[CHAPTER VI.]
1684.
La Barre and the Iroquois.
Dongan • New York and its Indian Neighbors • The Rival Governors • Dongan and the Iroquois • Mission to Onondaga • An Iroquois Politician • Warnings of Lamberville • Iroquois Boldness • La Barre takes the Field • His Motives • The March • Pestilence • Council at La Famine • The Iroquois defiant • Humiliation of La Barre • The Indian Allies • Their Rage and Disappointment • Recall of La Barre.
The Dutch colony of New Netherland had now become the English colony of New York. Its proprietor, the Duke of York, afterwards James II. of England, had appointed Colonel Thomas Dongan its governor. He was a Catholic Irish gentleman of high rank, nephew of the famous Earl of Tyrconnel, and presumptive heir to the earldom of Limerick. He had served in France, was familiar with its language, and partial to its king and its nobility; but he nevertheless gave himself with vigor to the duties of his new trust.
The Dutch and English colonists aimed at a share in the western fur trade, hitherto a monopoly of Canada; and it is said that Dutch traders had already ventured among the tribes of the Great Lakes, boldly poaching on the French preserves. Dongan did his utmost to promote their interests, so far at least as was consistent with his instructions from the Duke of York, enjoining him to give the French governor no just cause of offence. [1]
[1] Sir John Werden to Dongan, 4 Dec., 1684; N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 353. Werden was the duke's secretary.
Dongan has been charged with instigating the Iroquois to attack the French. The Jesuit Lamberville, writing from Onondaga, says, on the contrary, that he hears that the "governor of New England (New York), when the Mohawk chiefs asked him to continue the sale of powder to them, replied that it should be continued so long as they would not make war on Christians." Lamberville à La Barre, 10 Fév., 1684.
The French ambassador at London complained that Dongan excited the Iroquois to war, and Dongan denied the charge. N. Y. Col. Docs., III. 506, 509.
For several years past, the Iroquois had made forays against the borders of Maryland and Virginia, plundering and killing the settlers; and a declared rupture between those colonies and the savage confederates had more than once been imminent. The English believed that these hostilities were instigated by the Jesuits in the Iroquois villages. There is no proof whatever of the accusation; but it is certain that it was the interest of Canada to provoke a war which might, sooner or later, involve New York. In consequence of a renewal of such attacks, Lord Howard of Effingham, governor of Virginia, came to Albany in the summer of 1684, to hold a council with the Iroquois.