A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

F >> Francis Parkman >> The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century




On the morning of the thirtieth of March, Pilot was heard barking with
unusual fury in the forest eastward from the fort; and in a few moments
they saw her running over the clearing, where the snow was still deep,
followed by her brood, all giving tongue together. The excited Frenchmen
flocked about their commander.

"Monsieur, les ennemis sont dans le bois; ne les irons-nous jamais voir?"
[ Dollier de Casson, MS. ]

Maisonneuve, habitually composed and calm, answered sharply,--

"Yes, you shall see the enemy. Get yourselves ready at once, and take
care that you are as brave as you profess to be. I shall lead you
myself."

All was bustle in the fort. Guns were loaded, pouches filled, and
snow-shoes tied on by those who had them and knew how to use them.
There were not enough, however, and many were forced to go without them.
When all was ready, Maisonneuve sallied forth at the head of thirty men,
leaving d'Ailleboust, with the remainder, to hold the fort. They crossed
the snowy clearing and entered the forest, where all was silent as the
grave. They pushed on, wading through the deep snow, with the countless
pitfalls hidden beneath it, when suddenly they were greeted with the
screeches of eighty Iroquois, [ 1 ] who sprang up from their lurking-
places, and showered bullets and arrows upon the advancing French.
The emergency called, not for chivalry, but for woodcraft; and
Maisonneuve ordered his men to take shelter, like their assailants,
behind trees. They stood their ground resolutely for a long time; but
the Iroquois pressed them close, three of their number were killed,
others were wounded, and their ammunition began to fail. Their only
alternatives were destruction or retreat; and to retreat was not easy.
The order was given. Though steady at first, the men soon became
confused, and over-eager to escape the galling fire which the Iroquois
sent after them. Maisonneuve directed them towards a sledge-track which
had been used in dragging timber for building the hospital, and where the
snow was firm beneath the foot. He himself remained to the last,
encouraging his followers and aiding the wounded to escape. The French,
as they struggled through the snow, faced about from time to time,
and fired back to check the pursuit; but no sooner had they reached the
sledge-track than they gave way to their terror, and ran in a body for
the fort. Those within, seeing this confused rush of men from the
distance, mistook them for the enemy; and an over-zealous soldier touched
the match to a cannon which had been pointed to rake the sledge-track.
Had not the piece missed fire, from dampness of the priming, he would
have done more execution at one shot than the Iroquois in all the fight
of that morning.

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1644, 42. Dollier de Casson says two hundred,
but it is usually safe in these cases to accept the smaller number,
and Vimont founds his statement on the information of an escaped
prisoner. ]

Maisonneuve was left alone, retreating backwards down the track, and
holding his pursuers in check, with a pistol in each hand. They might
easily have shot him; but, recognizing him as the commander of the French,
they were bent on taking him alive. Their chief coveted this honor for
himself, and his followers held aloof to give him the opportunity.
He pressed close upon Maisonneuve, who snapped a pistol at him, which
missed fire. The Iroquois, who had ducked to avoid the shot, rose erect,
and sprang forward to seize him, when Maisonneuve, with his remaining
pistol, shot him dead. Then ensued a curious spectacle, not infrequent
in Indian battles. The Iroquois seemed to forget their enemy, in their
anxiety to secure and carry off the body of their chief; and the French
commander continued his retreat unmolested, till he was safe under the
cannon of the fort. From that day, he was a hero in the eyes of his men.

[ Dollier de Casson, MS. Vimont's mention of the affair is brief.
He says that two Frenchmen were made prisoners, and burned. Belmont,
Histoire du Canada, 1645, gives a succinct account of the fight, and
indicates the scene of it. It seems to have been a little below the site
of the Place d'Armes, on which stands the great Parish Church of
Villemarie, commonly known to tourists as the "Cathedral." Faillon
thinks that Maisonneuve's exploit was achieved on this very spot.

Marguerite Bourgeoys also describes the affair in her unpublished
writings. ]

Quebec and Montreal are happy in their founders. Samuel de Champlain and
Chomedey de Maisonneuve are among the names that shine with a fair and
honest lustre on the infancy of nations.




CHAPTER XIX.

1644, 1645.

PEACE.


IROQUOIS PRISONERS.--PISKARET.--HIS EXPLOITS.--MORE PRISONERS.--
IROQUOIS EMBASSY.--THE ORATOR.--THE GREAT COUNCIL.--
SPEECHES OF KIOTSATON.--MUSTER OF SAVAGES.--PEACE CONFIRMED.


In the damp and freshness of a midsummer morning, when the sun had not
yet risen, but when the river and the sky were red with the glory of
approaching day, the inmates of the fort at Three Rivers were roused by a
tumult of joyous and exultant voices. They thronged to the shore,--
priests, soldiers, traders, and officers, mingled with warriors and
shrill-voiced squaws from Huron and Algonquin camps in the neighboring
forest. Close at hand they saw twelve or fifteen canoes slowly drifting
down the current of the St. Lawrence, manned by eighty young Indians,
all singing their songs of victory, and striking their paddles against
the edges of their bark vessels in cadence with their voices. Among them
three Iroquois prisoners stood upright, singing loud and defiantly,
as men not fearing torture or death.

A few days before, these young warriors, in part Huron and in part
Algonquin, had gone out on the war-path to the River Richelieu, where
they had presently found themselves entangled among several bands of
Iroquois. They withdrew in the night, after a battle in the dark with an
Iroquois canoe, and, as they approached Fort Richelieu, had the good
fortune to discover ten of their enemy ambuscaded in a clump of bushes
and fallen trees, watching to waylay some of the soldiers on their
morning visit to the fishing-nets in the river hard by. They captured
three of them, and carried them back in triumph.

The victors landed amid screams of exultation. Two of the prisoners were
assigned to the Hurons, and the third to the Algonquins, who immediately
took him to their lodges near the fort at Three Rivers, and began the
usual "caress," by burning his feet with red-hot stones, and cutting off
his fingers. Champfleur, the commandant, went out to them with urgent
remonstrances, and at length prevailed on them to leave their victim
without further injury, until Montmagny, the Governor, should arrive.
He came with all dispatch,--not wholly from a motive of humanity, but
partly in the hope that the three captives might be made instrumental in
concluding a peace with their countrymen.

A council was held in the fort at Three Rivers. Montmagny made valuable
presents to the Algonquins and the Hurons, to induce them to place the
prisoners in his hands. The Algonquins complied; and the unfortunate
Iroquois, gashed, maimed, and scorched, was given up to the French,
who treated him with the greatest kindness. But neither the Governor's
gifts nor his eloquence could persuade the Hurons to follow the example
of their allies; and they departed for their own country with their two
captives,--promising, however, not to burn them, but to use them for
negotiations of peace. With this pledge, scarcely worth the breath that
uttered it, Montmagny was forced to content himself. [ Vimont, Relation,
1644, 45-49. ]

Thus it appeared that the fortune of war did not always smile even on the
Iroquois. Indeed, if there is faith in Indian tradition, there had been
a time, scarcely half a century past, when the Mohawks, perhaps the
fiercest and haughtiest of the confederate nations, had been nearly
destroyed by the Algonquins, whom they now held in contempt. [ 1 ]
This people, whose inferiority arose chiefly from the want of that
compact organization in which lay the strength of the Iroquois, had not
lost their ancient warlike spirit; and they had one champion of whom even
the audacious confederates stood in awe. His name was Piskaret; and he
dwelt on that great island in the Ottawa of which Le Borgne was chief.
He had lately turned Christian, in the hope of French favor and
countenance,--always useful to an ambitious Indian,--and perhaps, too,
with an eye to the gun and powder-horn which formed the earthly reward of
the convert. [ 2 ] Tradition tells marvellous stories of his exploits.
Once, it is said, he entered an Iroquois town on a dark night. His first
care was to seek out a hiding-place, and he soon found one in the midst
of a large wood-pile. [ 3 ] Next he crept into a lodge, and, finding the
inmates asleep, killed them with his war-club, took their scalps, and
quietly withdrew to the retreat he had prepared. In the morning a howl
of lamentation and fury rose from the astonished villagers. They ranged
the fields and forests in vain pursuit of the mysterious enemy, who
remained all day in the wood-pile, whence, at midnight, he came forth and
repeated his former exploit. On the third night, every family placed its
sentinels; and Piskaret, stealthily creeping from lodge to lodge, and
reconnoitring each through crevices in the bark, saw watchers everywhere.
At length he descried a sentinel who had fallen asleep near the entrance
of a lodge, though his companion at the other end was still awake and
vigilant. He pushed aside the sheet of bark that served as a door,
struck the sleeper a deadly blow, yelled his war-cry, and fled like the
wind. All the village swarmed out in furious chase; but Piskaret was the
swiftest runner of his time, and easily kept in advance of his pursuers.
When daylight came, he showed himself from time to time to lure them on,
then yelled defiance, and distanced them again. At night, all but six
had given over the chase; and even these, exhausted as they were, had
begun to despair. Piskaret, seeing a hollow tree, crept into it like a
bear, and hid himself; while the Iroquois, losing his traces in the dark,
lay down to sleep near by. At midnight he emerged from his retreat,
stealthily approached his slumbering enemies, nimbly brained them all
with his war-club, and then, burdened with a goodly bundle of scalps,
journeyed homeward in triumph. [ 4 ]

[ 1 Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous).

Both Parrot and La Potherie recount traditions of the ancient superiority
of the Algonquins over the Iroquois, who formerly, it is said, dwelt near
Montreal and Three Rivers, whence the Algonquins expelled them. They
withdrew, first to the neighborhood of Lake Erie, then to that of Lake
Ontario, their historic seat. There is much to support the conjecture
that the Indians found by Cartier at Montreal in 1535 were Iroquois (See
"Pioneers of France," 189.) That they belonged to the same family of
tribes is certain. For the traditions alluded to, see Perrot, 9, 12, 79,
and La Potherie, I. 288-295. ]

[ 2 "Simon Pieskaret . . . n'estoit Chrestien qu'en apparence et par
police."--Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 68.--He afterwards became a convert
in earnest. ]

[ 3 Both the Iroquois and the Hurons collected great quantities of wood
in their villages in the autumn. ]

[ 4 This story is told by La Potherie, I. 299, and, more briefly,
by Perrot, 107. La Potherie, writing more than half a century after the
time in question, represents the Iroquois as habitually in awe of the
Algonquins. In this all the contemporary writers contradict him. ]

This is but one of several stories that tradition has preserved of his
exploits; and, with all reasonable allowances, it is certain that the
crafty and valiant Algonquin was the model of an Indian warrior. That
which follows rests on a far safer basis.

Early in the spring of 1645, Piskaret, with six other converted Indians,
some of them better Christians than he, set out on a war-party, and,
after dragging their canoes over the frozen St. Lawrence, launched them
on the open stream of the Richelieu. They ascended to Lake Champlain,
and hid themselves in the leafless forests of a large island, watching
patiently for their human prey. One day they heard a distant shot.
"Come, friends," said Piskaret, "let us get our dinner: perhaps it will
be the last, for we must dine before we run." Having dined to their
contentment, the philosophic warriors prepared for action. One of them
went to reconnoitre, and soon reported that two canoes full of Iroquois
were approaching the island. Piskaret and his followers crouched in the
bushes at the point for which the canoes were making, and, as the
foremost drew near, each chose his mark, and fired with such good effect
that, of seven warriors, all but one were killed. The survivor jumped
overboard, and swam for the other canoe, where he was taken in. It now
contained eight Iroquois, who, far from attempting to escape, paddled in
haste for a distant part of the shore, in order to land, give battle,
and avenge their slain comrades. But the Algonquins, running through the
woods, reached the landing before them, and, as one of them rose to fire,
they shot him. In his fall he overset the canoe. The water was shallow,
and the submerged warriors, presently finding foothold, waded towards the
shore, and made desperate fight. The Algonquins had the advantage of
position, and used it so well, that they killed all but three of their
enemies, and captured two of the survivors. Next they sought out the
bodies, carefully scalped them, and set out in triumph on their return.
To the credit of their Jesuit teachers, they treated their prisoners with
a forbearance hitherto without example. One of them, who was defiant and
abusive, received a blow to silence him; but no further indignity was
offered to either.

[ According to Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 14 Sept., 1645, Piskaret
was for torturing the captives; but a convert, named Bernard by the
French, protested against it. ]

As the successful warriors approached the little mission settlement of
Sillery, immediately above Quebec, they raised their song of triumph,
and beat time with their paddles on the edges of their canoes; while,
from eleven poles raised aloft, eleven fresh scalps fluttered in the
wind. The Father Jesuit and all his flock were gathered on the strand to
welcome them. The Indians fired their guns, and screeched in jubilation;
one Jean Baptiste, a Christian chief of Sillery, made a speech from the
shore; Piskaret replied, standing upright in his canoe; and, to crown the
occasion, a squad of soldiers, marching in haste from Quebec, fired a
salute of musketry, to the boundless delight of the Indians. Much to the
surprise of the two captives, there was no running of the gantlet,
no gnawing off of finger-nails or cutting off of fingers; but the scalps
were hung, like little flags, over the entrances of the lodges, and all
Sillery betook itself to feasting and rejoicing. [ Vimont, Relation,
1645, 19-21. ] One old woman, indeed, came to the Jesuit with a
pathetic appeal: "Oh, my Father! let me caress these prisoners a little:
they have killed, burned, and eaten my father, my husband, and my
children." But the missionary, answered with a lecture on the duty of
forgiveness. [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 21, 22. ]

On the next day, Montmagny came to Sillery, and there was a grand council
in the house of the Jesuits. Piskaret, in a solemn harangue, delivered
his captives to the Governor, who replied with a speech of compliment and
an ample gift. The two Iroquois were present, seated with a seeming
imperturbability, but great anxiety of heart; and when at length they
comprehended that their lives were safe, one of them, a man of great size
and symmetry, rose and addressed Montmagny:--

"Onontio, [ 1 ] I am saved from the fire; my body is delivered from
death. Onontio, you have given me my life. I thank you for it. I will
never forget it. All my country will be grateful to you. The earth will
be bright; the river calm and smooth; there will be peace and friendship
between us. The shadow is before my eyes no longer. The spirits of my
ancestors slain by the Algonquins have disappeared. Onontio, you are
good: we are bad. But our anger is gone; I have no heart but for peace
and rejoicing." As he said this, he began to dance, holding his hands
upraised, as if apostrophizing the sky. Suddenly he snatched a hatchet,
brandished it for a moment like a madman, and then flung it into the fire,
saying, as he did so, "Thus I throw down my anger! thus I cast away the
weapons of blood! Farewell, war! Now I am your friend forever!" [ 2 ]

[ 1 _Onontio_, _Great Mountain_, a translation of Montmagny's name.
It was the Iroquois name ever after for the Governor of Canada. In the
same manner, _Onas_, _Feather_ or _Quill_, became the official name of
William Penn, and all succeeding Governors of Pennsylvania. We have seen
that the Iroquois hereditary chiefs had official names, which are the same
to-day that they were at the period of this narrative. ]

[ 2 Vimont, Relation, 1645, 22, 23. He adds, that, "if these people are
barbarous in deed, they have thoughts worthy of Greeks and Romans." ]

The two prisoners were allowed to roam at will about the settlement,
withheld from escaping by an Indian point of honor. Montmagny soon after
sent them to Three Rivers, where the Iroquois taken during the last
summer had remained all winter. Champfleur, the commandant, now received
orders to clothe, equip, and send him home, with a message to his nation
that Onontio made them a present of his life, and that he had still two
prisoners in his hands, whom he would also give them, if they saw fit to
embrace this opportunity of making peace with the French and their Indian
allies.

This was at the end of May. On the fifth of July following, the
liberated Iroquois reappeared at Three Rivers, bringing with him two men
of renown, ambassadors of the Mohawk nation. There was a fourth man of
the party, and, as they approached, the Frenchmen on the shore recognized,
to their great delight, Guillaume Couture, the young man captured three
years before with Father Jogues, and long since given up as dead.
In dress and appearance he was an Iroquois. He had gained a great
influence over his captors, and this embassy of peace was due in good
measure to his persuasions. [ Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 14 Sept.,
1645. ]

The chief of the Iroquois, Kiotsaton, a tall savage, covered from head to
foot with belts of wampum, stood erect in the prow of the sail-boat which
had brought him and his companions from Richelieu, and in a loud voice
announced himself as the accredited envoy of his nation. The boat fired
a swivel, the fort replied with a cannon-shot, and the envoys landed in
state. Kiotsaton and his colleague were conducted to the room of the
commandant, where, seated on the floor, they were regaled sumptuously,
and presented in due course with pipes of tobacco. They had never before
seen anything so civilized, and were delighted with their entertainment.
"We are glad to see you," said Champfleur to Kiotsaton; "you may be sure
that you are safe here. It is as if you were among your own people,
and in your own house."

"Tell your chief that he lies," replied the honored guest, addressing the
interpreter.

Champfleur, though he probably knew that this was but an Indian mode of
expressing dissent, showed some little surprise; when Kiotsaton, after
tranquilly smoking for a moment, proceeded:--"Your chief says it is as if
I were in my own country. This is not true; for there I am not so
honored and caressed. He says it is as if I were in my own house; but in
my own house I am some times very ill served, and here you feast me with
all manner of good cheer." From this and many other replies, the French
conceived that they had to do with a man of _esprit_. [ Vimont, Relation,
1645, 24. ]

He undoubtedly belonged to that class of professed orators who, though
rarely or never claiming the honors of hereditary chieftainship, had
great influence among the Iroquois, and were employed in all affairs of
embassy and negotiation. They had memories trained to an astonishing
tenacity, were perfect in all the conventional metaphors in which the
language of Indian diplomacy and rhetoric mainly consisted, knew by heart
the traditions of the nation, and were adepts in the parliamentary usages,
which, among the Iroquois, were held little less than sacred.

The ambassadors were feasted for a week, not only by the French, but also
by the Hurons and Algonquins; and then the grand peace council took
place. Montmagny had come up from Quebec, and with him the chief men of
the colony. It was a bright midsummer day; and the sun beat hot upon the
parched area of the fort, where awnings were spread to shelter the
assembly. On one side sat Montmagny, with officers and others who
attended him. Near him was Vimont, Superior of the Mission, and other
Jesuits,--Jogues among the rest. Immediately before them sat the
Iroquois, on sheets of spruce-bark spread on the ground like mats: for
they had insisted on being near the French, as a sign of the extreme love
they had of late conceived towards them. On the opposite side of the
area were the Algonquins, in their several divisions of the Algonquins
proper, the Montagnais, and the Atticamegues, [ 1 ] sitting, lying,
or squatting on the ground. On the right hand and on the left were
Hurons mingled with Frenchmen. In the midst was a large open space like
the arena of a prize-ring; and here were planted two poles with a line
stretched from one to the other, on which, in due time, were to be hung
the wampum belts that represented the words of the orator. For the
present, these belts were in part hung about the persons of the two
ambassadors, and in part stored in a bag carried by one of them.

[ 1 The Atticamegues, or tribe of the White Fish, dwelt in the forests
north of Three Rivers. They much resembled their Montagnais kindred. ]

When all was ready, Kiotsaton arose, strode into the open space, and,
raising his tall figure erect, stood looking for a moment at the sun.
Then he gazed around on the assembly, took a wampum belt in his hand,
and began:--

"Onontio, give ear. I am the mouth of all my nation. When you listen to
me, you listen to all the Iroquois. There is no evil in my heart.
My song is a song of peace. We have many war-songs in our country; but
we have thrown them all away, and now we sing of nothing but gladness and
rejoicing."

Hereupon he began to sing, his countrymen joining with him. He walked to
and fro, gesticulated towards the sky, and seemed to apostrophize the
sun; then, turning towards the Governor, resumed his harangue. First he
thanked him for the life of the Iroquois prisoner released in the spring,
but blamed him for sending him home without company or escort. Then he
led forth the young Frenchman, Guillaume Couture, and tied a wampum belt
to his arm.

"With this," he said, "I give you back this prisoner. I did not say to
him, 'Nephew, take a canoe and go home to Quebec.' I should have been
without sense, had I done so. I should have been troubled in my heart,
lest some evil might befall him. The prisoner whom you sent back to us
suffered every kind of danger and hardship on the way." Here he
proceeded to represent the difficulties of the journey in pantomime,
"so natural," says Father Vimont, "that no actor in France could equal
it." He counterfeited the lonely traveller toiling up some rocky portage
track, with a load of baggage on his head, now stopping as if half spent,
and now tripping against a stone. Next he was in his canoe, vainly
trying to urge it against the swift current, looking around in despair on
the foaming rapids, then recovering courage, and paddling desperately for
his life. "What did you mean," demanded the orator, resuming his
harangue, "by sending a man alone among these dangers? I have not done
so. 'Come, nephew,' I said to the prisoner there before you,"--pointing
to Couture,--"'follow me: I will see you home at the risk of my life.'"
And to confirm his words, he hung another belt on the line.

The third belt was to declare that the nation of the speaker had sent
presents to the other nations to recall their war-parties, in view of the
approaching peace. The fourth was an assurance that the memory of the
slain Iroquois no longer stirred the living to vengeance. "I passed near
the place where Piskaret and the Algonquins slew our warriors in the
spring. I saw the scene of the fight where the two prisoners here were
taken. I passed quickly; I would not look on the blood of my people.
Their bodies lie there still; I turned away my eyes, that I might not be
angry." Then, stooping, he struck the ground and seemed to listen.
"I heard the voice of my ancestors, slain by the Algonquins, crying to me
in a tone of affection, 'My grandson, my grandson, restrain your anger:
think no more of us, for you cannot deliver us from death; think of the
living; rescue them from the knife and the fire.' When I heard these
voices, I went on my way, and journeyed hither to deliver those whom you
still hold in captivity."

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