When the attack was over twenty-seven of Haverhill’s citizens lay dead and another thirteen were led away as captives. Among those taken captive were Thomas Dunston’s wife, Hannah, her infant son, and her nurse, Mrs. Neff. Their captives pushed the prisoners forward through the snow-patched forest, and when one was displeased by a cry from Hannah’s infant, he tore it from the nurse’s arms and dashed it against a tree. A few of the older prisoners who could not keep up were dispatched with a quick blow by a tomahawk as the war party slowly distanced itself from any pursuit. Within a few days the party had traveled nearly sixty miles to the confluence of the Merrimac and Contoocook Rivers where they pitched camp on a small island formed by the two waterways.
The captives were informed that the party would stay here until they were ready to depart for Canada. Talk of what was in store for them and opportunity spurred Hannah into action. For now the party was on the Merrimac River, and from here all Hannah and her nurse needed to do was follow the river home, but once they departed for Canada, even if the women could possibly escape, they would be hopelessly lost and inevitably doomed. They had to act now if there was to be any chance. Fortunately, the two women did not pose much of a threat to the war party and as such were not closely guarded. Hannah, Mrs. Neff, and an English boy named Samuel Leonardson, who had been held captive for a year and a half and had gained the trust of the Abenaki, agreed upon a plan that called for dispatching their captors while they slept. There could be no pursuit if the three were to gain their freedom. The appointed time arrived in the wee hours of the morning. The three figures selected their targets one by one and killed all of their captors except a small boy and a woman who ran off badly wounded. With the grisly task done, the three gathered together supplies, destroyed all the canoes but one, and set off for freedom down the Merrimac River.10
Haverhill was to be but the start of a long year for New England. As in the previous years Massachusetts had organized a detachment of several hundred men under Major March to patrol the frontier and intercept enemy war parties, but it was an impossible task. Small groups of Abenaki soon struck at Exeter, and finding their old nemesis Major John Frost returning home one day, they ambushed his wagon, killing the major and his companions. Small bands of raiders struck Saco, York, and several other towns along the New Hampshire and Maine frontier. On September 9, March’s diligence finally paid off, as he was able to ambush a war party as they grounded their canoes along the bank of the Damariscotta River. A sudden volley followed by a charge from the soldiers posted in the tree line routed the war party and left two dozen of their number dead along the shoreline. Two days later the last major effort on the part of the Wabanaki fell upon Lancaster, Massachusetts, where twenty-one of the inhabitants were slain and six carried away after a surprise morning attack on the town.11
It had indeed been a difficult year on the New England frontier. Almost a dozen raids had killed, wounded, or captured over one hundred colonists and, with the exception of March’s actions at Damariscotta, the enemy had suffered little in the way of losses. When coupled with the panic set off by rumors of Nesmond’s fleet and its plans to burn Boston, it had been an unsettling time for New England. Fortunately on December 10 good news arrived. A peace treaty had been signed at Ryswick. The war was over.
News of the Treaty of Ryswick reached New York and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard not long after and was met with similar celebration wherever it came. Drums were played, church bells rung, and cannon fired, echoed by calls of “God save the king!” The colonial militias were released and any costs associated with defenses quickly slashed. Connecticut, which had drawn specific comment from the king in regard to her quota obligations, had no sooner heard news of the treaty then were writing the English court that, “The happy return of peace has rendered the quota needless, but we shall not neglect, in times of peace, to take such care of our forces as the King has directed.”12
In fact the war was only over between the French and the English, and while “the people have very sensibly tasted the direful effects of war and are glad to be freed from the heavy taxes, laid upon them,” Governor Stoughton noted, “they will enjoy great ease if the barbarous Indian rebels can be reduced to obedience.” This last issue proved more difficult than first hoped. Small numbers of Abenaki returned to the warpath in the spring of 1698, striking at Andover, Haverhill, Spruce Creek, and York. By midsummer a temporary truce was agreed upon, and that fall the two sides formally met at Penobscot. Given that both sides were worn down by the conflict and sincerely wanted peace, the conference went well. A prisoner exchange was worked out, and it was agreed to meet again at Casco in January 1699, where a more permanent peace treaty was signed, bringing an end to the Wabanaki War.13
The Anglo-Wabanaki conflict had cost hundreds of lives on both sides, with dozens of villages destroyed and countless lives ruined. In one sense the Wabanaki had accomplished their goal in keeping the English encroachments on their land in check. They had required French help to see this through, but the French had proven worthy allies in their cause. Unfortunately, for all their success, the simple truth was that the English were far more numerous than the Wabanaki and were slowly grinding the confederacy down with or without the help of the French. With peace between France and England now at hand it seemed likely that French support would wane as well, perhaps leaving the Wabanaki in a worse position if they continued the conflict. To most in the confederacy peace was the logical course to be pursued.
For New England, the Wabanaki War was a disaster. Militarily the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire could not defeat a severely outnumbered force at their doorstep. In fact, for a good part of the conflict New England was on the defensive, and what campaigns that were launched against the Wabanaki or their French allies seldom arrived upon the desired results. The Wabanaki had launched at least fifty-nine raids on the Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts frontiers from June 28, 1689, to the summer of 1698, and even this number likely does not account for many of the smaller incursions. The result was over seven hundred New Englanders killed, wounded, or captured and the destruction of hundreds of homesteads. Commerce suffered, agriculture suffered, and the cost of garrisons and troops for the frontier further deepened a recession that raged through the colonies. Fear of death lurking in every shadow or behind every tree gripped the communities of New England and no doubt played a prominent role in the witch hunt epidemic that haunted the bay colony for a good portion of the conflict. “For the present then the Indians have done murdering,” Reverend Cotton Mather wrote of the subject. “They’ll do so no more until next time.” The long tragedy was over.14
As it turned out, peace was foremost on the minds of all the belligerents. In May 1698, Johannes Schuyler and a delegation from Albany arrived at Quebec with copies of a peace treaty signed at Ryswick. The war was over. The kings of France and England had agreed to set up a commission to settle any boundary disputes in North America, but until then, the Albany delegation had brought with them twenty French captives with the purpose of beginning the prisoner exchange as provided for under the terms of the treaty.
Although Frontenac had yet to receive official word of the treaty, rumors of such had reached him, and he agreed to release all English prisoners. As it turned out, for various reasons most did not wish to return. As for the English prisoners in the hands of his native allies, Schuyler was surprised to learn that the count was having difficulty in obtaining the release of these captives. The governor dismissed the issue as reluctance on the part of his allies to release their captives while the English still held several of their warriors. He was even more dismayed when he learned that an Abenaki war party had just raided the New England frontier, but again the governor dismissed the issue, saying that he had issued orders to the contrary and that the entire matter was the result of miscommunications.15
Schuyler also presented Frontenac with a letter from the new governor of New York, the Earl of Bel
lomont. Couched as an official greeting announcing the Treaty of Ryswick, the letter informed Frontenac that in addition to the prisoners traveling with Schuyler he had directed the Iroquois to release all of their captives, and in return he expected that Frontenac would order his native allies to do the same. Although a reasonable request on the surface, it created a serious problem for the count, for it raised one of the questions that still remained unresolved, that being the status of the Iroquois under the newly signed treaty. By agreeing to Bellomont’s demand, the count would validate his enemy’s claim that the Iroquois were English citizens. The consequences of this arrangement could easily spiral out of control, leading to the forfeiture of vast tracts of the western frontier and making any lasting peace treaty with the Iroquois contingent upon English interests. There was also another important matter to consider along these lines. At the moment, the Iroquois prevented the tribes of Canada from trading directly with the better-supplied merchants at Albany. Should the English, however, assert their claim over the Iroquois and somehow convince the Five Nations to allow these tribes to pass unmolested to this post, the entire fur trade, and hence the economic core of New France, would be compromised. Such a situation would be nothing short of a disaster. Within a short period of time, New France’s western allies would become economically dependent on this trade and, not long after, politically attached to the English cause. With the west lost, the colony would either be forced to accept a contracted position along the banks of the St. Lawrence or fight a war they could not possibly win to recover this trade.16
It was not a path Frontenac was interested in taking, and although Schuyler pressed him on the matter, the governor refused to release his Iroquois captives. A few days later he clarified his position in a letter to Bellomont. The English and Dutch he had in his hands would be immediately turned over, but as for the Iroquois, they had already approached him with peace envoys, therefore “it would be needless for you to give yourself the trouble to interfere in the matter, inasmuch as these are children disobedient to their father, who have uninterruptedly been subject to the king’s dominion, even before the English took New-York from the Dutch.”17
The matter would further heighten tensions between the French and English colonies when Frontenac, taking advantage of the failure of the treaty to mention the Iroquois as English subjects, continued to unleash his native allies on the confederacy and even threatened direct French intervention. The count knew there was little Bellomont could do to oppose him given the orders arriving from the French and English courts to maintain the peace between the colonies. Suffering under the relentless blows of Frontenac’s allies and fearful of a major French attack the Five Nations appealed to the English for help, but as Frontenac had surmised, beyond a handful of guns, a few barrels of gunpowder, and several threatening letters, little came of the effort. Isolated and on the verge of being overrun, the Five Nations had no choice but to ignore the pleas of their English allies and dispatch emissaries to Montreal to negotiate a peace treaty.18
Conclusion
King William’s War and the Future of North America
IN ALL THERE WOULD BE FOUR CONFLICTS between the French and the English to determine the destiny of North America: King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, King George’s War, and the French and Indian War, which concluded with the English conquest of Canada. Of these, King William’s War was not only the first but the only conflict that can be said to have been won by the French.
The margin of French victory may not have been large, but given the realistic aims and possible outcomes, it was significant. First, New France had survived. Upon considering the strength of her adversaries, the American colonies, the Iroquois, and the occasional foray on the part of Old England, it was a remarkable feat. Second, the Iroquois had been detached from the English cause and a few years after the war would be forced to sign a separate peace treaty with the French and their allies. With Iroquois neutrality in place, the confederacy was no longer a major military threat but still acted as a barrier against the French tribes who might wish to trade at Albany. This was no simple feat, but through the sometimes rocky efforts of Frontenac and Callières, New France had accomplished this strategic aim. Third, the French made territorial gains in Hudson Bay and by treaty had Port Royal restored to them. Fourth, the Wabanaki Confederacy, although it wavered on occasion, had held and stifled English expansion into Acadia. Lastly, and most importantly, with the Five Nations removed the West now fell under French influence and claim.
The first question to be asked is how this was possible when one considers that the relative populations of the English and French colonies were on the order of twenty to one in favor of the English. In fact, New England alone could muster thirteen thousand men to that of three thousand for all of New France. To make matters even more questionable, New France was not self-sufficient and depended on the seasonal fleets from France for its survival. This was not true of the English colonies. Lastly, although French naval power at the time was on par with the combined Dutch and English fleets, it was predominantly occupied with the West Indies and European theaters. This left local control of North American waters to the English navy and, more importantly, to the numerically superior colonial naval forces. Under such circumstances how could the French colony have won the war?1
There were a number of factors that contributed to French success but none more than the fractured colonial political system and the failure on the part of England to correct this flaw. The immediate cause of much of the failure of the English settlements to fully cooperate can be traced to the Glorious Revolution and the political chaos that ensued with the provisional colonial governments. The combined militias of the English colonies during the conflict were close to twenty-five thousand men, and the vessels plying the merchant trade in the ports of New England alone dwarfed the maritime resources of New France, but disunity and the lack of a commander in chief for the colonies for part of the conflict undermined any advantage this strength might have brought. Even when Governor Fletcher of New York was appointed commander in chief of the English colonial forces, any benefits derived from this move were short circuited by a lack of intercolonial cooperation and the policy of placing local concerns over that of strategic concerns.
Another important element in the English defeat was the role of the English navy. It should be understood that the English navy of this day was not the Britannia that would rule the Spanish Main. It would still be some fifty years before one could say such things. As such, support from the Royal Navy was limited to patrols and escort duties, and because of this throughout the conflict there was genuine fear of a concerted French expedition against one of the major colonial seaports. Even when the Royal Navy appeared in force under Admiral Wheler, poor communications and a lack of coordination between England and New England resulted in a wasted opportunity. The lack of a major English naval presence in North America also meant that the more powerful French navy could consistently deliver supplies to New France and, as Iberville aptly demonstrated, assert local superiority with daring cruiser operations.
Lastly, a lack of will on the part of the English contributed to their failures. To be fair this spirit was not present at the opening of the conflict after Frontenac’s raids on the New York and New England frontiers. The English response to these attacks, that being an attack on Quebec, was indeed the correct response, even if poorly executed. While the ad hoc effort failed, setting off an economic and psychological backlash, the failure was easily attributed to a lack of military supplies from England that delayed the expedition from the onset, poor logistics, poor intelligence in terms of navigating the St. Lawrence, and the limited military experience within the colonial ranks. Lack of effort on the part of the Yankees, however, was not to be counted among the causes of the defeat, and it can easily be said that under better circumstances these troops would have captured Quebec. Even as it was, if Phips had arrived a week earlier the French capital would have fallen and
likely New France with it.
While the failed expedition shattered English will, Phips was correct in his assessment that, with support from the Royal Navy, colonial forces could seize the French capital the next year and end the war. The plan, however, received a cool reception, and although it was attempted a few years later with Admiral Wheler’s squadron, even here we see a lack of spirit at work. With a little effort, at least five hundred to one thousand men could have been raised to assist the admiral, but there was little taste for the sudden venture in New England. Nor did Wheler himself show an abundance of enthusiasm for the expedition. While he possessed a fleet powerful enough to wreak havoc along both banks of the St. Lawrence and launch a sustained bombardment of the French capital, he quickly accepted Phips’s advice and sailed away, having accomplished nothing for his efforts.
For the English the counter to French policies was clear from the beginning. The Iroquois had pointed to it time and again: “Unite and cut the head off the serpent.” Others saw it, Phips perhaps foremost among them. The response was correct, but Quebec was far too difficult of a military task for the amateur colonial army. When the Royal Navy did make a serious commitment to the taking of the French capital, miscommunications and hesitation on the part of Phips undermined the effort. Thus, although the solution to the problem was well understood, it would not be for twenty-one years before the English tried their luck again at Quebec (with disastrous results).
While division undermined the English colonies, a more unified command system directed the resources of New France. When coupled with an active and reliable French naval effort that not only ensured that aid reached the colony but conducted attacks against English commerce and fortifications, this yielded an approach that, when pitted against a fractured English response, proved vital in a French victory against what seemed like overwhelming odds.
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