseaux en 1693; La Motte-Cadillac, Mémoire des Negociations avec les Iroquois, 1694; Callières au Ministre, 19 Oct., 1694; La Potherie, III. 200-220; Colden, Five Nations, chap. x.; N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 85.
Meanwhile, the authorities of New York tried to prevent the threatened peace. First, Major Peter Schuyler convoked the chiefs at Albany, and told them that, if they went to ask peace in Canada, they would be slaves for ever. The Iroquois declared that they loved the English, but they repelled every attempt to control their action. Then Fletcher, the governor, called a general council at the same place, and told them that they should not hold councils with the French, or that, if they did so, they should hold them at Albany in presence of the English. Again they asserted their rights as an independent people. "Corlaer," said their speaker, "has held councils with our enemies, and why should not we hold councils with his?" Yet they were strong in assurances of friendship, and declared themselves "one head, one heart, one blood, and one soul, with the English." Their speaker continued: "Our only reason for sending deputies to the French is that we are brought so low, and none of our neighbors help us, but leave us to bear all the burden of the war. Our brothers of New England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, all of their own accord took hold of the covenant chain, and called themselves our allies; but they have done nothing to help us, and we cannot fight the French alone, because they are always receiving soldiers from beyond the Great Lake. Speak from your heart, brother: will you and your neighbors join with us, and make strong war against the French? If you will, we will break off all treaties, and fight them as hotly as ever; but, if you will not help us, we must make peace."
Nothing could be more just than these reproaches; and, if the English governor had answered by a vigorous attack on the French forts south of the St. Lawrence, the Iroquois warriors would have raised the hatchet again with one accord. But Fletcher was busy with other matters; and he had besides no force at his disposal but four companies, the only British regulars on the continent, defective in numbers, ill-appointed, and mutinous. Therefore he answered not with acts, but with words. The negotiation with the French went on, and Fletcher called another council. It left him in a worse position than before. The Iroquois again asked for help: he could not promise it, but was forced to yield the point, and tell them that he consented to their making peace with Onontio.
[6] Fletcher is, however, charged with gross misconduct in regard to the four companies, which he is said to have kept at about half their complement, in order to keep the balance of their pay for himself.
It is certain that they wanted peace, but equally certain that they did not want it to be lasting, and sought nothing more than a breathing time to regain their strength. Even now some of them were for continuing the war; and at the great council at Onondaga, where the matter was debated, the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks spurned the French proposals, and refused to give up their prisoners. The Cayugas and some of the Senecas were of another mind, and agreed to a partial compliance with Frontenac's demands. The rest seem to have stood passive in the hope of gaining time.
They were disappointed. In vain the Seneca and Cayuga deputies buried the hatchet at Montreal, and promised that the other nations would soon do likewise. Frontenac was not to be deceived. He would accept nothing but the frank fulfilment of his conditions, refused the proffered peace, and told his Indian allies to wage war to the knife. There was a dog-feast and a war-dance, and the strife began anew.
In all these conferences, the Iroquois had stood by their English allies, with a fidelity not too well merited. But, though they were loyal towards the English, they had acted with duplicity towards the French, and, while treating of peace with them, had attacked some of their Indian allies, and intrigued with others. They pursued with more persistency than ever the policy they had adopted in the time of La Barre, that is, to persuade or frighten the tribes of the west to abandon the French, join hands with them and the English, and send their furs to Albany instead of Montreal; for the sagacious confederates knew well that, if the trade were turned into this new channel, their local position would enable them to control it. The scheme was good; but with whatever consistency their chiefs and elders might pursue it, the wayward ferocity of their young warriors crossed it incessantly, and murders alternated with intrigues. On the other hand, the western tribes, who since the war had been but ill supplied with French goods and French brandy, knew that they could have English goods and English rum in great abundance, and at far less cost; and thus, in spite of hate and fear, the intrigue went on. Michillimackinac was the focus of it, but it pervaded all the west. The position of Frontenac was one of great difficulty, and the more so that the intestine quarrels of his allies excessively complicated the mazes of forest diplomacy. This heterogeneous multitude, scattered in tribes and groups of tribes over two thousand miles of wilderness, was like a vast menagerie of wild animals; and the lynx bristled at the wolf, and the panther grinned fury at the bear, in spite of all his efforts to form them into a happy family under his paternal rule.
La Motte-Cadillac commanded at Michillimackinac, Courtemanche was stationed at Fort Miamis, and Tonty and La Forêt at the fortified rock of St. Louis on the Illinois; while Nicolas Perrot roamed among the tribes of the Mississippi, striving at the risk of his life to keep them at peace with each other, and in alliance with the French. Yet a plot presently came to light, by which the Foxes, Mascontins, and Kickapoos were to join hands, renounce the French, and cast their fortunes with the Iroquois and the English. There was still more anxiety for the tribes of Michillimackinac, because the results of their defection would be more immediate. This important post had at the time an Indian population of six or seven thousand souls, a Jesuit mission, a fort with two hundred soldiers, and a village of about sixty houses, occupied by traders and coureurs de bois. The Indians of the place were in relations more or less close with all the tribes of the lakes. The Huron village was divided between two rival chiefs: the Baron, who was deep in Iroquois and English intrigue; and the Rat, who, though once the worst enemy of the French, now stood their friend. The Ottawas and other Algonquins of the adjacent villages were savages of a lower grade, tossed continually between hatred of the Iroquois, distrust of the French, and love of English goods and English rum. [7]
[7] "Si les Outaouacs (Ottawas) et Hurons concluent la paix avec l'Iroquois sans nostre participation, et donnent chez eux l'entrée à l'Anglois pour le commerce, la Colonie est entièrement ruinée, puisque c'est le seul (moyen) par lequel ce pays-cy puisse subsister, et l'on peut asseurer que si les sauvages goustent une fois du commerce de l'Anglois, ils rompront pour toujours avec les François, parcequ'ils ne peuvent donner les marchandises qu'à un prix beaucoup plus hault." Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1696.
La Motte-Cadillac found that the Hurons of the Baron's band were receiving messengers and peace belts from New York and her red allies, that the English had promised to build a trading house on Lake Erie, and that the Iroquois had invited the lake tribes to a grand convention at Detroit. These belts and messages were sent, in the Indian expression, "underground," that is, secretly; and the envoys who brought them came in the disguise of prisoners taken by the Hurons. On one occasion, seven Iroquois were brought in; and some of the French, suspecting them to be agents of the negotiation, stabbed two of them as they landed. There was a great tumult. The Hurons took arms to defend the remaining five; but at length suffered themselves to be appeased, and even gave one of the Iroquois, a chief, into the hands of the French, who, says La Potherie, determined to "make an example of him." They invited the Ottawas to "drink the broth of an Iroquois." The wretch was made fast to a stake, and a Frenchman began the torture by burning him with a red-hot gun-barrel. The mob of savages was soon wrought up to the required pitch of ferocity; and, after atrociously tormenting him, they cut him to pieces, and ate him. [8] It was clear that the more Iroquois the allies of France could be persuaded to burn, the less would be the danger that they would make peace with the confederacy. On another occasion, four were tortured at once; and La Motte-Cadillac writes, "If any more prisoners are brought me, I promise you that their fate will be no sweeter." [9]