USA > New York > Niagara County > Outpost of empires; a short history of Niagara County > Part 4
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
From the very beginning the Iroquois eagerly traded beaver pelts for trinkets, kettles, axes, knives, rum and brandy, muskets, powder, and lead. These things were better than those they could make. Almost overnight the Indians became dependent upon these trade goods. And when this happened Iroquois life changed. Then the Iroquois found themselves in the same situation as the Hurons. For they stopped making tools and weapons of their own and began forgetting their old ways of living. In the end the Iroquois had to have Dutch trade goods.
Beaver disappeared So important did this trade with the Dutch become that it nearly ruined the League of the Iroquois. The Mohawks, who were nearest to the Dutch at Fort Orange, did most of the trading. They acted as middlemen for the other Iroquois tribes and charged them high prices for Dutch goods. The angry Onondagas began talking war to break the hold the
Mohawks had on the Dutch trade. But war never came because the beaver disappeared in the Iroquois country first. By 1640 all the Iroquois tribes faced the problem of finding furs to buy Dutch goods. Disappearance of the beaver in New York, then, was another cause of the Iroquois Wars.
Dutch encouraged the The end of Iroquois beaver was also a blow Iroquois to fight the Hurons to the Dutch. Trade was the lifeblood of the Dutch settlements in New York just as it was for the French in Canada. Once Iro- quois beavers were trapped out, the Dutch traders faced ruin. So the Dutch began looking northward to Canada where the Hurons had built up a great trading empire. The Dutch wanted the fur that the Hurons shipped to the French settlements on the St. Law- rence every year.
But the Dutch could not trade with the Hurons in spite of the many furs the Hurons had. The Iroquois and the French stood in the way. Two thousand Iroquois warriors stood between the Dutch and the Hurons. The Iroquois were ready to fight to stop Dutch trade with the Hurons because this would mean hard times for the Iroquois. The Dutch also had to worry about French traders who were also ready to fight to stop the Dutch from taking over their trade with the Hurons. The Dutch saw that they could get furs only through the Iroquois or not at all-and then only by war.
Dutch traders saw the problem clearly. Either they armed the Iroquois so that the Iroquois could destroy the Hurons and take over their trade or the Dutch trade would be ruined. So the Dutch began supplying the Iroquois with muskets. The number of guns the Iroquois used in the Iroquois Wars is not known exactly. Several years after the wars began, the Dutch said they had sold four hun- dred guns to the Iroquois. This number armed one warrior in four. But the Indians took poor care of firearms and many guns would not fire. The bow and arrow was, of course, an important weapon in the Iroquois Wars. Nevertheless, Dutch muskets helped tip the scales in favor of the Iroquois.
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There is another cause of the Iroquois Wars that we should remember. The Iroquois Wars were more than a series of struggles among Indian tribes. Behind the Indians stood white traders. Rival Dutch and French trading companies fought for control of the fur trade using Indians to do most of the fighting. The Dutch and the Iroquois tried to take over the Huron and French trade and of course the Hurons and the French put up a fight.
Thus by 1641 conditions were ripe for war. The Indians had become dependent upon white trade goods. The beaver in New York had been killed off, and the Iroquois, egged on by the Dutch, were ready to start moving west and north to take away the fur trade from the French and Hurons. The Dutch had armed the Iroquois with muskets. And the French and the Hurons stood ready to fight any attempt by the Dutch and the Iroquois to take over the trade with western Indians.
The Iroquois wipe out the Hurons
What were the principal events of the war?
Indian warfare changed
Before white traders arrived, an Indian "war" was usually a small though bloody raid. After an attack on an enemy village, Indians boasted of their bravery and tortured and burned some cap- tives at the stake. A few scalps remained to flutter in front of bark lodges in the home village. But Indian warfare changed when In- dians began to fight for the fur trade-a trade their lives depended upon. Trade wars killed off whole tribes and wiped out entire Indian nations. This is the kind of war that the Iroquois and Hurons were to fight in the 1640's.
These wooden masks were worn by the False Face society on cer- tain occasions. Masks were carved from basswood and then rubbed with grease to make them gleam.
Huron fur fleets on the Ottawa River were raided In 1641 the Iroquois, pushed on by the Dutch, sent war parties northward to Canada. Iroquois war parties appeared on the Ottawa River which was the main Huron trade route to French settlements on the St. Lawrence. The Iroquois warriors raided Huron fur fleets moving eastward along the Ottawa and stole Huron furs. The raids increased in the years that followed because the Iroquois and the Dutch never could get all the furs they needed. By 1644 the Iroquois raiders had almost closed the Ottawa River to the Huron traders.
However, a final all-out war was put off for a while. The Hurons wanted to avoid it and in 1645 they arranged a peace treaty with the Iroquois at a French town on the St. Lawrence. The Hurons agreed to give the Iroquois a yearly shipment of furs if the Iroquois would stop raiding fur shipments on the Ottawa River. In 1646 the greatest Huron fur fleet in the history of Canada appeared on the St. Lawrence. But the Hurons broke their word. Not one Huron pelt was delivered to an Iroquois village. And the angry Iroquois now prepared to wipe out the Hurons.
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Rumors of war first reached the Huron towns in the autumn of 1646. But the Hurons did not get excited. Peace had brought pros- perity. They had had a good year in 1645, and in 1646 they had their best trading year ever. A disease had finally disappeared from the land and the Hurons had trade goods and food piled high in their bark houses. War and ruin seemed far away. The worst the Hurons expected was a new Iroquois blockade of the Ottawa River. No Huron could have imagined the destruction that was soon to sweep his nation away.
In 1647 Iroquois war parties again hid along the banks of the Ottawa ready to steal furs going to the French settlements. The Hurons had enough French trade goods from the year before, however, so they simply stayed at home in 1647. But it was a dif- ferent story the following year. By 1648 the Hurons needed more French goods and decided to run the Iroquois blockade of the Ottawa at any cost.
In the summer of 1648 a big Huron fur fleet set out for a French settlement on the St. Lawrence. A big war party protected the fleet as it moved down the Ottawa. All went well until the fur fleet reached its destination. Then Mohawks suddenly darted from the forest edging the river. A short and hot fight followed. Hurons and Mohawks screamed war cries and showers of arrows and bul- lets whistled through the air. The Hurons defeated the Mohawks and later went back up the Ottawa with scalps and prisoners and the needed trade goods.
The Senecas burned St. Joseph While the Mohawks and Hurons fought on the banks of the St. Lawrence, the Senecas struck savagely at the Huron frontier town of St. Joseph. The attack came on a warm day in July, 1648 as the peaceful town went about its daily tasks. Scarely a warrior was to be seen. Most of them had gone with the trading party to the St. Lawrence and on that July day St. Joseph's population was mostly women, children, and old men. Many of these had gathered in the Huron church to hear their priest say mass.
The priest had just finished the mass when he heard the town take up the cry "Iroquois! Iroquois!". War whoops joined the cries and swarms of Senecas swept into the town. The terrified people scattered in every direction but few escaped Seneca hatchets or capture. St. Joseph disappeared in flames that day and the priest and many Hurons with it. The Senecas killed the priest with a volley of arrows and bullets, and then hacked his body to pieces and smeared his blood on their faces to increase their bravery. His re- mains they flung into his blazing church.
After attacking and burning a smaller town nearby, the tri- umphant Senecas herded hundreds of Huron prisoners back to New York. Many Huron captives fell beneath tomahawk and knife on the march to the south. Those who reached New York were adopted or died at stakes in the Iroquois villages. The destruction of St. Joseph frightened the whole Huron nation. But the worst was still to come.
St. Ignace and St. Louis fell to the Iroquois
The autumn of 1648 saw a thousand Seneca and Mohawk warriors gather in New York for an invasion of the Huron land. This army moved northward and spent the win- ter hunting on the Huron frontier in Ontario. When spring came the warriors pushed towards the Huron towns. The year before the Iroquois had left St. Joseph in ashes so the path into Huron territory now lay open and unprotected. They passed the Huron frontier unseen.
Early one March morning the Seneca and Mohawk warriors moved in on the town of St. Ignace. The people of the town slept peacefully, never dreaming the Iroquois were in the nearby forest. As they slept, the invaders slipped silently through the slushy snow that still lay upon the ground and passed through the unguarded gates into the town. Only three of the four hundred people of St. Ignace escaped the swift dawn attack that followed. They fled to St. Louis, a nearby town, carrying the alarm.
The Iroquois left a rear guard at St. Ignace to hold the town and the rest of them set off at a trot for St. Louis. They fell upon the town before the sun was up. The Hurons in St. Louis put up a desperate fight for their lives. But they could not match Iroquois fierceness and Dutch guns. In the end the Iroquois fired the town. They burned many Hurons alive in their blazing bark houses and then herded the rest to St. Ignace. Among the captives tramped Jean Brébeuf, the priest who had failed to Christianize the Neuters in 1640. At St. Ignace the Iroquois tortured Brébeuf for hours be- fore he finally died.
The Iroquois now got ready to smash at the town of St. Marie. But before they could launch the attack, a Huron war party hit St. Louis, then held by a small Iroquois force. Fighting raged far into the night and for a time the Hurons held the edge. They killed one hundred Iroquois warriors, using bows and arrows, hatchets, war clubs, and knives. But Dutch guns and Iroquois reinforcements from St. Ignace finally decided the outcome of the battle. When it was over, only twenty badly wounded Hurons remained alive.
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The fierce fight the Hurons put up at St. Louis frightened the Iroquois chiefs and warriors. The Iroquois army was deep in densely populated enemy territory. Besides, the invading army had lost two hundred warriors since the fighting had begun at St. 'Ignace. The Iroquois now decided to retreat with the plunder and prisoners that had been taken. The Iroquois bound in their cabins those Hurons who were unable to march and then set the cabins afire. Several hundred Huron warriors chased the retreating Iroquois army to the Huron frontier, but the Hurons avoided battle and the Iroquois escaped to New York. *1
Ten thousand
The sudden appearance of this large Iro- Hurons died on Christian Island quois army in Huron land shook the entire Huron Nation. In town after town the people were terrified. They thought only of escaping a new Iroquois invasion. Fear drove them to abandon and burn fifteen towns and flee in all directions. Many Hurons ran into the woods or sought safety among the Neuters and other tribes. Some surrendered to the enemy. One entire Huron town mi- grated to New York and accepted adoption into the five Iroquois tribes. Within two weeks after the disasters at St. Ignace and St. Louis, the Huron country had been laid waste by the Hurons them- selves.
A large part of the Huron, Nation, along with priests and French soldiers, fled to Christian Island in nearby Georgian Bay. The French soldiers raised a fort on the island and"the Hurons built bark lodges near the fort. The Iroquois soon followed. But the Hurons felt safe because the soldiers kept the Iroquois from invad- ing the island. The Iroquois, however, remained close by, camping on the mainland. A paddle to the mainland meant sudden death for the Hurons. Christian Island was now a prison. It would soon be- come a place of horror and death.
Forced to remain on their island prison, the Hurons slowly starved to death. Before winter came in 1649, the trapped Hurons on Christian Island were hungry. All that year fish and game had been scarce. Some smoked fish the priests had purchased from Algonkin Indians had not lasted long. Then a corn crop' planted on the island failed and hungry Huron men, women, and children combed the island's woods collecting acorns. Sometime during the 'winter of 1649-50, hunger-crazed Hurons began practising canni- balism. A deadly disease soon broke out and added to the horror. Disease and starvation wiped out hundreds every week. By spring, 1650, ten thousand Hurons had died.
'A band of Hurons escaped Christian Island in the summer of 1650. These Hurons retreated to the 'St. Lawrence and remained in eastern Canada. Their descendants still live at Lorette, near Quebec. Lorette's Hurons are the only Indians that still have the Huron name. Thus a mighty nation of thirty thousand people dis- appeared from the land north of Lake Ontario.
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The Iroquois turn on the Neuters
What besides loss of fur trade worried the Iroquois?
The Iroquois had fought the Hurons to win the western fur trade. But even with the Hurons destroyed, new dangers threat- ened the Iroquois. The French stood ready to make trade agree- ments with the Neuters as they had earlier with the Hurons. The Iroquois decided to destroy the Neuters to keep this from happen- ing. There was also, another reason why the Iroquois decided to Meanwhile, the English conquered the Dutch and took over Fort Orange, renaming it Albany. Although the Iroquois continued to destroy the Neuters. The Iroquois feared that the Neuters would join the Susquehanna Indians and invade Iroquois territory. The bring in furs, the English and Dutch in Albany decided to trade Neuters had many warriors and the Susquehanna were armed with directly with the western tribes. In 1685 traders from Albany muskets and cannons supplied by Swedish traders. A Neuter and started seeking furs in the west. The invasion of the Albany traders Susquehanna attack was only a matter of time. So the Seneca and forced the French to take over at Niagara. In the next chapter we Mohawk chiefs planned to strike first.
What happened to the Neuters?
In the autumn of 1650 a wave of fifteen hundred Iroquois stormed across the Genesee River and swept away a Neuter town of several thousand people in a lightning attack. Again hundreds of prisoners streamed into Iroquois territory-this time Neuters instead of Hurons. Angry Neuters struck back and killed and ścalped two hundred Senecas in a frontier village near the Genesee. Then as winter came on, an uneasy silence spread through the forests between the Niagara and Genesee rivers. But it was only the calm before the final storm. In the spring of 1651 twelve hun- dred Iroquois plunged across the Genesee frontier in a second in- vasion of Niagara country. Another Neuter town was overrun and the Neuters stopped fighting. The fate of the Hurons overtook the Neuters now fleeing in wild panic before the Iroquois. Neuters died by the thousands of starvation and disease. Some accepted Iroquois adoption as the Hurons had. The Neuter Nation was no more. Niagara County was taken over by the Senecas and became an out- post of the Iroquois.
Although they disappeared as a tribe, the Neuters left im- portant reminders in Niagara country. A large Neuter village once stood on the present site of Lewiston, New York. This village, which some call Onguiaahra, or Ongiara, was overwhelmed in the wave of destruction that followed the Iroquois attack on the Neuters. Ongiara never arose from its ashes but its name was not lost. The name Ongiara was changed to Niagara and given to the mighty river, the great waterfall, the land around the river, and to twin cities, one in Canada and the other in New York.
The Iroquois Wars did not end with the destruction of the Hurons and Neuters. The French made trade agreements with western tribes and stopped the Iroquois from rebuilding the old Huron trading empire. This kept the struggle between the French and the Iroquois for control of the fur trade going for many years. During this time the Iroquois had to fight for the furs they got. The need for furs forced them to carry the hatchet to tribes as far west as the Mississippi.
shall read how the Niagara region finally became an outpost of the French Empire.
1933
Indians wrapped themselves from head to foot in shaggy robes cut from animal skins. The animal's skull was often left in the hide and, when the robe was worn, the jaws and teeth stood out over a warrior's head, giving him a very impressive appearance.
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26
EXPLORATIONS IN NIAGARA REGION 1615 - 1685
CHRISTIAN IS.
ST. IGNACE
ST. MARIE
ST. LOUIS
ST. JOSEPH
L. SIMCOE
CHAMPLAIN
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1615
BREBEUF & CHAUMONOT
1640-41
U
0
N
S
A$28
LAKE
ONTARIO
BRULE' 1615-25 DALLION
ROUSEBOOM :1645
LA SALLE 1669
LA SALLE & IONTY 1678
-
OTINAWATAWA
-
LA SALLE
NEUTERS
DALLION LEAVES MENTERS - 1826
LAKE ERIE
ROOSEBOOM 1815
1878
SUNK.
GRIFFON
8. WILHELMA.
P
PETUNS
Your History Workshop
Words and terms you should know
wampum missionary
hordes
confederacy
Jesuit
clan
festival
blockade
longhouse
middleman
stockade
Where is it on the map?
Alaska
St. Ignace
Ottawa River
Bering Strait
St. Louis
Genesee River
St. Joseph
Georgian Bay
Christian Island
Who's Who in history?
Stephen (Etienne) Brulé Jean de Brébeuf
Samuel de Champlain
Joseph Dallion Joseph Chaumonot Hiawatha
How carefully did you read ?
1. Identify the phrase "Three Sisters".
2. The Corn Festival was an annual affair. What was its pur- pose ?
3. What Indian tribes joined the League of Iroquois?
4. What is an Indian name for Niagara?
5. What is the origin of American Indians? Along what route did they migrate?
6. Explain the part played by clans in Iroquoian life.
7. Explain why the culture of the longhouse people was based on the importance of women.
8. How did Iroquois Indians earn a living before the white man came?
9. The Hurons had a vast system of trade. With whom did they trade? What goods were exchanged?
10. The first white men to visit Neuter country were French priests. Their visit alarmed the Hurons. Why?
11. How did the Hurons turn the Neuters against the priests? Why were the Neuters ready to believe the Hurons?
12. How did European traders destroy the importance of women and so change Indian culture?
13. The Iroquois waged all out war on the Hurons in the middle of the seventeenth century. Why?
14. What were the results of the Iroquois-Huron War?
Activities to help you understand Part I
1. Locate a good-sized map of the United States and southern Canada. Center a standard sheet of white tracing paper (81/2 x 11) over the Great Lakes Region. Trace this region of the map. Then fill in this outline map as follows:
a. Label the Great Lakes, Georgian Bay, Christian Island, and St. Ignace.
b. Trace the course of the Genesee and Ottawa rivers.
c. Make a legend for the map using symbols to represent the Five Nations, Hurons, and Neuters. Use symbols to locate each of the tribes. Pages 10 and 12 in your New York State Atlas will help with the location of the tribes.
2. Pretend you are a French soldier on Christian Island living with the Huron survivors of the Seventeenth Century Wars. Write a letter to a friend in Montreal describing horror of life on the island.
3. Start a dictionary of new words and phrases used in each unit.
4. Make a model of an Iroquois village. It will help to search the library for sources containing pictures and drawings of long- houses and stockaded villages.
5. Imagine that your class has visited the home of an Iroquois boy in New York in 1625. Discuss the difference between his home and ways of living and yours.
6. Resolved, that the Iroquois were justified in warring upon the Hurons and Neuters. (Debate)
7. Read Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Make an oral report of the poem to the class. Or ask your teacher to read passages appropriate to the formation of the league of peace. Discuss the selections to be sure they are understood; then dramatize them by pantomiming the happenings covered.
8. Make a list of the chief steps leading to control of New York by the Iroquois. Plan to present this information to the class using maps and the blackboard.
9. You are a chief at a council fire urging all Iroquois tribes to unite in the League of Iroquois. Prepare this speech to deliver to your classmates.
10. Start a timeline to which you can add events as the year's study progresses. Decide with your teacher where to place it in the classroom. Then figure out, in terms of available space, how the years are to be laid off on the line. You might want to consider whether pictures and drawings would be appro- priate to illustrate events.
11. Choose a man mentioned in Part I and do research about him. Write an account of one of his achievements not mentioned in Outpost of Empires: Niagara County.
12. Act out a series of scenes mentioned in the textbook, for ex- ample, the reaction of the Mohawks to Champlain's "thunder- pole" and the meeting between Father Joseph Dallion and the Neuters.
Part la
13. Write a series of newspaper headlines to describe the events in Part I. Read these to the class to get its opinion, then post the best ones on the bulletin board.
14. Suggest to your teacher and classmates that standing commit- tees be formed to handle different review functions in each unit. One group, for example, could keep a dictionary of new words and terms, another keep up the timeline, and a third make flashcards of people, events, and dates.
15. From the list of books at the end of this section, choose one that interests you the most. Read it and prepare a written report which includes :
a. The title and author
b. Time. and place of story
c. Subject of the book
d. The most important character (s)
e. What part you enjoyed most
f. „Your opinion of the book'
16. Plan a "Who am I" quiz. On separate slips of paper write the names of persons and groups mentioned in Part I. Ask class- mates to draw them from a container. Beneath each name re- quest that they write four statements about the person or group. The first statement should be general so it applies to almost all the names, the second should apply to fewer names, the third only to a couple, and the fourth to just one person or group. Each pupil should read his set of statements to the class. The winner of the quiz is the pupil guessing the largest number of names.
17. How many blanks can you fill in correctly? On a separate sheet of paper list your answers to correspond with the num- bers below.
American Indians came from (1) They traveled across the (2) to Alaska, North America. Among them were the ancestors of the Hurons who settled north of Lake (3) the (4) who made the land around the Niagara River their home, and the (5) who located in what is now New York State. After many thousands of years, (6)
(number) Iroquois tribes banded together in a league of peace called the (7) Later the (8)
Indians joined the league. These tribes lived in bark houses called (9) in which the leader of the clan was a (10) The peaceful life of all Niagara County Indians came to an end because their way of life changed-they learned to live by (11)
Part 1b
Books with exciting stories
Richards, Atlas of New York State.
Beauchamp, William, Iroquois Folklore. Grades 7-12.
Bleeker, Sonia, Indians of the Longhouse. Grades 4-6.
Bunce, William H., Son of the Iroquois. The story of an Iroquois boy. Grades 6-9.
Cornplanter, Jesse, Legends of the Longhouse. Grades 5-12.
Crownfield, Gertrude, Alison Blair. Life of an English girl during the Indian wars. Grades 5-9.
Joscelyn of the Forts. Story of the Indian wars. Grades 5-9.
Edmonds, Walter D., Matchlock Gun. A prize-winning account of a colonial boy's life. Grades 4-6.
Holland, R. S., Blue Heron's Feather. Story of a boy among Indians. Grades 6-9.
Laring, Mary E., The Hero of the Longhouse. Story of Hiawatha and the Iroquois. Grades 5-9.
Powers, Mable, Around an Iroquois Campfire. Indian stories. Grades 5-9.
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1
Part II
THE FLAGS OF THREE
NATIONS FLY OVER
NIAGARA COUNTY
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3. The Niagara Region becomes an outpost of France 1!
4. Britain loses the Niagara region to the
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