Figure 5.1 Relocations of the Wendat community near Quebec, 1650–1700. (Map by Andrée Héroux)
Among the missionary chroniclers who pointed to the processes of incorporation and ethnic realignment, the most insightful described it as one of naturalization, distinguishing the old stock “francs Iroquois” from the foreign-born “Iroquois naturalisés.” Alternatively, we might speak of “Old Iroquois” and “New Iroquois,” with the crucial caveat that in the Iroquoian context biological descent did not strictly determine personal identities.8 With peace, large numbers of these “New Iroquois” streamed towards the Saint Lawrence valley and its mission settlements – an unanticipated consequence of the mourning wars. Picking up on the theme of warfare as an integrative process, this chapter probes the limits of integration in Iroquoia as well as the fusion of diverse social fragments in the mission settlements of the Saint Lawrence valley. As the elder had predicted, through the return of Wendats, the refugee community would see its bones “knit together with muscles and tendons,” its “flesh […] born again,” and its “strength […] restored.” Yet his nation would not be remade precisely as it had been “of old,” for though a distinct community would persist near Quebec, many of the Wendats and other “New Iroquois” newcomers would instead choose to relocate in the Montreal region, forming a new mission settlement at Kentake (La Prairie), which would in turn subdivide to form two others, Kahnawake (Sault Saint-Louis) and Kanehsatake (La Montagne). Unsurprisingly, the Christian religion and the activity of its French and Indigenous promoters played a key role in the expansion of the mission settlements. So too did the policies of Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the king’s chief minister and soon to be secretary of state for the Navy and colonies, who developed an enthusiasm for the francization of Indigenous peoples. At the same time, however, this expansion also followed from well-established Iroquoian patterns of migration and community formation, of village relocation, fusion and fission, in a way that reflected the fault lines created by previous decades of war.
***
The integration of foreigners into midcentury Iroquois society could take many forms, as outlined in the previous chapters. Through ritual adoption and marriage, newcomers could be enfranchized to become full-fledged members of their adoptive society, assuming all of the rights and obligations that followed. This was easiest to achieve for those who had crossed over willingly. Among coerced war captives, women and children stood the highest chance of being allowed this opportunity, as they were less likely than men to escape or resort to violent resistance, and perceived to be more apt to assimilate. As one Jesuit noted, “many a young man will not hesitate to even marry a prisoner, if she is very industrious; and thereafter she will pass as a woman of his country.”9 It was not uncommon for such naturalized women, children, or even for men, to attain positions of considerable trust and authority within their adoptive community. Such was the case, apparently, of the unnamed “Huron captain, formerly a captive of the Iroquois, and now a captain among them,” who had accompanied the Onondaga embassy to Quebec in 1655.10
Yet for all the remarkable elasticity of Iroquoian incorporative practices, not all newcomers were so thoroughly assimilated. It was not uncommon for captives to be maintained in a state of precarious servitude. The French used the word esclave (slave) to refer to the unnaturalized war captives of the Iroquois, reflecting the fact that they were often subjected to abusive treatment and to the constant threat of death if their behaviour proved unacceptable to others. A parallel distinction was made within Iroquoian languages, where a common set of words ordinarily referred to both captives and domestic animals (enaskwa, in one Mohawk word list), to their respective taking or taming (kenaskonnis), and to the act of driving either along (kenaskwenhawis).11 An individual whose adoption and assimilation was indefinitely delayed remained as an outsider to the community, little more than a beast. “Among the Iroquois,” concluded one missionary, “the life of a captive is valued no more than that of a dog, and it needs only a slight disobedience on his part to merit a hatchet-stroke.”12
More subtly but no less crucially, many of the New Iroquois – the well-integrated adoptees, women and men who had married into their adoptive communities, who had given themselves over freely or who, captured as children, had spent the better part of their lives there – retained a distinct identity, more or less pronounced from one individual to the next, that overlapped with their new ethnic alignment. For former captives, the psychological shock of violent capture and uprooting, something that we would recognize today as akin to posttraumatic stress disorder, must have continued to disrupt their lives and to foster feelings of alienation. Even for the willing, “happy” migrants, assimilation was far from immediate. The Wendat-Onondaga captain alluded to earlier could thus explain to his kinsmen: “I have not changed my soul, despite my change of country; nor has my blood become Iroquois, although I dwell among them. My heart is all Huron, as well as my tongue.”13 Attachment to an old network of relatives and friends, to a language and a culture, and to the memory of a shared experience, could only fade gradually at a rate that varied from one individual to the next. Personal identities were contextual, and often multiple and layered, experienced and articulated according to the contingencies of circumstance. New and Old Iroquois did not form two strictly divided groups, but rather two ever-evolving modes of belonging.
Beyond the persistence of ancient beliefs and practices, the endurance of comparatively new ones also contributed to the ongoing split between community members and outsiders. Many Wendats clung to elements of Christianity. Some of them had been initiated by French missionaries and Wendat proselytes before or during the ruin of their homeland. Others had since then been initiated by fellow captives, adoptees, and after 1667, by the swelling number of converts among the Old Iroquois themselves.14 Especially for captives, who had particularly good reasons to accept the promise of a better life after death, there was solace to be found in these beliefs and practices, as well as in the distinctive identity and group solidarity that they fostered. The resistance or inability of many the New Iroquois to swiftly merge into the mass of the Old made them the object of resentment. In a vicious cycle of social tension, this resentment played its part in reinforcing the persistence of divisions. If in 1656, within five years of their mass resettlement to the country of the Senecas, the Tahontaenrats and Arendarhonon might appear to an outside observer to be “united” with their hosts “in good feeling and friendship,” by 1672–73 they were described as “miserable” and “abandoned.” The Neutrals, who in a similar fashion had “given themselves voluntarily” to the Onondagas, were also by this time “treated like slaves by them.”15 Throughout Iroquoia, fault lines persisted between New and Old Iroquois.
***
The reversal of Iroquois success in war and diplomacy through the release of captives had been a recurrent discussion point during peace negotiations. The Wendats, painfully aware that their reduced military strength gave them little leverage, do not appear to have been so bold as to raise the issue themselves. But the Saint Lawrence Algonquians typically felt no such reserve. During one encounter in 1646, Tessouat the Kichesipirini challenged the Mohawks to show their good faith by granting freedom to the “children of the Algonquins, or even the adult persons who should still be in their country.” In 1653, Tekouerimat of Kamiskouaouangachit likewise advised Mohawk deputies that if they were truly interested in peace they should send back the women whom they were holding in captivity so that they might come back to dwell in “the country of the Algonquins.”16
Beside the stipulation that past hostilities should be forgotten and that cordial relations should ensue, the Franco-Iroquois peace talks carried out between 1665 and 1667 also hinged on the movement of people between Iroquoia and the Saint Lawrence valley. The delegation that came to Quebec in December of 1665 to negotiate a peace on behalf of the four westernmost Iroquois nations was headed by the Onondaga chief Garakontié, who had been one of
the most consistent promoters of peace through the previous decade. He had been among those who welcomed the establishment of Sainte Marie de Gannentaha in 1656, and was credited for having given warning of the impending attack on that mission two years later, thus allowing for its safe evacuation. In 1661, he had brought about a truce between his people and the French, and brokered the release of nine Frenchmen.17 Now, in 1665, on behalf of all four western nations, Garakontié extended an invitation to missionaries and, acknowledging “the advantages they have derived from the union with the French and from the communication they had with them, when they had them in their habitations,” in reference to the short-lived mission of Sainte Marie de Gannentaha, he asked that some French families settle among the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. These nations offered to aid them in their establishment “and to sustain them with their power against those nations that would wish to oppose or retard it.” Tracy committed himself on behalf of the French king to sending along some families and missionaries the next spring after the ratification of the treaty, on condition that in each of these countries “fields shall be granted suitable for the erection of cabins to shelter said families and to plant some Indian corn, to be furnished for seed, in exchange for such their provisions as shall be transported for that purpose by the French.” He in turn asked that there be sent from each of the four upper nations to Montreal, Trois Rivières, and Quebec, “two of the principal Iroquois families to whom fields, grain and Indian corn shall be furnished, besides the privilege of hunting and fishing in common, which shall be granted them.” Garakontié’s delegation brought back two Frenchmen, in consideration of which Lieutenant General Tracy arranged for the release of an Iroquois woman, 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.” As noted earlier, the convoluted quality of the latter description speaks to the complexity of personal identity and collective solidarity, and reflects how the distinction between restored captives, visitors, hostages, and migrants was not always clear-cut.18
Seneca ambassadors who came to ratify the peace treaty in May of 1666 likewise expressed their willingness to send some of their families to reside near the French, while demanding that some missionaries and French families be sent to live among them. The Senecas would “not only prepare cabins in which to lodge them, but […] they would moreover aid to construct forts to shelter them against the incursions of their common enemies, the Andastaëronnons [Susquehannocks] and others.” In July, Oneida ambassadors who came next to ratify the treaty on their own behalf and on that of the Mohawks in turn promised to “restore all the Frenchmen, Algonquins, and Hurons whom they hold prisoners among them of what condition and quality they may be,” and to send families “to serve, like those of other nations, as the most strict hostages for their persons and dispositions.” 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,” and that French families and missionaries be sent to them.19 So too did Tracy remind the emissaries who, in the wake of the destruction of the Mohawk villages, were sent back to their villages that November, of this crucial condition. When these emissaries reappeared in the colony with no prisoners in tow in April of 1667, they were rebuked and given two additional months to comply under threat of a new invasion. When, that July, the Mohawks finally agreed to be party to a definitive peace, it was yet again stipulated that they would bring back all of their captives, and that both sides would offer families as hostages.20
Eager to expand the mission field, the Jesuits responded with enthusiasm. Fathers Jacques Frémin and Jean Pierron rushed to Mohawk country, while Father Jacques Bruyas journeyed on to the Oneidas; Fathers Julien Garnier and Pierre Millet followed suit to the Onondagas.21 A manuscript speech drafted in Wendat with a Mohawk and Oneida audience in mind, penned by one of these missionaries or possibly for one of them by someone like Father Chaumonot, speaks of reconciliation, forgiveness, and unity among all peoples. “Quit your cruelty,” asked the missionary, visibly addressing an Old Iroquois core, “[…] the humans that were Huron, Petun, Neutral, Trakwae, Erie, Nipissing, and Algonquin […] You caused them all to perish completely.” The missionary explained that the French invasion of Mohawk country had not been meant to kill anyone, but rather to “capture those who believe, so they would believe again, and do good again” – an allusion to the Mohawks who had welcomed the ministry of the Jesuit Isaac Jogues two decades earlier, and quite possibly to the Wendat neophytes who had come by force or consent to Iroquoia. The missionary also drew on the idiom of family. Those who had not yet accepted the Christian faith were urged to do so, and if they did, the missionary assured them that they would thereby become as founders of new lineages within an enlarged family extended on earth and in heaven. That many members of the audience had Wendat friends and relatives living near Quebec went unstated, but the thought of renewing relations with them cannot have been far from their minds.22
***
From the Relations and other chronicles of this period we can catch glimpses of the parameters and contingencies of migration and settlement. There was, for example, the elderly Pierre Atironta. He was probably of Arendarhonon origin, for his name had been borne by two of that nation’s leaders, including Jean-Baptiste Atironta, who had played a key role in the migration of his people to the Saint Lawrence valley in 1650. Jean-Baptiste had been killed by the Iroquois that same year, and Pierre had received his name some time thereafter. The circumstances of Pierre Atironta’s capture are unknown, but it was said that he “suffered greatly during his captivity,” and it appears that he was among the first few Wendats to return to Quebec and to reintegrate the community, as it relocated from the town to Notre Dame des Anges, and then Notre Dame de Foy. Atironta rapidly learned his prayers and rose to the rank of dogique or prayer captain in his longhouse, quickly becoming a pillar of the community. At the time of his death in December 1672, he was described as the “Captain of the Hurons.”23
Then there is the case of an Algonquin woman, one of several French and Indigenous women and girls whom the Iroquois relinquished at this time and who were handed over to the Ursulines to be reeducated, whose case reveals how bonds created in Iroquoia might draw individuals of Old Iroquois stock to the Saint Lawrence valley. Her Iroquois husband “had such a passion for her,” in Marie de l’Incarnation’s telling, that he had followed her to Quebec. As the Ursuline superior explained it, “he was continually in our visiting room, for fear that the Algonquins would take her away.” He was seen “moaning, losing his speech, stomping around, and coming and going like a madman.” His young wife apparently found his insecurity terribly amusing. At length the Ursulines felt compelled to release the woman to her husband on condition that he convert to Christianity.24 It is not clear what became of the pair afterwards, whether they remained in the Saint Lawrence valley or returned to Iroquoia.
The renewal of relations did not come easily to all, particularly for young men of distant Wendat origins who had reached adulthood in Iroquoia. Two men who had come to Notre Dame de Foy from the country of the Iroquois, “where they had been prisoners of war,” decided to return there “on finding themselves persecuted for their evil ways.” But to ensure their welcome, they thought it necessary to take a captive or carry off a scalp. They targeted a Wabanaki man, got him drunk, and bound him. The Wendats, having heard of the affair, notified the intendant Jean Talon, who sent out soldiers to stop them.25 In a similar vein, another young man who arrived from Iroquoia sang, in a fit of drunkenness, “that he was bent on going back thither, but did not intend to make his appearance there empty-handed,” by which he meant that he intended to kill someone and carry off his scalp. This prompted the rebuke of one of the community members, Joachim Annieouton. “My cousin,” he said to him, “are you not ashamed to talk like that? Is it possible that you are so u
nnatural as to wish to rejoice our enemies by murdering one of your kinsfolk? Have you not still a brother, a sister, and other relatives here? Will you, then, forsake them to go and give yourself up again as a slave to barbarians, who have brought ruin upon our country?” Two of the young man’s comrades responded to the scolding by throwing Annieouton on the ground and stabbing him several times. Fifty days later, Anneiouton died from his wounds after forgiving his assailants and dissuading relatives from exacting revenge on them.26 Presumably these young men did not remain in the community.
Flesh Reborn Page 21