Intrigues of the French to urge the Indians to hostilities—Letter of La -Tonquiere to the Minister—Indian warfare against the English—Hostilities between English and French—Le Loutre’s methods against the Acadians—He is blamed by the Bishop of Quebec—Divers acts of cruelty against the Indians of Maine.

I AM proceeding with a sincere desire to discover the share of blame which belongs to each of the conflicting parties; endeavoring to be just to the English as well as to the French, to the Home Government as well as to the local authorities, to the Acadians as well as to the priests. The materials for this history are so scanty, there are so many gaps to fill, that here, more than elsewhere, it becomes imperative to enter successively into the minds of the interested parties in order to detect the motives that impelled them to adopt one course rather than another. One must become, so to speak, by turns, a missionary, an Acadian peasant, an Englishman and a Frenchman, a Catholic and a Protestant; one must divest oneself of preconceived notions, narrow or broaden one’s views, penetrate into the prejudices of all. This is not always easy, nor equally easy for every one. My life has been spent amidst these opposite elements,

Oasgrain has produced no new proof. True, Casgrain has not discovered the great secret; but he may be on the right scent, and h« must therefore be immediately turned away from it by some concession; else either he or somebody else might make further researches er-d possibly ferret out Parkman’s artful dodges and his dear Pichon. Hatters had reached a point where Parkmnr might say, as children do when they play Hunt the Slipper: “It’s getting very hot!” and, owing to exceptional circumstances and perhaps also to my turn of mind, I experience no difficulty in seeing with the eyes of others. If some writers have examined more documents than I have, perhaps no one has more honestly and deeply pondered the true inwardness of the facts.

Under different circumstances it is possible, by a mere compilation of documents connected by such explanations as are necessary for understanding the narrative, to compose a history that would be a pretty faithful picture of events; in this case, such a compilation would be altogether insufficient, Not only are materials few, not only have the most important been suppressed, but those which remain are generally but the story as written by one side, in stiff official letters calculated to show merely the deceptive surface facts, merely what it pleased the writer to say. Motives, intentions, secret thoughts, all the inner springs of action, which are revealed in private letters, secret journals, documents from the other side, are completely wanting here.

The circumstances did not favor an international code of honor ecpial to that which obtained among the civilized nations of Europe. The interference of Indian allies in war made peace factitious, war doubly cruel and hatred incredibly intense. Each nation had its savage allies, sometimes fighting on their own account, oftener egged on by one or the other of the two nations. Even when they spontaneously took to the warpath, they were suspected of doing so at the suggestion of interested whites. An act of hostility committed on the great lakes was avenged later on in New England or in Nova Scotia, and vice versa.

Numerically, France was much inferior to her rival.

The assistance of the Indians was, therefore, a necessary condition of her existence ; and so we find that France always more assiduously and more successfully cultivated their friendship. Her most powerful lever was the missionary. Whilst this spurner of creature-com-forts plunged into the forest to follow the Indians in their expeditions for the chase, for barter or for war, sharing their privations, associating with their daily life and their interests, the Protestant minister, bound to civilization by family ties, could not expose his loved ones to the trials of such a life and to the contact of those barbarians; yet this was the best means of evangelizing them and ultimately of winning them to civilization. We can readily understand how, for the missionary, the interests of religion were closely linked with those of his nation, since his efforts became or might become useless as soon as the territory passed into English hands. It was, assuredly, very natural that the missionary should preserve his love for France; but Parkman, in viewing him as too exclusively dominated by this sentiment, does not realize the intimate connection which the missionary saw between his religion and his country.

Those vast and fertile regions that had no other masters than a few savage tribes were coveted by both nations, and had to be occupied as early as possible, so that the rival nation might not step in beforehand. However, there were no exact and definite titles to legal possession accepted and recognized as such; much stress must also be laid on the friendship of the Indians, often an uncertain and easily-broken bond, often threatened by underhand seduction. Thus it happened that there was no distinct line of demarcation beyond which honor could not safely go. In Europe the most insignificant actions were done before the eyes of all, honor was held in check by public opinion, ever such a might}’ power. Here, the blackest crimes frequently were without echo, or were lost in the solitude of the forest. We need not. then, be surprised that rival interests should have prompted many acts of duplicity, and that both nations are responsible for deeds the memory of which may well make them blush. Indulgence is, therefore, opportune; still, there are misdeeds so blameworthy that history cannot ignore them ; and, if such blame is deserved by France, it applies particularly, I believe, to her conduct in this part of the country, and at the very period upon which we are entering.

The eight years’ peace, from 1748 to 1756, in America, was nothing but a series of continued hostilities, getting worse each year. Macaulay says: “The peace was, as regards Europe, but a truce ; it was not even a truce in other quarters of the globe.”

Cornwallis’s proclamation, ordering the Acadians to take an unrestricted oath, was, for Acadia, the cause or the pretext, at first, of secret hostilities, and ultimately of open war.

The enmity of the Indians for the English had always been carefully fostered ; it was the counterpoise which equalized the advantages of the two nations in this part of the continent. We shall presently see, as Parkman rightly says, that nothing was neglected by the French to urge them to hostilities, whether with a view to discourage the colonists introduced by Cornwallis or to force the Acadians to cross the frontier. A few days after this proclamation, De la Jonquiere wrote to the Minister of Colonies that Cornwallis, on his arrival, had issued a proclamation requiring from the Acadians an unrestricted oath; that this proclamation had filled them with alarm; and that he himself had given instructions to Captain de Boishebert to favor their departure. He informed him of the conferences he had had with the Indians:

“I did. not care to give them any advice upon the matter, and confined myself to a promise that I would on no account abandon them; and I have provided for supplying them with everything, whether arms, ammunition or other necessaries. It is to be desired that these savages should succeed in thwarting the designs of the English, and even their settlement at Halifax. They are bent on doing so; and if they can carry out their plans, it is certain that they will give the English great trouble, and so harass them that they will be a great obstacle in their path. These Savages are to act alone; neither soldier nor French inhabitant is to join them; everything will be done of their own motion, and without showing that I had any knowledge of the matter. This is very esssntial; therefore, I have written to the Sieur de Boishebert to observe great prudence in his measures, and to act very secretly, in order that the English may not perceive that tee are providing for the needs of the said Savages. It will be the missionaries who it-ill manage, all the negotiations, and direct the movements of the Savages, who are in excellent hands, as Father Germain and Abbe Le Imitre are very capable of making the most of them, and using them to the greatest advantage for our interests. They will manage their intrigue in such a way as not to appear in it.”

He went on to say that he hoped thus to prevent the English from making any new settlement, to remove the Acadians from them, and to discourage them by continual attacks of Indians, so as to make them give up their pretensions to the territories of the King of France.

Nothing can be clearer. De la Jonqui ore's suggestions, it appears, were approved by the French government. Tliis approval is both contemptible and inexcusable. This document is a stigma on France’s honor, and is doubly so, as it directly involves the Home Authorities. True, hostilities had been committed' shortly before in these parts by the English on the French and Indians; it would be no easy matter to ascertain satisfactorily which side was the first aggressor and on whom the blame, or most of it, rests; yet, as this letter shows that peace might .have been restored without these instigations, France’s guilt cannot be excused nor diminished to any great extent. The same reprobation may be applied, though with less force, to the participation of Le Loutre and Germain; history is justified in charging them with the vexations and atrocities committed by the Indians on the colonists of Halifax. However, in all fairness, I must once more direct attention to the fact that Fathers Germain and Le Loutre were missionaries among the Indians of French Acadia (Xe'>v Brunswick), and not among those of the Peninsula (Nova Scotia).

I have already mentioned how Le Loutre failed to make the Acadians of Grand Pre and of all the Mines Basin emigrate; I have also indicated the means he used toward those who dwelt at Beaubassin near the frontier. For fuller details as to these latter, I will quote Parkman, not because of the absolute accuracy of his facts, for his information is mainly derived from the questionable sources examined in the previous chapter, but because, in the absence of all other information, his account may be received as containing a substratum of truth, now that the reader is in a position to estimate the value of his authorities.

At page 116 of his work, “ Montcalm and Wolfe,”' Parkman says: “Resolved that the people of Beaubassin should not live under English influence, Le Loutre with his own hand (?) set fire to the parish church and this compelled the Acadians to cross to the French side of the river.”

Speaking of the inhabitants of Cobequid (now Truro), he says: “They began to move their baggage only when the savages compelled them.”

When Lawrence landed with his men to found Fort Lawrence on the frontier, there still remained, in the neighborhood of Beaubassin village, which had been destroyed some months before, and, on the English side, quite a number of houses and barns that had not been burned. “Le Loutre’s Indians,” says Parkman, “now threatened to plunder and kill the inhabitants if they did not take arms against the English. Few complied, and the greater part fled to the woods. On this the Indians and their Acadian allies set the houses and barns on fire, and laid waste the whole district, leaving the inhabitants no choice but to seek food and shelter with the French.”

At page 120 Parkman says: Le Loutre, fearing that they would return to their lands and submit to the English, sent some of them to isle St. Jean. They refused to go, but he compelled them at last, by threatening the Indians to pillage them, carrying off their wives and children, and even kill them before their eyes (?) ”

After making allowances for the exaggerations of details, I am not far from believing that these events really occurred pretty nearly as they are described. It must be said, however, in extenuation of Le Loutre’s conduct, that he acted on the understanding that the

Acadians would be fully indemnified for all their losses, and, if these promises were partially frustrated, the fault lies at the door of Intendant Bigot, Vergor and their accomplices, who kept, for their own benefit, the funds set apart for the relief of the Acadian refugees.

Men who, like Le Loutre, allow themselves to be carried away by religious fanaticism, almost always become dangerous as soon as they quit the sphere of religion to come down into the arena of worldly conflicts. He should have ceased pestering the Acadians to move, as soon as he met with decided resistance on their part; and, since he was so vigorously opposed by those who lived near the frontier, he had nothing to hope for from those whose remoteness placed them beyond his reach. His machinations could only serve to aggravate a situation that was already painful enough. Although the Acadians, as we shall see, never did anything that could justify either their deportation or any severity even remotely comparable to that, yet. when they weigh all the causes of their exile, they cannot shut their eyes to the unforgotten fact that the conduct of France toward them was impolitic, selfish and cruel, that it quickened latent prejudices and antipathy against them, and paved the way for the misfortunes that ensued. And here, as Parkman, in quoting Pichon, states facts of a public, nature, which could not be altogether unknown to the Halifax authorities, and which are partly sustained by, or in line with, I)e la JonquijSre’s letter, I would find no fault, provided he had given out the name of his authority, objectionable though it be.

The following letter of the Bishop of Quebec to Le Loutre shows what the prelate thought of his behavior:

“You have at last, my dear sir, got into the very trouble which I foresaw, and which I predicted long ago.

“The refugees could not fail to get into misery sooner or later, and to charge you with being the cause of their misfortunes. The Court thought it necessary to facilitate their departure from their lands, but it is not the concern of our profession. It was my opinion that we should neither say anything against the course pursued, nor anything to induce it. I reminded you a long time ago, that a priest ought not to meddle with temporal affairs, and that, if he did so, he would always create enemies and cause his people to be discontented.

“I am now persuaded that the General and all France will not approve of the return of the refugees to their lands, and the English Government must endeavour to attract them. . . But, is it right for you to refuse the sacraments, to threaten that they shall be deprived of the services of a priest, and that the savages shall treat them as enemies? I wish them conscientiously to abandon the lands they possessed under English rule; but can it be said that they cannot conscientiously return to them?”

The above letter shows the vast difference between a distinguished prelate and a fiery abbe of Le Loutre's stamp.

Iu the absence of clear documentary evidence to prove which side provoked the hostilities, prior to De la Jonquidre’s letter, we have to guide ourselves by the circumstances of the time, which show that the French had every motive to hinder the English from colonizing Nova Scotia, whereas the latter were just as much interested, for the moment, in avoiding all aggressions.

The first attack made by the Indians occurred August 19, 1749, about six weeks after Cornwallis’s arrival at Halifax. They captured twenty persons who were cutting hay at Canso, and brought them as prisoners to-Louisburg. where they were freed on the intervention of the French commandant: “The Indians pretend they did this,” says Cornwallis, “because a New England man who had ransomed his vessel of them for £100, and left his son hostage, never returned to them, though Colonel Hopson advanced him the money. I have written1 to Boston to have this examined and have the master, one Ellingwood, taken up.”

In September, Cornwallis again informs us, the Indians, under pretext of barter, attacked two vessels at Beaubassin; three Englishmen and seven Indians were killed. On the 30th of this same month, four men who were working in a mill were killed by the Indians, and another made prisoner. The next day, the Council of Halifax passed a resolution ordering all the commanders “ to annoy, distress, and destroy the Indians everywhere. That a premium of ten guineas be promised for every Indian killed or taken prisoner.”

While throwing most of the blame on the French, I think it only right to refer to the counter-accusations consigned in the French archives or elsewhere. Invariably the archives of one or the other nation contain nothing but accusations against the opposing nation; so that history based on the exclusive testimony of one of them, as has been more especially the case for Acadia, cannot but be altogether one-sided and incorrect.

“ Everybody knows,” wrote to the French Court the Comte de Raymond, commander at Louisburg, “ that, since the year of the last peace (1748), there has hardly been a month in which the English have not sent armed corsairs to visit the coasts of this colony.”

“Since the end of the year 1749,” says he elsewhere, “a date at which the English began to come in crowds to Chibouctou (Halifax) to settle there, the French have not been able to navigate in safety along the east coast, and even in the neighborhood of the island of Canso.....on account of the frequent threats made there. They have continued to capture vessels of all kinds, to lay hands on whatever they contained, and, at the same time, to seize on the mariners themselves.”

The Comte de Raymond supported these accusations by a uumber of facts related with the most circumstantial and precise details. He mentioned, among other things, that the English had seized, in this very year 1749, in a port of Cape Breton, three boats together with their crews, and had released them only after taking all the codfish the boats contained.

“They attacked and captured French boats plying between Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, ill-used the crews, laid hands on their cargoes and sometimes on their boats.”

On October 16, 1750, a brigantine belonging to the French navy, the Saint Framjois, laden with the provisions, clothing and arms destined to the French posts of the St. John River, was captured and looted.

In the Lettres et MSmoires sur le Cap Breton (Pichon) we read:

“Towards the end of July, 1749, when the news of the truce between the two crowns had not yet reached New France, the Indians had taken some of the English prisoners on the island of Newfoundland; but these prisoners, having informed them of the truce signed the previous year at Aix-la-Chapelle, they believed them on their mere word, treated them as brothers, released them from their bonds; but, in spite of so much kind treatment, these perfidious guests massacred, during the night, twenty-five Indians, men and women.”

“Towards the end of the month of December, 1744,” says another document, “Mr. Ganon (?), commanding a detachment of English troops .... found, in a lonely place, near Annapolis, two huts of Micmac Indians. In these huts were five women and three children, two of the women being pregnant; but, despite the feelings of humanity that such persons were likely to excite, the English not only plundered and burned these huts, but also massacred the five women and the three children. It was even found that the pregnant women had been disembowelled."

I have no intention of drawing a parallel between the misdeeds of the two nations, so as to decide which of them deserves more blame for the cruelty practised by the savages in the wars between the two nations or in those which they waged against the Indians. Owing to the circumstances of the time, the historian must shut his eyes, provided the authorities took reasonable pains to repress cruelty. A distinction must also be made, between the conduct of subalterns and that of superior officers. But the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the whites themselves against the Indians are inexcusable, and, in particular, those which are traceable to the authorities of Massachusetts against the Indians of Maine far exceed all other atrocities committed elsewhere, even those of the Indians themselves. I do not think that the French ever were guilty of anything that can remotely be compared to what I am about to relate. These facts are told in the same way by many historians; but I take them from Hannay, whom I have at hand:

“The Eastern Indians renewed the war in June, 1689, by the destruction of Dover, N. H., where Major Waldron and twenty-two others were killed and twenty-nine taken captive. Waldron richly deserved his fate, for more than twelve years before he had been guilty of a base act of treachery towards the Indians, which has doubtless since caused the spilling of much innocent blood. In 1676. Waldron, then commander of the militia at Dover, had made peace with four hundred Indians, and they were encamped near his house. Two companies of soldiers soon after arrived at Dover, and by their aid Waldron contrived a scheme to make the Indians prisoners. He proposed to the savages to have a review and sham fight after the English fashion, the militia and soldiers to form one party and the Indians another. After manoeuvring for some time, Waldron induced the Indians to tire the first volley, and the instant this was done they were surrounded by the soldiers, and the whole of them made prisoners. Some of them were set at liberty, but over two hundred were taken to Boston, where seven or eight were hanged and the rest sold into slavery. It "was to avenge this despicable act that Waldron was slain in 1689."

Again, page 288:

“One hundred and fifty Penobscot Indians made an attack on York in February, 1692. The place was surprised and all the inhabitants who were unable to escape killed or captured. About -seventy-five were slain. Several aged women and children were released and allowed to go to the garrisoned houses, to requite the English for sparing the lives of some of the Indian women and children at Pejepscot a year and a half before. This proves that the savages were not wholly destitute of gratitude, and that they had rather a nice sense of honor, for. it is worthy of note that at Pejepscot Church did not spare all the squaws and children, but only the wives of two chiefs, their children and two or three old squaws. All the other Indian women and the children, of which there was a large number, this squaw-killer Church slew in cold blood.”

Elsewhere, again:

"During the winter the English were guilty of an act of treacherous folly, unparalleled anywhere. Stoughton, Governor of Massachusetts, sent a message to the Indians, telling them to bring in their prisoners for exchange. They brought five English prisoners to Pemaquid for exchange. Captain Chubb persuaded them to deliver them up, promising to send to Boston at once for those desired in return. A conference was proposed inside the Fort, nine Indians and nine English only to be present without arms; the nine English had pistols concealed iu their bosoms. They were surrounded by a party of soldiers and all killed except two who escaped. Three of the Indians were chiefs of great renown. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the character of this scandalous transaction, further than to observe that it was a crime not only against the Indians, but also against the English settlers, who, in the end, were the greatest sufferers by all such treacherous acts. Such inexcusable crimes against faith and honesty as those of Waldron and Chubb, made it impossible for the Indians to believe that the English would keep any truce with them; for those instances of English treachery were told at the camp fires of every tribe from Cape Breton to Lake Superior, and they were repaid in kind in after years.

It will not be amiss to insert here the treatment of Father Rasle, who had been a missionary on the Kennebec River for forty years.

“'This Romanist,-’ says Smith, “was highly accomplished, and his life literally one long martyrdom. Being a correspondent and friend of the Governor of Canada, the English believed he might be the instigator of hostilities of the Indians. Their village was taken by surprise; Father Ralle, in hopes of diverting the attention of the enemy to himself and screen his beloved flock by his voluntary offering of his own life, fell together with seven Indian* who had rushed out to defend him with their bodies. When the pursuit had ceased, the Indians returned to find their missionary dead at the foot of the village cross, his body perforated with balls, his scalp taken, his skull broken with blows of hatchet, his mouth filled with mud, the bones of his legs broken and otherwise mangled. The death of Ralle caused great rejoicings in Massachusetts, and when Harmon, who was senior in command, carried the scalps of his victims to Boston (this string of bloody trophies including the scalps of women and children and an aged priest), he was received as if he had been some great general, fresh from the field of victory.

“A certain Captain Lovewell,” says Hannay, “emulous of Harmon’s fame as a taker of scalps, anti with patriotism fired by the large bounty offered by Massachusetts for that kind of article, gathered a band of volunteers and commenced scalp-hunting. They killed one Indian for whose scalp the company received £100. He started next year with forty men, surprised the Indians whose scalps netted £1,000. In a subsequent fight he lost his own scalp, as did thirty-four of his men.”

These barbarities were not, as is clear, perpetrated by irresponsible individuals acting on their own impulse, but by superior officers yielding to the stimulus of a government bounty. In the war which had just come to an end (1744-1748), this very government of Massachusetts had offered a bounty of £100 for the scalp of each male Indian above twelve years of age, and of £50 for the scalp of each woman or child. I am aware that, in certain circumstances, the French also offered bounties to the Indians for the scalps of their enemies, but I have yet to learn of a single instance where this bounty was applicable to either women or children; and —an essential difference—this hateful work, instead of being performed by whites, as was continually done in Massachusetts, was left to the savages. Moreover, during the last fifty years of the French regime in America the manners of the Indians had become more gentle, most probably thanks to the missionaries, so much so, indeed, that the usual custom was to make prisoners who were afterwards released on ransom.

No doubt the barbarous outrages of the Indians upon defenceless colonists put the latter into a state of great exasperation. They honestly thought that the only means of putting a stop to those crimes was to make use of reprisals in kind. This was a fatal blunder from every point of view; it was provoking a repetition of the same crimes, perpetuating hatred, delaying and spoiling the work of civilizing the savage. The least that white men should have done would have been to exhibit to the Indians a higher civilization by respecting pledges, by sparing the lives of women and children. These Indians were as amenable to gratitude as to revenge; and never would the French have acquired the immemorial ascendency they enjoyed over them, had they not respected their rights and abstained from such barbarities as I have related above. All the Indians of New Brunswick and Maine: Malecites, Abe-nakis, Medoctetes, constituted, together with the Micmacs of Acadia, one great family united by the bonds of kindred and friendship. An injury done to one of these tribes rankled for a long time in the breasts of all the others as a personal wrong. Under such conditions it is not to be wondered at if the Indians of Acadia were always the mortal enemies of the English.