Raiders from New France Read online

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  THE BEGINNINGS Champlain, Frontenac, and La Barre, 1608–85

  A NEW TACTICAL DOCTRINE The first organized raid, 1686 ■ The taking of Forts Hayes, Rupert, and Albany ■ Denonville’s Seneca campaign, 1687 ■ “King William’s War”: Lachine, 1689

  RAID WARFARE Frontenac’s return ■ Schenectady, Salmon Falls, and Falmouth, 1690 ■ Strategic benefit of raiding tactics

  Anglo-American attacks on New France, 1690 ■ Resisting enemy raids: “the battle of Laprairie,” 1691 – Madeleine de Verchères’ fight, 1692 ■ Neutralizing the Iroquois: the Mohawks, 1693 – the Onondaga and Oneida, 1696 ■ Combined land and sea raids: Pemaquid, 1696 – Newfoundland, 1696–97 ■ “The Great Peace of Montreal,” 1701

  “Queen Anne’s War,” 1702–13 ■ Deerfield, 1704 ■ Haverhill, 1708

  The Fox Wars, 1712–37

  THE FINAL DECADES, 1740s–50s “King George’s War,” 1744–48: Raids on New England, 1745–46 – Annapolis-Royal, 1744 & 1746–47 ■ The “French-Indian War,” 1754–60

  MEN, EQUIPMENT & METHODS Officers and men ■ Material culture: Canadian dress ■ Weapons ■ Mounting a raid ■ Prisoners and scalp bounties

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  RAIDERS FROM NEW FRANCE

  NORTH AMERICAN FOREST WARFARE TACTICS, 17th-18th CENTURIES

  INTRODUCTION

  During what the anglophone world generally calls the “French and Indian Wars,” the tactics of surprise attacks and raids launched from within New France kept the Anglo-American colonies on the Atlantic seaboard in a defensive posture for three-quarters of a century. Meanwhile, by mounting audacious expeditions, the French settlers – though less numerous by a factor of ten – came to dominate trade in immense wilderness areas from the Gulf of St Lawrence down to the Gulf of Mexico, and explored as far west as the Rocky Mountains. The object of this study is simply to explain how this came about, and to identify the leaders who devised and promoted the tactics that had such extraordinary geo-strategic consequences.

  The challenge faced by New France was not only to keep the faster-growing Anglo-American colonies contained, but also, when diplomacy and trade agreements failed, to vanquish hostile First Nations. Success in both objectives was achieved by the creation of a superior fighting force with a longer reach. There were no manuals describing “how to” fight in the North American wilderness; but by collating various memoirs and documentary records, and by analyzing actual expeditions as well as the important material-culture aspects, we can discern a fascinating picture. Thanks to visionary officers who formed and maintained close relations with friendly First Nations, a successful Canadian European/Indigenous tactical doctrine became firmly rooted.

  This engraving titled “Canadian wearing snowshoes going to war on the snow,” from 1722, is the only known contemporary image of a late 17th–early 18th century Canadian militiaman on campaign. It is in Volume 1 of La Potherie’s work, where he describes the 1696–97 conquest of British Newfoundland in which 124 Canadian raiders played a leading role. Some features are curiously rendered by a European engraver baffled by unfamiliar North American items such as snowshoes, moccasins, mitasses, beaded pouches, a flapped cap and capot. The musket’s exaggerated buttstock hints at one of the “buccaneer” weapons occasionally seen in Canada. (Print after Bacqueville de La Potherie’s Histoire de l’Amérique septentrionale, 1722; courtesy Library and Archives Canada, C10605)

  THE BEGINNINGS

  Champlain, Frontenac, and La Barre, 1608–85

  That French permanent settlements in North America became a reality during the 17th century was thanks largely to Samuel de Champlain.1 His establishment in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia) in 1604 was soon followed in 1608 by another at Quebec, which became the capital city of New France, and as decades passed other settlements such as Trois-Rivières (1634) and Montreal (1642) were founded further up the St Lawrence River.

  At the outset, the French had befriended the Huron (Wendat) First Nation, and in 1609–10 Champlain and a few companions won battles against the redoubtable Iroquois by the use of firearms. In the late 1630s the Iroquois themselves obtained firearms from the Dutch and English colonies to the south, and by 1649 the Iroquois confederacy had largely wiped out or driven off the Hurons and then turned their attention to the French settlements. Parties of warriors would suddenly attack, kill or kidnap, then simply vanish into the forest. Colonists in Montreal and Trois-Rivières had to go armed whenever they left their homes.

  By May 1660 the Iroquois menace had increased to such an extent that a detachment of 17 soldiers in a small fort were overwhelmed. The French colony was in fear of being wiped out until, in 1665, King Louis XIV sent out the regular Carignan-Salières Regiment to keep the Iroquois at bay. After both winter and summer military expeditions, the Iroquois agreed to a peace treaty in 1668, though relations remained tense. While the Carignan-Salières then returned to France, some hundreds of officers and men chose to remain as settlers. By now the French had become heavily involved in the lucrative fur trade, whose expansion demanded ever more extensive exploration of the continent’s interior.

  Regions of North America claimed by colonial nations, late 17th to mid-18th century. (From Lawler’s Essentials of American History, 1902; author’s photo)

  Spirited impression of the last stand of Dollard des Ormeaux, commander of the weak Montreal garrison, who was killed with 16 companions when a small fort at Long Sault on the Ottawa River was overrun by an Iroquois war party in May 1660. The chronicler Dollier de Casson writes that the heavy casualties suffered by the Iroquois deterred them from attacking Montreal itself. (Print after R. Bombled; private collection, author’s photo)

  In 1672, Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac (1622–98), arrived in Quebec city as governor-general of New France. He was a career soldier who, under the great Marshal Turenne, had risen to an appointment as lieutenant-general when only 26 years old, and had later served the Venetian Republic in Crete until it was overwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks in 1669.

  When Frontenac arrived at Quebec there were barely 65 soldiers in New France, including his own 20 guardsmen, but he quickly organized a staff with some of the retired officers. He was deeply impressed by North America, and on November 2, 1672, he wrote to Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert that nothing was “so magnificent as the site of Quebec; this town cannot be better positioned [to] one day become the capital of a great empire.” In 1673 Frontenac led an expedition that built a fort at Cataraqui, soon called Fort Frontenac (today Kingston, Ontario). Other forts followed, which became bases for crossing the Great Lakes and thence following the Ohio, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers, and gaining access to the Great Plains. In April 1682, the explorer La Salle would discover that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, and claimed the whole area for France, naming it Louisiana.

  For the defense of New France, Frontenac relied on the armed Canadian Militia, which had been organized into parish companies since 1669. Every able-bodied man aged from 16 to 60 was liable for duty, with officers and sergeants appointed in each parish, and regular company training. The use of firearms for hunting was very widespread, so that many settlers handled them expertly; furthermore, as time passed, increasing numbers were either veterans or the sons of soldiers. Frontenac also noted the remarkable military possibilities of the canoes used for inland trade along North America’s extraordinary web of rivers. These could be paddled and portaged over enormous distances by Canadian voyageurs or coureur-des-bois (“travelers” or “woods-runners”), who had become skilled in all aspects of forest-craft.

  During Frontenac’s administration, although the French colony had hardly
any regular troops, the Iroquois generally stayed quiet while exploratory expeditions established new trade links with other First Nations. These too came to know Onontio – the French “Father,” who ruled for the Great King over the seas. At Cataraqui in July 1673, Frontenac had reassured the assembled chiefs that he wished only friendship, and that he had wanted to meet them because it was important that “a father should know his children and that children know their father.” He apologized that he could not understand their language, but he had with him Charles Le Moyne – a leading trader – as his interpreter, “so you will not lose a single word of what I said.” Frontenac demonstrated an instinctive skill in the diplomacy required to deal with the First Nations and left a model for his successors (if they had the wit to follow it). Frontenac insisted that some Iroquois chiefs be present in 1673, and this went a long way towards maintaining a peaceful, if rather cool relationship between them and New France.

  This entirely schematic drawing of the camp of La Barre’s expedition on the southeast shore of Lake Ontario (“Lac Frontenac”) in August 1684 shows, at top, the French camp. At the center of the row of figures below it, “M. De Labarre” is flanked by interpreters and French officers. Below him is a symbol of the peace-pipe (calumet), the figure of a chief (“Le Grangula”), and then his entourage of Iroquois chiefs sitting in an arc. Lines of militiamen and soldiers are shown on each side of the meeting-ground, and on the shore at the right canoes are drawn up. (Print after La Hontan’s 1705 Amsterdam edition of his travels; author’s photo)

  Ironically, it was Frontenac’s impatient temper towards the settlers that eventually got him in trouble with Versailles, which received many complaints about his autocratic ways. (He even used his guardsmen to arrest the governor of Montreal, and a priest who criticized him from the pulpit.) After ten years in Canada, the governor-general was recalled by King Louis XIV. His successor, Joseph-Antoine Lefebvre de La Barre (1622–88), was a naval officer with experience in the West Indies, who arrived in Canada in October 1682 to find a rapidly deteriorating situation. Despite his military weakness, Frontenac had somehow managed to keep the hostile Iroquois from taking the warpath by exercising his diplomatic talents. The following year it became clear that his successor lacked his abilities in this regard.

  Canadian fur traders reported that friendly First Nations in the Illinois country had been decimated by the Iroquois, and there were rumors that once the latter had eliminated their rivals they planned to attack the French settlements. According to Canadians, the Iroquois were encouraged in this by officials and merchants in New England and New York. By the summer of 1683, Iroquois warriors were being seen closer to French settlements, and there were occasional bloody incidents; in practice, the peace treaty of 1668 was now a dead letter.

  Unable to contain the situation, La Barre urgently appealed to Versailles for troops from France, and in November 1683 three companies of Compagnies franches de la Marine (Independent Naval Companies) arrived in Quebec. Now that he had 150 regular soldiers, La Barre decided on a show of force to deter the Iroquois. In July 1684 he also mustered some 700 Canadian militiamen and about 300–400 allied warriors; by August they reached Fort Frontenac, where they were joined by hundreds more warriors from western First Nations. In a sizeable fleet of boats and canoes, this force proceeded to the southeast shore of Lake Ontario and established a camp near the site of the later British Fort Oswego in upstate New York. La Barre’s tactics were unimaginatively European, and his progress was watched every step of the way by unseen Iroquois. When he eventually invited Iroquois chiefs to meet him they took their time, while large numbers of their warriors were gathering in the area. In the French camp a rumor spread that if La Barre advanced further and attacked, hundreds of Anglo-Americans from New York led by Governor Thomas Dongan would join the Iroquois.

  A

  RAID TO HUDSON’S BAY, 1686

  (1) Soldier, Compagnies franches de la Marine, winter

  During large-scale summer expeditions, such as those led against the Iroquois by La Barre in 1684 and Denonville in 1687, the regular soldiers of the Compagnies franches de la Marine wore their European-issue regulation uniform (orders of July 1687 even mentioned that they had to clean their shoes, and not neglect to shave). For the 1686 winter expedition to Hudson’s Bay, each regular soldier received a Canadian capot of blue wool cloth, which was decorated with “lace” (tape) edging (probably yellow or false-gold metallic); a red cloth shirt for cold weather, and two other shirts probably of linen; two pairs of stockings, or mitasses leggings in imitation of First Nations clothing, and a pair of cloth drawers; a pair of French shoes, two pairs of moccasins; and a flapped cloth cap of a style called tapabord. This soldier of the Compagnies franches has standard military equipment: a buff leather waist belt with Y-straps forming a sword-frog on the left hip, here with a tomahawk substituted for the regulation sword, and a sheathed plug bayonet attached to both the belt and the frog; a slung gibicière or fourniment bullet or cartridge pouch with the French royal arms embossed on the deep flap; and a pear-shaped flask for a pound of powder, made of leather-covered wood with a brass nozzle (officially for attachment below the pouch flap, it seems often to have been carried slung separately, which would make it quicker to use). Although flintlock muskets were widely used in Canada in the late 17th century, prior to 1690 the Navy Ministry’s procurement of such weapons was somewhat haphazard; we have chosen to illustrate the weapon ordered in that year from the Tulle factory, with a 119mm (46.8in) barrel of 16mm caliber.

  (2) Canadian militia volunteer, winter

  For the 1686 operation each Canadian volunteer also received a cloth capot (but without lace trim), three linen shirts, a pair of mitasses, two handkerchiefs, two combs, a pair of French shoes, two pairs of moccasins, and a tapabord cap. Other items such as breeches and mitasses had to be provided by the individual. Like the snowshoes, mittens and scarves were essential in winter and early spring. This Canadian sports a waist sash, an Indigenous or homemade bullet bag, and a powder horn. His personally acquired flintlock musket, here in its protective bag, probably has a 121.8cm (45in) barrel of 14mm caliber. (AC, C11A, 8; Pierre, Chevalier de Troyes, Journal de l’expédition du chevalier de Troyes à la Baie d’Hudson en 1686 (Ivanohé Caron, ed; Beauceville; L’Éclaireur, 1918))

  (3) Assault on Fort Hayes, June 21

  For the assault on Fort Hayes at Moose Factory, Hudson’s Bay, some of Capt de Troyes’ raiders broke down the gate with a log battering-ram fashioned on the spot, while others climbed over the 18ft (5.84m) stockade and jumped down inside. The use of battering-rams on surprise raids was occasionally repeated subsequently. Even this far north the June weather would have been relatively mild, and while some raiders might have retained their capots others would doubtless have fought in their shirtsleeves.

  This expeditionary party in canoes could date from any time in the 17th or 18th centuries. As soon as rivers and lakes became navigable each spring, canoes were used for the fur trade, exploration and military raids; note too the priest – Jesuit missionaries were active in the wilderness, and sometimes served as chaplains for large raiding parties.

  Handling birchbark canoes took skilled practice, but they were light enough to be unloaded and carried along portage trails bypassing rapids or linking rivers and lakes. By far the swiftest means to travel any distance, they gave access to North America’s whole network of great rivers. From the St Lawrence, French explorers discovered the Ohio, the Illinois and the Mississippi, and claimed the territory along them as part of New France, right down to the Gulf of Mexico. (Print after Edmond J. Massicotte; private collection, author’s photo)

  Since the camp was on swampy ground, fever broke out, and a food shortage also became evident – if La Barre had thought that his army could live off the land in the European style (which seems likely), he now learned the hard facts of life in America’s wilderness. Iroquois chiefs finally appeared and, on September 5, negotiations opened. By then La Barre
had a major epidemic in his camp, where some men were also close to starvation; with thousands of Iroquois rumored to be lurking nearby, it was time to retreat. The Iroquois chiefs made no real concessions apart from a promise (never kept) to pay for some damages, and with this paltry result the expedition returned to Canada. Not only was French prestige much reduced, but many men died from fever on the way back, and about 80 even after they had reached Montreal.

  Following this failure, La Barre was recalled in 1685 and replaced by Jacques-René de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville (1637–1710), who landed at Quebec city on August 1. He was a brigadier-general who had commanded the La Reine Dragoon Regiment in Germany, but he lacked experience either as an army commander or as a territorial governor. Like his predecessor, Denonville had to face the Iroquois menace, but also other problems threatening the fur trade that was Canada’s economic lifeblood. Since 1670, Britain had granted fur-trading rights to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had since installed several fortified trading posts on the shores of the Bay. Fur-traders in Canada had been granted the same rights on the Bay by the French government, in territory that was held to belong to France on the strength of previous exploration, but these had been usurped by the British traders. In 1684, although Britain and France were at peace, the Canadian trading fort on the Bay had been taken, razed, rebuilt, and armed with artillery by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

  Note

  1 Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635) was a remarkable navigator and explorer turned diplomat, trader and soldier, who made more than 20 trans-Atlantic crossings. From 1620 he was governor of New France in all but formal title, and he was appointed lieutenant-governor by Cardinal Richelieu in 1633.