CHAPTER I.✦

CANADA AND LOUISIANA.

BY ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS,

American Antiquarian Society.

THE story of the French occupation in America is not that of a people slowly moulding itself into a nation. In France there was no state but the king; in Canada there could be none but the governor. Events cluster around the lives of individuals. According to the discretion of the leaders the prospects of the colony rise and fall. Stories of the machinations of priests at Quebec and at Montreal, of their heroic sufferings at the hands of the Hurons and the Iroquois, and of individual deeds of valor performed by soldiers, fill the pages of the record. The prosperity of the colony rested upon the fate of a single industry,—the trade in peltries. In pursuit of this, the hardy trader braved the danger from lurking savage, shot the boiling rapids of the river in his light bark canoe, ventured upon the broad bosom of the treacherous lake, and patiently endured sufferings from cold in winter and from the myriad forms of insect life which infest the forests in summer. To him the hazard of the adventure was as attractive as the promised reward. The sturdy agriculturist planted his seed each year in dread lest the fierce war-cry of the Iroquois should sound in his ear, and the sharp, sudden attack drive him from his work. He reaped his harvest with urgent haste, ever expectant of interruption from the same source, always doubtful as to the result until the crop was fairly housed. The brief season of the Canadian summer, the weary winter, the hazards of the crop, the feudal tenure of the soil,—all conspired to make the life of the farmer full of hardship and barren of promise. The sons of the early settlers drifted to the woods as independent hunters and traders. The parent State across the water, which undertook to say who might trade, and where and how the traffic should be carried on, looked upon this way of living as piratical. To suppress the crime, edicts were promulgated from Versailles and threats were thundered from Quebec. Still, the temptation to engage in what Parkman calls the “hardy, adventurous, lawless, fascinating fur-trade” was much greater than to enter upon the dull monotony of ploughing, sowing, and reaping. The Iroquois, alike the enemies of farmer and of trader, bestowed their malice impartially upon the two callings, so that the risk was fairly divided. It was not surprising that the life of the fur-trader “proved more attractive, absorbed the enterprise of the colony, and drained the life-sap from other branches of commerce.” It was inevitable, with the young men wandering off to the woods, and with the farmers habitually harassed during both seed-time and harvest, that the colony should at times be unable to produce even grain enough for its own use, and that there should occasionally be actual suffering from lack of food. It often happened that the services of all the strong men were required to bear arms in the field, and that there remained upon the farms only old men, women, and children to reap the harvest. Under such circumstances want was sure to follow during the winter months. Such was the condition of affairs in 1700. The grim figure of Frontenac had passed finally from the stage of Canadian politics. On his return, in 1689, he had found the name of Frenchman a mockery and a taunt.[1] The Iroquois sounded their threats under the very walls of the French forts. When, in 1698, the old warrior died, he was again their “Onontio,” and they were his children. The account of what he had done during those years was the history of Canada for the time. His vigorous measures had restored the self-respect of his countrymen, and had inspired with wholesome fear the wily savages who threatened the natural path of his fur-trade. The tax upon the people, however, had been frightful. A French population of less than twelve thousand had been called upon to defend a frontier of hundreds of miles against the attacks of a jealous and warlike confederacy of Indians, who, in addition to their own sagacious views upon the policy of maintaining these wars, were inspired thereto by the great rival of France behind them.

To the friendship which circumstances cemented between the English and the Iroquois, the alliance between the French and the other tribes was no fair offset. From the day when Champlain joined the Algonquins and aided them to defeat their enemies near the site of Ticonderoga, the hostility of the great Confederacy had borne an important part in the history of Canada. Apart from this traditional enmity, the interests of the Confederacy rested with the English, and not with the French. If the Iroquois permitted the Indians of the Northwest to negotiate with the French, and interposed no obstacle to the transportation of peltries from the upper lakes to Montreal and Quebec, they would forfeit all the commercial benefits which belonged to their geographical position. Thus their natural tendency was to join with the English. The value of neutrality was plain to their leaders; nevertheless, much of the time they were the willing agents of the English in keeping alive the chronic border war.

]

Nearly all the Indian tribes understood that the conditions of trade were better with the English than with the French; but the personal influence of the French with their allies was powerful enough partially to overcome this advantage of their rivals. This influence was exercised not only through missionaries,[2] but was also felt through the national characteristics of the French themselves, which were strongly in harmony with the spirit of forest life. The Canadian bushrangers appropriated the ways and the customs of the natives. They were often adopted into the tribes, and when this was done, their advice in council was listened to with respect. They married freely into the Indian nations with whom they were thrown; and the offspring of these marriages, scattered through the forests of the Northwest, were conspicuous among hunters and traders for their skill and courage. “It has been supposed for a long while,” says one of the officers of the colony, “that to civilize the savages it was necessary to bring them in contact with the French. We have every reason to recognize the fact that we were mistaken. Those who have come in contact with us have not become French, while the French who frequent the wilds have become savages.” Prisoners held by the Indians often concealed themselves rather than return to civilized life, when their surrender was provided for by a treaty of peace.[3]

Powerful as these influences had proved with the allies of the French, no person realized more keenly than M. de Callières, the successor of Frontenac, how incompetent they were to overcome the natural drift of the Iroquois to the English. He it was who had urged at Versailles the policy of carrying the war into the province of New York as the only means of ridding Canada of the periodic invasions of the Iroquois.[4] He had joined with Frontenac in urging upon the astute monarch who had tried the experiment of using Iroquois as galley-slaves, the impolicy of abandoning the posts at Michilimakinac and at St. Joseph. His appointment was recognized as suitable, not only by the colonists, but also by Charlevoix, who tells us that “from the beginning he had acquired great influence over the savages, who recognized in him a man exact in the performance of his word, and who insisted that others should adhere to promises given to him.” He saw accomplished what Frontenac had labored for,—a peace with the Iroquois in which the allied tribes were included. The Hurons, the Ottawas, the Abenakis, and the converted Iroquois having accepted the terms of the peace, the Governor-General, the Intendant, the Governor of Montreal, and the ecclesiastical authorities signed a provisional treaty on the 8th of September, 1700. In 1703, while the Governor still commanded the confidence of his countrymen, his career was cut short by death.

The reins of government now fell into the hands of Philippe de Vaudreuil, who retained the position of governor until his death. During the entire period of his administration Canada was free from the horrors of Indian invasion. By his adroit management, with the aid of Canadians adopted by the tribes, and of missionaries, the Iroquois were held in check. The scene in which startled villagers were roused from their midnight slumber by the fierce war-whoop, the report of the musket, and the light of burning dwellings, was transferred from the Valley of the St. Lawrence to New England. Upon Vaudreuil must rest the responsibility for the attacks upon Deerfield in 1704 and Haverhill in 1708, and for the horrors of the Abenakis war. The pious Canadians, fortified by a brief preliminary invocation of Divine aid, rushed upon the little settlements and perpetrated cruelties of the same class with those which characterized the brutal attacks of the Iroquois upon the villages in Canada. The cruel policy of maintaining the alliance with the Abenakis, and at the same time securing quiet in Canada by encouraging raids upon the defenceless towns of New England, not only left a stain upon the reputation of Vaudreuil, but it also hastened the end of French power in America by convincing the growing, prosperous, and powerful colonies known as New England that the only path to permanent peace lay through the downfall of French rule in Canada.[5]