USA > New York > Niagara County > Outpost of empires; a short history of Niagara County > Part 5
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3. Niagara Region becomes an Outpost of France
France stakes a claim
After 1650, things quieted down for a while at Niagara. The Senecas, of course, now controlled the land that had belonged to the Neuters. And although they raised no villages at Niagara they jealously guarded it from other Indians and especially from the French. The Senecas did this mainly because Niagara was the key to the western fur trade which they wanted for themselves. The French wanted Niagara for the same reason. In the end they pushed in and made Niagara an outpost of France. The mighty Senecas then became their servants, working like pack animals on the portage. All this did not happen overnight, however. It took many years before Frenchmen finally became the masters of Niagara County. This chapter tells the story of how it happened.
What type of man was La Salle?
Fifteen years after the Iroquois pushed the Neuters out, a great French explorer paddled by Niagara County. His name was Robert Cavelier but he is best known as La Salle, a name he took from an estate his family owned near his birthplace, the French city of Rouen. La Salle's rich father wanted him to become a priest and he was educated to be a Jesuit, a very strict religious order. But La Salle was restless and ambitious and unwilling to bow to any man or group of men. And so he gave up his religious career. In 1666, when he was twenty-three years old, he sailed to New France to make his fortune.
When he arrived in New France, La Salle settled on the banks of the St. Lawrence near Montreal. He remained here in the wilder- ness for three years, trading with Indians for a living. From the beginning he had a way with most Indians he met. He won their respect by learning to speak and understand Indian languages, and by treating Indians fairly when they came to trade their furs. Be- cause of this he prospered. In time he would probably have become a wealthy man.
But his restlessness would never let him stay in any one place. The Indians he traded with had fired his imagination. They spoke about a great river southeast of the Niagara region that flowed into the sea. He believed it was the western passage to the Orient that explorers had looked for since the days of Columbus. He made
up his mind to find and explore the river to its mouth. He sold his land on the St. Lawrence to raise money for his exploration.
In July, 1669, La Salle went up the St. Lawrence with a party of French and Indians. He reached Lake Ontario the next month and then followed the southern shore towards Niagara. Near what is now the city of Rochester, New York, he met a band of Senecas and went with them to their village. There he hoped to find some- one to show him the way to the great river.
At the village all the Senecas turned out to welcome the French- men. They gave a great feast in honor of La Salle. But they would not give him the guide he needed. They tried to discourage him from pushing West. The Senecas, remember, depended upon the fur trade. They saw La Salle not as an explorer but as a rival trader. And they feared he might take over the western fur trade. La Salle would not listen. He was determined to find and explore the great river. This made the Senecas angry and they began to mistreat the French.
Finally La Salle parted with the Senecas. He and his party paddled west along Lake Ontario and in September, 1669, passed the mouth of the Niagara River. Here faint sounds of distant rapids and waterfalls reached their ears. But La Salle was more interested in the treeless point of land at the mouth of the river. He marked it as a natural spot for a fort. In a village at the lake's west end he found a guide. But here most of his men turned back to the St. Lawrence. La Salle, however, pushed on, searching for the great river.
The year 1669 was La Salle's first visit to Niagara. He had come seeking a passage to the Orient. He failed to find it, of course. Many people in Canada laughed at him and called him an idle dreamer. But his spirit was not crushed. After he gave up his search he decided upon a new project. He would build an empire for France in the West. As it turned out, he also failed in this plan. But it was this plan that brought him back to Niagara County in 1678.
How did La Salle hope to win Niagara for France?
La Salle's great idea was to build a string of trading settle- ments along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, with forts to protect the settlements. The most important link in this chain of forts was Niagara. Any trade passing from the Mississippi and Ohio to the St. Lawrence had to pass through Niagara. Thus a fort at the mouth of the Niagara River would put the fur trade of the West in his hands.
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NFT
An Iroquois war party attacking Huron fur traders on the Ottawa River in the 1640's. Notice that the Hurons are not armed with muskets. This helps to explain their later destruction as a nation.
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The Griffon was built Part of his plan was to put a sailing vessel for exploring and trading in the Upper Great Lakes Region
on the Upper Great Lakes to use in his ex- plorations and trade. The best place to build such a ship was up river from Niagara Falls. Here a ship could load and unload goods close by the portage which would connect French traders on the St. Lawrence with western Indians.
In 1678 La Salle set in motion his plans for a ship and fort in the Niagara area. That November he sent a small vessel to Niagara with carpenters, blacksmiths, and other workers under the com- mand of Dominick La Motte. These men were to build his sailing vessel, the Griffon, on the river bank above the falls. Father Louis Hennepin, a Catholic priest, was also a member of La Motte's party. Father Hennepin later wrote two books describing his ad- ventures in North America and he gives us the first eye-witness account of the falls.
It was early in December before La Motte, Father Hennepin, and the rest of this advance party reached the Niagara River. They sailed and towed their small vessel up river to the foot of the rapids at the present site of Lewiston. Here they cut trees down and in three days raised a house surrounded with a stockade. The ground was frozen and they had to pour boiling water on it to dig holes for the stockade. This dwelling was the earliest raised by white men on the Niagara River.
Meanwhile, La Salle had been outfitting another supply ship on the St. Lawrence. On Christmas Eve, 1678, he set sail to join La Motte's party at Lewiston. The ship's hold was crammed with supplies needed for building the Griffon. With La Salle was his friend Henry Tonty, an Italian soldier. Tonty had lost his right hand in a battle in Europe some years before. He had replaced it with one made of metal. Indians soon nicknamed him "Iron Hand."
The wind failed as La Salle and Tonty neared Niagara. As usual, La Salle was impatient and he and Tonty went ashore to walk the rest of the way. As they tramped westward, the pilot and the crew left the vessel riding at anchor and went ashore to sleep. A sudden squall came up and the ship was wrecked on the shore. The loss of this ship was a blow to La Salle because most of the things he needed for his Griffon disappeared in the waters of Lake Ontario.
Upon reaching La Motte's storehouse, La Salle did not waste any time looking for a place to build the Griffon. Hennepin had already scouted the area and reported to La Salle. While Tonty re-
mained at the storehouse, La Salle climbed Lewiston Hill and fol- lowed the portage to the upper river. A few miles above the falls he came upon the narrow channel that separates Cayuga Island from the mainland. This he decided was to be the shipyard of the Griffon.
It did not take axmen long to clear the trees from the site. Soon log and bark huts and a chapel rose on the bank of the Little Niagara River opposite Cayuga Island. On January 26, 1679, car- penters laid the keel of the Griffon. But trouble was in the wind. In the weeks that followed, cold and hunger made the workers grumble and threaten mutiny. La Salle was not at the shipyard while this was going on. A week after the keel had been laid he tramped off to the St. Lawrence for more supplies. He left the faith- ful Tonty in command. Tonty somehow kept the men working and in spite of the cold, hunger, and lack of materials, the Griffon's hull slowly took shape.
La Salle's men building the Griffon on the Little Niagara River in 1679.
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R. WILHELMS
LAKE
ONTARIO
FORT CONTI -1670
LEORT DENONVILLE 1687
FORT MISSISSAUGA 1814
O
NEWARK
O BATTLE OF LA BELLE FAMILLE 1759
BATTLE OF QUEENSTON
HEIGHTS
1812 0
FORT GRAY 1812
1813
FORT DRUMMONO
DEVILS HOLE MASSACARE 1763
PORTAGE
FORT SCHLOSSER 1760
STEAMSHIP CAROLINE DESTROYED BY
BRITISH 1837
O GRIFFON SHIPYARD 1679
FORT CHIPPAWA 1792
o
ยท NAVY ISLAND
O
GRAND
ISLAND
CANADA
BATTLE OF CHIPPAWA 1814
UNITED STATES
00
5
BATTLE OF BLACK ROCK 1814
O
FORT BLACK
ROCK
1807
HISTORIC
FORT ERIE 1764
NIAGARA
O BRITISH
BURN BUFFALO 1813
LAKE ERIE
31
FORT NIAGARA 1725
FORT GEORGE 1796
FORT JONCAIRE 1719
BATTLE OF LUNDYS LANE 1814 O
Tonty, however, had his hands full with the Senecas. The In- dians were sorry they had given La Salle permission to build his Griffon. After all he was a rival trader, and they saw that his Griffon would collect furs in the West which they needed for them- selves. The Senecas had destroyed the Hurons and Neuters for the western fur trade and they were not ready to turn that trade over to the French.
Most warriors were away on the winter hunt. But those that remained hung around the shipyard waiting for a chance to burn the Griffon and perhaps kill the workers. One Seneca made believe he was drunk and actually did try to murder a blacksmith. But the smith swung a red-hot iron bar at him and he gave up the idea. Then the Indians refused to sell food to the hungry shipyard crew. Finally a Seneca woman warned Tonty that the warriors had made up their minds to burn the Griffon within a few days.
Tonty now doubled the guard and made the men hurry with the building. At last the carpenters reported that the hull was watertight and Tonty had the vessel put into the water (May, 1679). The men left the shipyard and lived on board. Carpenters finished work while the Griffon lay at anchor in the Little Niagara River.
Once it was completed, the Griffon sailed up the Niagara River near Squaw Island. It was at anchor a short distance from Lake Erie when La Salle finally came back from Canada. The crew put the final touches on the forty-five ton vessel. They even had small cannons poking from its portholes. On August 7, 1679, La Salle and all hands knelt on the deck and prayed. Then the cannons boomed a salute and the men raced into the rigging. While twelve men on shore hauled the boat with ropes, the Griffon spread canvas and, aided by a northeast wind, finally passed the rapids and sailed out into Lake Erie. Its bow pushed waters where only canoes had been before.
The Griffon's voyage on the Upper Great Lakes was trouble from the beginning. Fierce storms tossed the ship about and nearly wrecked it. Finally the little vessel dropped anchor at an island at the mouth of Green Bay, Wisconsin. There it took on a cargo of furs and set sail back to Niagara. La Salle, Tonty, and Hennepin remained behind. And well they did.
La Salle never saw his Griffon again after it sailed out into Lake Michigan. Its fate is still a mystery. A story is told that it was boarded, plundered, and sunk by Indians. Another tale has it that it was sunk by its pilot and crew and its rich cargo of furs
stolen. La Salle himself believed that this was what happened. But probably the Griffon foundered in a storm and went to the bottom of one of the Great Lakes. Recently the remains of a vessel were found in the Upper Lake region which some people believe to be the long-lost French ship.
So much for the Griffon. Now to get back Fort Conti was built to control trade with the West to the second part of La Salle's plan-the fort at the mouth of the Niagara River. While Tonty was building the Griffon, La Motte started work on the fort. He raised two blockhouses forty feet square and connected them with a stockade. This fort, Conti, also served as a storehouse for the goods that La Salle hoped to trade for western furs.
Like almost all of La Salle's plans, this one fell through too. Fort Conti was not destroyed by the Senecas. In fact no soldier ever fired at an enemy through the loopholes in the blockhouses or from between the pickets of the stockade. Some months after it was raised, Fort Conti burned down because somebody, probably the sergeant in command, was careless. Although it never played an important part in the story of Niagara, Fort Conti is remem- bered as the earliest fortification on the present site of Fort Niagara. As we shall see later, the French did not give up the idea of raising a fort on this site.
La Salle now steps out of our story of Niagara. He passed through the Niagara area in 1680 on his way to Canada from the West. And he did appear here again in the summer of 1681 but not to stay. He was on his way to explore the Mississippi River to its mouth. Tonty and a party of French and Indians made that great journey with him. In April, 1682, they reached the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle then claimed the Mississippi and the surrounding area for King Louis XIV and named the region Louisiana. Five years later, in 1687, La Salle was murdered by his own men while attempting to start a colony in Louisiana. Thus ends the story of one of the most ambitious men who ever appeared in Niagara County.
English threaten French trade in Niagara
La Salle had left only a little evidence of his passing on our Niagara. Even so, France claimed it. But no Frenchman tried to take possession until Albany traders appeared on the scene. In the autumn of 1685 the governor of New York colony started the French thinking about raising another fort on the site of Fort Niagara. It all began when the governor, a snappy fellow named
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Thomas Dongan, licensed a party of Albany traders to paddle to the Upper Great Lakes and trade English goods for furs. Dongan knew that the French would get angry if English traders invaded territory France had long regarded as its own. But he went ahead anyway.
Who was Johannes Rooseboom?
Governor Dongan gave a young Dutchman He led Albany traders into Niagara who lived in Albany the job of leading the trading expedition. His name was Johannes Rooseboom. Rooseboom was a capable young man and a good leader. But he did not know the way to the upper lakes, nor was he fa- miliar with the languages of the Indians who lived there. Thus he needed a guide and an interpreter. A Frenchman named Marion la Fontaine was just the man for the task. Fontaine was at this time living in New York colony. Before this, however, he had lived in the French settlements and had roamed the western woods. The French considered him a traitor because he had settled in the Eng- lish colony.
Rooseboom's expedition started out from Schenectady in 1685. Fontaine guided the traders up the Mohawk and then by the Oneida Lake route to Lake Ontario. From here the party followed the lake shore to the Niagara River. Then a paddle up the river, a stiff climb up Lewiston Hill, a tramp along the portage, and the traders found themselves on the upper Niagara River. This was the first time white men, other than Frenchmen, had ever been in Niagara country. The remainder of the journey was fairly easy. Up the Niagara River to Lake Erie they went. Then a swift paddle took them to the upper lakes where the traders got a warm reception from Indians who had known no other white men except the French.
High prices and rum soon won Indian hearts completely. Never before had they been paid such a big sum for their furs. And as for English rum, they quickly made the pleasant discovery that it was every bit as good as French brandy in taste, perhaps even some- what better. And what was more important it made them drunk faster, which, of course, was what interested them most anyway. As might be imagined, Rooseboom's traders did a rushing business. Every canoe was soon filled to overflowing with heaps of furs. Now it only remained to get out and get back to Albany, without run- ning into French who had already learned of the invasion of the English traders.
What were the results of the Albany expedition?
Rooseboom and his traders did get back with their precious stock of furs, although the French tried to stop them at Niagara. But Rooseboom slipped by before the French could set their trap and soon afterward paddled down the Mohawk again. Dongan was happy, as was Rooseboom, but the French were angry. Dongan did not care about French feelings. The expedition had been profitable and Dongan made plans for a bigger trading expedition for the following year.
Traders from New York colony went to the upper lakes in two groups in the autumn of 1686 and in the spring of 1687. Roose- boom led the first party. Fontaine went along again, unluckily for him as things turned out. A Scottish friend of Dongan commanded the second party.
This time the French were not caught napping. Neither party got so much as a whiff of the Indian traders on the upper lakes. Both Rooseboom and the Scotsman ran into French and Indian war parties coming east to invade New York. Their store of trade goods and rum that was to have gone for the purchase of beaver pelts was taken and divided. The French distributed the trade goods among the Indians and drank the rum themselves. Then the rangers and their prisoners paddled on to Niagara County. The French later released Rooseboom and the other traders. As for Fontaine, a rattling volley from French muskets snuffed out his life at the mouth of the Niagara River.
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The French seek to strengthen their hold on Niagara
Why did the French war upon the Senecas?
Indians hampered French trading Albany traders were not the only headache that the French had. The Senecas had for some time been making pests of themselves by raiding French traders and the tribes that sold them furs. Finally the Marquis Denonville, Governor of Canada, felt that it was high time for action. A fort at the mouth of the Niagara would block Albany traders and check the Iroquois, thus keeping the western fur trade in French hands, where Denonville was sure it belonged. As a beginning, Denonville figured it would be necessary to teach the Senecas to respect French arms. In fact, he meant to crush them if he could.
But an invasion of Iroquois territory would be no easy matter. Denonville knew the Senecas were hard and merciless fighters and would surely battle for every inch of ground. So he planned care- fully. He sent word to his French captains in the West to enroll every Indian able to shoot an arrow, swing a tomahawk, or fire a musket, and then to meet him at Irondequoit Bay (near Rochester, New York). Meanwhile Denonville scoured the St. Lawrence set- tlements gathering soldiers and Indians whom he brought with him to Irondequoit.
Denonville's war with the Senecas was short. He had many more men and thus was able to beat them in the one big battle they fought. After this battle Denonville allowed his soldiers and Indians to plunder Seneca country for nearly two weeks. Then he ordered a withdrawal to Irondequoit Bay where the army sailed for Niagara. But Denonville had not finished what he had set out to do. All he had really done when he invaded the Seneca country was to upset a hornet's nest without killing many of the hornets. As a nation the Senecas had not been badly hurt. They were, in fact, fighting mad and eagerly awaiting a chance to get even with the French. And that chance came at the mouth of the Niagara River.
While the Senecas nursed their wounds and swore revenge, Denonville's army landed at Niagara's mouth and camped near the spot where Fort Conti had stood nine years before. His soldiers pitched in and hacked down trees and in three days another stock- ade fort rose on the same site. Denonville was well pleased with this new fort and he named it in honor of the leading figure in New France-himself. And so Fort Denonville became the second French fort on the site now occupied by Fort Niagara.
What happened to Fort Denonville?
His task finished, or so he thought, Denonville sailed back to the St. Lawrence. His army sailed with him except for one hundred soldiers under Captain De Troyes who remained to guard the new fort. De Troyes and his men now became the principal actors in a drama filled with misery and death.
Indians and disease killed off most of the garrison No sooner had the army gone than De Troyes learned that the store of provisions delivered in late fall to the fort had gone bad. Somehow water had got into the bar- rels and soaked the flour and worms had eaten into the biscuits. De Troyes sent soldiers into the nearby woods to shoot game. But instead of game they found Senecas, who made short work of most of them. He next had the men fish and plant corn. But fishing was skimpy and only a few scrawny corn stalks sprouted. Then disease began to strike down the hungry soldiers of Fort Denonville and De Troyes himself fell ill.
11
Father Milett raises the cross at Fort Denonville on Good Friday, 1688.
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The autumn of 1687 passed. Winter came and went, with death a familiar visitor in the log huts within the stockade. By spring only twelve of the original one hundred soldiers remained alive. This handful of sick and hungry soldiers would surely have found graves among their dead comrades and their captain had it not been for the arrival of friendly Indians who brought corn and hunted deer and turkeys.
In April a relief ship brought fresh troops from Canada and gladdened the hearts of the remaining men. On Good Friday 1688, French soldiers stared silently as a priest, Jean Milett, said mass before a huge cross he had set up among the graves of Captain De Troyes and his men. A copy of Milett's cross now stands at the edge of the parade ground at Fort Niagara.
The Senecas forced the French to abandon the fort
The appearance of fresh soldiers did abso- lutely nothing to scare off the Senecas prowling the nearby woods. Moreover, the Senecas refused Denonville's peace pro- posals, at least so long as his troops remained in Niagara County. The situation grew more and more hopeless for the French as the summer wore on, although the Senecas actually made no attacks on the fort. By the autumn of 1688 Denonville had had enough. He threw up his hands in despair and ordered his fort abandoned.
Niagara becomes an Outpost of France
How did France finally win Niagara County?
Years later, the French did raise a lasting fort in Niagara County. And they owed it to the work of one of their officers named Chabert Joncaire. Joncaire had much influence with the Senecas. It had all begun many years before when he was taken captive by them. Like many another captive before him, he was sentenced to the stake, the usual fate for anyone who fell into Seneca hands.
Joucaire became a Seneca Briefly, here is the story. The Senecas were about to bind Joncaire to a stake when an old chief, impatient to begin the torture, tried shoving Joncaire's finger into the bowl of his pipe. Joncaire swung and his fist smashed into the old man's jaw, dropping him like a stone into the dust at his feet. The crowd naturally thought the whole thing very funny indeed. Yelps of appreciation rang in the village. Joncaire was an enemy, and French to boot, but what did that matter? He had courage and this they could admire.
So the affair ended happily. A moment before Joncaire had
Joncaire built a trading post at Lewiston
faced the stake. Now he faced a crowd of admiring Indians. In short, he was a hero and he was given a hero's reward, the highest in fact that the Seneca Nation could grant. He was made a Seneca. No adoption into the tribe was complete without a wife and Joncaire was given one. More important than his bride were the rights and privileges that he got as an adopted Seneca. These he used for France. And what France wanted most of all of course, at least where Niagara County was concerned, was a fort on the Niagara River.
But even with Joncaire's help the French did not get a fort at Niagara overnight. It took time, cleverness, and downright lying on the part of Joncaire. He began by telling his adopted people that he needed a house, a thing they could easily understand since he had just married. He was not particular. Any house would do for a start, or so he told the Indians. The location of his house, however, was a different mat- ter. He insisted on living in Niagara County. He especially wanted to build on the banks of the Niagara River. In the end, the Senecas allowed their son, as they called him, to start housekeeping at Lewiston.
Thus in 1720 we find Joncaire hard at work raising his so- called bark dwelling at the foot of the portage. His house, when completed, was full of loopholes from which muskets might be poked and fired in time of need. Surrounding his house was a stockade to keep out unwanted visitors, which meant his Indian relatives and the English. Joncaire called his house Magazin Royal, or King's Store, and stuffed it with trade goods. A party of Senecas soon raised cabins near Magazin Royal and Joncaire put them to work hauling goods up Lewiston Hill and over the portage to the Upper Landing.
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