Vermont: A Study of Independence. Rowland Evans Robinson
Table of Contents
THE HIGHWAY OF WAR.
Champlain, in the account of his voyage made in July, 1609, up the lake to which he gave his name, mentions almost incidentally that, "continuing our route along the west side of the lake, contemplating the country, I saw on the east side very high mountains capped with snow. I asked the Indians if those parts were inhabited. They answered me yes, and that they were Iroquois, and there were in those parts beautiful valleys, and fields fertile in corn as good as any I had ever eaten in the country, with an infinitude of other fruits, and that the lake extended close to the mountains, which were, according to my judgment, fifteen leagues from us."
It was doubtless then that the eyes of white men first beheld the lofty landmarks and western bounds of what is now Vermont. If the wise and brave explorer gave more thought to the region than is indicated in this brief mention of it, perhaps it was to forecast a future wherein those fertile valleys, wrested by his people from the savagery of the wilderness and the heathen, should be made to blossom like the rose, while the church, of which he was so devout a son that he had said "the salvation of one soul was of more value than the conquest of an empire," should here build its altars, and gather to itself a harvest richer by far than any earthly garner. But this was not to be. His people were never to gain more than a brief and unsubstantial foothold in this land of promise. The hereditary enemies of his nation were to sow and reap where France had only struck a furrow, and were to implant a religion as abhorrent to him as paganism, and a form of government that would have seemed to him as evil as impracticable, and he was only a pioneer on the warpath of the nations.
Although the Indians who accompanied Champlain on his inland voyage of discovery told him that the country on the east side of the lake was inhabited by the Iroquois, there is no evidence that it was permanently occupied by them, even then, if it ever had been. There are traces of a more than transient residence of some tribe here at some time, but their identity and the date of their occupancy can only be conjectured. The relics found give no clew by which to determine whether they who fashioned here their rude pottery and implements and weapons of stone were Iroquois or Waubanakee,[1] nor when these beautiful valleys were their home.
A fact affording some proof that the Iroquois abandoned it very long ago is, that not one stream, lake, mountain, or other landmark within the limits of Vermont now bears an Iroquois name. Of all the Indian names that have been preserved, every one is Waubanakee; and though many of them are euphonious, and those least so far better than our commonplace and vulgar nomenclature, none of them have the poetic significance of those so frequently bestowed by the Iroquois on mountain, lake, rock, and river.
It does not seem probable that the warlike nation that conquered all tribes with which it came in contact, having once gained complete possession, should relinquish it. A more reasonable conclusion is, that the country lying east of Lake Champlain was a debatable ground of these aboriginal tribes in the remote past, as it was more recently of civilized nations and states.
Quebec, the town which Champlain had founded in 1608, did not begin to assume much importance till eighteen years afterward, when its wooden fortifications were rebuilt of stone. Nor was the place strong enough three years later to offer any resistance to the English fleet which, under the command of Sir David Kirk, then appeared before the city and presently took possession of it. The conquest was as lightly valued by King Charles I. of England as it had been easily made; and in 1634, by the treaty of St. Germain, Canada, Acadia, and Cape Breton were restored to France. Thenceforward, for more than a hundred years, these regained possessions of the French were a constant menace and danger to the English colonies in America.
Advances toward the occupation of the country lying between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River were made slowly by both French and English, though the tide of predatory warfare often ebbed and flowed along the borders of the region and sometimes across it, along the courses of the larger tributary waterways, navigable almost to their narrow and shallow sources by the light birch of the Indian while there was open water, and an easy if crooked path for the snowshoe and toboggan when winter had paved the streams with ice.
One of the earliest of such French incursions into New England was made after the failure of the attempt of De Callieres, the governor of Montreal, to capture New York, and all the English colonies in that province, when less important expeditions were organized against the New York and New England frontiers and the Sieur Hertel went from Trois Rivières against the English fort at Salmon Falls in New Hampshire. At about the same time, in February, 1690, the expedition under Sieurs Helene and Mantet set forth by the way of Lake Champlain to destroy Schenectady. Both expeditions were organized by Count Frontenac for the purpose of inspiriting the Canadians and their Indian allies, who were sadly disheartened by the recent descent of the Iroquois upon Canada when Montreal had been sacked and destroyed, and most of the frontier settlements broken up.
The wide expanse of pathless woods that lay between the outposts of the hostile colonies gave a false assurance of security to the English settlers, while to their enemies these same solitudes gave almost certain immunity from the chance of a forewarned prey. In the wintry wastes of forest, through which these marauding bands took their way, there ranged no unfriendly scout to spy their stealthy approach, and bear tidings of it to the doomed settlements.
Unburdened by much weight of provision, or more camp equipage than their blankets and axes, these wolfish packs of Canadians and Indians (the whites scarcely less hardy than their wild allies nor much less savage, albeit devout Christians) marched swiftly along frozen lake and ice-bound stream, through mountain pass and pathless woods, subsisting for the most part on the lean-yarded deer which were easily killed by their hunters. At night they bivouacked, with no shelter but the sky and the lofty arches of the forest, beside immense fires, whose glow, though lighting tree-tops and sky, would not be seen by any foe more dangerous than the wolf and panther. Here each ate his scant ration; the Frenchman smoked his pipe of rank home-grown tobacco, the Waubanakee his milder senhalenac, or dried sumac leaves; the Christian commended his devilish enterprise to God; the pagan sought by his rites to bring the aid of a superhuman power to their common purpose. The pious Frenchman may have seen in the starlit sky some omen of success; the Waubanakee were assured of it when dread Wohjahose[2] was passed, and each had tossed toward it his offering of pounded corn or senhalenac, and the awful guardian of Petowbowk[3] had sent no voice of displeasure, yelling and groaning after them beneath his icy roof; and each lay down to sleep on his bed of evergreen boughs in an unguarded camp. Not till, like panthers crouching for the deadly spring, they drew near the devoted frontier settlement or fort, did they begin to exercise soldierly vigilance, to send out spies, and set guards about their camps.
Assured of the defenseless condition of the settlers or the carelessness of the garrison, they swooped upon their prey. Out of the treacherous stillness of the woods a brief horror of carnage, rapine, and fire burst upon the sleeping hamlet. Old men and helpless infants, stalwart men, taken unawares, fighting bravely with any means at hand, women in whatever condition, though it appealed most to humanity, were slaughtered alike. The booty was hastily gathered, and the torch applied by blood-stained hands, and out of the light of the conflagration of newly built homes the spoilers vanished with their miserable captives in the mysterious depths of the forest as suddenly as they had come forth from them.
So were conducted the expeditions against Salmon Falls and Schenectady. By the first, thirty of the English were killed, and fifty-four, mostly women and children, taken prisoners and carried to Canada. The success of the other expedition spread consternation throughout the province of New York. Sixty persons were killed, and nearly half as many made captive.
In the same year, 1690, the colonies of New York, Massachusetts,