USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111
friendly relations with them during the period of their supremacy in Canada. They espoused the cause of the Adirondacks against the Iroquois, with whom they were at sword's-points during much of that period, and long after the Adirondacks had been exterminated by their inveterate enemies. Champlain, having raised the drooping spirits of the Adirondacks, by an exhibition of the wonderful effect produced by the French guns, armed them and joined them in an expedition against the Iro- quois in 1609, and thus commenced that horrible series of barbarities, which continued for more than a century and a half, and from which the European colonists both in Canada and New York, suffered beyond description.
Champlain and his Indian allies met a party of two hundred Mohawks on the lake which bears his name, (and then first discovered by him.) Both parties landed ; but the Mohawks, dismayed at the murderous effect of the strange weapons, retreated to their fastnesses in the wilderness, leaving the French to return to Canada, without, however, having accomplished the object of their mission, which was to force the Iroquois to easy terms of peace.
This was the first meeting of the Iroquois with the whites, and the circumstances certainly were not such as to give a very favorable opinion of them, nor soften the savage nature so largely predominant in them .*
Emboldened by this success, Champlain, with a few Frenchmen, and four hundred Huron allies, renewed the attack on the Iroquois in 1615, this time directing his efforts against the stronghold of the Onondagas. He arrived before the fort on the afternoon of the roth of October. At the first fire the Indians fled into their fort, which inclosed their village, and which Champlain describes as consist- ing of " quadruple palisades of large timber, thirty feet high, interlocked the one with the other, with an interval of not more than one foot, with galleries in the form of parapets, defended with double pieces of timber, proof against our arque- buses, and on one side they had a pond with a never-failing supply of water, from which proceeded a number of gutters which they had laid along the intermediate space, throwing the water without. and rendering it effectual inside for the purpose of extinguishing fire." The next day Champlain con-
* It is a most singular coincidence that while Champlain was acquaint- ing the Iroquois with that deadly enemy gunpowder, the very same week and year Henry Hudson was cautiously feeling his way, as he supposed, into the Northern ocean, through the channel of the river which bears his name, and regailing them with an equally deadly enemy-rum. Lifeand Times of Red Facket, 291.
38
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
structed a movable tower of sufficient height to overlook the palisades, and moved it near the fort, placing thereon marksmen to fire over the palisades, while they themselves were protected from the stones and arrows of the enemy by boards forming a species of parapet. Attempts were made to burn the palisades, but as his forces consisted mostly of undisciplined Hurons who could not be controlled, they suffered severely from the arrows shot from the fort, without accomplishing their object. After a three hours' engagement, during which Cham- plain was twice severely wounded with arrows, like- wise many of his allies, who were sadly demoralized by the efficient resistance made by the enemy, they withdrew to a fort erected for defensive purposes, to await an expected re-enforcement of five hun dred Indians, who, however, did not come. They remained encamped until the 16th, during which time several skirmishes occurred ; but being unable to induce his allies to renew the attack which their rash impetuosity had made so ineffectual, Cham- plain, in pain and mortification, retreated to Canada, being carried upon the back of an Indian.
'The precise location of this fort has long been in controversy .* Champlain's narrative of this ex- pedition is accompanied by a diagram of the fort, which is in the form of a hexagon, situated on a slight elevation, in the angle of a stream, which is at once the inlet and outlet of a pond, which, with the stream, bounded three sides of the fort. The stream flowed into and out of the pond at points but a few rods apart. The situation is a peculiar one, and it is scarcely probable that another one could be found which so exactly corresponds with Champlain's description, as the site designated by Gen, Clark, who locates it in the town of Fenner, in Madison County. While writers differ as to the exact location of the fort, nearly all agree that Cham- plain's last encampment before he attacked the fort was at or near the month of Chittenango Creek, for none other of the interior lakes in the State meet the requirements of his description as to the
presence of islands. Of the western lakes, Cayuga is the only one thus graced, and that has but a soli- tary one. Oneida is the only lake upon which he could have encamped that has islands.
The locality indicated by General Clark as the probable site of the fort has long been regarded an important one in connection with the Indian anti- quities of the State, and has yielded many rare and interesting relics which are now in the Government collections in the Smithsonian Institute. A large part of the area which bears evidence of having been inclosed within the well-defined outlines of the fortification, has been cultivated for years, but a part is covered by venerable forest trees of great size. The plow has disclosed many bits of crockery and broken stone implements, which have enriched many private cabinets ; but, singularly, none of those articles so clearly referable to the Jesuit missions, and generally found in great abundance elsewhere, reward the searcher for anti- quarian relics here. This fact is a strong confirm- ation of Gen. Clark's deductions, as it clearly proves the existence of the fortifications anterior to the advent of the Jesuits .* In the undisturbed ground may be plainly seen marks left by the de- cay of the deeply-set palisades, and indentations, apparently, where corn was cached. From the high points adjacent, the eye commands a wide range of country of unusual beauty, and an alarm-fire on these commanding heights would be seen from near Lake Ontario to the western peaks of the Adirondacks. A small pond, whose ancient water- mark was much higher than at present, is fed by a stream which enters and leaves it on the south, and a low, broad knoll lies between these streams.
The coincidences are striking ones; but the ele- ments of correspondence are so peculiar as to make it scarcely possible that they are merely coin- cidences.t
These unprovoked attacks of Champlain on the Iroquois provoked hostilities which ended only with the extirpation of the French domination in North America. Great must have been the chagrin of the proud and boastful French General to be com- pelled to retreat thus ignominiously before a "sav- age" hoide, whom he confidently expected to over- -
* E. B. O'Callaghan, M. D., the able editor of The Documentary His- tory and Colonial History of the State of New York, assigns to it the neighborhood of Canandaigua Lake : while others locate it on the shore of Onondaga Lake. Gen. John S. Clark, of Auburn, a most excellent authority on Indian antiquity, made a recent and most critical examina- tion of a locality which discloses physical and other features so precisely corresponding with Champlain's description, as to make irresistible the conclusion that the site is on the farm of Rufus H. Nichols, about three miles east of Perryville, near the Mile Strip four corners, which was, at that time the home of the Onondagas. Gen. Clark says: " That the cast branch of the Limestone is the dividing line absolutely between the historic and pre-historic town sites of the Onondagas , and that Cham plain's narrative contains internal evidence, in statements of fact, unques- tionably, that the fort was within a few miles at least, and south of Oneida Lake."
* The first Jesuit mission in Canada was established in 1625. These learned, devont and faithful disciples of Loyola, the hero of Pampeluna, adopted as their own the rugged task of christianizing New France, sup- planting the Franciscans, ( Peres Recollects, ) who were commissioned by royal decree, in 1615, missionaries in Canada, and who celebrated Mass in Quebec that year.
1 We have been aided in these investigations by a contribution from the. pen of Mr. L. W. Ledyard, of Cazenovia, to the Cazenovia Republican of March 20, 1879.
39
FRENCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRY.
awe into submission. But he was destined to still greater humiliation.
The Iroquois, alarmed but not dismayed, now artfully sued for peace. The French gladly listened to these overtures from an enemy from whom, in their weak state, they had so much to apprehend, and consented to a truce, imposing as the only condition that they might be allowed to send mis- sionaries among them, hoping by this means to win them over to French allegiance. But the Iro- quois held the Jesuit priests thus sent to them as hostages, to compel the neutrality of the French, while they prepared to wage a deadly war against the Adirondacks * and Hurons, (Quatoghies, t) the latter of whom they defeated in a dreadful battle fought within two leagues of Quebec. This defeat, within sight of the French settlements, and the terrible loss inflicted on the Hurons, filled with terror the Indian allies of the French, who were then numerous, having been attracted to the local- ity of Quebec by reason of the profitable trade car- ried on with the French, who supplied them with many useful conveniences. Many of them fled, some to the northward, others to the south-west, beyond the reach, as they hoped and supposed, of their terrible enemies, but only to enjoy a tempo- rary respite, for they were sought out by the vin- dictive Iroquois and murdered in detail.
The Adirondacks, however, remained, and on them the Iroquois planned another raid. They had been supplied with fire-arms by the Dutch traders of Albany, and in 1646 they sent word to the Governor of Canada. (whom the Iroquois called Onontio,) that they intended to pay him a friendly visit during the winter. They set out with a thousand warriors and reached the village of the Adirondacks at a time when the warriors of that nation were engaged in their annual hunt. They captured the women and children and a party of ten set out in search of the absent warriors. They fell in with Piskaret, a renowned Adirondack chief, who was returning alone. They knew his prowess from previous encounters with him and feared to openly attack him. They therefore approached him in the attitude of friends, Piskaret being igno- rant of the rupture of the treaty of peace con- cluded in 1645. After learning from him that the Adirondack warriors were divided into two bodies, and their whereabouts, one of the party treacherously ran him through with a sword, and returned with his head to their army. They then
"This is the French name for the Algonquins, Col. Hist. V., 791. In Iroquois the name signifies "tree eaters," Col, Hist. IV., Soy). + Also called Wyandots.
divided their own forces, surprised and fell upon the unsuspecting Adirondacks, whom they almost exterminated. Thus a once powerful people, whom Colden regarded as "the most warlike and polite" of all the Indian nations of North America, were almost wiped out of existence by an enemy they had once despised.
CHAPTER IV.
FRENCH AND ENGLISH RIVALRY-EXPEDITION OF M. DE COURCELLES AGAINST THE MOHAWKS-M. DE TRACY'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE MOHAWKS -- PEACE OF BREDA-FRENCH AND IROQUOIS AGAIN AT WAR IN 1669-PEACE OF 1673-M. DE LA BARRE'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SENECAS- M. DE DENONVILLE'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SENECAS-FRENCH AND ENGLISH WAR OF 1689- ATTACK ON MONTREAL AND QUEBEC-FRONTE- NAC INVADES THE ONONDAGA COUNTRY-TREATY OF RYSWICK-TREATY OF UTRECHT-TUSCARO- RAS ADMITTED TO IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY- FRENCH AND ENGLISH WAR OF 1744-1748- TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE -- WAR RENEWED IN 1755-TREATY OF PARIS-PONTIAC'S CON- SPIRACY-WAR OF THE REVOLUTION -- PRESENT STATUS OF IROQUOIS.
I`HE peaceful relations which existed between the Dutch colonists and the Iroquois were perpetu- ated by the English on their accession to the Dutch possessions in 1664, by a treaty held at Fort Al- bany, Sept. 24, 1664 ; and, with immaterial excep- tions, the Iroquois remained the firm allies or friends of the English till the domination of the latter was broken by the triumph of the colonists in the war of the Revolution. But from the time the English supplanted the Dutch, the jealousy and strife which characterized the English and French intercourse in Europe were extended to this portion of the Western Continent. A sharp rivalry was main- tained in the acquisition of territory, and in the effort to gain an acknowledged supremacy over the Iroquois, of whose country M. de Lauson, the Gov- ernor of New France, took formal possession in 1656, and Thomas Dongan, then Governor of New York, in 1684, by placing the arms of the Duke of York in each of the castles of the Five Nations, with their consent .* The French displayed the most enterprise in the extension of her dominions ; * Col. Hist., III., 363 ; I., 75, 76.
40
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
while the English were most successful in gaining the allegiance of the Iroquois, though their dilatory movements in wars with the French often provoked sharp criticisms from their savage and impetuous allies .* The French sent out parties in various di- rections, to the west, north-west and south-west, to explore new sections of country and take possession, which they did by erecting the king's arms and drawing up proces-verbeaux to serve as titles. They thus gained a useful knowledge of the country and its savage occupants, and enlarged the scope of their fur trade, which, together with the zeal of pro- pagandism, were the vital forces operating in the colonization of New France.
But the prosperity of the French colony was not commensurate with the zeal of the Jesuits or the enterprise of the fur traders, as compared with that of the English colonies. The reason is quite ob- vious. Those who composed the English colonies came with the intention of making this their home, and though immigration had virtually ceased, the natural increase had been great. The strong de- sire to escape persecution had given an impulse to Puritan colonization ; while, on the other hand, none but good Catholics, the favored class of France, were tolerated in Canada. These had no motive for exchanging the comforts of home and the smiles of fortune for a starving wilderness and the scalping-knives of the Iroquois. The Hugue- nots would have emigrated in swarms ; but they were rigidly forbidden. Of the feeble population of the French colony, the best part were bound to perpetual chastity ; while the fur-traders, and those in their service, rarely brought their wives to the wilderness. The fur-trader, moreover, is always the worst of the colonists ; since the increase of population, by diminishing the number of the fur- bearing animals, is adverse to his interest. But be- hind all this, there was in the religious ideal of the rival colonies an influence which alone would have gone far to produce the contrast in material growth.t The Puritan looked for a substantial re- ward in this life ; while the Jesuits, lightly esteem- ing life themselves, and looking wholly for reward in a future life, endeavored to inculcate the same idea in those with whom they came in contact. The interests of the French king were of far less moment to them than those of their Heavenly King. Nor was the French king ignorant or un- mindful of this baneful tendency. His instructions to Count de Frontenac when the latter was ap-
. New York Colonial History.
1 Parkman's Jesuits.
pointed Governor and Lieutenant-General of Can- ada, not only evince this fact, but that he had a keen perception of the great disparity in their estimate of the Jesuits between Frontenac and his predeces- sor M. de Denonville.
While the Iroquois were engaged in exterminat- ing their kindred nations they kept up a desultory warfare with the French, broken by brief intervals of peace, when their interests or necessities de- manded a cessation of hostilities.
In 1650, they had brought the French colonists to such extremity, that the latter endeavored to gain the powerful support of New England. Massa- chusetts had expressed a desire for the establish- ment of a reciprocal trade between her own and the French colonists, and it was thought this con- cession might be made the condition of securing her military aid in subduing the Mohawks. It was urged that as the Abenaquis, an Algonquin people, living on the Kennebec, in the present State of Maine, were under the jurisdiction of the Plymouth colony, and had suffered from Mohawk inroads, it became the duty of that colony to protect them. Gabriel Druilletes, a Jesuit missionary, was deputed to make these representations to the Massachusetts Government, and proceeded to Boston for that pur- pose. Druillettes met with a cordial reception, but received no encouragement with regard to the ob- ject of his mission, as it was scarcely to be expected that the Puritans would see it for their interest to provoke a dangerous enemy in a people who had never molested them.
The French Government now resolved to put an end to the ruinous incursions of the Iroquois. In June, 1665, M. de Tracy was appointed Viceroy of the French possessions in America, and brought with him to Quebec four regiments of infantry. March 23, 1665, Daniel de Runy, Knight, Lord de Courcelles, was appointed Governor of Canada, and in September of that year arrived with the regi- ment of Carignau Salieres, composed of a thousand men, " with all the arms and ammunition necessary to wage war against the Iroquois, and oblige them to sue for peace," together with several families, and everything necessary for the establishment of a colony, January 9, 1666, M. de Courcelles, with 500 men, set out on a most hazardous expedition to the country of the Mohawks. The journey was undertaken on snow-shoes. After a perilous march of thirty-five days, during which many of his men were frozen, he arrived within twenty leagues of their villages, when he learned from prisoners taken that the greater part of the Mohawks and Oneidas
41
M. DE TRACY'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE MOHAWKS.
had gone to a distance to make war with the " Wam- pum Makers." Deeming it "useless to push further forward an expedition which had all the effect in- tended by the terror it spread among all the tribes," he retraced his steps, having " killed several sav- ages who from time to time made their appearance along the skirts of the forest for the purpose of skirmishing," and lost a few of his own men, who were killed by the enemy .*
This expedition, so bootless in material results, had the effect to induce the Iroquois to sue for peace. May 22, 1666, the Senecas sent ambassa- dors to Quebec, who represented " that they had always been under the King's protection since the French had discovered their country," and de- manded for themselves and the Onontac nation, " that they be continued to be received in the num- ber of his Majesty's faithful subjects," requesting that some Frenchmen be sent to settle with them, and "blackgowns" to preach the gospel to them and make them understand the God of the French, promising not only to prepare cabins, but to work at the construction of forts for them. This having been granted, the treaty was concluded May 26, 1666. July 7, 1666, the Oneidas sent ten ambassa- dors to Quebec on a like mission for themselves and the Mohawks, and ratified the preceding treaty July 12, 1666.1
Pending these negotiations the Mohawks com- mitted an outrage on a portion of the garrison of Fort St. Anne, and M. de Tracy concluded that to ensure the success of the treaty it was necessary to render the Mohawks more tractable by force of arms. Accordingly, in September, 1666, at the head of 600 troops and 700 Indians, he made an incursion into the country of the Mohawks, who, with their usual sagacity, being unable to cope with so powerful an army, fled to the forests on their ap- proach, and left them to exhaust themselves in a contest with privation and hardships in the wilder- ness. After destroying their villages, corn and other products, M. de Tracy returned.
Following this expedition, Oct. 13, 1666, the Iro- quois ambassadors of the Onondaga, Cayuga, Sen- eca and Oneida nations repaired to Quebec to re- quest a confirmation of the continuance of his majesty's protection, which was granted by divers articles on several conditions, among others, that the Hurons and Algonquins inhabiting the north side of the River St. Lawrence, up from the Es- quimaux and Bertamites into the great lake of the
Hurons, and north of Lake Ontario, should not be disquieted by the four Iroquois nations on any pre- text whatsoever, his Majesty having taken them un- der his protection ; and that on the contrary, the said Iroquois should assist them in all their necessi- ties, whether in peace or war; that agreeably to their urgent prayers, there should be granted to them two " blackgowns," one smith and a surgeon ; that the King, at their request allow some French fami- lies to settle in their country ; that two of the prin- cipal Iroquois families should be sent from each of these four nations to Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec ; that all hostilities should cease till the re- turn of the ambassadors with the ratification of the present treaty ; that the Mohawks, ( Guagenigro- nons,) having been informed of the establishment of the French on the River Richelieu, without send- ing ambassadors to demand peace, should be ex- cluded from the preceding treaty, his majesty re- serving unto himself the right to include them there- in, should he deem it fitting so to do, whenever they sent to sue for peace and his protection. The Mohawks acquiesced in the conditions of the treaty, but under circumstances which induced a belief in the lack of fidelity.
The following year (July 31, 1667,) was con- cluded the Peace of Breda, between Holland, Eng- land and France. By it Acadia (Nova Scotia) was left to the French, and its boundary fixed, and the New Netherlands to the English. In 1668, a treaty of peace was signed between France and Spain, whereby Louis XIV. surrendered his claims to the Spanish Netherland, but was left in possession of much he had already conquered. A general peace now ensued ; but it was of short duration, for in 1669, the French and Iroquois were again at war. The harvests of New France could not be gathered in safety, and much suffering and the greatest con- sternation prevailed among the French colonists. Many prepared to return to France. Louis de Brande, Count de Frontenac, was appointed Gov- ernor and Lieutenant-General of Canada, April 6, 1672, and under his efficient management confi- dence was restored and a treaty of peace again rati- fied in 1673.
In 1684, another rupture occurred between the French and Iroquois, the latter of whom (the Sen- ecas) in that year pillaged seven hundred canoes belonging to Frenchmen, arrested the latter to the number of fourteen and detained them nine days, and attacked Fort St. Louis, which was successful- ly defended .* M. de la Barre, who was then Gov- * Memoir of M. de la Barre, Paris Doc. 11, Doc. Hist. I., 109.
* Relation 1665-66. Doc. Hist. New York.
1 New York Colonial History.
42
IHISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
ernor of New France, that year lead an expedition against the Senecas to punish them for this out- rage. But before he reached the Seneca's country a rumor reached him that, in case of an attack, Col. Dongan, Governor of New York, had prom- ised the Senecas " a re-enforcement of four hundred horse and four hundred foot." This so alarmed him that he decamped the next day. Sickness had made such inroads in his army "that it was with difficulty " he found a sufficient number " of per- sons in health to remove the sick to the canoes."*
An expedition of such magnificent proportions, yet so barren of good results, brought censure upon M. de la Barre, and led to his supersedure the fol- lowing year by the Marquis de Denonville, who was instructed to observe a strict neutrality.
Denonville thoroughly examined the situation, and, having reached a conclusion, he wrote his royal master that the reputation of the French among the Indians, whether friends or enemies, was absolutely destroyed by the ill-starred expe- dition of la Barre, and that nothing but a success- ful war could avert a general rebellion, the ruin of the fur trade, and the extirpation of the French. He adds, in speaking of the enemies of the French colonists, " the Iroquois are the most powerful by reason of the facility they possess of procuring arins from the English, and in consequence of the num- ber of prisoners (esclaves) they daily make among their neighbors, whose children they carry off at an early age and adopt. This is their only means of increase, for in consequence of their drunken de- baucheries which impel them into frightful disor- ders, the few children their wives bear could not assuredly sustain them alone. * Their * large purchases of arms and ammunition from the English, at a low rate, have given them hitherto all the advantages they possess over other tribes, who, in consequence of being disarmed, have been de- stroyed by the Iroquois. *
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.