USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 9
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83
EXPEDITIONS
Moved by Vetch's representations, by a lengthy memorial sent by Dudley, and by an address of the Massachusetts Gen- eral Court, all pointing out that the true policy of England was to destroy French power in North America, the govern- ment at length decided to undertake an expedition against Canada. Vetch was sent with advance instructions for the colonies, reaching Boston late in April, 1709. The seaboard colonies were to prepare a force to join the English fleet for an attack upon Quebec. Connecticut, New York, and the middle colonies were to send a force by the Hudson-Champlain route against Montreal.
The activity of the Massachusetts government was admir- able. According to Dudley, the New England contingent was completed by May 20, three weeks after the arrival of instruc- tions; and an embargo was laid upon shipping for three months so that there might be no lack of transportation when the English fleet arrived. A long and tedious wait ensued. Finally, early in October, word came of the diversion of the English force to Portugal.
Great was the disappointment of the colonies. The leaders of the enterprise, Dudley, Vetch, Nicholson, who commanded the land expedition, and the Governors of Rhode Island and Connecticut now held a conference at Rehoboth to consider what should be done. They came to the unanimous conclusion that it was not yet too late to attack Port Royal; but the captains of two English frigates stationed at New York re- fused to co-operate, and without their assistance it was deemed unwise to proceed. Nicholson, who had won the general con- fidence, was sent to England to urge a renewal of the enter- prise, bearing an address to that effect signed by the repre- sentatives of the assembled colonies.
EXPEDITIONS OF 1710-1711
In July, 1710, Nicholson was back with a small force com- missioned to take Port Royal. Again Massachusetts responded with alacrity, raising her contingent of 900 men, seizing pro- visions, and issuing bills of credit to meet the extraordinary expense. Within a few days after the appearance of the Eng- lish, Port Royal was in their possession, this time, as it proved, permanently.
84
EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Dudley was not yet satisfied, for the Indian menace re- mained. Indeed, during the summer of 1710 the Indians extended their raids as far as Waterbury and Simsbury in Connecticut. For relief from these attacks Massachusetts desired that New York and the Five Nations end their neutral- ity, and that the English government undertake the conquest of Canada. Such were the instructions which were despatched to Jeremiah Dummer, the newly chosen agent of the province, himself a son of Massachusetts.
The appointment of Dummer was particularly fortunate in that he was a friend of St. John (Bolingbroke), one of the principal leaders of the British Tory government which came into power in 1710. It has even been suggested that to Dum- mer's influence may be attributed the interest which Boling- broke took in the expedition against Canada. He was certainly consulted and wrote several memorials urging the enterprise. The generally accepted account is that the Tories desired, by the conquest of Canada, to gain some laurels to place beside those of the great Marlborough, who was affiliated with the Whigs. Unfortunately they entrusted the command to two incompetents, General Jack Hill, brother of Mrs. Masham, the new royal favorite, and Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker.
The first word which Dudley had of the plans of the govern- ment was received from Nicholson, who arrived June 8, with advance instructions. Sixteen days later Hill and Walker also appeared. Naturally predisposed to a low opinion of the people of New England, the officers of the expedition found nothing to their satisfaction. Hill records that he attended Harvard Commencement to put the people in good humor ; but this seems to have been the extent of such efforts.
Considering the military records of sloth and incapacity in England itself in the wars of this period, the efforts of Massa- chusetts in the five weeks which followed Hill's arrival, when graduated to scale, were truly remarkable. The chief burden thrown upon the province was to furnish provisions for the expedition; and even at this period Massachusetts did not feed itself. The extent of the task can hardly be realized. It was found necessary to import and seize provisions, fix prices, fix the rate of exchange, and vote a loan of £40,000 to outfit
85
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
the expedition. Some of the bills contracted by Walker and Hill at this time were still unpaid five years later.
The expedition sailed on July 30. Owing to the gross in- competence of Admiral Walker the fleet suffered a disaster in ascending the St. Lawrence, which so dampened the spirits of the British leaders that they turned homeward, where they sought to throw the blame upon New England. Dummer's defence of Massachusetts on this occasion was not the least of his services to the province, but it mattered little, for the home government was bent upon peace, and in Europe a cessation of arms was soon arranged. The petition of Massa- chusetts for a renewal of the enterprise thus fell upon deaf ears.
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT (1713)
In America the war dragged to its close with raid and counter-raid. A concerted attempt by the New England governments in the autumn of 1711 to end the neutrality of the Five Nations by appealing to Hunter, the new governor of New York, was met by a cold denial by the New York Council of any knowledge of such an agreement. Fortunately the Abnaki also were exhausted and disheartened by their losses; in July, 1713, they signed peace with representatives of Massachusetts and New Hampshire at Portsmouth.
The peace of Utrecht, from the viewpoint of the American colonies, was scarcely more favorable than the peace of Rys- wick. On paper the French ceded Acadia, Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay, and their claims to suzerainty over the Iroquois. Actually they had yielded little. Reversing their position with great agility they now maintained that the term Acadia in- cluded only the peninsula now called Nova Scotia. Although warned of the consequences the English ministry permitted them to keep the island of Cape Breton, where at Louisbourg they reared a fortress far more formidable than Port Royal, as a protection to their fishermen and rendezvous for privateers in time of war. In Acadia English power was confined to the environs of Port Royal, now Annapolis; and the Abnaki tribes, despite their renewed acknowledgment of subjection to the English, continued to act upon the advice of their Jesuit priests. Though weakened, their power was still un-
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
broken, and nothing less than a later war shook their hold upon their ancestral lands in Maine.
RENEWED CONFLICT WITH THE INDIANS (1714-1717)
Responsibility for the outbreak of a third war with the Eastern Indians must be divided between the governments of Massachusetts and Canada. The Indian was the victim of their clashing policies. Confident, apparently, that an en- during peace had been made, the General Court pushed on the work of resettlement with no regard to the possible effect on the Indians; and made the further mistake of failing to establish publicly managed truckhouses, thus leaving them at the mercy of rascally private traders. Settlement was pushed up the Kennebec River as far as Augusta, only a short distance from the Kennebec village of Norridgewock, and along the coast as far as the St. Georges River, which aroused the Penob- scot tribe. To the Indian it seemed that his country was being overrun with white men, hunting, fishing, trading, lumbering, raising cattle.
The viewpoints of the English and the Indian were irrecon- cilable. The English pointed to ancient Indian deeds convey- ing the lands in question to the whites, most of them genuine and as near regular as such deeds usually were. The Indian could not understand that a piece of paper signed by his ancestors, perhaps under the influence of liquor, could deprive him of lands from which he had driven the white man, and where no white settler had dared to set foot for a generation.
Had the Indians been unsupported they would have yielded a sullen acquiescence, but their opposition fitted in exactly with the policy of Vaudreuil and the Jesuits. The latter doubtless feared the loss of influence over their converts, the former saw in the Indians the only chance of checking the advance of English settlement. Vaudreuil had to proceed with caution, for the English and French Courts were at peace, and after 1717, in alliance; but this did not prevent the French govern- ment from approving Vaudreuil's policy, or from increasing the annual present to the Abnaki, which was earmarked in the Treasury accounts for the Jesuits, to deceive the English. Vaudreuil in fact aided the Indians in every way short of
87
GOVERNOR SHUTE'S POLICY
putting French forces into the field. Ostensibly an Indian war, the war was in reality a conflict of the governments of Massachusetts and Canada for the control of Maine to which the English government was apparently indifferent, and in which the French government dared not openly appear.
Resistance to the English centered in the Kennebec tribe at Norridgewock and its missionary, Sebastien Ralé. The charac- ter and acts of this most famous of the later Jesuit mission- aries have been the subject of much controversy. A man of intense zeal, he represents a type not infrequently found among the clergy in all branches of the Christian Church. Filled with bitter hatred for the English as heretics and enemies of his flock, he was willing to use every means to defeat their progress, and having taken the sword, he perished by the sword. Nothing that has come to light since Parkman wrote warrants a revision of his judgment that Ralé "did not die because he was an apostle of the faith, but because he was the active agent of the Canadian government." Indeed, the evi- dence goes to show that in some cases Ralé was less the agent of Vaudreuil, than Vaudreuil the agent of Ralé.
GOVERNOR SHUTE'S INDIAN POLICY (1717-1722)
Dudley's successor, Shute, was greatly hampered in handling the situation by the hostility of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. That body was determined to use its control of the purse to subordinate the royal representative and to se- cure control of the government. Though honest and con- scientious, Shute was ignorant of the ways of colonial poli- ticians and assemblies, and showed no capacity for countering its moves. Thus when Shute, at a conference with the Indians in August, 1717, to quiet them promised to establish public truckhouses, the House refused to provide them, preferring rather to send a missionary to counteract the French influence. That Ralé was instigating the Indians to resist was already revealed by a letter signed by him which the Indians brought to the conference.
Ever since the conclusion of peace the Indians had been restless and resentful. Soon they began killing cattle along the Kennebec, while the Cape Sable Indians annoyed the fish-
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
ing fleet. Still matters might not have gone to extremes but for Vaudreuil's and Ralé's encouragement to the Indians to resist. The Penobscots were conspicuously pacific in attitude, and even at Norridgewock there was in 1720 a peace party sufficiently strong to compel the delivery of hostages and to promise payment of damages for past depredations. Shute and the Council for their part strove to keep the peace, but the House was bellicose, and desired to send a force to seize Ralé.
Indeed so influential was the peace party among the Indians that in 1721 Ralé was compelled to write to Vaudreuil for assistance. Through the influence of the Jesuits, Vaudreuil prevailed upon the Canadian and other branches of the Abnaki to back up the Norridgewocks; and in July, 1721, a party of 250 Indians, representing the different tribes, accompanied by Ralé and a French officer, and carrying a French flag, ap- peared at Arrowsick. When they delivered an ultimatum de- manding the withdrawal of the settlers beyond a certain line, the General Court countered by prohibiting trade with the Indians, and by sending men to seize the younger St. Castin and Ralé. St. Castin made a successful defence, and was later released. Ralé escaped, but the English found at Norridge- wock documents which proved beyond a doubt that he had the active assistance of Vaudreuil in stimulating the Indian resist- ance.
War began in earnest in the summer of 1722. It differed in no respect in character from those which preceded it. Some of the frontier settlements were broken up; all felt the pres- ence of scalping parties. Some of the Indians, notably the Penobscots and those of Cape Sable, took to the water in captured vessels and greatly annoyed the Massachusetts fishery. The methods of attack were familiar, and for de- fence plenty of colonials were experienced in frontier fight- ing. The Indians, without the active assistance of the French and weakened by their losses in the late war, were less success- ful.
An unfortunate quarrel between Shute and the General Court prevented the war from coming to a speedy conclusion. The representatives of the Massachusetts people were deter- mined to control the management of the war even at the risk of jeopardizing its success. Distrusting Colonel Walton, the
89
DUMMER'S SUCCESS
commander of the forces to the eastward, the General Court demanded his dismissal. Shute, as commander-in-chief, re- fused to comply. The House promptly voted to withhold Walton's pay, and upon investigation of the management of the forces found just ground for criticism in the discovery of petty graft and irregularities. Worn out by the struggle, Governor Shute sailed for England, leaving the lieutenant- governor, William Dummer, a Massachusetts man, to carry on the war. Dummer proved conciliatory ; the General Court was alarmed lest a stiff attitude should lead to the revocation of the charter. Hence the House moderated its tone; Walton was removed, and thereafter the war was prosecuted with vigor.
DUMMER'S SUCCESS IN THE WAR (1723-1725)
During this war the western frontier suffered fully as much as the eastern. Parties of Canadian Indians, whom Vaudreuil had persuaded to join in the offensive, came down the Connecti- cut and hung about the settlements. To cover the western frontier a new fort was built above Northfield, named Fort Dummer. Colonel John Stoddard, to whom fell the defence of the western frontier, urged an attack upon the Abnaki villages in Canada; but this involved an invasion of French territory, and his suggestion was disregarded.
In place of an armed force, the Provinces of New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the early months of 1725 despatched a commission to Canada to remonstrate with Vaudreuil at his assistance to the Indians, and to secure the release of the prisoners. Vaudreuil was embarrassed and impressed the com- missioners as being less favorable to war than were the Jesuits. Nevertheless, he would give them no satisfaction, and privately used his influence with the Indians against peace, inciting them to make impossible demands of the English.
During this war the Massachusetts government made per- sistent efforts to secure the aid of the Iroquois, and in this again they received the assistance of Colonel John Schuyler. Governor Burnet of New York was also favorable to them, but the Albany traders who controlled the Indian Commission blocked all their efforts, though a few Mohawks took service at Fort Dummer. As in the preceding war the Indian Com-
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EXTERNAL RELATIONS
missioners gave warning of impending attacks upon the fron- tier, and their efforts availed to keep the Christian Mohawks of Canada from taking an active part in the war. The atti- tude of Albany was not neighborly, but the Albanians could scarcely be expected to sacrifice their interests for those of a neighboring province.
Nevertheless, Massachusetts by its own efforts soon brought the Indians to terms. In the summer of 1724 the Norridge- wock tribe was totally dispersed by a surprise attack in which Ralé was killed. Despite the fact that several New England ministers had been killed during the wars by French and Indian parties, the French protested loudly at his death and sought to make him a martyr. The best available evidence shows that he was killed contrary to orders in the heat of the attack, while offering armed resistance. His death was a blow from which the Indians never recovered. The Norridge- wock expedition was the most successful action of the kind accomplished by the English since the famous Narragansett Swamp Fight in King Philip's War.
In this war considerable success was gained by parties of volunteers who were encouraged to go on long scouts by the offer of a large bounty for scalps. This policy was so produc- tive that the General Court found it necessary to order the Treasurer of the Province to bury the scalps in his possession so as to prevent their being presented a second time for pay- ment. The most famous and successful of these volunteer leaders was Captain Lovewell of Dunstable, the story of whose fight with the Pigwacket tribe of the upper Saco is a classic of the New England border wars. Although on this final scout Lovewell and many of his company lost their lives, their operations effectually discouraged the Pigwacket band and disposed them to peace.
RESULTS OF THE WAR (1725-1727)
Peace negotiations were begun by the Penobscots in the summer of 1725. They had always been less zealous for war than the Norridgewock and Canadian Abnaki, perhaps because their chiefs, the two sons of St. Castin, found war less profit- able than trade. At the close of 1725 a delegation of Penob-
91
RESULTS OF THE WAR
scot chiefs signed a solemn peace in the name of all the Abnaki tribes, in the Council Chamber at Boston. Although the final settlement with representatives of all the tribes was not made until the summer of 1727, the war was virtually over. The General Court began to plan for the systematic settlement of the frontier. Having at last learned its lesson, the colony proceeded to establish truckhouses and to put the Indian trade again under public management.
Although the Abnaki remained under French influence and in later wars gave the province some trouble, their power was effectually broken. At a terrible cost the province had made good its title to the lands of Maine; and in the period of peace which followed, the development of that part of the province proceeded with unexampled rapidity.
With the power of their Indian allies broken, the French lost much of their ability to harm New England. The work to which the men of Massachusetts had set their hands in 1690 remained still to be accomplished; but great as were the efforts of the Province of Massachusetts in the final conflict, the severest losses fell upon the middle and southern colonies, which in the early wars had suffered little; and much of the cost was borne by an English government which had been awakened by William Pitt to a sense of its responsibilities and its opportunities. By 1740 the adolescence of the colony was ending, the period of full maturity was at hand.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANDROS TRACTS .- (3 vols., Boston, Prince Society, 1868-1874)-Valuable for the origin of the Indian war of 1688 and for the policy of Andros. BAXTER, JAMES PHINNEY .- The Pioneers of New France in New England (Albany, Munsell's, 1894)-A valuable account of Governor Dummer's War, with an appendix containing most of the pertinent documents. BELKNAP, JEREMY .- The History of New Hampshire (3 vols., printed for the author, Boston, 1792)-Valuable for the Indian wars, especially as they affected New Hampshire.
BOWEN, FRANCIS .- "Life of Sir William Phips" (JARED SPARKS, editor, The Library of American Biography, 10 vols., Boston, Hilliard, Gray, 1837)-See Vol. VII, pp. 1-102.
CANADA : ARCHIVES .- Report for 1912 (Ottawa, 1913)-"Appendix E" contains documents on the Port Royal expedition of 1890.
CHARLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANÇOIS-XAVIER DE .- History and General Descrip- tion of New France (6 vols., N. Y., Shea, 1866-1872)-Written in French and published in Paris in 1744. Translated with notes by J. G. Shea. Generally considered the leading French authority, but not always to be trusted.
CHURCH, BENJAMIN .- The History of the Eastern Expeditions of 1689, 1690, 1692, 1696, and 1704 against the Indians and French (Boston, Wiggin & Lunt, 1867)-Introduction and notes by Henry Martyn Dexter.
COLDEN, CADWALLADER .- The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada (2 vols., N. Y., Barnes, 1904)-The best history of the Five Nations and their relations with the French and English.
Collection de Documents historiques relatifs à la Nouvelle-France (4 vols., Quebec, 1883-1885)-The best collection of documents relating to the French régime in Acadia.
Documentary History of the State of Maine (24 Vols., Maine Historical Society, Collections, Second Series, Vols. I-XXIV, Portland, 1869- 1916)-Vols. V, VI, IX, and X contain many, valuable documents relating to the wars.
DOYLE, JOHN ANDREWS .- The English Colonies in America (5 Vols., N. Y., Holt, 1882-1907)-By the leading English historian of the American colonies.
DRAKE, SAMUEL ADAMS .- The Border Wars of New England, commonly called King William's and Queen Anne's Wars (N. Y., Scribner's, 1897)-The best general narrative of these two wars; somewhat un- critical.
DUMMER, JEREMIAH .- A Letter to a Noble Lord Concerning the Late Expedition to Canada (London, A. Baldwin, 1712)-A defence of the New England colonies against the attempt to saddle them with the blame for the failure of the expedition of 1711.
GREAT BRITAIN : PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE .- Calendar of State Papers, Colo- nial Series (27 vols., London, 1860-1926)-This invaluable publication has now reached the year 1714 and thus covers the period of the first two French and Indian wars.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
HINCKLEY, THOMAS .- "The Hinckley Papers" (Mass. Historical Society, Collections, Fourth Series, Vol. V, pp. 1-308, Boston, 1861)-Letters and papers dated 1676-1699.
HUTCHINSON, THOMAS .- History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1628 until 1774 (2 vols., London, John Murray, 1828)-Ex- tremely valuable, especially for Governor Dummer's War. Originally issued in three separate parts, in 1764, 1767, and 1828 respectively.
HUTCHINSON, THOMAS, compiler .- A collection of Original Papers Rela- tive to the History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston, Thomas and John Fleet, 1769; reprinted by the Prince Society, 2 vols., Albany, 1865).
HUTCHINSON, THOMAS, compiler .- "Hutchinson Papers" (Mass. Historical Society, Collections, Second Series, Vol. X, pp. 182-188; Third Series, Vol. I, pp. 1-152, Boston, 1823-1846)-Documents accumulated by Governor Hutchinson.
KIMBALL, EVERETT .- The Public Life of Joseph Dudley (Harvard Histori- cal Studies, Vol. XV, N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1911).
KINGSFORD, WILLIAM .- The History of Canada (10 Vols., Trübner, Lon- don, 1888-1898)-The standard history of Canada, written largely from the French documents.
LINCOLN, CHARLES HENRY, editor .- Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675- 1699 (N. Y., Scribner's, 1913)-Original Narratives of early Ameri- can history.
MASSACHUSETTS (Commonwealth) .- Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (21 vols., Boston, 1869- 1922)-Vols. I-II contain the Acts of the period of the wars, Vols. II-X contain the Resolves. The editor of Vols. VII and VIII, cover- ing the years 1692-1707, included in the appendices a mass of illustra- tive material from the State archives, which makes them a veritable source book for the period.
MASSACHUSETTS (Province) : GENERAL COURT, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. -Journals 1715-1727 (7 vols., Boston, Mass. Historical Society, 1919- 1926)-Useful for the Indian troubles which culminated in the war of 1722-1727.
MATHER, COTTON .- Magnalia Christi Americana (London, T. Parkhurst, 1702; reprinted in 2 vols., Hartford, S. Andrus & Son, 1853)-Vol. I contains Mather's "Life of Phips." Vol. II contains Mather's "De- cennium Luctuosum," probably the best contemporary account of the Indian wars of 1688-1697; for a reprint of the Decennium in a more convenient form, see LINCOLN, Narratives of the Indian Wars, supra. MYRAND, J. ERNEST .- 1690: Sir William Phips devant Québec (Quebec, L. J. Demers & Frère, 1893)-An exhaustive account of the expedi- tion of 1690, containing many documents.
NILES, SAMUEL .- A Summary Historical Narrative of the Wars in Newe- England with the French and Indians, in the Several Parts of the Country (Mass. Historical Society Collections, Third Series, Vol. VI, pp. 154-279, and Fourth Series, Vol. V, pp. 309-589, Boston, 1837, 1861) MS. in the library of the Association. Often cited as an author- ity, but based for the earlier wars on Mather and Penhallow.
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