Louis XIV’s new interest in the colony promised to breathe new life into the refugee community – in a more concrete, practical fashion than the solace of religion. The young king began his personal rule in 1661, and two years later rescinded the monopoly that the Company of New France had held since 1627. The chartered company had failed, both as a commercial and colonizing enterprise. The king and his energetic chief minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, set about reorganizing colonial institutions. While it is unclear whether the pleas of the neophytes reached the ears of the king, the latter was certainly prompted to act by officials, missionaries, and leading colonists, who argued that the Iroquois were to blame for the sluggishness of the colonial venture. The king responded by dispatching reinforcements: Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy, whom he appointed lieutenant general in the Americas, and thirteen hundred soldiers.78 The Wendats’ address to Tracy, quoted at the outset of this book, communicates abundantly well the optimism these troops generated. “Courage, O desolate people!” proclaimed the speaker, as if speaking to his people, “your bones are about to be knit together with muscles and tendons, your flesh is to be born again, your strength will be restored to you, and you shall live as you did live of old.”79
There was more to the Wendats’ welcoming address to Tracy than hybrid Iroquoian and Christian expressions of death and rebirth, however. After having expressed loss and a sense of social collapse, the speaker made a case for the continued strategic value of his people. However diminished and battered, the Wendats of Quebec retained a crucial expertise. They could not contribute very many warriors to a forthcoming campaign, but they were in a position to offer indispensable advice to the officers and soldiers who lacked essential experience in Indigenous ways of war – an understanding of Iroquoian warfare, of the environmental conditions in which it took place, and of the social and cultural centrality of incorporation. Marching against the Iroquois was not something that could be attempted lightly.
Mixing symbolic language with practical considerations, the Wendat speaker offered war paint with which Tracy might inspire fear among his enemies. Turning to the soldiers, he advised them to load their muskets so well that, upon reaching the enemy’s country, the noise made by their discharge would not only spread panic among the Iroquois, but would resound as far as Quebec. “His meaning,” as the Jesuits who acted as linguistic and cultural interpreters during the meeting understood, “was that the Iroquois, Savages although they were, were not so contemptible as to render it unnecessary to provide good arms and equipment for their conquest.” Along similar lines, the speaker raised concerns about the soldiers’ uniforms. While they corresponded to the height of European military fashion, they were visibly inappropriate for the task at hand. The Iroquois, who fought entirely naked so as to minimize the impediments to their agility in dense woodlands, would represent an elusive target.“When you have defeated him, you will not have captured him – especially as you are embarrassed with clothing ill-adapted for running through thickets and underbrush.” He said this as he offered a girdle – perhaps an actual girdle, though more likely a wampum belt designed to get the point across – which might hold up the long skirts of their coats.80 Beyond practical sartorial advice, the speaker was drawing attention to capture as the fundamental objective of Iroquoian warfare.
On that note, the elder’s final and most important point was that “the element of greatest strength” among the enemy consisted of captives of Wendat, Algonquin, French, and various other origins, who he claimed made up almost two-thirds of their numbers and were compelled to bear arms by their captors. The surest means of defeating the Iroquois was to turn this strength into a weakness. It would not be very difficult, he declared, to entice these captives away “from the service of those cruel masters, for whom they had only fear and hatred in their hearts, and not love.” It would suffice for the army to announce to the enemy, as it neared their villages, that they could either hand over their captives or suffer the consequences.“If they delivered them up, they themselves would be defenceless; if they refused, we could compel them by force, while the captives would voluntarily take our side, seeing that their own safety lay with us.” Thus it would be possible to “defeat that haughty Iroquois without striking a blow.”81
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Algonquians who had been out hunting at the time of Tracy’s arrival reassembled at Quebec some weeks thereafter to welcome him. The Jesuit Relations mentions “Algonquins,” specifically, but it is likely that they represented a mix of peoples whom in other contexts might have been labelled both Algonquins and Montagnais, for it was the elderly Noël Tekouerimat who, as “the Christian of longest standing,” spoke in their name. Pledging allegiance to the French alliance, he exhorted Tracy to act in concert with his people to ensure “the destruction of the Iroquois and the publication of the Gospel.” With his last present, he prompted the Algonquin chiefs who stood around him to step forward, and he offered them to Tracy, “to march with him and attend him on the expedition that he was about to undertake.”82
Preparations for the campaign soon got under way. Although Lieutenant General Tracy had tactfully listened to the Wendat recommendations during his ceremonial welcome, he and his staff proceeded to disregard them altogether. Surely it was with astonishment that the Wendats of Quebec learned that their allies intended to carry out their expedition in winter, even though the French officers and men had spent less than six months in the colony and were woefully ignorant of what the cold season entailed. It was worrying, moreover, to see that Tracy, Governor Daniel Rémy de Courcelle, and Intendant Jean Talon, had not taken the precaution to furnish the men with sufficient provisions or the necessary equipment – crucial snowshoes, axes, and blankets were missing.83
It is likely that the Wendats of Quebec voiced objections to this ill-conceived enterprise. After the successive blows of the 1650s, their warriors were in short supply. Iroquois peace overtures may also have dissuaded them. In recent years, the four westernmost Iroquois nations had shown themselves accommodating. In fact, the Onondagas had agreed to a truce with the French in 1661, and news of the French soldiers’ arrival brought them back. An Onondaga delegation of six ambassadors reached Quebec in the first days of December in 1665, and concluded on the thirteenth a formal treaty with Tracy on behalf of their nation as well as of the Seneca, Cayuga, and Oneida. There is no evidence that these ambassadors spoke directly with the Wendats, but it is not impossible.84
Addressing Tracy on behalf of the four western nations, the chief ambassador Garakontié declared that they regretted having taken up arms against the French, stressing that “they intended only to destroy the Algonquins and Hurons their mortal enemies, protected by the French arms.” Furthermore, he pledged that “the Hurons and Algonquins dwelling to the north of the River Saint Lawrence […] shall not be henceforth disturbed in the hunt by the four Iroquois nations or troubled in their commerce going down to trade at Montreal, Three Rivers, Quebec or anywhere else, either by land in the woods, or by water in their canoes, on any pretext whatsoever.” On the contrary, because the Algonquins and Hurons were subjects of the king and had been taken under his protection, the Iroquois “shall be obliged to assist them in all their wants, whether in hunting, in peace or in war; and that the differences and enmities which have existed between the said Algonquins and Hurons and between the Iroquois ceasing by the present treaty, there shall be a mutual friendship and assistance between all the said nations who shall live fraternally for their mutual defence under the common protection of the said Lord the King.” Garakontié asked for the release of an Iroquois woman, a captive of the Algonquins who resided at Trois Rivières, as well as of “a Huron woman belonging to a refugee family at Seneca, currently a captive in the Huron fort at Quebec.” The convoluted nature of this description speaks to the complexity of the personal identities and collective solidarities that had been shaped by the mid-century wars.85
Mohawk reluctance to be party to the negotiations det
ermined the colonial authorities to go forward with their campaign. Colonial authorities had expected that both their Wendat and Algonquian allies would be persuaded to contribute warriors to the expedition, but by the time the campaign got under way in January of 1666, only some thirty “Algonquins” were expected to take part. They were slow to reach the agreed-upon meeting point, and, in his haste, Governor Courcelle decided to leave without them, so that, in the end, not a single allied warrior accompanied the five to six hundred soldiers and militiamen who proceeded along the Richelieu River, Lake Cham-plain, and Hudson River during what turned out to be one of the harshest and longest winters in thirty years. Instead of reaching the country of the Mohawks, as planned, the army, after a harrowing journey, stumbled upon the Dutch outpost of Schenectady. Courcelle decided that to return home was now the wisest course of action. He tried to pass the blame for his expedition’s dismal failure onto the Algonquins. It was the first in a long line of complaints, voiced by colonial officers distressed by the apparent unreliability of their Indigenous allies, that would stretch until the very end of the French Regime. Yet, significantly, the feeling was not universal. Other officers recognized the crucial assistance that the allies ultimately provided. As Lieutenant René Gaultier de Varennes believed, “if they had not encountered the Algonquins during their return they would not have brought back a single soldier; they would all have died of hunger.”86
Seneca ambassadors reached Quebec in May to ratify the peace, followed by Oneidas in early July. The Oneida ambassadors promised to “restore all the Frenchmen, Algonquins, and Hurons whom they hold prisoners among them of what condition and quality they may be.” They demanded “reciprocally among all other things the restoration to them in good faith, of all those of their nation who are prisoners at Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers.”87 While the Oneidas claimed that the Mohawks had asked them to subscribe to the peace on their own behalf, the latter persisted in their attacks. The French pursued with equal vehemence their efforts to destroy the Mohawks, more careful this time to elicit the assistance of their allies. Eighty to a hundred warriors, mainly Algonquins, given that Wendat men were in short supply, joined Captain Pierre de Saurel when, in the final days of July, he responded to Mohawk raids by leading an impromptu force of two hundred soldiers and militiamen up the Richelieu River. The fact that this was a summertime operation surely made it a more inspiring undertaking. Nevertheless, Saurel found ways of frustrating his allies. When, within a few days’ march of the enemy villages, his small army was approached by a Mohawk embassy, the officer decided to order an about-face to escort the ambassadors to Quebec. Believing that these enemies should have been handed over to them, the allied warriors were greatly offended.88
It was with some relief, no doubt, that the allies learnt that Tracy, Courcelle, and Talon, anticipating their duplicity, rejected the Mohawks’ conciliatory overtures, and resolved to launch a third campaign.89 The authorities’ appreciation of local climactic and human conditions had evolved over the last year. They reached the conclusion that fall would be the best time to carry out the campaign, and they were careful to amass the required supplies. For a time they worried that their allies, vexed by the previous operations, might not agree to take part in this one. But, as Talon remarked in a letter to minister Colbert, they concluded that it would surely be possible to secure their participation “by means of arguments and by presents.”90
At thirteen hundred men, including one hundred Algonquins and Wendats, Tracy and Courcelle’s army in October of 1666 was the largest ever fielded in the colony. The Indigenous allies played a critical role as guides, hunters, and porters. On several occasions, through the most difficult passages between Lake Champlain and the Mohawk valley, warriors took on the thankless task of carrying inept Frenchmen on their backs. At one point, Tracy was himself saved from drowning by a “strong and brave” Wendat warrior. This time, the army did not fail to reach the Mohawk villages. When, after three of them had been sacked, Courcelle hesitated to move on to the final and largest one, it was an Algonquin woman – an indication that the “warriors” were not only men – who had spent part of her youth in captivity among the Mohawks before returning to her homeland, who, seizing a pistol in one hand and grabbing the commander with the other, urged him on. “Come,” she said, “I will lead you straight to it.”91
While the French and their Indigenous allies hoped to surprise the Mohawks, and expected to meet with some resistance, they found all four villages forewarned and abandoned. Only a few old men, women, and children were discovered in the furthest and largest of the four, Tionnontoguen. The army spent a few days destroying the fields and food stores, laying waste and setting fire to magnificently decorated longhouses, and plundering tools, kettles, “and rest of their riches.” Having intoned the Te Deum, the emblematic hymn of divine praise and thanks, planted crosses bearing the arms of France, and solemnly taken possession of Mohawk country in the name of Louis XIV on 11 October, the army began its journey home.92
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The sources do not hint at how the Wendats, or the Algonquians for that matter, reacted to the sacking of the Mohawk villages. Having seen their own villages reduced to ashes almost twenty years earlier, the former must have been glad for the opportunity to reciprocate at last. Yet there is cause to suspect that it was not with straightforward joy. Indeed, evaluated from a perspective where captive taking was the primary objective of war, the destruction of the Mohawk villages in the fall of 1666 had been a failure.“When you have defeated him, you will not have captured him,” the elder had warned Tracy. The expectation that the “captives” of Wendat, Algonquin, and French origin would find the opportunity to leave their “cruel masters” during the enemy’s withdrawal had proven overly optimistic. As the French, Algonquin, and Wendat force neared the enemy’s villages, no opportunity had presented itself to compel the Mohawks, either by threats or force, to deliver up the foreigners in their midst. Nor is there evidence that any of the latter seized the opportunity to escape from “the service of those cruel masters.” Indeed, the risks involved in such an undertaking were great; in one of the abandoned villages the invaders discovered “the mutilated bodies of two or three Natives of another nation, […] half burned over a slow fire,” plausibly individuals who had attempted to escape or were suspected of planning the same.93
Still, the sacking of the Mohawk villages did represent a belated vindication of the decision to side with the French and their God. The Wendats who had sought safety at the heart of the French colony a decade and a half earlier had found very little of it until then. Their number had been whittled down, with their consent and by force, from a height of approximately six hundred to a core of less than a hundred. At last, after so many years on the defensive, and two expeditions characterized by ineptitude and failure, the Franco-Indigenous alliance had struck a signal blow against its long-time foe. In the spring of 1667, Mohawk emissaries returned to the negotiating table more committed to peace than ever. That July, their delegates accepted to be party to the peace to which the other Iroquois nations had already agreed, creating a context conductive to new forms of regeneration.94
5
Flesh Born Again
New and Old Iroquois in the Mission Settlements, 1667–1680
The peace of 1667, and the royal takeover that had preceded it, became a transformational moment in the history of the New France. It ushered a phase of colonial expansion, as fur traders, missionaries, and would-be discoverers streamed beyond the Saint Lawrence valley. Within it, settlers established homesteads in areas that until then had been too exposed, particularly in the vicinity of Montreal and along the lower Richelieu River. Hundreds of discharged soldiers and officers of the Carignan-Salières regiment joined them on the land. So too did the Wendats leave the safety of the fortified encampment in the Upper Town of Quebec, where they had spent a decade, for fertile lands on nearby Jesuit estates. Having planned their relocation during the winter of 1667–68, t
hey spent a year on the Jesuit seigneury of Notre Dame des Anges, a short distance to the north of the town, before installing themselves to its west on the seigneury of Sillery in the spring of 1669. They did not settle at the old mission of Kamiskouaouangachit on the cove itself, but rather a short distance inland, in a place called the côte Saint Michel. This new mission settlement, which soon became known as Notre Dame de Foy, was occupied until 1674, at which time it relocated to a point further west, to a site that took on the name of Lorette.1
That neither of these villages was surrounded by a palisade is indicative of the newfound security that the Wendat community enjoyed. The peace settlement of 1667, obtained on favourable terms, brought about an opportunity for regeneration, not merely because the community ceased to fear enemy war parties from Iroquoia, but because large numbers of Wendats and peoples of diverse origins began streaming from there towards the Saint Lawrence valley and its mission settlements. This, then, was something along the lines of what the Wendat elder who had welcomed Lieutenant General Tracy had presaged. The military and diplomatic success of the Five Nations through the 1640s and 1650s had allowed their villages to maintain relatively high population levels in spite of the steep mortality rates brought about by warfare and epidemics. However, the resultant societies were fragile. As the elder had implied, the absorption of thousands of refugees and captives, in the swift span of some three decades, entailed a loss of social cohesion among the victors. His claim that these elements represented more than two-thirds of the population of Iroquoia echoes other estimates from the period. By 1657, the Jesuit Father Le Jeune observed that the villages of the Senecas “contain more foreigners than natives of that country.” Certain communities comprised more foreigners than others. Most dramatically, the village of Gandougarae in Seneca country was said to be composed entirely of Wendats, namely those who had resettled en masse from the missions of Saint Michel (the name of the former mission to the Tahontaenrats, of no relation to the location of the same name in the seigneury of Sillery) and Saint Jean Baptiste (that of the former mission to the Arendarhonon) seven years earlier, as well as of Attiwendaronk (Neutrals) and Onnontiogas (Wenros or Eries, perhaps, or western Algonquians).2 The Jesuit missionaries who, after the conclusion of the peace, hurried to resume their work in Iroquoia, observed the same demographic trend. In 1667, Wendats and Algonquins were reported to make up two-thirds of the population of the village of Oneida, where they had “become Iroquois in temper and inclination,” and a similar proportion of the Mohawk village of Gandaouagué.3 At around the same time, the three Cayuga villages were described as composed partly of Cayugas, partly of Wendats, and partly of Susquehannocks.4 This population movement is reflected not only in the historical sources, but also in the archaeological record, as recognizably Wendat and Neutral material culture traits become visible on Iroquois sites at midcentury.5 While Wendats appear to have been the most numerous among the refugees and captives of Iroquoia, the presence of seven different nations was attested among the Onondagas, and of as many as eleven among the Senecas.6 The Iroquois, wrote the Jesuit superior Jérôme Lalemant in 1660, had become “for the most, only aggregations of different peoples whom they have conquered.”7
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