At Quebec, the Onondagas met with Governor Jean de Lauzon, who had arrived in the colony with his commission two years earlier, just a few months following the establishment of the Wendat village on the Island of Orleans. It was there, on 4 September, that the first conference occurred, in the presence of the Wendats and Algonquian delegates from Kamiskouaouangachit. The Onondaga ambassador made a series of conciliatory speeches, mourning the dead and clearing the way for peace, supported with presents of beaver skins and wampum. His final words were, more pointedly, “to exhort the Hurons to accept whatever decision Onontio the great Captain of the French, should choose to make concerning peace.” Three days later, when Lauzon reciprocated with gifts of his own to confirm his desire for peace, he left that clause unanswered. Nonetheless, the Onondagas left contented on the next day, promising to return during the winter to report on the happy effect that news of this peace would have on their nation.13
The Mohawk delegation that had been forced upon the Onondagas, headed by a certain Andioura, made its speeches in the following days. Andioura’s pledges of peace and friendship elicited an impatient response from Tekouerimat, principal chief of Kamiskouaouangachit, who chided him and his people for their past duplicity, and who advised them that if they were truly interested in peace they ought to send back the Algonquin women whom they were holding captive so that they might come back to dwell in their country. The unnamed Wendat captain who spoke last was more conciliatory. Turning to Tekouerimat, he declared that “the old disputes must now be forgotten” and that the Algonquins should not abuse the blessings of Heaven in such a time of triumph. A second Wendat captain closed the proceedings by telling the Mohawks that to achieve peace they should deliver on their promise to bring back Father Poncet, and that this would “seal it more firmly […] than if you brought back to us a whole world of Hurons.”14 An odd assertion at first glance, but one that makes sense in a context where the Wendats had no hope that the Mohawks would release any of their relatives.
To absorb the very last of the Wendats – to add them to their relatives – was the primary objective of the Iroquois, and peace with the French was a novel means to this end. Onondagas and Mohawks both vied for the same objective, to reinvigorate themselves by the influx of adoptees, and both had cause to worry that the persistence of a Wendat community in the Saint Lawrence valley, by continuing to represent a hope of freedom and an invitation to escape, would pose a challenge to the smooth assimilation of captives and reluctant migrants already living in their villages. The available evidence makes it clear that this aim was a divisive one, with Onondagas and Mohawks undertaking efforts that were not merely parallel but conflicting. Challenged as to the sincerity of his people when they first approached the French at Montreal that summer, the Onondaga ambassador had explained to his French audience “that a careful distinction must be made between nation and nation; that the Onnontaëronnons [Onondaga] were not faithless, like the Anniehronnon [Mohawk] Iroquois, who cherish, deep in their breast, their rancor and bitterness of heart, while their tongues are uttering fair words.”15 The Mohawks persisted in considering it their prerogative, as the easternmost nation of the confederacy – the metaphorical eastern door of the longhouse – to lead Iroquois’s dealings with the inhabitants of the Saint Lawrence valley. On more than one occasion, the tensions between the two nations threatened to boil over into open violence. “I declare war on you,” an outraged Onondaga would announce to Mohawk warriors who intercepted a Franco-Wendat delegation under his escort the following year. Nothing came of this declaration, but the harshness of feeling that it exemplified remained lively through the decade.16
In early November of 1653, Teharihogen returned from Mohawk country to Quebec with a small delegation, bringing back Father Poncet and announcing that his elders would come in the spring to ratify a general peace. On 6 November, during the night that followed his meeting with Governor de Lauzon, Teharihogen visited the Wendats in secret, presenting them with wampum belts “of rare beauty” and “told them plainly that the purpose of his journey was to sever their connection” with the French “and to transfer their Huron colony to his own country.” The negotiation with the governor, he revealed, “was only meant to conceal their game” and to give his delegation “more means of speaking with us [the Wendats] without suspicion, and of conducting this whole affair smoothly and effectively.” The Wendat leaders responded to the Mohawks with wampum and gifts of their own which the Iroquois recipients interpreted as tokens of their willingness to comply.17
A few days after the departure of the Mohawk ambassadors, who returned to their country just as winter was setting in, the senior captains of the Wendats revealed to the missionaries and governor what had transpired. Displaying the wampum belts that the ambassadors had offered in secret, they explained in dramatic terms that they were presents “from the depths of hell, from a demon who spoke to us in the awful stillness of a dark night – a demon who inspires us with fear, since he loves only darkness and dreads the light.” The captains explained that their people “dared not reject these presents […] for that would have been to break with them and refuse the peace, which we must try to keep, since we are powerless to carry on war.” Yet they harboured great misgivings about the Mohawks’ true intentions: “Perhaps, too, they are treating with the French in sincerity, and, while pretending to wish to deceive you [the French], really wish to deceive us [the Wendats], after removing us from under your protection; for he who commits one treachery is capable of committing more than one.” In revealing this and inviting the advice and support of the officials and missionaries, the captains declared that they were “resolved to live and die” with them.18
Lauzon instructed envoys to catch up with Teharihogen’s delegation, as they passed through Trois Rivières on their way back home, to reveal that he knew of their secret diplomacy. In the wake of this failed effort, Mohawk thoughts again turned to force as a means of severing the Wendats’ connection with the French and of obtaining their relocation. In late December, a Mohawk delegation approached Dutch officials at Fort Orange (soon to become Albany, New York) asking them to send a letter on their behalf to Lauzon: “[I]f they, the Maquas, should become involved in any war or trouble with your honor’s Indians,” the officials wrote, “they request that your honor and your honor’s nation would not interfere.”19
The Onondagas too tried their hand at covert diplomacy. It soon came to light that at some point in the fall, the Wendats had communicated to them a message, secretly and “of their own accord,” with two supporting presents. However, a crucial misunderstanding arose as to the precise meaning of this message: the Wendats strictly meant to lay a metaphorical mat at Onondaga to ensure that their captive relatives living there would not come to harm should hostilities ever resume, or at least this is what they later claimed; the Onondagas meanwhile understood it as a pledge that the Wendats finally agreed to join them in their country. Following up on this expectation, an Onondaga delegation reached Quebec on 30 January and proceeded immediately the next day across the ice to the settlement on the Island of Orleans. Again the discussions were kept from the French. In a secret nightly council held with a handful of Wendat captains and elders, its head Tsiraenie explained that a band of five hundred Onondaga men and women were on their way to “carry away the village from the Island” in the spring. During the discussions that followed, the Wendat leaders protested that their “speech and thought had been altered,” and that their people did not intend to relocate. Tsiarenie, unsatisfied, opted for a ruse. He proposed that, in light of the state of peace that now prevailed, the Wendat leaders convince their people to resettle at Montreal in the following spring. The five hundred Onondagas would meet them there to escort them to their country. Urging them to bypass traditional decision-making processes, Tsiraenie advised them to keep this plan secret from all but three or four of their people, even from their wives – implying not merely that the women were likely to reveal the scheme to ot
hers, but also that they were among the most committed to their community’s independence. As heads of households in a matrilineal society, they had more to lose than their men from their people’s incorporation into foreign clans and lineages.20
While a few of the leaders approached by Tsiraenie were willing to go along with this plan, others hesitated. One of them revealed the nature of the discussions to the Jesuits, who in turn, brought the issue to the attention of Governor Lauzon. A frantic series of councils occurred during which the Wendats and the French leadership sought solutions to what they understood to be a common predicament. The Wendats were highly sensitive to the precariousness of their situation. “It is now your turn to speak, Onontio, and not ours,” the oldest of the captains pleaded with Lauzon.“We have been dead for four years, ever since our country was laid waste. Death follows us everywhere, and is always before our eyes. We live only in you, we see only through your eyes, we breathe only in your person; and our reasoning is without reason, except in so far as you give it to us. It is then for you, Onontio, to draw us out from these perils by telling us what we must do.”21 To refuse the advances of either the Onondagas or the Mohawks would mean to rekindle a war which neither the Wendats nor the French were capable of sustaining. The only available course of action was to delay the migration as much as possible. They agreed that the elders should force the Onondagas to bring the discussion out into the open and to involve the governor. At stake for the French was the relative strength of their position in the geopolitics of the region, the opportunity to be allowed to intervene in a diplomatic development from which they had been sidelined. For the Wendats, the hope was that the tangle of multilateralism would stall the demanded migration and avert the threat of renewed violence. The Onondagas would be required to ask Onontio “to relax his arms a little, and to give liberty to the Hurons whom he held under his protection.” Queried as to what the governor should reply – proof that, against appearances to the contrary, the Wendats had not fully relinquished their fate to the French – the elders declared, “let him answer that it will be possible in two years.”22
Tsiraenie, persuaded by the Wendat elders, brought the matter to the attention of the French. During a public council, he presented the wampum he had brought and an “invitation was extended to the Huron colony to make itself a new country in lands formerly hostile, which, they were assured, would be to them a Promised land.”23 His Wendat counterpart responded as planned, agreeing that they would go through with the resettlement, but on two conditions: that they postpone it for at least one year, and that in the meantime the Onondagas prepare by welcoming the Jesuits among them. “Wherever our Fathers should decide to go,” their speaker made it known, “the [Wendat] colony would follow them.” Lauzon supported this proposal with presents of his own, exhorting the Onondagas to give a cordial reception to the Wendats, and beseeching them not to pressure those families which were not yet ready to make the journey or otherwise disinclined to undertake it. The Wendats should be allowed freedom to go where they wished, he asserted, “even though some should feel disposed to seek the country of the Anniehronnon Iroquois [Mohawks], and others Sonnontwanne [Senecas]; and even though still others should long for their former country, or choose to continue their abode with the French.”24
***
A French missionary later disparaged the seemingly conflicting promises made to the Mohawks and Onondagas as the “imprudence of the Huron in giving himself to two masters.”25 There was more to it than mere carelessness. Indeed, the Wendats’ conflicting promises are partly explained by the divisions that existed among them. Although their captains tend to be anonymous in the sources – to say nothing of the women who exercised a great influence behind the scenes – occasional exceptions to this rule hint at the ways in which, even in exile, the constituent nations of the Wendat Confederacy, as in previous years, continued to diverge in response to the advances of the Iroquois. It was the Attignawantan chief Atsena who had responded with gifts to Mohawk invitations in the fall of 1653, seemingly giving an indication of his people’s willingness to resettle among them; a few years later, the Onondagas were directing their wampum belts to Arendarhonon leaders.26
Subsequent events would make it clear that the Attignawantan, Attigneenongnahac, and Arendarhonon were not all of the same mind as to the most hopeful, safest course of action as a last recourse. But for the time being this population responded to Iroquois pressures by converging. Taken as a whole, the Wendats who had found refuge in the Saint Lawrence valley preferred “to continue their abode with the French,” as Governor Lauzon had put it. Tsiraenie’s devious suggestion that the task of leading the community to Montreal should be left to a mere three or four individuals, who would need to keep the secret even from wives, demonstrates plainly enough the broad consensus that prevailed. Thus, contradictory promises also appear as a concerted, purposeful policy. Fostering divisions among the Iroquois was a way for the Wendats of delaying migration, perhaps even indefinitely, and leaving, as the Relation phrased it, “each of the Iroquois Nations hopeful of winning to its own side the Hurons, whom they so eagerly desired,” and the surest means of averting a renewed war.27
Most of the Wendats who had in the last few years of diaspora orbited around Trois Rivières to escape mounting Iroquois pressure – and who appear to have included Atsena and thus perhaps a core of Attignawantan – joined the village on the Island of Orleans in April of 1654.28 Just as they sought strength in numbers, the Wendats also sought strength in religion and the bonds that it fostered in their effort to resist, as best as they could, Iroquois overtures and threats. Wampum and the pledges that accompanied it were the means by which the Iroquois sought to appeal to the Wendats, and it was a way for the Wendats to strengthen their own bonds with the French. In 1654, the Congregation of Our Lady undertook to make a special wampum belt destined to the congregation of the Jesuits’ Professed House – one of the order’s residences in Paris – which had numbered among the mission’s benefactors and which shared a common Marian devotion with them. The gesture was calculated to reciprocate past gifts and elicit further spiritual and financial assistance. The women of the Congregation of Our Lady had taken up the habit of pooling beads of wampum, both to constitute a “public treasury” with which to help the less fortunate members of the refugee community, and to honour and propitiate the Virgin Mary whose likeness in the chapel they adorned with a beaded crown and belts. With missionary encouragement they innovated by incorporating roman characters in their design, writing in dark beads upon a background of white the words Ave Maria gratia plena – “Hail Mary, full of grace” – the opening words of the rosary, the traditional prayer for the intercession of the mother of Christ. The accompanying speech, formulated by Jacques Oachonk, Louis Taiaeronk, and Joseph Sondouskon, chiefs of the community who held the formal offices of the congregation, and written down on their behalf by Jesuit Father Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot, expressed plainly the way in which the Wendats of the Island of Orleans conceptualized their bond with the French.“We are brothers,” they declared to their audience across the ocean, “since the mother of Jesus is our mother as well as yours.”29 Whereas the Algonquian neophtyes encountered in the previous chapter were inclined to conceive of themselves as sharing a divine father with the French, the Wendats, in true Iroquoian fashion, drew their sense of alliance and kinship from the understanding that what mattered was their common divine mother.
But bonds of religion and metaphorical kinship at the same time pulled the Wendats in the opposite direction. The Onondagas responded with enthusiasm to the proposal that the refugees of the Island of Orleans would be more inclined to relocate among them if they first welcomed a Jesuit mission. In September of 1655, an Onondaga embassy came to confirm their peace with the French, the Algonquins, and the Wendats. The link between the extension of the mission field and the relocation of the refugee community was patent as the chief ambassador reiterated their invitation for the French “to
build a new Sainte-Marie, like that whose prosperity we formerly witnessed in the heart of the Huron country.”30 On this occasion, the Onondagas wielded kinship metaphors in an effort to position themselves as brothers of the French and a parent to their allies. The Onondaga ambassador described Governor Lauzon as both someone who had “cherished the Algonquins and Hurons in his bosom, with all the love of a mother holding her child in her arms,” and who “had sustained life in all the Nations that became your allies and took refuge in your arms,” as well as someone who had “extended to them also a father’s care and love.” The Onondaga offered a gift to the governor to symbolically strengthen his arms, urging him to hold these allies even “more firmly” and “not tire of embracing them; let them live within your bosom, for you are the father of the country.”31
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