Glimpses of the Past Part 4

CHAPTER V.

KING WILLIAM'S WAR.

There lived at Quebec in the latter part of the seventeenth century one Charles le Moyne, seigneur de Longueil, who is called by Charlevoix the Baron de Becancourt; he was of Norman extraction, but his sons were natives of New France. As was the custom with the French n.o.blesse each son adopted a surname derived from some portion of the ancient family estate. At least five of Becancourt's sons were prominent in the affairs of Acadia; they are known in history as Menneval, Portneuf, Villebon, d'Iberville and des Isles.

In 1687 Menneval replaced Perrot as governor of Acadia, and as the conduct of Perrot had given rise to grave dissatisfaction his successor received elaborate instructions concerning his duties. He was to rebuild the defences of Acadia, to resist the encroachments of the English, to suppress the lawless trade of the Coureurs de bois, to deal kindly and honestly with the savages, taking care to promote their conversion to the Christian faith, and to restore to the crown all seigniories and granted lands that had not been occupied or improved.

The year that followed Menneval's appointment was notable for the outbreak of the most dreadful Indian war in the annals of Acadia. All the tribes east of the Merrimac took part in it, including the Maliseets and Micmacs. This war is known in history as King William's war, from the name of the English monarch in whose reign it occurred.

It lasted with little intermission for ten years, and during its progress the settlers of eastern New England suffered the most fearful outrages at the hands of the infuriated savages. Every settlement in Maine save Wells, York, Kittery and the Isle of Shoals was over run, and a thousand white people killed or taken prisoners.

As in the case of other wars which the Indians have waged with the whites, the latter were responsible for its origin. About twelve years before it broke out, Major Waldron treacherously seized a band of Indians at Dover in New Hamps.h.i.+re and sent them to Boston, where several of them were hanged for alleged complicity in Philip's war[5]

and others sold into slavery. This despicable act the Indians never forgot nor forgave.

[5] This war broke out in 1675 and was confined chiefly to the tribes of Ma.s.sachusetts. It was of short duration; the Indian Sagamore Philip was slain.

The immediate cause of King William's war, however, was the ill considered act of Governor Andros of pillaging the trading post of Baron de St. Castin, at Pen.o.bscot. St. Castin had formerly served in the Carignan Salieres regiment under Frontenac, but for twenty years had lived in this region, where he had married a daughter of the Maliseet chieftain Madockawando and was highly esteemed by the savages.

It was at the instigation of St. Castin and Madockawando that the Indians determined to take the war path. The first notable incident of the war was the destruction of Dover, where Major Waldron and twenty-two others were killed and twenty-nine taken prisoners. This occurred in June, 1689, and the story of the affair, as told by the St. John river Indians to their English captive, John Gyles, is in substance as follows:--

There was a truce with the Indians for some days, during which time two squaws came into the garrison. They told Major Waldron that a number of Indians were not far away with a considerable quant.i.ty of beaver and would be there to trade with him the next day. The weather was inclement and the women begged leave to lodge in the garrison.

Some of the people were much opposed to this, but the major said: "Let the poor creatures lodge by the fire." The defences of the place were of the weakest kind, the gates had no locks but were fastened with pins and the garrison kept no watch. The squaws had a favorable opportunity to prosecute their design. They went into every apartment observing the number in each, and when all the people were asleep arose and opened the gates, gave the signal agreed upon and the other Indians came to them and, having received an account of the state of the garrison, they divided their forces according to the number of the people in each apartment and soon took or killed them all. Major Waldron lodged within an inner room and when the Indians broke in upon him he cried out: "What now! What now!" and jumping out of his bed seized his sword and drove them before him through two or three doors, but upon his turning about towards the apartment he had just left, an Indian came up behind him and knocked him on the head with his hatchet, which stunned him and he fell. They then seized him, dragged him out, and setting him up on a long table in his hall, bade him "judge Indians again." Then they cut and stabbed him and he cried out "O Lord! O Lord!" They called for his book of accounts and ordered him to cross out all the Indian debts, he having traded much with them.

Then one and another gashed his naked breast, saying in derision: "I cross out my account." Then cutting a joint from a finger, one would say: "Will your fist weigh a pound now?" This in allusion to his having sometimes used his fist as a pound weight in buying and selling. And so they proceeded to torture him to death with every refinement of savage cruelty, after which they burned the garrison post and drew off.

A few days after this tragic event a number of people were killed by the Indians at Saco, and in the month of August the important post at Pemaquid, midway between the Kennebec and Pen.o.bscot rivers, was taken and the adjoining settlement destroyed. According to Charlevoix a large number of St. John river Indians partic.i.p.ated in this exploit.

Among their prisoners was a lad named Gyles whose experience during the nine years he lived in captivity on the St. John river is told in his very interesting narrative published in Boston in 1736. We shall have more to say about Gyles and his narrative further on, but it may be observed in pa.s.sing that we are greatly indebted to him for the knowledge we possess of the life of the Indians of the River St. John two centuries ago. As Doctor Hannay well observes: "By the light of such a narrative we are able to perceive how wretched was the lot of an Acadian Indian, even during the period when his very name carried terror to the hearts of the settlers of Maine and New Hamps.h.i.+re.

Modern civilization may have degraded him in some respects but it has at least rescued him from the danger of starvation and also from the cruel necessity of abandoning his kindred to perish when unable longer to supply their own wants or endure the constant journeys necessitated by the nature of their nomad life."

Early in 1690 Count Frontenac dispatched an expedition from Quebec to ravage the New England settlements; their leader was Portneuf, brother of Menneval and Villebon. There were fifty French and seventy Indians in the original party, which was afterwards joined by thirty-six French and a large band of Maliseets from the St. John, also by the Indians of Pa.s.samaquoddy and Pen.o.bscot, making a war party of five hundred men. On the 26th of May they attacked the town of Falmouth--now Portland. The inhabitants fled for protection within the ramparts of Fort Loyal. At the expiration of four or five days the garrison was obliged to surrender and Portneuf promised the vanquished quarter and a guard to the nearest English town. The terms of surrender were shamefully violated, Fort Loyal and Falmouth were reduced to ashes and over one hundred men, women and children murdered by the savages. From May to October their bodes lay exposed to the elements and wild beasts but were finally buried by Major Benjamin Church as he pa.s.sed on an expedition to the eastward.

To revenge themselves on the French, whom they regarded as the instigators of this savage warfare, the New Englanders fitted out an expedition under Sir William Phips which captured Port Royal and carried Menneval, the governor, away a prisoner. His brother Villebon, who suceeded to the command, concluded to abandon Port Royal and to re-establish the post at the mouth of the Jemseg on the River St.

John.

Villebon, with all his faults, is one of the most picturesque characters in the history of Acadia. He was greatly admired by the savages who deemed him to be every inch a chief. Diereville, the poet historian, saw him at St. John in 1700 and describes him as "a great man of fine appearance and full of energy." Having served for several years in a subordinate capacity at Port Royal he was now called upon to fill a difficult position and it must be confessed he acted with zeal and ability. Adverse fortune embittered him at the outset. Two pirate vessels came to Port Royal while he was absent preparing for his removal to the St. John river. These marauders burned the houses and killed the cattle; they even hanged two of the inhabitants and burned a woman and her children in her own dwelling. What was still worse for Villebon they captured the s.h.i.+p Union, just arrived from France with merchandize, provisions, ammunition and presents for the savages.

Villebon was well fitted for such an emergency as this; he a.s.sembled his dusky allies, explained the loss of their presents and offered himself to go to their great father, the King of France, for more. The Indians pledged their fidelity and promised him one hundred and fifty warriors the next spring to aid him in his designs against the English.

At the court of France Villebon was favorably received and returned with a commission from the king to command in Acadia. Soon after he abandoned the Jemseg Fort and moved up the river to the mouth of the Nashwaak where in the upper angle formed by the junction of that river with the St. John he built in 1692 a new fort which he called Fort St.

Joseph. It was an ordinary palisaded fort about 120 feet square, with four bastions, and had eight cannon mounted. In the old French doc.u.ments of the period it is usually called Fort Nachouac, with many varieties of spelling, such as Naxoat, Naxouac, Natchouak, etc. The older French maps place the fort on the south, or Fredericton side of the river, but there can be no doubt as to its proper location in the upper angle formed by the junction of the River Nashwaak with the St.

John. The greater portion of the site has been washed away, but traces of the ramparts were visible within the memory of those yet living and many cannon b.a.l.l.s and other relics have been found in the vicinity.

Villebon had now been some years in Acadia, for Bishop St. Vallier says that he was in command of the garrison at Port Royal at the time of his visit there in 1686. He had ample opportunity of becoming familiar with the country and its native inhabitants, and was in this way fitted to second the ambitious designs of the French, which embraced the destruction of New York and the conquest of New England.

When Count Frontenac came out to Quebec in 1689, to fill for the second time the position of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of New France, he was in his seventieth year, yet his old time vigor and determination were unabated. It was part of his plan to avail himself of the hostility of the savages to wear down and discourage the English settlers and so to pave the way for French supremacy. He had no abler lieutenants in the work he had undertaken than the sons of Charles le Moyne, of whom Villebon, Portneuf and d'Iberville were particularly conspicuous in the Indian wars. Immediately after his arrival, Frontenac encouraged the savages to begin those operations against the English settlements known in the history of New England as the "winter raids." Montague Chamberlain tersely describes the situation thus: "Frontenac decided that he could only succeed in holding Canada for the French crown by enlisting the aid of the savages, and to secure that aid he must permit them to make war in their own savage way, and so from all the doomed hamlets came the same horrifying tale--houses burned, men, women and children slaughtered or carried into captivity."

It is difficult at this distant day to conceive the horrors of the savage warfare that prevailed at this time on the New England frontiers. The Indians roamed over the country like wolves, and the white settlers never knew when their appalling war whoop would ring in their startled ears. It was an age of cruelty and the outrages perpetrated provoked reprisals on the part of the New Englanders. The close alliance between the Indians and the French, and the fact that in several of the raids the savages were led by French officers, led to a bitter race hatred and mutual distrust between the descendants of the Saxon and the Gaul, which lasted for generations.

In the course of the desultory warfare that followed the destruction of Falmouth, more than 200 houses were burned in various parts of the country, and Frontenac himself speaks of the ravages of the savages as "impossible to describe." On the 5th February, 1692, they raided the frontier settlement of York, which they left in ashes after killing about seventy-five persons and taking 100 prisoners--among those killed was the venerable Mr. Dummer, the minister of the place.

With the opening of the spring time Villebon received a delegation of 100 warriors of the Kennebec and Pen.o.bscot tribes at his fort. The visitors were welcomed with imposing ceremonies; there was the usual interchange of compliments and speeches by the chiefs and captains, presents from the king were distributed and the inevitable banquet followed with its mirth and revelry. It was agreed at this conference to organize a great war party. Couriers were dispatched to summon all the tribes of Acadia and the response was general. The site of what is now the village of Gibson, opposite Fredericton, was dotted with the encampments of the Indians, and as the warriors arrived and departed, arrayed in their war paint and feathers, the scene was animated and picturesque. The Maliseets of the St. John sent their delegation from Medoctec, the Micmacs of the Miramichi arrived a few days later, and then came another band of Micmacs from Beauba.s.sin (or Chignecto), accompanied by Father Baudoin, their priest. Speeches of welcome, presents and feasts were made in turn to all, and each band proceeded by the old and well known route[6] to the rendezvous on the Pen.o.bscot, near Oldtown (Maine.) Here there gathered a war party of at least 400 men, including a score of Frenchmen. Their first attack was made on the little village of Wells, where there were only some thirty men to resist the attack, but they were led by Captain Converse, a very courageous and determined officer, who had already tried the mettle of the savages and who was not to be overawed even by overwhelming numbers. The attacking party advanced with hideous yells, firing and calling on the English to surrender, but the bullets of the defenders was the only answer they received. Even the women of the settlement took part in the fight, pa.s.sing ammunition to the men, loading their guns, and sometimes themselves firing on the enemy.

[6] The route was up the St. John to the Medoctec village, thence by Eel river and the chain of lakes to the Mattawamkeag and down that river to the Pen.o.bscot.

The savages became discouraged and offered favorable terms to the garrison, Converse replied: "We want nothing but men to fight with."

An Indian, who could speak English, shouted, "Don't stay in the house like a squaw, come out and fight like a man!" Converse replied: "Do you think I am fool enough to come out with thirty men to fight five hundred?" The Indians at length abandoned the attack and retired greatly crest fallen. Thus a few determined men foiled one of the most formidable bands that ever took the war path in Acadia.

Same of the horrors of Indian warfare almost pa.s.s description and if Villebon did not sanction he at least did little to hinder the atrocities of his savage allies. He writes in his journal, "An English savage was taken on the lower part of the St. John river; I gave him to our savages to be burned, which they did the next day; one could add nothing to the torments that they made him suffer."

From time to time the Indians appear to have grown weary of fighting.

Their failure at Wells, the rebuilding of Fort Pemaquid and the erection of other fortifications by the now thoroughly aroused New Englanders, the desire for the ransom of relatives held by the enemy as hostages, and a suspicion that the French were making use of them in their own interest inclined them to make peace with the English.

Villebon was obliged to exert all his influence to keep them on the war path. He flattered and feasted the chiefs, made presents to the warriors, provided powder and shot for their hunting and finally adopted Taxous, one of their most famous chiefs, as his brother and to honor the occasion gave him his own best coat.

The journals and correspondence of Villebon are full of interest to the student of affairs on the St. John. At this time there came annually to St. John harbor--then known by its Indian name, Menagoesche--a French man of war with supplies for Fort Nachouac and a variety of articles for the Indians. An inventory now in the Boston Public Library, dated 1693, shows that in that year the frigate "Suzanne" brought out for the "Malecites" a supply of powder, lead, guns, bayonets; also s.h.i.+rts, blankets, laced hats, etc. The arrival of the annual wars.h.i.+ps was eagerly looked for by the Indians and Villebon was able to make good use of the articles he received. The reference made by John Gyles in his narrative to the arrival of the s.h.i.+ps from France is of interest. "There came annually," he says, "one or two men of war to supply the fort which was on the river about 34 leagues from the sea. The Indians (of Medoctec) having advice of the arrival of a man of war at the mouth of the river, they about forty in number went on board, for the gentlemen from France made a present to them every year, and set forth the riches and victories of their monarch, etc. At this time they presented the Indians with a bag or two of flour with some prunes as ingredients for a feast.

"I, who was dressed up in an old greasy blanket without cap, hat or s.h.i.+rt, (for I had no s.h.i.+rt for six years, except the one I had on at the time I was made prisoner) was invited into the great cabin, where many well-rigged gentlemen were sitting, who would fain have had a full view of me. I endeavored to hide myself behind the hangings, for I was much ashamed, thinking how I had once worn clothes and of my living with people who could rig as well as the best of them.... This was the first time I had seen the sea during my captivity, and the first time I had tasted salt or bread. My master presently went on sh.o.r.e and a few days later all the Indians went up the river."

In connection with Villebon's endeavors to keep the savages loyal to the king of France there are items in the accounts transmitted by him to the French minister that are quite interesting and suggestive, as for example the following:

"To the wife of Nadanouil, a savage, for making two pairs of snowshoes for the King, tobacco 2 lbs."

"Jan., 1696. To 2 savages come from the river of Medoctic to bring some letters of Father Simon to Mon. de Villebon, flour, 12 lbs.; tobacco, 8 oz.

"July 10, 1696. M. Thury, missionary, having arrived with Taxous, chief of the Canibas and other savages from Pentagouet; brandy, 1 gallon; tobacco, 2 lbs."

The garrison at Fort Nashwaak was always small, comprising only about forty soldiers besides an armorer, gunner and surgeon. There was also a chaplain of the Recollet order, Father Elizee, who is described as a man so retiring by nature as to meddle with nothing outside his ministerial duty. This was not the case with the other missionary priests, however, who influenced by patriotic motives and encouraged by the French authorities took quite an energetic part in helping on the warfare against New England. The French owed much of the aid afforded their cause, including the co-operation of their Indian allies, to the zeal of the missionaries settled on the different rivers, Ralle on the Kennebec, Thury on the Pen.o.bscot and Simon on the St. John. The only woman who lived within the ramparts of Fort Nashwaak seems to have been the wife of the armorer. She was deemed one of the garrison and received her daily allowance with the rest.

In spite of Villebon's energy and ability and of his zeal in the service of his country very serious complaints were made against him by some of the French people living on the St. John river. They a.s.serted that his threats and ill usage had caused several of the settlers to abandon their habitations and remove to Quebec with their families; that he tried to monopolize the fur trade, sending his brothers Portneuf and des Isles into the woods to engage in unlawful traffic with the Indians; that the former was guilty of gross immorality and the latter traded the peltry obtained from the savages with one John Alden, an Englishman, by whom it was carried to Boston.

This John Alden was, by the way, the eldest son of the famous John Alden of the "Mayflower," the Plymouth magistrate, by his wife Priscilla, the Puritan maiden immortalized by Longfellow. He made many trading voyages to the Bay of Fundy and on several occasions narrowly escaped capture by the French.

That there was some ground for the charges preferred against Villebon seems likely from the fact that most of the missionaries censured him and confirmed the reports of the inhabitants concerning the misconduct of his brothers. The chaplain at Fort Nachouac, however, spoke favorably of Villebon, although he was silent with regard to Portneuf.

In his letters to the authorities in France, Villebon vigorously replies to his accusers and brings counter charges; he is seemingly very indignant with the d'Amour brothers of whom we shall hear more in another chapter.

In consequence of the charges preferred against him Portneuf was superseded by Villieu, an officer of reputation whom Count Frontenac sent to Acadia in October, 1693, to lead the savages against the English. This new lieutenant spent the winter at the Nashwaak fort and as soon as the ice was out of the river went in a canoe to Medoctec, where he a.s.sembled the chiefs who promised to a.s.sist him. He then proceeded to Pen.o.bscot resolved to put an end, if possible, to the parleys that the savages had been holding with the English and to incite them to renew the war. After a week's negotiation, in which he was aided by the powerful influence of the missionaries Bigot and Thury, he returned to Fort Nachouac with a delegation of the Indians to receive the presents which the King of France had sent to them, and at the same time to secure the a.s.sistance of some of Governor Villebon's soldiers. The governor, however, piqued by the dismissal of Portneuf, contented himself with entertaining the delegates. He declined to furnish provisions or supplies, and kept his soldiers from joining the expedition. Father Simon, the Recollet missionary on the St. John, also displayed little sympathy with Villieu and kept many of the Indians from joining him. However, with the help of the Pen.o.bscot and Kennebec tribes a band of 250 warriors was at last collected and Villieu placed himself at their head arrayed in the war paint and feathers of an Indian chief. It was decided to strike a blow at the settlement of Oyster River, twelve miles from Portsmouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re. The English settlers, having been informed that peace had been made with the Indians and that they could now work with safety on their farms, were totally unprepared for an attack. Among their unprotected houses the carnage was horrible. One hundred persons, chiefly women and children, half naked from their beds, were tomahawked, shot, or killed by slower and more cruel methods, twenty seven were kept as prisoners.

After engaging in some minor depredations Villieu proceeded to Montreal accompanied by several of the chiefs where they presented a string of English scalps to Count Frontenac as a token of their success and received his hearty congratulations. Villieu thus summed up the results of the campaign: "Two small forts and fifty or sixty houses captured and burnt, and one hundred and thirty English killed or made prisoners." He had done his work all too well and had sown such seeds of distrust between the English and the Indians as to render it almost impossible to re-establish peace between them. The enmity lasted for generations and almost every year witnessed some act of hostility even though the crowns of France and England were themselves at peace.

In the midst of their triumphs an appalling pestilence swept away great numbers of the Indians. On the River St. John more than one hundred and twenty persons died, including some of the most noted warriors and their chief. The pestilence scattered the savages in all directions and for a time their town of Medoctec was abandoned. A party of warriors who went with Montigny, an officer of Villebon's garrison, to a.s.sist their brethren to the westward was sent back to Medoctec on account of the contagion that had broken out among them.

The nature of the disease it is impossible at this distance of time to determine. It could scarcely have been smallpox, according to the description of John Gyles, who says: "A person seeming in perfect health would bleed at the mouth and nose, turn blue in spots and die in two or three hours." The first outbreak of the pestilence was in the autumn of 1694. A year later Mon. Tibierge, agent of the company of Acadia, writes that "the plague (la maladie) had broken out afresh: there had died on the river more than 120 persons of every age and s.e.x."

The pestilence, however, did not put a stop to the Indian warfare.

In June, 1695, Villebon a.s.sembled at his fort a general representation of the tribes of Acadia, including fourteen chiefs and their attendants; the conference lasted three days and the proceedings are reported at length in his journal. After the customary feasting and distribution of presents a standard of prices for the purchase and sale of goods was agreed upon more favorable to the natives than heretofore. The chiefs departed firmly resolved to continue the war against the English. Their opportunity did not come until the following summer when a combined effort on the part of the French and Indians resulted in the destruction of Fort William Henry at Pemaquid. This fortification had just been rebuilt by the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts at a cost of 20,000 and was the strongest work the English colonists had up to that time erected in America. The walls had a compa.s.s in all of 747 feet and were of solid masonry, varying from 10 to 22 feet in height. Eight feet from the ground, where the walls had a thickness of six feet, there was a tier of 28 port holes. At one corner was a round tower 29 feet high. The fort was well manned and provisioned and was thought to be impregnable.

The leader of the enterprise, which resulted in the destruction of Fort William Henry, was Villebon's brother d'Iberville, whose romantic career has earned for him the description of "the Cid of New France."

D'Iberville's Indian auxiliaries included Micmacs from Cape Breton, a large band of Maliseets and many of their kindred of Pa.s.samaquoddy, Pen.o.bscot and Kennebec. Two wars.h.i.+ps lately arrived from Quebec, accompanied the expedition.