USA > New York > Onondaga County > Past and present of Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York : from prehistoric times to the beginning of 1908 > Part 12
USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Past and present of Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York : from prehistoric times to the beginning of 1908 > Part 12
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CHAPTER IX.
FROM THE FRENCHI RETREAT TO THIE END OF THIE MISSIONS.
A terrible war now waged everywhere and the French suffered greatly. losing many prisoners, some of whom were cared for by Garakontie, the great Onondaga chief. The Onondagas at first had no special prominence in this, but late in the winter of 1660 a band of forty chosen Hurons left Quebec on a war party with eighteen Frenchmen. At Three Rivers some Algonquins joined them, and all took post on the Ottawa river below the Sault de Chan- dicre. Iroquois hunters often passed there in single file and might be slain as -they came. Some of these saw the ambush and warned the rest, who were soon arrayed as warriors. They needed no secreey. Solemnly and openly two hundred Onondagas came down the Sault in their canoes, ready for the fight. Their astonished foes took refuge in an abandoned fort, making there a
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vigorons defense. Then the Mohawks came to the aid of the Onondagas, the siege lasting for ten days. Water could be had only at the peril of life, and part of the Indians deserted to the foe. When the French fired on a flag of truce the Iroquois were enraged. Guarded by mantelets of wood they rushed at the palisades to eut them down. The French grenades were exhausted and they used disabled gun barrels. When they tried to throw a barrel of powder over the wall, that it might explode among their foes, it caught in a branch, fell baek, exploded within, and the fight was soon over. Not so the eruelty of the vietors. This disaster was deeply felt by the Hurons and French and Quebec was blockaded by the foe.
One of the Huron captives was taken to Onondaga and gave a vivid ac- count of what happened to him. The sight of the town itself alarmed him. Ile said : "When we arrived at the top of the mountain whence one discovers the town of Onnontaghe, I was seized with horror at the sight, I cannot deny it ; but much more when, on advancing closer, I discovered a multitude of people who were waiting for me, to expend upon my poor body all the cruelty with which fury and revenge could inspire them." He afterward escaped.
A Frenchman was tortured there just before this Huron came. The harrowing tale need not be repeated bere, but "they had prepared the scaffold in a fashion more than barbarous, and altogether unusual in the most cruel barbarity." Red hot irons from the mission fort were applied to his flesh, part of which the Onondagas ate and part they gave to the dogs.
At the gloomiest moment, in July, 1661, "there appeared above Montreal two canoes of Iroquois, who, bearing a white flag, came boldly under the anspices of that standard to put themselves in our hands." They were sent by the Onondagas and Cayugas, and brought back four French eaptives. 1 Cayuga chief led the party and spoke by twenty presents. Ile freed these prisoners, promising the liberty of twenty more, still held at Onondaga, and producing a leaf of paper on which all had written their naines. Their lives however, depended on the return of a Blaek Robe with him.
The returned captives told of their life at Onondaga. "One of the prinei- pal men (Garakontie) took care to sound a bell every morning, to assemble the French and savages to prayers, which were made every day; that they spoke there publiely and advantageously of the Faith ; that these French captives had even liberty to baptize children." Le Moyne was the man for the occasion, and, thinking "the day of his departure as one of the happiest days of his life," for the fifth time he went to the Iroquois on his errand of peace and love, though war still raged in places.
Hle wrote from the chapel at Onondaga, August 25. and September 11, 1661, telling of his enthusiastic reception. Garakontie and other chiefs met him two leagues from the town, a great honor, an eighth of a league being the usual distance. All the way thence to the town he met people who seemed never satisfied with seeing him. He must tell his own story :
"It is he who shall take the better place in order to see me pass ; who shall clear the roads; who shall bring me more fruits, who shall give me more greet- ings, who shall shout the loudest as a mark of rejoieing; they wait for me as
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far as they see me, and they measure me from head to foot, but with gracious glances, and all full of affection ; and as soon as I had passed, those who have seen me leave their posts, in order to run before me, to hold a place again, and to see me pass a second, a third, and a tenth time. So I walked gravely between two hedges of people, who give me a thousand benedietions, and who load me with all kinds of fruits, with pumpkins, with mulberries, with bread. with strawberries and others. I kept making my cry of ambassador while walking. and seeing myself near the town, which was scarcely visible to me, the pickets, the eabins and the trees were so covered with people, I stopped before making the first step which would give me entrance into the town, then having re- turned in two words, my thanks for this good welcome, I continued my journey and iny cry."
The eonneil met at the sound of the bell. August 12. assembling in the great eabin where Le Moyne was entertained. Ile spoke both in Onondaga and Huron, the latter dialect closely resembling the Mohawk. The result was that seven French captives at Onondaga and two at Cayuga were sent to Montreal with Garakontie. the rest remaining at Onondaga with Le Moyne through the winter. The Senecas united in this embassy, all setting out about the middle of September. They met an Onondaga party returning with scalps, and one of these was that of a priest. They were alarmed, but still went on. Then came an Oneida war party whom they persnaded to seek other fors. October 3 they reached Montreal.
In 1662 Onondaga war parties went against the Cherokeas, of whom they knew nothing till after the Erie war. For a hundred years this southern war eontinned. Le Moyne was busy, ministering to three churches, "let us say eight or ten, sinee there are in Onnontaghe as many conquered nations." The three were the Onondaga, Hnron and French, all worshiping in the same bark chapel.
The French eaptives of course had some trials. One was a great favorite. and the Onondagas lovingly wished him to take an Indian wife. He refused and they persisted, warming up until the alternative was, marry or die. He died. Another served two women who gave opposing orders. Weary of trying to satisfy both he escaped to a rocky islet in Limestone creek. Great was the search for him. and just as it was agreed his life should be spared, hunger compelled him to give himself up.
The last of August, 1662. Le Moyne reached Montreal with the eighteen Frenehmen whom he had freed, and escorted by a score of Onondagas. It was a seene surpassing deseription. "These happy Argonauts made a discharge of all their guns, in order to salute the land so mneh desired, publishing peace by the mouth of war itself."
The Iroquois sought new foes, and "a war party of Maqnaes, Sinnekes and Onondakas" passed through Albany in December, 1663, returning from a raid on the New England Indians. Some of these had said to the Mohawks, "We from the Onondake will go and see where the northern savages live." They went as far as Maine and were defeated. An Onondaga expedition against the Andastes that year also was disastrous.
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Garakontie still labored for peace, but an unfortunate event delayed it. He led an embassy of thirty Onondagas and Senecas into Canada in 1664, with "a prodigions collection of wampum," over one hundred belts in all, some of them over a foot wide. The ambassadors were waylaid by Algonquins at the Long Sault, and were killed, captured, or put to flight.
Garakontie's hopes were dashed by this event, for he loved the French and had made feasts for the captives on Sundays, and saw that a bell was rung for their meetings. His influence was everywhere powerful in their favor. They were not ungrateful. "They related with pleasure all the caresses they had bestowed on them, all the feasts to which they were invited, the joy they took in seeing them, the charity they exercised toward them, in order to clothe them well, to lodge them well and to furnish them with all the conveniences of which savage life is capable."
In fact their accounts took on a picturesque form. Often they found their Immber "increased by several savages, especially some Huron families, who, , after their example, made a second choir of music, very melodious, and very agreeable in the ears of God, who received at the same time the vows and prayers of several very different languages. That which they prized most was the liberty with which they assembled in a cabin of which they made a chapel ; and there sometimes they exhorted one another to the fear of God and to keep themselves in innocence, since they had no priest to confess them; sometimes they made their prayers, not alone and privately, but all together and aloud; sometimes they made the town resound with the cantieles of the church, the Litanies of the Virgin, which they chanted with the admiration of the people; and all this in a silenec and repose as great as if they had been in the midst of Kebec."
Such privileges Garakontie had procured for them. No wonder is it that he was known as the Father of the French. Yet his efforts for peace had failed. Another power did more when De Tracy made his successful expeditions in 1666 against the Mohawks. All of the Five Nations were at once anxious for peace. In the negotiations Garakontie of course was prominent, and a new era began. The missions were soon resumed. Father Julian Garnier went to Onondaga in 1668, being the first Jesuit ordained in Canada. A new chapel was built two days after Garnier's arrival and services were at onec resumed. In October, 1668, Father Pierre Milet also went to Onondaga, "a great town, the center of all the Iroquois, and the place of the general assemblies, which they make each year." On account of its importance it often had two missionaries. Captives were often burned there, and this made frequent work for them. "This office of assisting the captives, who are burned all alive, and who are caten in the presence of the missionaries, is an exercise which demands great courage." They never lacked it.
August 29, 1669, all met at Onondaga for a conference, Pierron coming from the Mohawks, Bruyas from the Oneidas. Carheil from the Cayugas, and Fremin and Garnier from the Senecas, whither the latter had soon gone. They returned to their stations September 6. This was the year of the mythic massacre.
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The great event of 1670 was the baptism of Daniel Garakontie at Quebec. The Sun that advances had long been the head chief of the Onondagas and the Friend of the French from the first. "Monsieur the Governor offered to be the godfather, Mademoiselle Boutroue, daughter of Monsieur the Intendant, was the godmother. Monseigneur the Bishop wished to give this sacrament with his own hands, and then that of confirmation. It was in the principal church of Canada, and in the cathedral of Quebec that this ceremony was performed. The concourse of people who were present there could not be greater, and he had the satisfaction of having, as witnesses of his baptism, a crowd of people, gathered from all the nations who inhabit New France."
This was not all. He went to the Chatean to thank Governor de Calliere. "At his entrance he saw himself saluted by a discharge of all the cannon of the fort, and of all the musketry of the soldiers, who were ranged in line to receive him; and as a conclusion of the festival they presented him with something to regale bountifully all the nations assembled at Quebec, and to make them a sumptuous feast." Such were the honors of this Onondaga chief, all well deserved.
In Advent, 1669. Milet made some special efforts at Onondaga. He made the ordinary ery in the morning to call the people to the chapel, saying: "As I am in the mission of St. John Baptist I believed that God asked of me that I should imitate this great saint, in crying like him in these deserts." He told what his varying eries were, and used wampum and other symbols to illustrate his words. Portraits, charts, and the Bible itself were thus used.
Ilis congregations grew. He introduced the Benedicite at feasts, con- formed to their usage in singing. by Garakontie's advice talked more to the old men. "Five or six days before Christmas. our chapel not being large enough to receive the people who were coming in crowds to receive the in- structions, I was obliged to divide them into two bands, and to make two catechisms the same day. I borrowed for this purpose a bell which they had had thirteen or fourteen years ago, of those of our fathers who were at this mission. About midnight (Christmas) our christian men and christian women rendered to him their devoirs, while I went to sing some Motets in their language, and to ring the bell, in order to wake the people through all the town, and invite them to come to the chapel. The crowd was great all the morning, and the Ancients were present as in a body."
In April. 1670. Bruyas wrote at Oneida: "I went to pass the feasts of Easter with Father Milet at Onnontaghe." And again in May: "I passed the feasts of Pentecost at Onmontaghe, where Father de Carheil had also returned from his mission of Oignen" or Cayuga. Soon after the worship of Agreskoue was abolished at Onondaga. Onee, while teaching some Andastes before their torture. Milet sang the one hundred and seventeenth Psalm, and added : "It has often happened since that they have begged me to sing my death song."
Father Jean de Lamiberville now came to aid Milet at Onondaga and soon took his place. In 1673 Count Frontenae sent LaSalle to Onondaga to invite the chiefs to meet him at Cadaraqui (now Kingston) to consult about a French
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fort at that place. This noted explorer was several times at Onondaga that year. Lamberville mentions him in a letter dated at Tethiroguen (now Brewer- ton) September 9, 1673. "I am come on purpose from Onmontague to present myself here to see MI. de La Salle, and to give him this letter. M. de La Salle who is in haste to depart, to go and bear the news of the retaking of Manathe and of Orange by the Dutch," etc.
In July Frontenac held a successful conference with the Iroquois at Cada- raqui, and Fort Frontenac was at once built. Garakontie was the principal speaker out of "more than sixty of the oldest and most influential of the sachems." At Christmas. 1675, he took a severe cold while attending the midnight mass, and died soon after. Just before he died he said to Lamberville : "Write to the Governor that he loses the best servant he had in the cantous of the Iroquois, and I pray my Lord Bishop, who baptized me, and all the mission- aries. to pray that my stay in purgatory may not be long." Then he gave directions for his burial. and said, 'Onne ouage che ea-Behold, I die!' All fell on their knees, and he died while they prayed." Lamberville himself prepared his coffin. and a lofty eross marked his grave. His brother or near kinsman took his name but not his office, becoming a kind of French agent and dying in 1702. August 23 of that year, Dekanissora said to M. de Callieres : "Garagontie greatly loved the French. Ile is dead, but here is his nephew. Garagontie, who loves them also." Ile became the French correspondent.
In 1679 Bruyas took Lamberville's place at Onondaga, but held it but a short time. Of this period Mr. Jerome II. Fort of Syracuse, has a curious memorial. being the translation of an original letter from Bruyas, formerly held by Daniel G. Fort of Oswego. As the La Forts of Onondaga were former- ly Oneidas, to whom Bruyas long ministered, it is possible this accounts for the origin of their name, the Indians often taking that of some white friend. Bruyas, however, left the Oneidas in 1672. The letter or certificate follows :
"I, the undersigned, certify that Jean Le Fort has lived in my service nine years, during which he has shown me the respect, obedience and faithful- ness which can be expected from a family heir. Ile now withdraws from his own free choice, and with my consent. I am under obligations to render this testimony to the truth, and I beg those who may read it to place confidence in it.
"At Onondaga, 29th June. 1680.
"JACQUES BRUYAS. "Minister of the Society of Jesus."
Jean de Lamberville resumed his mission at Onondaga in 1681. being a great favorite there. He was called Teiorhensere, Dawn of the day. Ile con- tinued at Onondaga for six years, his brother Jacques being with him most of the time, both becoming prominent in political affairs.
In 1677 Wentworth Greenhalgh was sent from Albany through the Iro- quois country to call the Five Nations to a council on southern difficulties. ITis account of Onondaga is given elsewhere. Dekanissora, the eloquent Onon-
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SOLVAY PROCESS WORKS.
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daga speaker, began to be prominent in 1678, and was made much of by both French and English. In 1694 the former said "he spoke with as perfeet a graee as is vouchsafed to an unpolished and uneivilized people," with other complimentary words. Colden said: "He was grown old when I saw him, and heard him speak; he had a great fluency in speaking, and a graceful eloeution. that would have pleased in any part of the world. His person was tall and well made, and his features, to my thinking, resembled mneh the busts of Cicero."
The Onondagas had been quite successful in their southern wars, the Nantieokes becoming subject to them in 1680, and the Andastes about the same time. The Delawares also were tributary. By conquest the Pennsylvania lands belonged to the Onondagas and Cayngas alone, and they soon conveyed these in trust to Governor Dongan. There was a standing quarrel about these lands for a long time, and an Oneida chief became a sort of vieeroy to look after the tributary nations there.
The year 1684 saw some stirring events. In their distant wars, reaching to the Mississippi. the Iroquois had again come in conflict with the Illinois and others whom they had once dispossessed. The French took the side of these. commanding the Iroquois to desist, which they refused to do. On this De la Barre, the French governor. prepared for war, asking Governor Dongan of New York. first of all. not to supply the Indians with guns and ammunition. Dongan at once sent a messenger to Onondaga to look after English interests there, and to set up the English arms in all the castles, promising sneh aid as he could give.
The French had no confidence in De la Barre. and freely predicted failure. He took nearly nine hundred men with him to Fort Frontenae, most of them going with him to La Famine. and in both places the larger part became siek. Lamberville thought war would be disastrous, and labored for peace. He arranged a council, which a few Onondagas attended, but M. de Meulles said they "fooled the general in a most shameful manner."
The principal Onondaga there was HIotreonate, called Grangula by La- hontan. Garangula by Colden, and La Grande Gueule, or Big Mouth by the French in general. He was both a good speaker and eater. De Meulles ealled him a "sycophant who seeks merely a good dinner ;" Lamberville said he had "the strongest head and loudest voice among the Iroquois." while his speech, as given by Lahontan, is a masterpiece of oratory. It left De la Barre almost frantie.
Lahontan, then a young French subaltern. has left us a full account of this notable eouneil, with a sketch of the eamp, corresponding with the site at the mouth of La Famine, or Salmon river. In this De la Barre sits at one end of the hollow square, the chief and his few followers at the other. The French spoke first. Laliontan said: "While Mr. De la Barre's inter- preter prononneed this harangne. the Grangula did nothing, but looked upon the end of his pipe. After his speech was finished he rose, and having took five or six turns in the ring that the French and savages made, he returned
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to his place, and, standing upright, spoke after the following manner to the general, who sat in his chair of state." It was a masterly address, but part only can be given here. After the usual introduction, he said :
"Yonnondio, you must have believed when you left Quebec that the sun had burnt up all the forests which render our country inaccessible to the French, or that the lakes had so far overflowed their banks that they had surrounded our castles, and that it was impossible for us to get out of them. Yes, surely you must have dreamed so. and the curiosity of seeing so great a wonder has brought you so far. Now you are undeceived, sinec that I and the warriors here present are come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas. Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks are yet alive. I thank you in their names for bringing back into their country the calumet which your predecessors received from their hands. It was happy for you that you left underground that murdering hatchet so often dyed in the blood of the French.
"Hear, Yonnondio. I do not sleep. I have my eyes wide open, and the sun which enlightens me, shows me a great captain at the head of a company of soldiers, who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says that he ouly came to the lake to smoke the great ealumet with the Onondagas. But Garangula says he sees the contrary; that it was to knock them on the head if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French. I see Yonnondio raving in a camp of siek men, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by inflicting this sickness upon them.
"Hear, Yonnondio. Our women had taken their clubs, our children and old men had carried their hows and arrows into the heart of your camp, if our warriors had not disarmed them and kept them back when your messenger. Ohguesse (Le Moine) came to our castles. It is done, I have said it."
He defended the course of the Seneeas. They had plundered the French who carried warlike munitions to their foes. It was contraband of war, and they would pay no damages. "Our warriors have not beavers enough to pay for all these arms that they have taken, and our old men are not afraid of the war." They would trade with whom they chose. "We are born free, we neither depend on Onondio or Corlaer. We may go where we please and carry with us whom we please and buy and sell what we please. If your allies be your slaves, use them as such."
De la Barre abandoned the cause of the Illinois, patched up such a peace as he could, and left the place September 6, having embarked his siek troops before day, "so as not to be seen by the Indians," who saw the whole. These troops were in one hundred and fifty canoes and twelve bateaux. At Fort Frontenac he found one hundred and ten invalids more.
In this trip he wished to meet the Iroquois at Oswego. The Onondagas replied : "As you advised them not to be troubled at the sight of your barks and gendarmes, they likewise give you notice not to be surprised when you will see faces painted red and black at Ochouaguen." Oswego was several times mentioned by this name in 1682, but it was the name for the river, where it issues from Cayuga lake ten years earlier.
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After De la Barre had retired forty Onondagas went at onee against the Tonois. They had told him that "the entire Iroquois nation reserved to itself the power of waging war against the Illinois as long as a single one of them remained on earth." The incompetent governor was removed, De Nonville taking his place.
The English traders were pushing westward, twenty of their trading canoes passing Oswego Falls in 1686. while a treaty was probable with the Ottawas. Charlevoix said of this: "Nothing was fraught with greater danger than this opening of trade between New York and the nations whom we had till now regarded as our most faithful allies." Dongan's men were busy at Onon- daga and Lamberville was away. De Nonville sent him back with presents, and Charlevoix adds: "His presence in a moment changed the face of affairs. Ile spoke to the chiefs with that frankness and that insinuating manner that had won him the esteem and affection of that nation; he dispelled ahnost all the suspicions that had been instilled into them."
De Nonville now meditated an invasion of the Senecas for 1687, to be followed by the destruction of the Cayugas and Onondagas the following year. He began his plan by an act of treachery. Louis XIV. had written to De la Barre in 1684: "As it tends to the good of my servants to diminish as much as possible the numbers of the Iroquois, and moreover, as these savages, who are very strong and robust, will serve usefully in my galleys, 1 will that you do everything in your power to make a great number of them prisoners of war and have them embarked by every opportunity that will offer, in order that they be conveyed to France."
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