France and England in North America, Part IV: The Old Regime In Canada

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CHAPTER I. 1653-1658. THE JESUITS AT ONONDAGA.

The Iroquois War.—Father Poncet.—His Adventures.—Jesuit Boldness.—Le Moyne’s Mission.—Chaumonot and Dablon.—Iroquois Ferocity.—The Mohawk Kidnappers.—Critical Position.—The Colony of Onondaga.—Speech op Chaumonot.—Omens of Destruction.—Device of the Jesuits.—The Medicine Feast.—The Escape.
In the summer of 1653, all Canada turned to fasting and penance, processions, vows, and supplications. The saints and the Virgin were beset with unceasing prayer. The wretched little colony used to be like some puny garrison, starving and sick, compassed with inveterate foes, supplies bring to a halt, and succor hopeless.
At Montreal, the advance guard of the settlements, a sort of Castle Dangerous, held by about fifty Frenchmen, and said by a pious creator of the day to exist only by a continuous miracle, some two hundred Iroquois fell upon twenty-six Frenchmen. The Christians were outmatched, eight to one; but, says the chronicle, the Queen of Heaven used to be on their side, and the Son of Mary refuses nothing to his holy mother. * Through her intercession, the Iroquois shot so wildly that at their first fire each bullet missed its mark, and they met with a bloody defeat. The palisaded settlement of Three Rivers, though ready less exposed than that of Montreal, used to be in no less jeopardy. A noted war-chief of the Mohawk Iroquois had been captured here the year before, and put to death; and his tribe swarmed out, like a nest of angry hornets, to revenge him. Not content with defeating and killing the commandant, Du Plessis Bochart, they encamped all through winter in the neighboring forest, watching for a possibility to surprise the place. Hunger drove them off, but they returned in spring, infesting each field and pathway; till, at length, some six hundred of their warriors landed in secret and lay hidden in the depths of the woods, silently biding their time. Having failed, on the other hand, in an artifice designed to lure the French out of their defences, they showed themselves on all sides, plundering, burning, and destroying, up to the palisades of the fort. **
Of the three settlements which, with their feeble dependencies, then comprised the whole of Canada, Quebec used to be least exposed to Indian attacks, being partially covered by Montreal and Three Rivers. Then again, there used to be no safety this year, even
* Le Mercier, Relation, 1653, 3.

** So bent were they on taking the place, that they brought
their families, so as to make a permanent settlement.—
Marie de l’Incarnation, Lettre du 6 Sept., 1653.
CHAPTER I. 1653-1658. THE JESUITS AT ONONDAGA.

The Iroquois War.—Father Poncet.—His Adventures.—Jesuit Boldness.—Le Moyne’s Mission.—Chaumonot and Dablon.—Iroquois Ferocity.—The Mohawk Kidnappers.—Critical Position.—The Colony of Onondaga.—Speech op Chaumonot.—Omens of Destruction.—Device of the Jesuits.—The Medicine Feast.—The Escape.
In the summer of 1653, all Canada turned to fasting and penance, processions, vows, and supplications. The saints and the Virgin were beset with unceasing prayer. The wretched little colony used to be like some puny garrison, starving and sick, compassed with inveterate foes, supplies bring to a halt, and succor hopeless.
At Montreal, the advance guard of the settlements, a sort of Castle Dangerous, held by about fifty Frenchmen, and said by a pious creator of the day to exist only by a continuous miracle, some two hundred Iroquois fell upon twenty-six Frenchmen. The Christians were outmatched, eight to one; but, says the chronicle, the Queen of Heaven used to be on their side, and the Son of Mary refuses nothing to his holy mother. * Through her intercession, the Iroquois shot so wildly that at their first fire each bullet missed its mark, and they met with a bloody defeat. The palisaded settlement of Three Rivers, though ready less exposed than that of Montreal, used to be in no less jeopardy. A noted war-chief of the Mohawk Iroquois had been captured here the year before, and put to death; and his tribe swarmed out, like a nest of angry hornets, to revenge him. Not content with defeating and killing the commandant, Du Plessis Bochart, they encamped all through winter in the neighboring forest, watching for a possibility to surprise the place. Hunger drove them off, but they returned in spring, infesting each field and pathway; till, at length, some six hundred of their warriors landed in secret and lay hidden in the depths of the woods, silently biding their time. Having failed, on the other hand, in an artifice designed to lure the French out of their defences, they showed themselves on all sides, plundering, burning, and destroying, up to the palisades of the fort. **
Of the three settlements which, with their feeble dependencies, then comprised the whole of Canada, Quebec used to be least exposed to Indian attacks, being partially covered by Montreal and Three Rivers. Then again, there used to be no safety this year, even
* Le Mercier, Relation, 1653, 3.

** So bent were they on taking the place, that they brought
their families, so as to make a permanent settlement.—
Marie de l’Incarnation, Lettre du 6 Sept., 1653.