Before this situation could get entirely out of hand, La Barre was quickly replaced as governor, and to Canada came the Marquis de Denonville, a professional soldier who was expected to bring the Iroquois under control. But while the conditions in New France demanded a shrewd leader who possessed the skills and diplomacy to deal with the Indians, all this new governor had to offer was an eager and rigid obedience to the wishes of his king. His first action was to request more soldiers for Canada and much more money, and though Louis XIV groaned, he sent both. Denonville then built several forts near Lake Huron, and more were planned. Convinced that James II of England would not take up arms against France, the governor then sent out a Canadian force against the English at Hudson’s Bay, and finally made preparations for an expedition against the Iroquois.
To begin with, however, the governor made a mistake of such gravity that it is generally regarded as the prime cause of a catastrophe which befell the French colonists soon thereafter. Louis XIV had earlier suggested that one way to tame the Iroquois was to capture as many of them as possible and send them to France as galley slaves. Louis said a great many things which were irresponsible and often thoughtless, but few of his remarks were to have such cruel results. Frontenac, who well understood the Indians, would have ignored such a statement without hesitation; even La Barre, who was neither astute nor discriminating, had seen the folly of this royal suggestion and had done nothing about it. But Denonville, the obedient servant of his king, decided to carry out what he considered royal orders.
The galley, a ship that was propelled by great banks of oars, had long ago ceased to be a ship of war, but France still kept a few in the Mediterranean as a means of punishment for criminals. Every so often these galleys would set out to sea, with the slaves pulling the oars, three or four men on each, kept in motion by the beat of drum and the lash of the galley master. Between such excursions, the miserable prisoners were kept in the typical dark, damp, and crowded cells of the day. Though galley slaves had the word gal branded on their backs, it was usually hard to distinguish the letters from the scars left by the whips of the galley masters.
To condemn an Indian to such a fate was a certain death sentence. Accustomed to a life in the wide open areas of North America, the Indians’ lungs quickly collapsed in the fetid atmosphere of the galleys and prison cells. If they survived this treatment against all odds, even the most powerful among them eventually succumbed to the melancholy which seemed an inbred racial tendency among all Indians.
If Denonville’s victims had been prisoners of war, there might have been some slight excuse; the usual treatment of such prisoners was seldom less barbaric on either side. But the governor sent out his soldiers to the north shore of Lake Ontario, where some splinter groups of Iroquois had established themselves in peaceful hunting and fishing groups. More than fifty of these Indians were dragged from their villages to the French settlements; until they could be shipped to Marseilles, these puzzled and frightened natives were tied to stakes and kept there for several days. The lucky ones died right there of exposure.
Denonville had expected that this action would serve as a warning to the warriors of the Five Nations, but he soon discovered that he had misjudged Indian mentality. Within weeks after the deportation of the helpless people, rumors arose throughout Canada that the Iroquois were preparing for a terrible revenge, that their leaders were already meeting in councils of war. The governor now wrote urgent letters to the colonial minister in France, begging to have the prisoners sent back. Many of the Indians sent to France, however, had meanwhile died in captivity; even if it had been possible to send all of them back, the damage had been done. The Iroquois never forgave this treachery; with them it was an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and for every one of their harmless brothers sent to their death across the ocean, they swore bloody revenge on white men and women.
Governor Denonville had meanwhile done his level best to make still more enemies for New France. Early in the spring of 1686, he had sent out an expedition against the English Hudson’s Bay Company in the north. Fort Hayes, the nearest of the English posts, contained only sixteen men, sleeping soundly as the eighty Frenchmen appeared out of the darkness. Fort Rupert, about a hundred miles eastward, was able to offer little more resistance. Only Fort Albany to the west, with about thirty men, put up a slight defense, but against ten French cannon even they could do very little.
The news of these raids shook all London, and there were such loud demands for reprisals that Louis XIV thought it wise to send a special envoy to London to calm the angry outcry. A neutrality pact was finally signed between the two countries, though both England and France made it clear that neither side had any intentions of keeping the agreement.
And Governor Denonville had already turned to the final phase of his masterplan, the expedition against the Iroquois. Of all the tribes of the Five Nations, the Senecas were now the most numerous and powerful, and also the most aggressive; the Senecas, in fact, were even more hostile than the Mohawks had once been. Not only had many a Frenchman been tortured and burned to death in the main village of the Senecas, but the place had the reputation as the scene of strange orgies, a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah, where black magic and witchcraft were being practiced. Catholic France could not tolerate such pagan practices; the Senecas would have to be taught a lesson, and in the process perhaps all the Iroquois would be persuaded to bury the hatchet once and for all.
A huge expedition set out from the south shore of Lake Ontario – 2,000 Canadians in 400 canoes, 400 Indian allies from the north and west, and a band of coureur de bois, led by men like Henri de Tonty and the Sieur Du Luth. The strength of this force was so great that the Senecas, after one brief and unsuccessful stand, retreated in panic toward the east, taking with them their families and whatever supplies they could carry. Before they left, however, they burned the main village about which so many horror stories had been told. Even if it had been left standing, it would have disappointed the invaders; it was neither very large nor very strong, and all the French found among its blackened ruins of small lodges was the mask of a shaman. The expedition turned northward again to Niagara to begin the construction of a strong fort; everyone was convinced that the Senecas had been taught a lesson they would not forget.
The Senecas did not forget, indeed, and neither did the other tribes of the Five Nations. Nor had the Iroquois forgotten their peaceful brothers in France or the destruction of the Mohawk nation. Nor had they ever forgotten the first meeting with the white men, as told to them by their fathers – Champlain stepping out from behind the ranks of the Huron, with his glistening breastplate and deadly muskets. While Denonville set his men to work at Fort Niagara, the gloomy interior of the Iroquois council house filled with hatred and revenge as the chiefs assembled to decide on their next move.