Canada: The Empire of the North — From 1686 to 1698, part 1

For ten years Hudson Bay becomes the theater of northern buccaneers and bushraiders.

A treaty of neutrality in 1686 provides that the bay shall be held in common by the fur traders of England and France; but the adventurers of England and the bushrovers of Quebec have no notion of leaving things so uncertain.

Spite of truce, both fit out raiders, and the King of France, according to the shifting diplomacy of the day, issues secret orders "to permit not a vestige of English possession on the northern bay."

Maricourt Le Moyne held the newly captured forts on the south shore of James Bay till Iberville came back overland in 1687. The fort at Rupert had been completely abandoned after the French victory of the previous summer, and the Hudson's Bay Company sloop, the _Young_, had just sailed into the port to reëstablish the fur post.

Iberville surrounded the sloop by his bushrovers, captured it with all hands, and dispatched four spies across to Charlton Island, where another sloop, the _Churchill_, swung at anchor.

Here Iberville's run of luck turned.

Three of his four spies were captured, fettered, and thrown into the hold of the vessel for the winter.

In the spring of 1688 one was brought above decks to help the English sailors.

Watching his chance, the grizzled bushrover waited till six of the English crew were up the ratlines.

Quick as flash the Frenchman tiptoed across decks in his noiseless moccasins, took one precautionary glance over his shoulder, brained two Englishmen with an ax, liberated his comrades, and at pistol point kept the other Englishmen up the masts till he and his fellows had righted the ship and steered the vessel across to Rupert River, where the provisions were just in time to save Iberville's party from starvation.

{162} This episode is typical of what went on at the Hudson's Bay forts for ten years.

Each year, when the English ships came out to Nelson on the west coast, armed bands were sent south to wrest the forts on James Bay from the French; and each spring, when Iberville's bushrovers came gliding down the rivers in their canoes from Canada, there was a fight to drive out the English.

Then the Indians would scatter to their hunting grounds.

No more loot of furs for a year!

The English would sail away in their ships, the French glide away in their canoes; and for a winter the uneasy quiet of calm between two thunderclaps would rest over the waters of Hudson Bay.

In the spring of 1688, about the time that the brave bush-rovers had brought the English ship from Charlton Island across to Rupert River, two English frigates under Captain Moon, with twenty-four soldiers over and above the crews, had come south from Nelson to attack the French fur traders at Albany.

As ill luck would have it, the ice floes began driving inshore.

The English ships found themselves locked in the ice before the besieged fort.

Across the jam from Rupert River dashed Iberville with his Indian bandits, portaging where the ice floes covered the water, paddling where lanes of clear way parted the floating drift.

Iberville hid his men in the tamarack swamps till eighty-two Englishmen had landed and all unsuspecting left their ships unguarded.

Iberville only waited till the furs in the fort had been transferred to the holds of the vessels.

The ice cleared.

The Frenchman rushed his bushrovers on board, seized the vessel with the most valuable cargo, and sailed gayly out of Albany for Quebec.

The astounded English set fire to the other ship and retreated overland.

But the dare-devil bushrovers were not yet clear of trouble.

As the ice drive jammed and held them in Hudson Straits, they were aghast to see, sailing full tilt with the roaring tide of the straits, a fleet of English frigates, the Hudson's Bay Company's annual ships; but Iberville sniffed at danger as a war horse glories in gunpowder.

He laughed his merriest, and as the ice drive locked all the ships within gunshot, ran up an {163} English flag above his French crew and had actually signaled the captains of the English frigates to come aboard and visit him, when the ice cleared.

Hoisting sail, he showed swift heels to the foe.

Iberville's ambition now was to sweep _all_ the English from Hudson Bay, in other words, to capture Nelson on the west coast, whence came the finest furs; but other raids called him to Canada.

It will be recalled that La Salle's enemies had secretly encouraged the Iroquois to attack the tribes of the Illinois; and now the fur traders of New York were encouraging the Iroquois to pillage the Indians of the Mississippi valley, in order to divert peltries from the French on the St. Lawrence to the English at New York.

Savages of the north, rallied by Perrot and Duluth and La Motte Cadillac, came down by the lakes to Fort Frontenac to aid the French; but they found that La Barre, the new governor, foolish old man, had been frightened into making peace with the Iroquois warriors, abandoning the Illinois to Iroquois raid and utterly forgetful that _a peace which is not a victory is not worth the paper it is written on_.

For the shame of this disgraceful peace La Barre was recalled to France and the Marquis de Denonville, a brave soldier, sent out as governor.

Unfortunately Denonville did not understand conditions in the colony.

The Jesuit missionaries were commissioned to summon the Iroquois to a conference at Fort Frontenac, but when the deputies arrived they were seized, tortured, and fifty of them shipped to France by the King's order to serve as slaves on the royal galleys.

It was an act of treachery heinous beyond measure and exposed the Jesuit missionaries among the Five Nations to terrible vengeance; but the Iroquois code of honor was higher than the white man's. "Go home," they warned the Jesuit missionary.

"We have now every right to treat thee as our foe;

but we shall not do so!

Thy heart has had no share in the wrong done to us.

We shall not punish thee for the crimes of another, tho' thou didst act as the unconscious tool.

But leave us!

When our young {164} men chant the song of war they may take counsel only of their fury and harm thee!

Go to thine own people"; and furnishing him with guides, they sent him to Quebec.

Though Denonville marched with his soldiers through the Iroquois cantons, he did little harm and less good; for the wily warriors had simply withdrawn their families into the woods, and the Iroquois were only biding their time for fearful vengeance.

This lust of vengeance was now terribly whetted.

Dongan, the English governor of New York, had been ordered by King James of England to observe the treaty of neutrality between England and France; but this did not hinder him supplying the Iroquois with arms to raid the French and secretly advising them "not to bury the war hatchet,--just to hide it in the grass, and stand on their guard to begin the war anew."

[Illustration: FORT FRONTENAC AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY] Nor did the treaty of neutrality prevent the French from raiding Hudson Bay and ordering shot in cold blood any French bushrover who dared to guide the English traders to the country of the Upper Lakes.

In addition to English influence egging on the Iroquois, the treachery of the Huron chief, The Rat, lashed the vengeance {165} of the Five Nations to a fury.

He had come down to Fort Frontenac to aid the French.

He was told that the French had again arranged peace with the Iroquois, and deputies were even now on their way from the Five Nations.

"Peace!"

The old Huron chief was dumbfounded.

What were these fool French doing, trusting to an Iroquois peace?

"Ah," he grunted, "that may be well"; and he withdrew without revealing a sign of his intentions.

Then he lay in ambush on the trail of the deputies, fell on the Iroquois peace messengers with fury, slaughtered half the band, then sent the others back with word that he had done this by order of Denonville, the French governor.

"There," grunted The Rat grimly, "I 've killed the peace for them!

We 'll see how Onontio gets out of this mess."

Meanwhile war had been declared between England and France.

The Stuarts had been dethroned.

France was supporting the exiled monarch, and William of Orange had become king of England.

Iberville and Duluth and La Motte Cadillac, the famous fighters of Canada's wildwood, were laying plans before the French Governor for the invasion and conquest of New York; and New York was preparing to defend itself by pouring ammunition and firearms free of cost into the hands of the Iroquois.

Then the Iroquois vengeance fell.

Between the night and morning of August 4 and 5, in 1689, a terrific thunderstorm had broken over Montreal.

Amidst the crack of hail and crash of falling trees, with the thunder reverberating from the mountain like cannonading, whilst the frightened people stood gazing at the play of lightning across their windows, fourteen hundred Iroquois warriors landed behind Montreal, beached their canoes, and stole upon the settlement.

What next followed beggars description.

Nothing else like it occurs in the history of Canada.

For years this summer was to be known as "the Year of the Massacre."

Before the storm subsided, the Iroquois had stationed themselves in circles round every house outside the walls of Montreal.

At the signal of a whistle, the warriors fell on the settlement {166} like beasts of prey.

Neither doors nor windows were fastened in that age, and the people, deep in sleep after the vigil of the storm, were dragged from their beds before they were well awake.

Men, women, and children fell victims to such ingenuity of cruelty as only savage vengeance could conceive.

Children were dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes;

aged parents tomahawked before struggling sons and daughters; fathers held powerless that they might witness the tortures wreaked on wives and daughters.

Homes which had heard some alarm and were on guard were set on fire, and those who perished in the flames {167} died a merciful death compared to those who fell in the hands of the victors.

By daybreak two hundred people had been wantonly butchered.

A hundred and fifty more had been taken captives.

As if their vengeance could not be glutted, the Iroquois crossed the river opposite Montreal, and, in full sight of the fort, weakly garrisoned and paralyzed with fright, spent the rest of the week, day and night, torturing the white captives.

By night victims could be seen tied to the torture stake amid the wreathing flames, with the tormentors dancing round the camp fire in maniacal ferocity.

Denonville was simply powerless.

He lost his head, and seemed so panic-stricken that he forbade even volunteer bands from rallying to the rescue.

For two months the Iroquois overran Canada unchecked.

Indeed, it was years before the boldness engendered by this foray became reduced to respect for French authority.

Settlement after settlement, the marauders raided.

From Montreal to Three Rivers crops went up in flame, and the terrified habitants came cowering with their families to the shelter of the palisades.

[Illustration: WILLIAM OF ORANGE] In the midst of this universal terror came the country's savior.

Frontenac had been recalled because he quarreled with the intendant and he quarreled with the Jesuits and he quarreled with the fur traders;

but his bitterest enemies did not deny that he could put the fear of the Lord and respect for the French into the Iroquois' heart.

Arbitrary he was as a czar, but just always!

To be sure he mended his fortunes by personal fur trade, but in doing so he cheated no man; and he worked no injustice, and he wrought in all things for the lasting good of the country.

Homage he demanded as to a king, once going so far as to drive the Sovereign Councilors from his presence with the flat of a sword; but he firmly believed and he had publicly proved that he was worthy of homage, and that the men who are forever shouting "liberty--liberty and the people's rights," are frequently wolves in sheep's clothing, eating out the vitals of a nation's prosperity.

Here, then, was the haughty, hot-headed, aggressive Frontenac, sent back in his old age to restore the prestige of New France, {168} where both La Barre the grafter, and Denonville the courteous Christian gentleman, had failed.

To this period of Iroquois raids belongs one of the most heroic episodes in Canadian life.

The only settlers who had not fled to the protection of the palisaded forts were the grand old seigniors, the new nobility of New France, whose mansions were like forts in themselves, palisaded, with stone bastions and water supply and yards for stock and mills inside the walls.

Here the seigniors, wildwood knights of a wilderness age, held little courts that were imitations of the Governor's pomp at Quebec.

Sometimes during war the seignior's wife and daughters were reduced to plowing in the fields and laboring with the women servants at the harvest; but ordinarily the life at the seigniory was a life of petty grandeur, with such style as the backwoods afforded.

In the hall or great room of the manor house was usually an enormous table used both as court of justice by the seignior and festive board.

On one side was a huge fireplace with its homemade benches, on the other a clumsily carved chiffonier loaded with solid silver.

In the early days the seignior's bedstead might be in the same room,--an enormous affair with panoplies of curtains and counterpanes of fur rugs and feather mattresses, so high that it almost necessitated a ladder.

But in the matter of dress the rude life made up in style what it lacked in the equipments of a grand mansion.

The bishop's description of the women's dresses I have already given, though at this period the women had added to the "sins" of bows and furbelows and frills, which the bishop deplored, the yet more heinous error of such enormous hoops that it required fine maneuvering on the part of a grand dame to negotiate the door of the family coach; and however pompous the seignior's air, it must have suffered temporary eclipse in that coach from the hoops of his spouse and his spouse's daughters.

As for the seignior, when he was not dressed in buckskin, leading bushrovers on raids, he appeared magnificent in all the grandeur that a 20 pounds wig and Spanish laces and French ruffles {169} and imported satins could lend his portly person; and if the figure were not portly, one may venture to guess, from the pictures of stout gentlemen in the quilted brocades of the period, that padding made up what nature lacked.