Champlain and the Iroquois: Quebec and Montagnais
One would gladly know how the founders of Quebec spent the long hours of their first winter; but on this point the only man among them, perhaps, who could write, has not thought it necessary to enlarge. He himself beguiled his leisure with trapping foxes, or hanging a dead dog from a tree and watching the hungry martens in their efforts to reach it. Towards the close of winter, all found abundant employment in nursing themselves or their neighbors, for the inevitable scurvy broke out with virulence. At the middle of May only eight men of the twenty-eight were alive, and of these half were suffering from disease.. Great was the joy of Champlain when he saw a sail-boat rounding the Point of Orleans, betokening that the spring had brought with it the longed-for succors.
Pontgrave had returned with supplies and emigrants. After a consultation it was decided that he should remain in charge of Quebec while Champlain entered upon his meditated explorations, by which he hoped to find a practicable way to China. It was the same dream of a passage to the Pacific that had animated so many of his predecessors.
But there was a lion in the path. The Indian tribes, war-hawks of the wilderness, to whom peace was unknown, infested with their scalping-parties the streams and pathways of the forest, increasing tenfold its inseparable risks. That to all these hazards Champlain was more than indifferent, his after-career bears abundant witness; yet now an expedient for evading them offered itself, so consistent with his instincts that he was fain to accept it. Might he not anticipate surprises, join a war-party, and fight his way to discovery?
During the last autumn a young chief from the banks of the then unknown Ottawa had been at Quebec; and, amazed at what he saw, he had begged Champlain to join him in the spring against his enemies. These enemies were a formidable race of savages, the Iroquois, or Five Confederate Nations, dwelling in fortified villages within limits now embraced by the State of New York.
The Canadian foes of this confederacy were the Hurons, a tribe of their own race, the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence region, and the Montagnais, a less energetic tribe of the same region. With these Indians Champlain joined himself in a projected expedition against their powerful enemies.
It was past the middle of May, and the expected warriors from the upper country had not come,--a delay which seems to have given Champlain little concern, for, without waiting longer, he set forth with no better allies than a band of Montagnais. But as he moved up the St. Lawrence he saw, thickly clustered in the bordering forest, the lodges of an Indian camp, and, landing, found his Huron and Algonquin allies. Few of them had ever seen a white man. They surrounded the steel-clad strangers in speechless wonderment. Chaplain asked for their chief, and the staring throng moved with him towards a lodge where sat, not one chief, but two, for each band had its own. There were feasting, smoking, speeches; and, the needful ceremony over, all descended together to Quebec; for the strangers were bent on seeing those wonders of architecture whose fame had pierced the recesses of their forests.
On May 28 the expedition again set out, passing down the St. Lawrence to the "Riviere des Iroquois," since called the Richelieu, or the St. John. Here the warriors encamped for two days, hunted, fished, feasted, and quarrelled, three-fourths of the party seceding, while the rest pursued their course. Champlain outsailed his allies. But he soon found himself in impassable rapids, and was obliged to return. The Indians had lied to him, with the story that his shallop could traverse the river unobstructed.
But should he abandon the adventure, and forego the discovery of that great lake, studded with islands and bordered with a fertile land of forests, which his red companions had traced in outline and by word and sign had painted to his fancy.. He directed Marais, with the boat and the greater part of the men, to return to Quebec, while he, with two who offered to follow him, should proceed in the Indian canoes.
The warriors lifted their canoes from the water, and in long procession through the forest, under the flickering sun and shade, bore them on their shoulders around the rapids to the smooth stream above. Here the chiefs made a muster of their forces, counting twenty-four canoes and sixty warriors. All embarked again, and advanced once more, by marsh, meadow, forest, and scattered islands, then full of game, for it was an uninhabited land, the warpath and battle-ground of hostile tribes. The warriors observed a certain system in their advance. Some were in front as a vanguard, others formed the main body, while an equal number were in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the subsistence of the whole; for, though they had a provision of parched maize pounded into meal, they kept it for use when, from the vicinity of the enemy, hunting should become impossible.