CHAPTER XXI.

 1699-1701.   Conclusion. The New Governor ? Attitude of the Iroquois ? Negotiations ? Embassy to Onondaga ? Peace ? The Iroquois and the Allies ? Difficulties ? Death of the Great Huron ? Funeral Rites ? The Grand Council ? The Work of Frontenac finished ? Results.   It did not need the presence of Frontenac to cause snappings and sparks in the highly electrical atmosphere of New France. Callières took his place as governor ad interim, and in due time received a formal appointment to the office. Apart from the wretched state of his health, undermined by gout and dropsy, he was in most respects well fitted for it; but his deportment at once gave umbrage to the excitable Champigny, who declared that he had never seen such hauteur since he came to the colony. Another official was still more offended. "Monsieur de Frontenac," he says, "was no sooner dead than trouble began. Monsieur de Callières, puffed up by his new authority, claims honors due only to a marshal of France. It would be a different matter if he, like his predecessor, were regarded as the father of the country, and the love and delight of the Indian allies. At 439 the review at Montreal, he sat in his carriage, and received the incense offered him with as much composure and coolness as if he had been some divinity of this New World." In spite of these complaints, the court sustained Callières, and authorized him to enjoy the honors that he had assumed. [1] [1] Champigny au Ministre, 26 Mai, 1699; La Potherie au Ministre, 2 Juin, 1699; Vaudreuil et La Potherie au Ministre, même date. His first and chief task was to finish the work that Frontenac had shaped out, and bring the Iroquois to such submission as the interests of the colony and its allies demanded. The fierce confederates admired the late governor, and, if they themselves are to be believed, could not help lamenting him; but they were emboldened by his death, and the difficulty of dealing with them was increased by it. Had they been sure of effectual support from the English, there can be little doubt that they would have refused to treat with the French, of whom their distrust was extreme. The treachery of Denonville at Fort Frontenac still rankled in their hearts, and the English had made them believe that some of their best men had lately been poisoned by agents from Montreal. The French assured them, on the other hand, that the English meant to poison them, refuse to sell them powder and lead, and then, when they were helpless, fall upon and destroy them. At Montreal, they were told that the English called them their negroes; and, at Albany, that if they made peace with Onontio, they would sink into "perpetual infamy 440 and slavery." Still, in spite of their perplexity, they persisted in asserting their independence of each of the rival powers, and played the one against the other, in order to strengthen their position with both. When Bellomont required them to surrender their French prisoners to him, they answered: "We are the masters; our prisoners are our own. We will keep them or give them to the French, if we choose." At the same time, they told Callières that they would bring them to the English at Albany, and invited him to send thither his agents to receive them. They were much disconcerted, however, when letters were read to them which showed that, pending the action of commissioners to settle the dispute, the two kings had ordered their respective governors to refrain from all acts of hostility, and join forces, if necessary, to compel the Iroquois to keep quiet. [2] This, with their enormous losses, and their desire to recover their people held captive in Canada, led them at last to serious thoughts of peace. Resolving at the same time to try the temper of the new Onontio, and yield no more than was absolutely necessary, they sent him but six ambassadors, and no prisoners. The ambassadors marched in single file to the place of council; while their chief, who led the way, sang a dismal song of lamentation for the French slain in the war, calling on them to thrust their heads above ground, behold the good work 441 of peace, and banish every thought of vengeance. Callières proved, as they had hoped, less inexorable than Frontenac. He accepted their promises, and consented to send for the prisoners in their hands, on condition that within thirty-six days a full deputation of their principal men should come to Montreal. The Jesuit Bruyas, the Canadian Maricourt, and a French officer named Joncaire went back with them to receive the prisoners. [2] Le Roy à Frontenac, 25 Mars, 1699. Frontenac's death was not known at Versailles till April. Le Roy d' Angleterre à Bellomont, 2 Avril, 1699; La Potherie, IV. 128; Callières à Bellomont, 7 Ao?t, 1699. The history of Joncaire was a noteworthy one. The Senecas had captured him some time before, tortured his companions to death, and doomed him to the same fate. As a preliminary torment, an old chief tried to burn a finger of the captive in the bowl of his pipe, on which Joncaire knocked him down. If he had begged for mercy, their hearts would have been flint; but the warrior crowd were so pleased with this proof of courage that they adopted him as one of their tribe, and gave him an Iroquois wife. He lived among them for many years, and gained a commanding influence, which proved very useful to the French. When he, with Bruyas and Maricourt, approached Onondaga, which had long before risen from its ashes, they were greeted with a fusillade of joy, and regaled with the sweet stalks of young maize, followed by the more substantial refreshment of venison and corn beaten together into a pulp and boiled. The chiefs and elders seemed well inclined to peace; and, though an envoy came from Albany to prevent it, he behaved with such arrogance that, far from dissuading his auditors, he confirmed 442 them in their resolve to meet Onontio at Montreal. They seemed willing enough to give up their French prisoners, but an unexpected difficulty arose from the prisoners themselves. They had been adopted into Iroquois families; and, having become attached to the Indian life, they would not leave it. Some of them hid in the woods to escape their deliverers, who, with their best efforts, could collect but thirteen, all women, children, and boys. With these, they returned to Montreal, accompanied by a peace embassy of nineteen Iroquois. Peace, then, was made. "I bury the hatchet," said Callières, "in a deep hole, and over the hole I place a great rock, and over the rock I turn a river, that the hatchet may never be dug up again." The famous Huron, Kondiaronk, or the Rat, was present, as were also a few Ottawas, Abenakis, and converts of the Saut and the Mountain. Sharp words passed between them and the ambassadors; but at last they all laid down their hatchets at the feet of Onontio, and signed the treaty together. It was but a truce, and a doubtful one. More was needed to confirm it, and the following August was named for a solemn act of ratification. [3] [3] On these negotiations, La Potherie, IV. lettre xi.; N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 708, 711, 715; Colden, 200; Callières au Ministre, 16 Oct., 1700; Champigny au Ministre, 22 Juillet, 1700; La Potherie au Ministre, 11 Aout, 1700; Ibid., 16 Oct., 1700; Callières et Champigny au Ministre, 18 Oct., 1700. See also N. Y. Col. Docs., IV., for a great number of English documents bearing on the subject. Father Engelran was sent to Michillimackinac, while Courtemanche spent the winter and spring in toilsome journeyings among the tribes of the 443 west. Such was his influence over them that he persuaded them all to give up their Iroquois prisoners, and send deputies to the grand council. Engelran had had scarcely less success among the northern tribes; and early in July a great fleet of canoes, conducted by Courtemanche, and filled with chiefs, warriors, and Iroquois prisoners, paddled down the lakes for Montreal. Meanwhile Bruyas, Maricourt, and Joncaire had returned on the same errand to the Iroquois towns; but, so far as concerned prisoners, their success was no greater than before. Whether French or Indian, the chiefs were slow to give them up, saying that they had all been adopted into families who would not part with them unless consoled for the loss by gifts. This was true; but it was equally true of the other tribes, whose chiefs had made the necessary gifts, and recovered the captive Iroquois. Joncaire and his colleagues succeeded, however, in leading a large deputation of chiefs and elders to Montreal. Courtemanche with his canoe fleet from the lakes was not far behind; and when their approach was announced, the chronicler, La Potherie, full of curiosity, went to meet them at the mission village of the Saut. First appeared the Iroquois, two hundred in all, firing their guns as their canoes drew near, while the mission Indians, ranged along the shore, returned the salute. The ambassadors were conducted to a capacious lodge, where for a quarter of an hour they sat smoking with immovable composure. Then a chief of the mission made a speech, and then followed a feast of boiled dogs. 444 In the morning they descended the rapids to Montreal, and in due time the distant roar of the saluting cannon told of their arrival. They had scarcely left the village, when the river was covered with the canoes of the western and northern allies. There was another fusillade of welcome as the heterogeneous company landed, and marched to the great council-house. The calumet was produced, and twelve of the assembled chiefs sang a song, each rattling at the same time a dried gourd half full of peas. Six large kettles were next brought in, containing several dogs and a bear suitably chopped to pieces, which being ladled out to the guests were despatched in an instant, and a solemn dance and a supper of boiled corn closed the festivity. The strangers embarked again on the next day, and the cannon of Montreal greeted them as they landed before the town. A great quantity of evergreen boughs had been gathered for their use, and of these they made their wigwams outside the palisades. Before the opening of the grand council, a multitude of questions must be settled, jealousies soothed, and complaints answered. Callières had no peace. He was busied for a week in giving audience to the deputies. There was one question which agitated them all, and threatened to rekindle the war. Kondiaronk, the Rat, the foremost man among all the allied tribes, gave utterance to the general feeling: "My father, you told us last autumn to bring you all the Iroquois prisoners in our hands. We have obeyed, and 445 brought them. Now let us see if the Iroquois have also obeyed, and brought you our people whom they captured during the war. If they have done so, they are sincere; if not, they are false. But I know that they have not brought them. I told you last year that it was better that they should bring their prisoners first. You see now how it is, and how they have deceived us." The complaint was just, and the situation became critical. The Iroquois deputies were invited to explain themselves. They stalked into the council-room with their usual haughty composure, and readily promised to surrender the prisoners in future, but offered no hostages for their good faith. The Rat, who had counselled his own and other tribes to bring their Iroquois captives to Montreal, was excessively mortified at finding himself duped. He came to a later meeting, when this and other matters were to be discussed; but he was so weakened by fever that he could not stand. An armchair was brought him; and, seated in it, he harangued the assembly for two hours, amid a deep silence, broken only by ejaculations of approval from his Indian hearers. When the meeting ended, he was completely exhausted; and, being carried in his chair to the hospital, he died about midnight. He was a great loss to the French; for, though he had caused the massacre of La Chine, his services of late years had been invaluable. In spite of his unlucky name, he was one of the ablest North American Indians on record, as appears by his remarkable influence over many tribes, and by 446 the respect, not to say admiration, of his French contemporaries. The French charged themselves with the funeral rites, carried the dead chief to his wigwam, stretched him on a robe of beaver skin, and left him there lying in state, swathed in a scarlet blanket, with a kettle, a gun, and a sword at his side, for his use in the world of spirits. This was a concession to the superstition of his countrymen; for the Rat was a convert, and went regularly to mass. [4] Even the Iroquois, his deadliest foes, paid tribute to his memory. Sixty of them came in solemn procession, and ranged themselves around the bier; while one of their principal chiefs pronounced an harangue, in which he declared that the sun had covered his face that day in grief for the loss of the great Huron. [5] He was buried on the next morning. Saint-Ours, senior captain, led the funeral train with an escort of troops, followed by sixteen Huron warriors in robes of beaver skin, marching four and four, with faces painted black and guns reversed. Then came the clergy, and then six war-chiefs carrying the coffin. It was decorated with flowers, and on it lay a plumed hat, a sword, and a gorget. Behind it were the brother 447 and sons of the dead chief, and files of Huron and Ottawa warriors; while Madame de Champigny, attended by Vaudreuil and all the military officers, closed the procession. After the service, the soldiers fired three volleys over the grave; and a tablet was placed upon it, carved with the words,— Cy git le Rat, Chef des Hurons.   [4] La Potherie, IV. 229. Charlevoix suppresses the kettle and gun, and says that the dead chief wore a sword and a uniform, like a French officer. In fact, he wore Indian leggins and a capote under his scarlet blanket. [5] Charlevoix says that these were Christian Iroquois of the missions. Potherie, his only authority, proves them to have been heathen, as their chief mourner was a noted Seneca, and their spokesman, Avenano, was the accredited orator of the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, in whose name he made the funeral harangue. All this ceremony pleased the allied tribes, and helped to calm their irritation. Every obstacle being at length removed or smoothed over, the fourth of August was named for the grand council. A vast, oblong space was marked out on a plain near the town, and enclosed with a fence of branches. At one end was a canopy of boughs and leaves, under which were seats for the spectators. Troops were drawn up in line along the sides; the seats under the canopy were filled by ladies, officials, and the chief inhabitants of Montreal; Callières sat in front, surrounded by interpreters; and the Indians were seated on the grass around the open space. There were more than thirteen hundred of them, gathered from a distance of full two thousand miles, Hurons and Ottawas from Michillimackinac, Ojibwas from Lake Superior, Crees from the remote north, Pottawatamies from Lake Michigan, Mascontins, Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, and Menominies from Wisconsin, Miamis from the St. Joseph, Illinois from the river Illinois, Abenakis from Acadia, and many allied hordes of less account; each savage painted with diverse hues and patterns, and each in his dress of ceremony, 448 leathern shirts fringed with scalp-locks, colored blankets or robes of bison hide and beaver skin, bristling crests of hair or long lank tresses, eagle feathers or horns of beasts. Pre-eminent among them all sat their valiant and terrible foes, the warriors of the confederacy. "Strange," exclaims La Potherie, "that four or five thousand should make a whole new world tremble. New England is but too happy to gain their good graces; New France is often wasted by their wars, and our allies dread them over an extent of more than fifteen hundred leagues." It was more a marvel than he knew, for he greatly overrates their number. Callières opened the council with a speech, in which he told the assembly that, since but few tribes were represented at the treaty of the year before, he had sent for them all to ratify it; that he now threw their hatchets and his own into a pit so deep that nobody could find them; that henceforth they must live like brethren; and, if by chance one should strike another, the injured brother must not revenge the blow, but come for redress to him, Onontio, their common father. Nicolas Perrot and the Jesuits who acted as interpreters repeated the speech in five different languages; and, to confirm it, thirty-one wampum belts were given to the thirty-one tribes present. Then each tribe answered in turn. First came Hassaki, chief of an Ottawa band known as Cut Tails. He approached with a majestic air, his long robe of beaver skin trailing on the grass behind him. Four Iroquois captives followed, with eyes bent on the 449 ground; and, when he stopped before the governor, they seated themselves at his feet. "You asked us for our prisoners," he said, "and here they are. I set them free because you wish it, and I regard them as my brothers." Then turning to the Iroquois deputies: "Know that if I pleased I might have eaten them; but I have not done as you would have done. Remember this when we meet, and let us be friends." The Iroquois ejaculated their approval. Next came a Huron chief, followed by eight Iroquois prisoners, who, as he declared, had been bought at great cost, in kettles, guns, and blankets, from the families who had adopted them. "We thought that the Iroquois would have done by us as we have done by them; and we were astonished to see that they had not brought us our prisoners. Listen to me, my father, and you, Iroquois, listen. I am not sorry to make peace, since my father wishes it, and I will live in peace with him and with you." Thus, in turn, came the spokesmen of all the tribes, delivering their prisoners and making their speeches. The Miami orator said: "I am very angry with the Iroquois, who burned my son some years ago; but to-day I forget all that. My father's will is mine. I will not be like the Iroquois, who have disobeyed his voice." The orator of the Mississagas came forward, crowned with the head and horns of a young bison bull, and, presenting his prisoners, said: "I place them in your hands. Do with them as you like. I am only too proud that you count me among your allies." 450 The chief of the Foxes now rose from his seat at the farther end of the enclosure, and walked sedately across the whole open space towards the stand of spectators. His face was painted red, and he wore an old French wig, with its abundant curls in a state of complete entanglement. When he reached the chair of the governor, he bowed, and lifted the wig like a hat, to show that he was perfect in French politeness. There was a burst of laughter from the spectators; but Callières, with ceremonious gravity, begged him to put it on again, which he did, and proceeded with his speech, the pith of which was briefly as follows: "The darkness is gone, the sun shines bright again, and now the Iroquois is my brother." Then came a young Algonquin war-chief, dressed like a Canadian, but adorned with a drooping red feather and a tall ridge of hair like the crest of a cock. It was he who slew Black Kettle, that redoubted Iroquois whose loss filled the confederacy with mourning, and who exclaimed as he fell, "Must I, who have made the whole earth tremble, now die by the hand of a child!" The young chief spoke concisely and to the purpose: "I am not a man of counsel: it is for me to listen to your words. Peace has come, and now let us forget the past." When he and all the rest had ended, the orator of the Iroquois strode to the front, and in brief words gave in their adhesion to the treaty. "Onontio, we are pleased with all you have done, and we have listened to all you have said. We assure you 451 by these four belts of wampum that we will stand fast in our obedience. As for the prisoners whom we have not brought you, we place them at your disposal, and you will send and fetch them." The calumet was lighted. Callières, Champigny, and Vaudreuil drew the first smoke, then the Iroquois deputies, and then all the tribes in turn. The treaty was duly signed, the representative of each tribe affixing his mark, in the shape of some bird, beast, fish, reptile, insect, plant, or nondescript object. "Thus," says La Potherie, "the labors of the late Count Frontenac were brought to a happy consummation." The work of Frontenac was indeed finished, though not as he would have finished it. Callières had told the Iroquois that till they surrendered their Indian prisoners he would keep in his own hands the Iroquois prisoners surrendered by the allied tribes. To this the spokesman of the confederacy coolly replied: "Such a proposal was never made since the world began. Keep them, if you like. We will go home, and think no more about them; but, if you gave them to us without making trouble, and gave us our son Joncaire at the same time, we should have no reason to distrust your sincerity, and should all be glad to send you back the prisoners we took from your allies." Callières yielded, persuaded the allies to agree to the conditions, gave up the prisoners, and took an empty promise in return. It was a triumph for the Iroquois, who meant to keep their Indian captives, and did in fact keep nearly all of them. [6] [6] The council at Montreal is described at great length by La Potherie, 452 a spectator. There is a short official report of the various speeches, of which a translation will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 722. Callières himself gives interesting details. (Callières au Ministre, 4 Oct., 1701.) A great number of papers on Indian affairs at this time will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. Joncaire went for the prisoners whom the Iroquois had promised to give up, and could get but six of them. Callières au Ministre, 31 Oct., 1701. The rest were made Iroquois by adoption. According to an English official estimate made at the end of the war, the Iroquois numbered 2,550 warriors in 1689, and only 1,230 in 1698. N. Y. Col. Docs., IV. 420. In 1701, a French writer estimates them at only 1,200 warriors. In other words, their strength was reduced at least one half. They afterwards partially recovered it by the adoption of prisoners, and still more by the adoption of an entire kindred tribe, the Tuscaroras. In 1720, the English reckon them at 2,000 warriors. N. Y. Col Docs., V. 557. The chief objects of the late governor were gained. The power of the Iroquois was so far broken that they were never again very formidable to the French. Canada had confirmed her Indian alliances, and rebutted the English claim to sovereignty over the five tribes, with all the consequences that hung upon it. By the treaty of Ryswick, the great questions at issue in America were left to the arbitrament of future wars; and meanwhile, as time went on, the policy of Frontenac developed and ripened. Detroit was occupied by the French, the passes of the west were guarded by forts, another New France grew up at the mouth of the Mississippi, and lines of military communication joined the Gulf of Mexico with the Gulf of St. Lawrence; while the colonies of England lay passive between the Alleghanies and the sea till roused by the trumpet that sounded with wavering notes on many a bloody field to peal at last in triumph from the Heights of Abraham.