USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 19
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Morgen E. Ellis.
CHAPTER III.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
BY COLONEL THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
T `HE readers of Sewall's Diary find it interesting to observe the changed place already occupied by the Indians of Massachusetts at the close of the seventeenth century. The red man, once so formidable, appears as a harmless farm-servant or the coachman of some prosperous citizen, - although the laws soon after discouraged such employment, and called attention to the " malicious, surly, and revengeful spirit " of the Indian, even in this capacity. It furthermore appears in Sewall that even where the natives had become Christianized and half-civilized, the race-prejudice so far survived that it was hard to find a comfortable lodging for an Indian preacher who visited Boston.1 The well-known difference in this respect between the English and French pioneers -the latter showing perfect willingness to share Indian habits, food and lodging, intermarrying with them, and adopting readily their dress and speech - did much to explain the origin of the French and Indian wars. It was not possible that the aborigines should not be easily won to the side of a race so cordial and friendly. When we add to this the peculiar adaptability of the Roman Catholic worship to savage tribes; and when we remember that the French were, from the Indian point of view, the more martial and heroic race, delighting to explore new countries and build new forts, while the English colonists were absorbed in the humbler pursuit of agriculture and com- merce, -we can easily explain the Indian preference. We can under- stand, too, how the French in Canada, with far smaller numbers, were not merely able to hold their own, but seemed likely at one time to drive the English even from the strip of Atlantic coast they occupied.
It is not the object of this chapter to narrate the history of the French and Indian wars, except as they affected the New England colonies, and especially Massachusetts, of which Maine then formed a part. The state of affairs described in Sewall's Diary belonged especially to the town of Boston and its immediate suburbs. After the death of King Philip, in 1676,
1 Sewall Papers, ii. 212, 354, 380, 438.
94
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the tribes nearest to Boston were quelled forever; but further east the contest still went on, until the treaty of Casco, in 1678. The tribe most formidable was that known as the Abenakis, which held almost undisturbed possession of Eastern Maine, Northern New Hampshire, and the neighbor- ing regions of Canada. These Indians had been to some extent Christian- ized by Catholic missionaries ; and many of them, during an interval of eight or ten years of peace, had removed to the vicinity of Quebec and Montreal. " About the year 1685," wrote Edward Randolph, a year or two after that date, "the French of Canada encroached upon the lands of the subjects of the Crown of England, building forts upon the heads of their great rivers, and, extending their bounds, disturbed the inhabitants." This was one of the first notes of warning of that formidable combination which was destined to double the terrors of the Indian foe, and to prepare the way for nearly a century of interrupted and recurring strife. In August, 1688, Sir Edmund Andros, making the tour of his newly consolidated Sorton the 16 January 1689 province, visited the Five Nations at Albany, in order to secure Barth Coney Bong Browner Charles Redford Melon Hatte Oliver their continued friendliness against the French. He had lately heard of the murder, by Indians, of five English- men near Springfield, and of as many more at North- field. On his way home he consulted with some of the native chiefs at Hartford, and with some of the chief men of the colony. Thence he went to Northfield, and there learned that the pro- John Foster John than visional government at Bos- ton had heard alarms from Casco Bay, and had sent an armed force there. This he did not at all approve, and, as a letter of that day said, would not " allow it to be called a war, but murtherous COMMITTEE ON THE EXPEDITION.1 acts, and he will inquire the grounds; is not pleased that any soldiers were levied in his absence to send eastward, and hath released from prison In-
1 [These signatures are appended to a docu- ment from the committee to consider the in-
tended expedition to Nova Scotia, on file at the State House. Mass. Archives, xxxV. 173 .- ED.]
95
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
dians that were sent thence." Nevertheless, to meet the occasion, Governor Andros issued a proclamation calling upon the Indians to surrender all captives and to give up murderers. It effected nothing, and with impetuous wrath the Governor enlisted from seven hundred to a thousand men,1 and marched into the Indian country. He built forts and left garrisons, but, as usual in such enterprises, hardly encountered an Indian.
It was inevitable that all this should lead to suspicion and discontent. It was said that Sir Edmund was secretly in league with the French to surrender the New England settlements to them, in case of revolution in England. It was believed that he had gone to Albany in the French inter- est, and that he had planned to sacrifice the Massachusetts troops. Indian prisoners were reported as saying that the Mohawks had been hired by the Governor to attack the English, and that they had been told that the French were to seize Boston in the spring. When an Indian actually declared, in presence of some Sudbury men, " that the Governor was a rogue, and had hired the Indians to kill the English," they arrested him at once and brought him to the Governor for punishment; but the final result was that the complainants were imprisoned and threatened, while the Indian went free. However groundless may have been these suspicions, they all con- tributed something, no doubt, to the popular indignation which at length overthrew the government of Andros.2
Behind these Indian outbreaks there lay in reality a foe more dangerous than Andros. Denonville, the French Governor of Canada, afterward wrote to the home government that the attacks and successes of the natives about this time were due to his own good understanding with them through the Jesuit priests.3 Champigny, the Intendant, wrote that most of the Indians concerned were from the mission villages near Quebec; and that he him- self had supplied them with gunpowder for the war. Though this early portion of the long contest was popularly called "King William's War," it really began in the summer of 1688, while France and England were still at peace.4 In April, 1689, came the news of the landing of William of
1 [Colonel Church tells how Andros sent for him to accompany the force, but Church de- clined. Captain Nicholas Paige served Andros,
Vinho : Lagos
however, by riding down the south shore on horseback, and inciting the enlistments. - ED.]
2 [See chap. i. of this volume. - ED.]
8 " La bonne intelligence que j'ai eue avec ces sauvages par les soins des Jésuites." - Park- man, Frontenac, p. 222.
4 [Another popular name, more common at the eastward, was "St. Castin's War." There is an account of the French in Maine at this
time in Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 82. The general reader will best pursue the events to follow in Palfrey's New England, iv., and Parkman's Frontenac ; but for the French side there is the contemporary account of Charlevoix's La Nouvelle France, which has been translated and annotated by John G. Shea. The local historians of Maine have gone over the conflict within its borders. Williamson is more elaborate than Sullivan; and there is much in more confined monographs like Fol- som's Saco and Biddeford, Willis's Portland, etc. Cotton Mather tells the story of this war after his fashion in his Decennium Luctu- osum, which was published in Boston, "at the Brick Shop," by Samuel Phillips, in 1699; it included the story "repeated and improved in a sermon at Boston Lecture."- ED.]
96
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Orange; then followed the revolt of the people of Boston, the displace- ment of Andros, and the replacement of Bradstreet their former governor. When the Maine garrisons heard the news, they could not be kept in the Indian country ; some mutinied and returned, others were recalled by the Council. Then the Indian attacks burst forth afresh, and the colonists found that the absence of Andros was even more dangerous than his presence.
At Cocheco, now Dover, New Hampshire, four of the five stockaded houses were entered by Indian squaws, who asked permission to remain over night. So great was the confidence of the people that the squaws were freely admitted, and were even instructed how to fasten and unfasten the doors. They used the knowledge to let their companions in. In one of these houses Major Waldron, the chief man of the settlement, then eighty years old, was roused by the attack, and sprang up for self-defence. Driving back his assailants with his sword through two rooms, he turned to reach his pis- tols, and was stunned by the blow of a hatchet. He was then bound, placed in an arm-chair, with cries of "Who shall judge Indians now?" and while the Indians ate the food which they compelled the rest of the family to pre- pare, each savage struck the old man a blow with his knife, saying, "Thus I cross out my account." He was killed with his own sword at last ; the family were all murdered, the house burned, the little settlement devastated.
Pemaquid, in Maine, was a stockade work, defended by seven or eight cannon ; it had been garrisoned by a hundred and fifty-six men, but less than thirty, perhaps not more than twenty, were left. It was assailed by one hundred Indians ; they were Christians, a part of the flock of Père Thury, a priest of the seminary of Quebec, who was present at the attack. In his narrative of the affair the priest says that he exhorted the Indians to refrain from drunkenness and cruelty; but he seems to have conducted the enter- prise in the very spirit of the mediaval crusades. The Indians got posses- sion of houses behind the fort, and kept up a fire so constant as to force the small garrison to surrender. The few survivors yielded, under a promise that their lives should be spared. The Indians obeyed the counsel of their spiritual superior so far as to break the rum-barrels in the fort, in order to prevent disorder; they abstained from torturing their prisoners, and even from scalping them; and Père Thury in his account seems to think it something to boast of that they killed on the spot those whom they wished to kill. It was a curious instance of that double influence often exerted by the French priests during these wars, - stimulating and practi- cally leading the Indians, but also doing what they could to mitigate their savage ways of fighting. The capture of Pemaquid is remarkable as one of the few instances where the American Indians have taken a fortified place by direct and continuous attack; and Père Thury afterward became celebrated as an energetic military leader of his converts.1
1 [For the attack on Pemaquid see Hutchin- torical Collections, v .; Thornton, Ancient Pema- son, Massachusetts Bay, i .; Mather, Magnalia, ii .; quid ; Johnston, Bristol, Bremen, and Pema- Andros Tracts, iii. ; and 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i .; quid ; besides Parkman and the general works. Hough's "Pemaquid Papers" in Maine His- - ED.]
.
97
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
These were the first in a long series of alarms which filled the New Eng- land colonies with terror. Behind all the Indian forays was a trained soldier of fifty years' experience, - Frontenac; and the colonists, now that the first generation of fighters had passed away, had no military leader to be compared with /12. odobrer1694 6 frontenac him. Courage seems not to have been wanting to the English, but the skill and leadership were on the other side. The French had from the beginning the power of absolutely identifying themselves with their In- dian allies; when on the war-path they were sometimes dressed and painted like them. Fort Loyal, a work defended by eight cannon, and situated near what is now the foot of India Street, in Portland, Maine, found itself besieged in due form, with trenches, by skilled soldiers. Davis, the commandant, amazed at last with the foe opposed to him, asked for a parley, and de- manded "if there were any Frenchmen among them." They answered that they were Frenchmen, and promised quarter to the English, who surrendered. At once the captives were turned over to the Indian allies, who slew and carried off whom they would. When the commandant pro- tested against this, he was told that he and his countrymen had rebelled against their lawful king, James II., and deserved no mercy. He was carried away to Quebec, where Frontenac treated him kindly, and disavowed the treachery of Pontneuf, the French commander.1
In estimating the courage shown by the English colonists, we must re- member how peculiarly terrific, both to the imagination and in real contest, was this combination which they had to encounter. The military skill and resources of European veterans were brought against them, combined with the stealthiness, the swiftness, and the cruelty of a race of savages. In the early wars, however dangerous, the Englishmen had possessed the advan- tage ; they had the weapons, the gunpowder, the coats of mail, the discipline. Now, all this advantage was in a manner turned against them. In fighting the French troops, they were like brave peasants against a regular army, ex- cept that no regular army has such savage allies. It shows the English nature that, despite all this, the only effect of every call for help from the frontier settlements was to bring out more stubborn determination. Not yet fully appreciating the advantage enjoyed by the enemy, the colonists even believed it possible to undertake offensive measures. They sent delegates to a congress held at New York in May, 1690; and this body agreed upon the bold project of attacking Montreal by land, in which enterprise New
1 [Parkman, Frontenac, p. 231, says : "Com- pare Monseignat and La Potherie with Mather's Magnalia, and the declaration of Davis in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i .; " and adds references to gives references in his Charlevoix, iv. 133 .- ED.] VOL. II. - 13.
Leclercq, Établissement de la Foi ; Bradstreet's letter in Doc. Hist. of New York, ii. 259. Willis, History of Portland, gives a map of the fort. Shea
-
98
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
York was to take the lead,1 while to the New England colonies was assigned the formidable exploit of capturing Quebec by sea.
This attempt would hardly have been made, but that an earlier expedi- tion against Port Royal had succeeded.2 A fort garrisoned by seventy men had been captured by a force of four or five hundred militia-men, sent in seven transports, and commanded by a rough sailor, Sir William Phips.3 It was rashly assumed that he who had taken Port Royal could take Que- bec, and the same commander was assigned to the new expedition. He was a man of blunt energy and a good deal of patriotism; and he had won a fortune and the honor of knighthood by fishing up the treasure sunk in a Spanish galleon. Such was the commander proposed; and, being such, he held the public confidence. But the treasury was empty; the home gov- ernment refused all help; and the colony had not recovered from the exhaustion of Philip's War, or from the excitements which had deposed Andros. Private subscription did something; the credit of the colony, such as it was, did more: thirty-two ships were impressed for the enterprise, and
1 [The command of this abortive expedition fell to General Fitz-John Winthrop (son of the second John Winthrop), who died in Boston, Nov. 27, 1707. Parkman, Frontenac, p. 257, and Shea, Charlevoix, iv. 145, give the authorities. - ED.]
2 [It will be remembered that England claimed the present territory of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and when, some months later, the Provincial Charter of Massachusetts was drafted, it was made to cover these regions. - ED.]
a merchant and not to be trusted ; so it is offered to Sir William Phips, and the ministers are said with great difficulty to obtain his lady's consent to it. . . . 3ª April, Gen. Phips's men mustered at the Town-house. Greenough, Hall, Bernard, Coleman, Willey, Skates, made commanders by the general. Coleman next day hooted at by his company, induced thereto by young Winslow, whom they chose their Captain. The General and Council dissolve it and turn out Winslow. . . . Apr. 20, Sir William Phips's ship weighed from Boston and came to an anchor at Long Isl- and head."-Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1878, p. 107.
8 [Parkman, Frontenac, pp. 237-39, gives a list of contemporary authorities ; and references are given in Shea's Charle- voix, iv. 155. See also Bowen, Life of Sir Wil- liam Phips ; Murdoch, Nova Scotia, ch. xxii., and the general authorities already named. The life of Phips in Mather's Magnalia is highly eulo- gistic, but hardly trust- worthy. Another Bos- ton man, Colonel Penn Townsend, had been ap- pointed in March commander-in-chief of this expedition ; but Phips " offering to go in person," Townsend "relinquishes with thanks." (Sewall
9º april 16 90. Uprian Jouthack Cast.
Jenn Townsend
Papers, i. 316.) Dr. Bullivant says in his Journal that Nelson, who had played an important part in the overturning of Andros, had been applied to " for generalissimo, as the fittest person for such an enterprise ; but the country deputies said he was
Captain Cyprian Southack, the Boston pilot, commanded one of the fleet. The "Boneta," a private armed ship, was at this time commanded by Captain Samuel Adams. Sewall also re- cords how Captain Fayerweather was at this
Bando Stramp
time "making batteries at the Castle, and put- ting the place into a yet more defensible pos- ture."- ED.]
·
99
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
were filled with men, partly volunteers, partly drafted.1 In August, the fleet sailed from Nantasket. "Including sailors, it carried twenty-two hun- dred men, with provisions for four months, but insufficient ammunition, and no pilot for the St. Lawrence."
The late Civil War saw many foolhardy enterprises undertaken by brave men, with inadequate preparations and under inexperienced commanders ; but it would be hard to name one which showed less recognition of the diffi- culties of real warfare than this expedition against Quebec. The city was a natural fortress ; it was protected by a series of defensive works, built by Prévost, a trained engineer, under the eye of Frontenac himself. Phips had been told that Quebec was imperfectly fortified, and had not two hundred men to defend it; but he found it seemingly impregnable, defended by a force superior to his own, and consisting of about twenty-seven hundred men.
It is needless to dwell on the delays and disasters of this futile enterprise. When at last before the fortifications of Quebec, Phips ordered a furious bombardment from the ships; but his guns were poor, his powder scanty, his gunners inexperienced. Many of his balls struck the face of the cliff, many failed to pierce the stone buildings ; and the French boasted afterwards that twenty crowns would have repaired all the damage. Experienced gun- ners were opposed to him, almost sinking his few large vessels, and shooting away his very flag, which was captured by the Canadians. He retreated in disorder, followed by the men who were engaged in the land attack. No one charged them with want of courage, and the Baron La Hontan, who was in Quebec at the time, said of them : " They fought vigorously, though as ill-disciplined as men gathered together at random could be; for they did not lack courage; and if they failed, it was by reason of their entire ignorance of discipline, and because they were exhausted by the fatigues of the voyage." 2
1 [There are in the Hinckley Papers, iii., in the Prince Library, various letters from Brad- street, Walley, and others, giving notes of the preparation for this expedition. - ED].
2 Parkman, Frontenac, p. 277, and his article in the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1876. [John Walley, the second in command, had been a
John Gallery 0000€
Barnstable man, but died Jan. 11, 1712, in Bos- ton, where he had held various military offices, and had commanded the Boston Regiment, and the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. His account of the expedition is printed in Hutchinson's Massachusetts Bay, i. 554. Ephraim Savage, who was second in command of the militia on the expedition, was a son of Thomas Savage (who fought in Philip's War). He had graduated at Harvard in 1662, and continued to
be a prominent citizen, dying February, 1730-31. His Account of the late Action of the New Eng-
Ephraim Savage
landers was published the next year in London. A brief contemporary account was published in Boston in that solitary specimen of a bulletin called Publick Occurrences, which is described in Mr. Goddard's chapter of the present volume, and is reprinted in the Historical Magazine, August, 1857. It is dated Boston, Sept. 25, 1690. The chief English writers are mentioned in ear- lier notes. The French contemporary narratives are fuller, and references to them are given in Parkman, Frontenac, ch. xii. and xiii .; Shea, Charlevoix, iv. 169; Harrisse, Sur la Nouvelle France, Nos. 166-168, who (No. 244) cites a MS. map of the siege. In the English edition of La Hontan there is a plan of the attack. The Cata- logue of the Library of Parliament (Canada), 1858, p. 1617, shows various plans of Quebec from 1690 to 1710. Further French accounts will be
100
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The failure of this expedition seemed for a time utterly disastrous to the Massachusetts Colony. The land expedition to Montreal under Winthrop, of Connecticut, had fared little better; but the share of Massachusetts in John Richard's: Erny: Bromfiets John Foster Peter Sergeant that enterprise had been trifling, her troops having been early recalled for home defence; nor did it involve pecuniary losses so vast. An additional debt of fifty thousand pounds had been incurred by the impoverished province; and, to pay the sol- diers and sailors, a paper cur- rency was for the first time issued. It soon fell to the value of from fourteen to sixteen shillings in the pound; but, such as it was, it And: Belehor Edro: Gouge Sim: Stoddard carried the people through this trying period. Worse than the financial loss was the feeling of dismay at what was called " this awful frown of God." Added to it was the increased fear of Indian hostilities; a danger which lulled for a time,1 but -90). Nath. Williams Pro Pratito. James Barnes Robert Gilles broke out afresh with the attack on Pentucket, or Haverhill, in 1697, - the attack famous for the oft-told adventures of Han- nah Dustin. During this year the peace of Ryswick (Sept. 20, 1697) brought at least a truce to the contests, providing as it . did that the territorial bound- aries of France and England in America should remain un- BOSTON CAPITALISTS, 1690.2 changed.
found in N. Y. Col. Documents, ix. ; La Potherie's Histoire de l' Amérique ; Leclercq, Établissement de la Foi ; Juchereau, L' Hôtel Dieu, etc. Syl- vanus Davis was meanwhile a prisoner in Quebec, and his diary is printed in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 101. Colonel Church was during this
filvances Dábis 000
his Entertaining Passages, etc., particularly Dr. Dexter's edition ; Drake's edition of Baylies' Old Colony ; Church's letter in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., v. 271, and the general historians. - ED.]
1 [A Boston man - Captain John Alden - had made a truce, Nov. 19, 1690, at Sagadahoc, with the Indians. Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, i. 404 .- ED.]
2 [These signatures are from a petition of the Boston merchants, 1692, who had ad- vanced money to carry on the war, asking to be reimbursed. The original is in Massachusetts
time attempting a diversion in Phips's favor, among the French and Indians in Maine. See Archives, "Pecuniary," i. 416. - ED.]
.
IOI
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
But in 1702 hostilities broke out anew, when England declared (May 4) against France and Spain a war which involved the colonies. It was known in Europe as the "War of the Spanish Succession," but in America as " Queen Anne's War." 1
1 [Precautions had already been taken in Boston by building a new fortress on Castle Island. The old works were destroyed in 1701, and Colonel William Wolfgang Römer, an en-
Most humble Servent Gl' SRomer!
gineer of ability, was put in charge of the re- construction. He had been on the American station for some years. One of Southack's maps, showing George's River, west of Penob- scot Bay, has this legend at that point : " Col. Römer, engineer, took possession of this river for the king in the year 1690." There are indications that there was some jealousy regarding Römer in Boston. Sewall, under date of Dec. 27, 1698, says : "Col. Römer is treated at the Castle. Capt. Fairwether asked me not to go ; so I went to Roxbury lecture." Fayer- weather was the captain of the Castle, and Sewall again throws light : " 1701, Aug. 11. Go down to the Castle to try to compose differences between the Cap- tain and Col. Römer. I told the young men that if any intemperate language
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