This woodcut supposedly illustrating the plundering and burning of Schenectady on February 8, 1690 is not a historical document, but it does give a realistically stark idea of the terror inspired by such raids, especially when (as was usually the case) First Nations warriors formed part of the expeditions. (From John Russel’s A History of the United States of America, 1814; private collection, author’s photo)
Schenectady, Salmon Falls, and Falmouth, 1690
By January 1690, Frontenac had endorsed the Canadians’ opinions that First Nations-style raids with European leadership, participation and organization were the best way to strike back. The plan was ambitious: three simultaneous expeditions would leave Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Quebec to raid communities in New York and New England in winter, and this time (probably at Hertel’s urging) allied warriors would join the essentially Canadian war parties. Relatively few regular soldiers apart from Canadian-born officers were then proficient in winter travel overland, but many Canadians with experience in the fur trade were.
The largest expedition left Montreal under the command of Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène, with Le Moyne d’Iberville, D’Aillebout de Mantet, de Répentigny, de La Brosse and de Montigny leading 114 Canadians and 96 allied warriors. The party marched south on snowshoes through the winter forest, and were eventually told by the officers that their target was Albany in New York colony. The warriors protested that it was too strong and well-garrisoned to assault, but they agreed to attack nearby Schenectady, a small town said to supply arms to the Iroquois.
After a difficult trek through deep snow in bitter cold, the party were within sight of their target’s stockade walls on the night of February 8. The high wind was raising clouds of snow; no sentries could be seen, and a gate was even partly ajar, so it was decided to attack at once. Five or six men went to each house in the sleeping township, and then raised a great war-whoop. (Copied by the Canadians from the warriors, this consisted of a yell made “while hitting their mouths several times … for two purposes: to terrify a surprised enemy and also serve as a signal,” according to Beauchêne.) The raiders rapidly broke down doors and attacked anyone who moved inside the darkened homes. Some tried to resist, and about 60 persons of both sexes and all ages were killed, before the place was set on fire. Only one Canadian and a warrior were killed in the attack, and late the next morning Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène’s party headed back to Canada with 27 prisoners and about 50 captured horses laden with booty.
By then the alarm had been sounded. Militiamen from Albany and its surroundings, as well as Iroquois warriors, mustered to pursue the raiding party, which the wildest rumors put at anything up to 1,400 men. The pursuit was not very effective; the Albany militiamen were hampered by “Snow above Knee Deep,” while Iroquois warriors, impressed by the attack, were wondering if their “castles” were also about to be targeted. Nevertheless, some 140 warriors followed the tracks of the raiders and captured 19 stragglers, who were later put to cruel deaths. The rest of the Schenectady raiders eventually reached Montreal with their prisoners and 16 horses, the others having been eaten on the way (DHNY, I).
Portrait copy by Henri Beau, believed to show François Hertel de la Fresnière (1642–1722), originally portrayed in c.1690. Born in Trois-Rivières into a leading settler family, François fought in his youth against the marauding Iroquois, who captured and adopted him in 1661. By the time he escaped two years later he had learned their language and war-culture, thereafter becoming an interpreter and volunteer participating in many actions and other events. In 1682 he was made “commandant” of the French-allied First Nations, and in 1690 he led the raid on Salmon Falls. Commissioned an officer in the regular troops the following year, he continued to render many services. In 1716, he was ennobled – a rare reward in Canada. However, François is not recorded as being a knight of the Order of Saint-Louis, so its cross here may identify the subject as his son Zacharie-François (1665–1752), who was knighted in 1744. (Courtesy Library and Archives Canada, C10605)
François Hertel de la Fresnière led the smaller war party that marched out of Trois-Rivières on January 28, 1690. It consisted of 50 Canadians including his three eldest sons, and 25 Abenaki warriors. On March 27 they reached the village of Salmon Falls (today Berwick, Maine); 15 men carried out a well-organized attack on a large fortified house, 11 men on a small stockaded fort with bastions, and the rest on the village. The pre-dawn surprise attack was successful; only three attackers were lost, while 34 Anglo-Americans were killed, 54 prisoners taken, and some 29 houses burned down. The alarm had been given, however, and while Hertel’s party was withdrawing with its prisoners an Abenaki scout warned that some 100–250 men were pursuing them. In the soon-to-become classic raiders’ response to such pursuits, Hertel set up an ambush at the narrow bridge over the Wooster River. When the New England militiamen were crossing the bridge, the Canadians and warriors opened fire from their concealment before charging, yelling war-whoops and wielding tomahawks. Within minutes, 18 pursuers had fallen, including eight killed, and the rest ran off in panic. One Canadian was killed and one of Hertel’s sons, Zacharie-François, was wounded.
Hertel’s party then went to join up with the third raiding party: 50 Canadians and 60 Abenakis who had left Quebec on January 28 led by René Robineau de Bécancour, Baron de Portneuf, to attack Casco (today Falmouth, Maine). To survive in the winter wilderness they had to hunt game on the way, but in early May they finally reached the Atlantic coast near Casco, and met up with Hertel’s party and many additional warriors. The Abenaki nation of Acadia were resolute French allies, whose chief was a French nobleman who had somewhat “gone native,” the Baron de Saint-Castin.
This 19th-century print of Canadian trappers in winter could almost as easily depict raiders of 150 years earlier. They wear capots and mitasses, and the narrower snowshoes normally used when the snow was not too deep; they drag supplies on a toboggan, and have back-packs supported by the “portage collar” that fitted around the forehead. (After H. P. Share; private collection, author’s photo)
Their target was Fort Loyal, a well-built place with four fortified garrison houses and eight cannon guarding the nearby small town. The combined force of Canadians and warriors now probably numbered around 400–500 men. This time, the New England garrison under Capt Davis were aware of their presence before, on May 25, Porneuf’s party attacked the town; resistance was stiff, but only Davis and 13 men managed to join the rest of the defenders in Fort Loyal. The next day, Porneuf’s men built basic siege works that covered them from artillery fire. On May 29, the attackers pushed a blazing tar barrel close to the fort stockade. The garrison offered to surrender on condition that they could be escorted to an Anglo-American settlement, and Portneuf agreed. Regrettably, his Abenaki allies did not: they burst into the fort to kill or kidnap many prisoners, and only Capt Davis and a handful of other men survived to be taken back to Quebec.
Strategic benefits of raiding tactics
Frontenac, who had learned the principles of strategy and tactics under Marshal Turenne, knew that a “quick and vigorous attack – the strong sword-blow of vengeance – is the most brilliant moment of defense,” as later stated by Clauzewitz. It was important for the weaker party to attack his stronger opponent swiftly with, if possible, the element of surprise that was almost sure to bring success and spread dismay. This put the stronger enemy into a defensive posture, and redefined his actual degree of territorial control.
North America at the end of the 17th century was an ideal setting in which to apply these principles. The wild forests separating the French and British colonies were impenetrable to almost anyone except Indigenous warriors – almost: and among the exceptions were significant numbers of Canadians, but hardly any Anglo-Americans. (Nobody without experience of such thickly forested terrain can truly appreciate its obstacles, accumulated over centuries and millennia: rocky, uneven ground hidden by deep and slippery leaf-mold and entangling brush, and barred every few yards
by rotting deadfall trees.) The 1690 raids had demonstrated that primeval forests become assets of great value to a military force that is able to penetrate them and use them as lines of communication. Such a force could, in effect, make the whole wilderness its own territory, since hardly any of its opponents could travel or fight efficiently in this vast no-man’s-land.
The key for a relatively weak New France to become militarily effective had been found, in that raid warfare could keep much more numerous opponents on the defensive. The tactics could be refined, but the basic technique already worked brilliantly. An overwhelming control of the fur trade and great influence over the First Nations were within reach. Frontenac and his successors exploited this relative advantage for as long as raid warfare remained the dominant combat doctrine in North America’s wilderness.
Anglo-American attacks on New France, 1690
In the Anglo-American colonies the shock of the early 1690 raids was tremendous, and, as in New France after Lachine, both panic and a hunger for revenge were in the air. New York and the New England colonies came up with a grand plan to invade New France by both land and sea. An army would march from Albany to Montreal via Lake Champlain, while a fleet led by a famous and wealthy sailor, Sir William Phips, would carry troops from Boston to Quebec. This project would be entirely colonial American; no British troops or ships would be involved, and the funding was raised by loans that would be repaid from booty taken in New France. In the early spring Phips had already outfitted eight ships and sailed to Port-Royal, capital of the small French settlements in Acadia (today, Nova Scotia); greatly outnumbered, the town surrendered on May 19.
Plan of Schenectady as rebuilt soon after the 1690 raid. Basically unchanged, it was strengthened with triple stockades, and mounted two cannon in each corner blockhouse. The southeast blockhouse has a “spy loft” on top, and a flagpole and sentry-box (4 & 5) outside its southern wall. Among the dwelling-houses are a barn, a blockhouse/church, and, interestingly, two long round-ended “wigwams” (longhouses for First Nations families). In addition to the main gate (12, in the southern wall), there is also a small postern just north of the southwest blockhouse. The constructions numbered 7 along the insides of the stockades are pig-sties. (Print after A Description of the Province and City of New York… of 1695, 1862 edn; author’s photo)
However, this success did nothing to alleviate the repeated raids on Massachusetts by Saint-Castin and his Abenakis from their safe forest bases, and preparations for the two-prong invasion continued. New York and Connecticut mustered 850 men to march on Montreal under John (or Fitz-John) Winthrop, an Anglo-American veteran of the British Army. During the summer they marched north from Albany, but after about 110 miles (180km) the inadequately supplied force halted, weakened by sickness (including smallpox, which frightened Winthrop’s Iroquois allies), and turned back with nothing accomplished.
The reputation of New York’s troops was somewhat salvaged, however, by a group of militiamen with some knowledge of woodscraft and wilderness fighting, who closely emulated Canadian tactics. Captain Johannes Schuyler led 42 New York volunteers and about 125 Iroquois to the village of Laprairie near Montreal, arriving undetected on August 23. They attacked the surprised inhabitants, killed about six men and much livestock, destroyed 16 houses, then retreated to Albany with 19 prisoners before troops and militiamen could respond.
Much more dangerous to New France was Phips’ fleet of at least 34 ships carrying 2,300 militia volunteers from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire towards Quebec. It sailed late due to various delays, and only arrived in view of the capital on October 16. The city presented Phips and his men with an unexpectedly imposing spectacle. On top of the natural fortress of Cape Diamond, Count Frontenac was waiting for them at his château, where he received a New England officer bearing a rather brusque summons to surrender “within an hour.” Frontenac told the envoy that his reply would be given “by the mouth of my cannons.” Up to 2,800 men, of whom about one-third were regular soldiers, were mustered in defense of the city.
D
WOODLANDS FIRST NATIONS WARRIORS, LATE 17th–MID 18th CENTURY
(1) Summer hunting dress
(2) Winter war dress, 1740s
(3) Ottawa warrior, spring–fall, 1750s
During the second half of the 17th and throughout the 18th century the steady influx of white-men’s trade goods, and the displacement and intermixing of some peoples, blurred previous distinctions in Woodlands material culture. Surviving items are often hard to attribute with any certainty, and, unavoidably, this plate shows somewhat “generic” reconstructions from mixed evidence. (The Ottawa warrior D3 is identified by specifics such as his tattoos, wampum necklaces, and the quillwork decoration of his “bandolier bag.”) Clothing was originally of deerskin and the pelts of smaller game animals, but by the end of the 17th century wool and flax (linen) trade cloth was also in common use, as were iron-bladed weapons and “German silver” decorations. Indigenous and imported beads were used for decorating clothing and other items, but in our period imported beads had not yet widely replaced the traditional porcupine-quill and moose-hair work.
The head was sometimes shaved except for a scalp-lock, decorated with feathers, colored animal-hair tufts and/or porcupine quills (D1 & D3). Although trade silver became popular for ear-drops, neck pendants and armbands, the circulation from the Atlantic coast of highly prized white and purple wampum shells for necklaces and other jewelry continued (D3). Tattooing of the face, torso and limbs was common throughout the Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples of the Northeast, supplemented with bold areas of war-paint when appropriate (D2).
The basic dress of First Nations warriors in summer (D1) was simply a deerskin or cloth breechclout and hide moccasins, often with hide or cloth mitasses; among western and southern groups the latter might be seamed down the front (D3) rather than sewn together down the outside leaving flaps or fringes (D1). In cold weather men wore fur robes and caps, or, when active, trade-cloth capots (D2). European trade shirts and blankets might be worn in all seasons (D3).
Blankets traded in 17th-century New France were usually white, red or blue, and some were decorated with contrasting stripes “the length of a finger” at the ends, inside a black selvedge (D3). They were generally 5 French feet wide (162cm/63.8in) by 6 feet long (194cm/66.6in). Blankets were important in the fur trade, and were also widely used by Canadian civilians and soldiers alike; they were a vital part of the equipment for any winter raid. In the 18th century the most common colors appear to have been white or red with red or blue stripes, but blue or green blankets were also popular, and there might be many stripes; green blankets made in Toulouse in 1740 had seven or eight stripes (D2).
For hunting and war, the Indigenous peoples had originally used arrows and spears with stone, bone, or antler points, stone blades, and warclubs made from the root-boles of trees (D2). White contact brought first iron knives and hatchets, then tomahawks – which became ubiquitous – guns, powder, and bullet-molds. In the mid-18th century European traders began importing combination tomahawk/tobacco pipes (D3), which answered the needs of both combat and ritual. Trade muskets were usually of relatively smaller caliber than military weapons, and were often decorated with brass furniture. (Michael G. Johnson & Richard Hook, MAA 228 American Woodland Indians, Osprey, 1990; Michael G. Johnson & Jonathan Smith, MAA 428 Indian Tribes of the New England Frontier, 2006, & MAA 467, North American Indian Tribes of the Great Lakes, 2011; Francis Back, “The Trade Blanket in New France” in The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3, Fall 1990)
The 68-year-old Count Frontenac, dressed as if for Versailles, brandishes a tomahawk in a war-dance with allied First Nations warriors at the great Montreal fur-trade fair in July 1690. (Print after C. W. Jefferys in Doughty’s A Daughter of New France, 1918; author’s photo)
The subsequent artillery duel did not go well for the New Englanders, who finally landed on October 18 in the Beauport area east of the city
, where some 1,300 men led by Maj John Walley then lined up with drums beating and colors flying. Some field artillery was also landed, seemingly manned by gunners of Boston’s Ancient and Honorable Artillery, which was Walley’s own unit. The force marched west, aiming to cross the St Charles River and make a direct assault on the city. However, there was a large wooded area in between. When they approached the woods, marching in ranks, they came under fire from unseen enemies: Frontenac had sent Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène with 300 Canadians and allied warriors to skirmish against the column. Walley ordered a bayonet charge into the woods, but the skirmishers withdrew from tree to tree, reloading and firing; New Englanders who followed too far became scattered, and fell to tomahawks and knives. Unable to engage effectively, Walley’s men finally withdrew.
Two schematic maps showing the siege of Quebec in October 1690.
(Upper) Orientated correctly, this shows Quebec City to the west, with the château and Fort St Louis on the headland west of the mouth of the St Charles River, swapping gunfire with Phips’ four largest ships. His main fleet is to the east, landing Walley’s troops on the Beauport shore, from where they march west towards Quebec. In the left center, Canadian skirmishers and allied warriors go out to meet the New Englanders in the woods. (Detail from a print after La Hontan’s 1705 Amsterdam edn; author’s photo)
(Lower) A rather more detailed map, but revolved 180o with south at the top; note the longboats beached along the shore at left center, and the arcs of fire from Frontenac’s artillery. He had expected an attack from the east, and raised defenses on the riverbank as well as sending his militia forward; Walley’s troops never did get across. (Detail from map by Nicolas de Fer; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-83.033A-122)
Raiders from New France Page 4