It Happened Here--Lost Towns of the Revolution

Wars almost inevitably result in the disruption of lives, the destruction of towns and the mass displacement of peoples.  The American Revolution was no exception and nowhere was this disruption, destruction, and  displacement greater than on the frontier of  revolutionary New York and in Iroquoia.

 Early in the war the Iroquois maintained an uneasy neutrality toward what they viewed first as a "war between brothers"; but as the stakes and tempo of the war escalated in the summer of 1777 with the Burgoyne invasion of New York, the Iroquois nations succumbed to the blandishments of the King's and Rebel Indian agents.  Seneca and Mohawk forces became major combatants in an ambush of a rebel relief expedition headed toward Fort Stanwix, while a large contingent of Oneida warriors  accompanied General Herkimer's rebel force and became embroiled in the vicious fire fight that became known as the battle of Oriskany.

The following spring Mohawk Joseph Brant led the first small raids against the farming communities of Manheim and Ephrata in western Tryon county. Homes and farms were burned and a dozen captives were spirited away. From this, a pattern would develop in which  Tory raiders and their Indian allies would raid frontier farming communities, destroying farms and crops destined to feed Continental Armies, terrorizing the inhabitants to drive them in from the frontier, and obtaining a supply of captives that could provide leverage in dealings with the Rebel governments.  (As the war progressed, large numbers of prominent Tory sympathizers were rounded up and imprisoned, as well as an entire British army captured at Saratoga. Obtaining their release would become a major priority for the Crown.)

The summer of 1778 saw a raid in Cobleskill and farms burned in Broadalbin. On June 18th and
19th, Joseph Brant destroyed the villages of Springfield,  and Andrustown. Tory leader John Butler staged a major raid against the settlements in the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania  on July 3d.  In September, Brant and (son) Walter Butler devastated the prosperous town of German Flatts, on the Mohawk. Sixty three houses, fifty nine barns and three grist mills were burned. Two hundred and thirty five horses, and ninety three oxen, two hundred and twenty nine "horned cattle", two hundred and seventy nine sheep were taken or killed.  Though the property loss was significant, only two lives were lost, thanks to the warning provided by scout John Adam Helmer that enabled the population of German Flatts to shelter in Forts Herkimer . (see my post of 3/24/13)  Though they were destitute,  the population was spared, and they began rebuilding almost immediately;  the following year planting resumed.

Andrustown Monument, Co. Rte 167, North of Jordanville

For Springfield and Andrustown reestablishment was less  certain. Springfield struggled on for years, becoming firmly re-established only with the arrival of the Great Western Turnpike (now U.S. 20) chartered in 1799.

Andrustown, in the rolling hills, eight miles south of German Flatts was settled by seven families of German Palatines. Its name, if you credit traditional sources, resulted from the corruption/distortion of its original name Hendersontown, named for its original patentee, a British Army surgeon named Henderson.  Several residents of the hamlet had fought in the battle of Oriskany.  After the battle, the seven families moved to the relative safety of German Flatts, but they continued to work their farms, going up from the Flatts, sometimes with armed escorts. Joseph Brant, his Indians and a force of Tories struck on a day when a group of farmers and their families were unescorted.  At least nine settlers were killed, including five who headed households and two women. Most were scalped. At the Bell farm, Frederick Bell Sr. was shot by an Indian through a window as he reached for his musket where it was hung on the rafters, while his son Frederick Bell Jr. was shot as he ran to catch a horse. His grandson, Frederick Bell III, age 8, was carried into captivity, where he was adopted by an Indian family. Ten years later he was returned to his surviving family, but by then had become so acculturated that he had great difficulty adapting to "civilized" life. He was said to have died at an early age from "melancholy".  Every house, barn and out-building was burned.  The lands continued to be farmed by the survivors and their descendants,  but Andrustown was never rebuilt, and passed into history.

Hicks Rd. (112) off of Co.Rte.167, cor. of Williams Rd., North

South of Paul Crim House,  Willams Rd., N.

 The Indian/Tory raids of the spring/summer of 1778 led to a retaliatory raid on two towns on the Susquehanna river, in what became south/central New York. Unadilla was a frontier town mostly populated by white settlers who held Loyalist sentiments. Ouaquaga (Onaquaga)* was an Indian town occupied by a mix of Indian peoples. Originally settled by Oneida Indians, it became home to Tuscarora, Shawnee, Mahican and Delaware peoples but was dominated by Mohawks. No primitive hamlet of mere bark wigwams and long houses, Ouaquaga was a town of 700, stretching across the Susquehanna.  American Lt. Col. William Butler declared Onaquaga, 'the finest Indian town I  ever saw' with more than forty 'good houses' of hewn logs, good floors, shingled roofs, stone chimneys, and "improvements" like those in European frontier settlements, along both shores.
                                                                                     


                    This cabin, Mary Jemison "White Woman of the Senecas",
                         (Letchworth State Park) built for her daughter, ca 1800.
                        The Ouaquaga houses must have looked much like this.
                   

 In the spring of 1777 Joseph Brant had settled his volunteer corp of Tories and Indians into Ouaquaga to establish it as a base for supply and recruitment.  In the end of May 1777 Brant, with seventy five of his men moved on Unadilla issuing an ultimatum to the inhabitants. They could either stay and declare their loyalty 
to the Crown and "volunteer " any supplies his troop required or they must go within eight days, taking with them only the provisions they could carry.  At the end of the eight days Brant's men ransacked the properties of those who had fled, and burned their buildings to the ground. 

Brant's Volunteers continued to use these towns as a base of operations until after their devastating raid on German Flatts.  With pressure building on General Washington to strike back, he ordered Lt. Col. William Butler of the 4th Pennsylvania Continental Regiment, garrisoned in the forts along the Schoharie Valley to attack the towns in October.  Indian scouts prevented  surprise and the towns' populations fled but Joseph Brant's forces, out on the warpath, were unaware of the attack until they returned to find their towns, their houses, mills, barns and store houses in ashes. The next year General James Clinton followed up with another attack that destroyed the buildings missed in the previous raid, and the buildings being rebuilt.

In the years following the Revolution Unadilla re-emerged as a town.  Some patriot families returned.  Newcomers arrived, and as nearly everywhere across New York, Tory properties were condemned by local governments to be resold or auctioned off.  Good farmland, and a strategic position on a small but important waterway, the Susquehanna,  favored Unadilla's survival. 

A NYSHM in Mayfield, Fulton Co. refers to a local commission for condemning Tory owned property and reselling it.

Riceville Rd., Mayfield

Ouaquaga, however, would not. After the war, many Indian families were reluctant to try to return to an area that was becoming populated by their former enemies, and where they knew they would not be welcomed.  But unlike former Tories, Indian peoples were legally considered sovereign, and could not be condemned as traitors and subject to forfeiture of their lands. So until treaties were negotiated and New York could arrange to buy the titles for their land, then sell it to land speculators (land wholesalers) who would in turn sell it to individual farmers--Ouaquaga languished  in a state of semi-abandoned limbo. Eventually the lands around Ouaquaga passed into the hands of individual farmers, and three settlements that developed became collectively  known as "Old Oquaga" but virtually all traces of the village and its former inhabitants had vanished. A state kiosk details the history of the area, but on a local NYSHM  created to mark an historic bridge, the Ouaquaga Bridge, the Indian town is mentioned only as an "Iroquois camp".

Doolittle Rd. south of
Rt. 79. south of Harpursville.
Broome County 

The fate of Ouaquaga was a fate shared by many Indian towns across the heart of Iroquoia. The month after the burning of Ouaquaga and Unadilla, Brant and Walter Butler retaliated by a brutal attack on Cherry Valley resulting in widespread destruction and the deaths of over thirty civilians. Over the winter George Washington and his generals would plan a massive invasion of Iroquoia that Washington hoped would knock  Britain's Iroquois allies out of the war or at least severely cripple them and force them into dependency on the British. The two armies of John Sullivan and James Clinton would meet at Tioga between the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers.  Their combined force of over 3000 would range north through Iroquoia sweeping all before it, burning every town and mill, orchard and field crop it came to. In less than two months over forty Indian villages were destroyed. Most would never be rebuilt, or re-inhabited.

By the mid 18th century, the largest, most powerful Iroquois people were the Seneca. One of their largest, most politically important Seneca towns was Kanadesega, also known as Seneca Castle.  Over forty well-built houses were surrounded by corn fields and orchards along the Kanadesega creek, a short distance from the foot of Seneca Lake, in the Finger Lakes. The British had fortified the town during the French and Indian War, and British agents made frequent visits to the town. Home to Sayenqueraghta, the second most influential war chief, after Joseph Brant, Kanadesega became a forward base for Maj. John Butler and his Rangers. After the Onondaga towns were destroyed, the Iroquois council fire, symbol of Iroquois unity, was moved to Kanadesaga. 

As the Sullivan/Clinton expedition approached Kanadesega in the first week of September 1779,  Indian and Tory forces in the town debated whether or not to make a stand at the town.  As Sullivan's Continental troops began to deploy around the town it became apparent to all of their overwhelming strength. When the Continental army entered the town they found their enemy had fled. Kanadesega, like so many Iroquois towns before it, was burned to the ground.

In 1788 a treaty transferred ownership of lands between Seneca Lake and the Genesee River from the Senecas to a partnership of Massachusetts investors (Phelps and Gorham). The properties passed through several hands and gradually the village of Geneva developed on the shore of Seneca Lake, eventually absorbing the abandoned Kanadesega.

From time to time groups and individuals in the 20th century remembered the town and left markers and monuments (including this NYSHM) to commemorate its existence. But, for the most part, the remains of Kanadesega slumber unnoticed underneath the cornfields, suburban housing, shopping malls, storage lockers and convenience store parking lots of suburban Geneva.

                             (All)   Co. Rte 4, near Preemption Rd, Geneva (Note the stone marker, behind the dumpster.)


*Because of the diversity of dialects of its inhabitants and because the Indian peoples living there had no written languages of their own, the town became known by a wildly confusing number of variants. According to Wikipedia, Ouaquaga was called Oneaquaga, Oughquagy, Onoaughquagey, Ononghquage, Auquauga, Anaquaga, Oughquogey, Anaquegha, Onaquaga, Aughquagee, Ochquaga, Aughquagey, Oquaca, Oguaga, Anaquaqua, Oquage, and Okwaha. Washington called the town Anaquaga.  Brant himself, called it Oghuago, and later Oghwage!

Marker of the Week --                                  

NY 414, near Hector

For a while the New York Highway Department, predecessor of the DOT,  joined in the enthusiasm for identifying historical sites with signs. Copies of this marker appeared in several locations, along with a couple other historical themed signs along other State roads.  Not to nit-pick, but it might seem that the Highway Dept. might have benefited from consulting an historian. Three years after the Declaration of Independence declared "That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States" many in Sullivan's army might have taken issue with their bodies politic being still called "colonies".  And while we are at it, since the Oneida Nation became and remained a faithful ally of the American rebels, it is hardly precise to speak of "War with the Six Nations".

It Happened Here --The Other French and Indian Wars --Part II The Jesuits and The Ordeals of  Fr.  Jogues

From their earliest efforts at settlement, the French were motivated not only to make a profit for their sponsors but also to save the souls of the indigenous people they encountered by converting them to Christianity.  Franciscan and Sulpician priests accompanied the first explorers and settlers, to be replaced by the Jesuit order in 1635/6.

In August of 1642 twelve canoes made their way upstream along the northern shore of Lac St. Pierre, a widening in the St. Lawrence River between Trois Rivieres and Montreal, near where the Richelieu River empties in. In the lead canoe was Father Issac Jogues, a Jesuit priest who had led missionary efforts among the Huron peoples and the Tobacco tribes of the Great Lakes for the last several years.  He was returning with critical supplies for the struggling mission in Huron territory--clothing for the priests, altar vessels, bread and wine for the Eucharist, and writing supplies*. With him were some forty Christian and non-Christian Hurons, and  Rene Goupill and Guillaume Couture, donnes of the Jesuits (layman who out of religious motives had volunteered for service to the order).  

Suddenly, the stillness of the lake was shattered by the crash of muskets and the war-whoops of attacking Indians. Most of Jogues' Huron party immediately jumped from their canoes and attempted to escape through the dense undergrowth along shore. The remaining Hurons and Jogues lay-assistants abandoned resistance when from both shores, canoes filled with Iroquois warriors appeared from their hiding places eliminating all possibility of flight. Jogues slipped into the bull-rushes and might have made his escape but when he saw his donne Rene Goupill, and several of his converts in the hands of the Iroquois, he returned to share their fate. So too did Guillaume Couture, but not before killing an attacking Mohawk that attempted to kill him. The Iroquois frenzied by the success of their attack and enraged by the death of one of their own, immediately began to abuse their white prisoners with tortures traditional among many of the eastern tribes. Jogues and Coture were beaten senseless by fists and war clubs. Their finger-nails were ripped from their fingers and the ends of their fingers chewed by their captors.

Immediately, with their captives, the the Iroquois war party began their return to the Mohawk towns, from where they had come, up** the Richelieu river, and up the lake known to the French by the name of its French discoverer (Champlain). After eight days they met an Iroquois war party heading north. The Iroquois celebrated and the captives were forced to run a gauntlet of warriors armed with sticks and clubs from both parties, suffering severe beatings. At night, young warriors kept up the tortures of their captives who were staked, hand and foot to the ground, reopening wounds on their captives fingers, burning them with firebrands and pulling hair from their heads and beards.

La Chute River falls, surrounded by the village of Ticonderoga

 Soon after, the French captives entered territory unknown to them, ascending a river, portaging around a falls and continuing up
a large and beautiful lake. From there they continued to the principal village of the Mohawks, Ossernenon.
                

The lake, (now called Lake George) looking South from Mt. Defiance

On Black Pt. Road, Ticonderoga

                             

Rt 5S, Auriesville

At Ossernenon the three frenchmen and several  Hurons of their party suffered their worst beatings as the whole town turned out to form a long gauntlet into the town. Afterwards, in the town they were strung up on scaffolds and Jogues and Goupill both suffered a thumb to be cut off.
After several days they were paraded to two other Mohawk towns where their tortures continued.



      
           ANDAGORON
          MIDDLE MOHAWK CASTLE
          OF THE BEAR CLAN 1642
          LOCATED ON HILL TOP.
          DESTROYED IN DE TRACY'S
          RAID OF 1666 Location: ON NYS 5S ABOUT 2 MIS. WEST OF FULTONVILLE
        (This NYSHM has disappeared.)

•  SITE OF
  T-CAN-DE-RO-GA OR
  TEN-ON-ON-TO-GEN. LOWER
  CASTLE MOHAWKS' WOLF CLAN
  LAST MOHAWK INDIAN VILLAGE
  IN VALLEY, 1700-1775Location: ON TOWN RD. AT FORT HUNTER

         (Ten-on-on-to-gen may have preceded T-can-de-ro-ga and thus been here in1642 when Jogues 
           was a captive. This NYSHM stood at Fort Hunter until it was undermined by flooding from     
           Hurricane Irene in 2011.  It had not been reset as of this posting.)
         






               Another town identified by Fr. Jogues
                  was Canagere, near the present-day 
                  hamlet of Sprakers








Eventually, after periods of severe torture, the young Couture, who was admired for his bravery in killing the Mohawk who had attempted to kill him, was adopted by an Indian family to replace a lost son; Goupill and Jogues became slaves, required to gather wood and do menial tasks.
The Jesuit and his donne took every opportunity to secretly practice their faith, baptizing and absolving Huron captives brought in and condemned to death by burning and the children of Mohawks who had became deathly sick. Goupil fell under suspicion of witchcraft for teaching little children to make the sign of the cross and when he was observed making the sign of the cross on a sick child's forehead, the child's alarmed grandfather had him murdered. Jogues, too, fell under suspicion and was warned if any of the Mohawks war parties failed in their raids or suffered losses of their warriors, he would be held responsible, and would suffer further torture and be burned at the stake. For months Jogues suffered the agony of watching war parties depart and return, knowing if they succeeded he would have to witness the torture and death of their French and Indian captives, and if they failed, he would face his own torture and death.

In July, the following year, Jogues captors required him to write them a note, to give to the French, requesting a parlay to talk peace terms. Jogues doubted the Indians' sincerity and in the note he composed, using a mixture of French, Latin and Huron,  he warned the French.

The next month, Jogues went with a group of his captors to fish on the Hudson, twenty miles below Ft. Orange and to trade with the Dutch, at the fort.  While there, news was received that the war-party carrying Jogues' note had delivered it, and that the French, after reading it had fired their cannon at the war-party. The Indians, suspecting treachery, were incensed and let it be known of their plans to surely torture and burn the Jesuit father when he returned to Ossernenon.

The Dutch at Ft. Orange had known for some time of Jogues capture and had offered the Mohawks a ransom for his release but now with the news that he would most certainly be burned at the stake when he returned to Ossernenon, Arendt Van Cuyler and other leaders of the Rensselearwyck community formed a plan.  Passage was arranged for him on a small Dutch trading vessel bound for France now lying at anchor in the Hudson below Fort Orange. Their guests, the Mohawks and their slave were given quarters in a farmer's house near the water, and a small skiff was left for Jogues to make his way, at night, to the ship anchored in midstream.  But Jogues was unsure if he should go.  Would leaving mean abandoning a mission God had selected for him? Or would staying be abetting his own murderers--in effect, committing suicide, a mortal sin?  After a sleepless night, he chose to go but his escape was plagued with setbacks. In the pre-dawn as he set out he was attacked by the farmer's dog who lacerated his leg. The farmer bound his wounds, but fearful of antagonizing his Indian guests tied the door latch.  The next night with the help of a hired man Jogues made his escape but found the skiff stranded in the mud at low tide and had to laboriously pole the boat across the mud to the anchored ship. The next several days the furious Indians raged through town demanding to know where he was and who was hiding him. The ship's captain, fearful of what the Indians might do, demanded the town's burghers take back their passenger. For six weeks, Jogues was hidden in the stiffling loft of the house of an old man, who ate most of the food the burghers brought to him.  Eventually the Indians left after accepting a cash payment for their loss and the Jesuit father was put on another boat leaving for England, only to suffer a final trial before crossing the North Atlantic. In the port of New Amsterdam, while the ship's crew was ashore carousing before embarking on their transatlantic voyage a gang of thieves boarded the boat and stole, among other things, Jogues' only suit of clothes, given to him by the burghers, which he was wearing. Finally, after many weeks the Jesuit father arrived home in his native France, destitute and nearly naked.

After a couple years, during which he regained his health and became something of a celebrity in France, Father Jogues returned to New France to continue his mission work among the Hurons.*** In the meantime, a fragile peace had been worked out between the Mohawks, and the French and their Algonquin neighbors.

Then, the Governor of New France asked something incredible of him; and more incredibly, he accepted! Issac Jogues knew and understood the Mohawks better than any other European. The governor asked him to return to the Mohawk villages as his ambassador to ensure the Mohawks honored the peace treaty, and as a Jesuit father to continue his mission to the Mohawks.  In May  1646 Jogues left Trois Rivieres with  two Algonquin ambassadors to begin his diplomatic and religious mission to the Mohawks, stopping along the lake he discovered four years before and taking some of its clear water blessing it for holy water and naming the lake Lac du St. Sacrement.
  

At Ossernenon members of the tortoise and wolf clans accepted his wampum belts and gifts and listened to his peace oratory but refused the gifts of  his Algonquin counterparts.  It was apparent the peace was coming apart! He was warned to depart with the Algonquins before the more conservative clans of the upper villages arrived.

Father Jogues left with the Algonquins and accompanied them back to their homelands before turning around and heading back to Mohawk territory.

In Jogues absence opinion continued to turn against the French and their Algonquin allies.  Some visiting Hurons attempting to ingratiate themselves with their hosts began telling stories how the Jesuits had brought spells that cause crops to fail and diseases that caused children to die. With caterpillars infesting their corn and diseases increasing that summer Mohawk fears were on the rise. A box left by Jogues with some common personal items in it became the center of attention and fears arose he may have left evil talismans.

In the forest south of Lac du St. Sacrement (Lake George) a war-party from the Bear clan, heading north, that had decided to break the peace treaty, ran into Jogues and his companion, a young donne named Lelande heading south.  They stripped and beat the pair, hustling them back to Ossernenon. There, members of the crowd shouted he would die tomorrow.  The next day Father Jogues was invited to a feast by a chief of the bear clan.  As he entered his longhouse he was cut down by a tomahawk. Lalande was killed the following day.

                                       Statue of Fr. Issac Jogues at the 
                                                head of Lac du St. Sacrement, in
                                                Lake George Battleground State Park

Jesuit Shrine of the North America Martyrs,
Ossernenon, Auriesville 







The death of Father Jogues, in 1646, followed by the destruction of the Huron mission towns and the destruction of the Huron nation itself in 1649, marked the nadir of the Jesuit missionary cause and would be followed by a period in which the Iroquois would wreak havoc on New France's closest allies, the Algonquin tribes along the St. Lawrence, and threaten the very existence of New France, itself.  A future post will discuss these developments, and the actions the French would take to counter the rampages of the Iroquois.

* For forty years the Jesuits would send annual narrative reports of their activities to the order's headquarters in Paris and their superiors would collect and publish them in an annual volume, The Jesuit Relations.  Along with Jogues' substantial correspondence they became primary source material for Francis Parkman's classic The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century.

**A geographical reminder--The Lake George, Lake Champlain, Richielu River watershed flow north into the St.Lawrence River. so "up" (upstream, to higher elevations) is to the south !

***Jogues was given a special dispensation by the Pope to say Mass and handle the sacramental bread with his mutilated hands.

It Happened Here -- The Other French and Indian Wars --Part I  Champlain

Americans, by tradition, have long called the wars for the colonial domination of North America, collectively, The French and Indian Wars--named for the French and their Indian allies arrayed against the British and American colonial forces.  But the title "French and Indian Wars" might be equally applied to the series of conflicts of the Iroquois Indians (Haudenosaunee) against the government and citizens of New France*.  Though these conflicts often ran concurrent with periods of British conflict with the French, the Iroquois usually fought independently of their sometimes allies;  they often declined to support the British,  and occasionally they acted contrary to the interests of their erstwhile allies. Also. because the Iroquois were a loose confederation of nations, while one nation was at peace with the French, another might be continuing to send out war parties. In duration, if not in scale, these French and Indian Wars dwarf all of the other wars of France excepting the Anglo-French "Hundred Years Wars".

  The conflict began almost inadvertently when  French explorer Samuel de Champlain agreed to  join a war party of Huron, Ottawa and Montagnais Indians in a raid into Iroquois territory in 1609.  Champlain hoped by participation in the raid he might strengthen his friendship with the tribes nearest his tiny outpost of Quebec and with the large tribes to the west, and that that relationship would aid him in one of his expedition's primary objectives, finding a route to China. He knew, also, that a dramatic demonstration of french arms would go a long way toward securing their alliance. With eleven of his countrymen in a small sailing vessel Champlain joined the party of some two hundred and forty Indians, but before they had gotten very far a quarrel broke out among the native Americans and some three quarters of them quit the expedition.  At what would become the village of St. John's, rapids prevented the boat from continuing so Champlain sent it back with all but two of his soldiers.  The three Frenchmen continued on with the Indians, by canoe, to the head of Riviere des Iroquois (Richelieu River) to where it opened up into the lake that came to bear his name.

Tercentenary Lighthouse at Crown Pt.

Champlain Bronze at the Lighthouse

Marker at Ticonderoga showing Champlain's sketch of the Battle

 On a point along the western shore (probably Crown Point or Ticonderoga) Champlain and his hosts ran into an Iroquois war party late in the day.  Through an exchange of insults and challenges the two war parties agreed to meet in battle the next day. The following morning the Hurons and Montagnais faced off against the Iroquois with Champlain in the middle of  his allies' line across from a group of Iroquois war chiefs.  On the flank were a smaller group Indians with his two soldiers. Champlain had loaded his arquebus with four balls.  As the chiefs moved to attack at close range, Champlain shouldered his weapon and fired. Two chiefs dropped dead and a third fell mortally wounded.  The explorer was engulfed in a hailstorm of arrows but good luck and his light armor and helmet preserved him from  injury.  As he reloaded, his soldiers discharged their arquebuses into the line of Haudenosaunee warriors. In a moment it was over. A few more Iroquois fell in the panicked flight that followed but though the casualties were few that day, the Iroquois would never forgive the French.

The following year, near the mouth of the Richelieu, Champlain and several of his men confirmed their hostility to the Iroquois by joining an attack on an Iroquois war party that had holed up in a barricade of downed trees and branches.  With their overwhelming firepower they, and a small group of traders who apparently joined the fray for the fun of it, slaughtered their cornered foe and only fifteen of some one hundred warriors escaped.

Then in 1615 Champlain while exploring in Huron territory was invited to joined in a raid into Iroquoia itself. With some 500 native warriors Champlain and his men crossed the Lake Ontario, intending to meet up with an equally large party of allies, (probably Susquehannocks).

 At the head of Henderson Bay, Lake Ontario
 (County Rte 178)

Some miles inland, a small fishing party of eleven Onondaga Iroquois were captured,  then outside of a large well pallisaded town, south of Lake Oneida, the younger warriors, surging 

US 11 Pulaski

ahead came upon a large group of Iroquois tending their fields of maize and pumpkins. Attacking wildly they were driven back when the Onondagas grabbed their weapons, counter-attacked, then successfully retreated into their town.

US 11 Brewerton

The "Indian Castle," as the Dutch and English called such places was heavily fortified with four rows of 30 foot tree trunk pickets surrounding it, inclined outward; galleries or shooting platforms along its top; magazines of stones; and water-filled troughs to counter any attempts to set fire to the walls. In the face of such defenses Champlain built a siege-tower with a platform that allowed four or five of his arquebusers to fire across at the defenders on the shooting platforms. The tower was brought forward and the battle commenced.  But to his dismay Champlain realized his Indian allies were  unprepared or unwilling to support him. Though he shouted until he was voiceless, among the cacophony of war-hoops and sounds of battle, they refused to follow him. Instead, rushing forward as individuals or small groups the Hurons spent their fury in futile attacks, shooting up against the defenders or in useless displays of bravado in front of the palisade.

County Rte. 57,  Phoenix

 At one point a fire was kindled against the wall, but on the leeward side and was quickly extinguished from above by the defenders. As casualties mounted, Huron enthusiasm waned, and a spontaneous withdrawal occurred. In the following days Champlain, though wounded, tried to rally his troops for another assault but they refused to budge until the arrival of reinforcements that never materialized.  After several days the war party returned to their canoes hidden on the shore of Lake Ontario.

For the next couple of decades an uneasy peace prevailed between the French and the cowed Iroquois as the Haudenosaunee focused their aggression against the Mahicans and other (Hudson) River tribes. By 1628, they had driven them east of the river and gained direct access to the other "tribe" of newcomers on the scene, the Dutch.  With the Dutch they established a fabulously profitable trade, acquiring all manner of, to them,  unimaginable, marvelously wonderful things-- iron axes and tomahawks, iron, copper and brass kettles, steel knives, wool strouds (blankets) and woven cloth shirts, beads and wampum, vermilion warpaint, brandy and rum; and most importantly, arquebuses, and soon, flintlock muskets. The Dutch, for their part, had no compunctions against selling the Iroquois firearms, especially since one arquebus could command a price of twenty beaver skins. By 1643 the French were receiving alarming reports from their missionaries that the Mohawks alone had in their possession over 300 muskets!

Meanwhile the Hurons had become the principal Indian beneficiaries of the French fur trade. With their land lying astride the trade routes between the French trading centers along the St. Lawrence and the rich beaver territories around the Great Lakes, on up into the far reaches of Hudson's Bay, the Hurons established themselves as middlemen.

While populations of beaver were soon decimated in Iroquois hunting grounds, the warriors of the Five Nations became excellent marksmen, developing new strategies for warfare from ancient hunting tactics. Gone forever were the bands of massed warriors sending up clouds of arrows and protecting themselves with wooden shields and wooden slat-armour, that Champlain encountered. Instead the Iroquois developed tactics of stealth and ambush and coordinated movement to surround their human prey. And they would use these tactics to intercept and attack Huron hunters in their territory or on their way to Montreal burdened with pelts.  To the increasing consternation of French authorities, French traders and isolated French farmers. too, became targets of such attacks.

Around 1645 Iroquois strategy changed from preying on Huron fur trappers and raiding their canoe convoys of furs heading for Montreal, to direct attacks on Huron villages themselves with the purpose of destroying the Huron nation and supplanting it as middlemen in the fur trade. Organizationally the Iroquois Confederacy changed as well, though how it changed and what leaders may have sparked these changes may never be known.  War parties increased in size from scores of warriors based in a single village or clan members from a couple villages to Confederacy-wide armies of 1500 or more warriors, from all five tribes.  And raids became coordinated with war parties heading out and returning continuously to keep up a constant pressure on their targets, not just in good weather but all year long.

In the summer of 1649 the Haudenosaunee launched attacks against the Huron towns of St. Ignace and St. Louis, mission towns on the shore of Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The towns were overrun.  Their French Jesuit missions were destroyed and their missionaries killed.  Hundreds of Huron warrior captives were marched back to Iroquois towns across what would become New York State to be ritually tortured and killed and hundreds more Huron women and children would be marched back to become slaves or to be adopted into Iroquois families. The stunned Hurons abandoned fifteen other towns. By the winter of 1649 the Huron nation was no more, its people all captives or refugees starving in the wilderness, and hunted down like game by Iroquois war parties or throwing themselves on the mercy of neighboring tribes.

For the next couple of years the juggernaut of the Iroquois war machine continued to roll on.  In the winter of 1649-1650 they attacked and destroyed two small tribes, the Nipissing and the Petun or "Tobacco Nation", living north west, and south of the Hurons. In 1651 the Neutral Nation, living west of Lake Ontario was destroyed for its role in giving shelter to refugee Hurons.

Next week -- Part II   The Jesuits and the Ordeals of  Father Jogues


*In recent decades historians have begun referring to these conflicts, depending on whether their treatment of them has concentrated more on the Iroquois' conflict with the French or their struggle to dominate the fur trade, as the "French and Iroquois Wars" or the "Beaver Wars".