BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
No. II.
CHAMPLAIN AND THE IROQUOIS.
It was a long while ago, in 1535, that Jacques Cartier, of France, discovered the St. Lawrence River. He sailed up the mighty stream to the Indian village of Hochelaga—a cluster of wigwams at the foot of a hill which he named Mount Royal, but which time has changed to Montreal. Seventy-four years rolled away before any other white man visited the spot. In 1609, Samuel Champlain, an officer in the French navy, sailed up the great river. He was a brave adventurer, who was ever taking long looks ahead, and dreaming of what might be in the future—how the unexplored wilderness of America might become a New France. He had built houses at Quebec, and was on his way to discover what might be beyond.
He treated the Indians kindly, gave them presents, and made them his friends. There were many tribes, but all the Indians east of the Mississippi, and between Lake Superior and the Ohio, were divided into two great families, the Algonquins and the Iroquois. The Indians along the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and Lake Huron were Algonquins. The Iroquois lived in New York. They were the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas, Senecas, and Cayugas. They called themselves the Five Nations. They had corn fields, and lived in towns. Their language was different from that of the Algonquins, with whom they were ever at war.
The wild flowers were in bloom in June, 1609, when Samuel Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence to join a war party against the Iroquois. He had resolved to make the Algonquins his allies, and through them, and with the aid of the Jesuit priests, he would lay the foundations of the empire of New France.
The war party sailed up the Richelieu, or the St. John, carried their canoes past the rapids, launched them once more, and came out into the lake which bears the name of the intrepid explorer. Two Frenchmen accompanied Champlain, and there were twenty-four canoes, carrying sixty warriors, who had put on their feathers, and filled their quivers with arrows.
The woods were full of game, and the lake was swarming with fish, so that there was no lack of provisions. At daybreak they hauled their canoes up on the beach, and secreted themselves, so that no Iroquois might discern them; but when the sun went down they launched their canoes, and stole on in silence over the peaceful waters.
It was ten o'clock in the evening. They were near Crown Point, when they heard the dip of other paddles, and beheld a fleet of Iroquois canoes moving northward. A whoop wilder than the howling of a pack of wolves rent the air, and the Iroquois pulled for the shore to prepare for battle. They hacked down trees with their stone hatchets, and built a barricade.
Both parties danced, sang, howled, and yelled through the night, boasting of what they would do.