"HE RESTED HIS MUSKET." he first revealed to them the terrible power of fire-arms. He it was, of all men, who began for them that series of lessons in the military art by which the Frenchmen doubled the terrors of Indian warfare. Champlain has portrayed vividly for us with pen and pencil the early stages of that alliance which in later years made the phrase "French and Indian" the symbol of all that was most to be dreaded in the way of conflict. He describes picturesquely, for instance, an occasion when he and his Algonquin allies marched together against the Iroquois; and his Indians told him if he could only kill three particular chiefs for them they should win the day. Reaching a promontory which Mr. Slafter believes to have been Ticonderoga, they saw the Iroquois approaching, with the three chiefs in front, wearing plumes. Champlain then told his own allies that he was very sorry they could not understand his language better, for he could teach them such order and method in attacking their enemies that they would be sure of victory; but meanwhile he would do what he could. Then they called upon him with loud cries to stand forward; and so, putting him twenty paces in front, they advanced. Halting within thirty paces of the enemy, he rested his musket against his cheek and aimed at one of the chiefs. The musket-a short weapon, then called an arquebus-was loaded with four balls. Two chiefs fell dead, and another man was mortally wounded. The effect upon the Iroquois must have been like that of fire from heaven. These chiefs were dressed in armor made of cotton fibre, and arrow-proof, yet they died in an instant! The courage of the whole band gave way, and when another Frenchman fired a shot from the woods, they all turned and fled precipitately, abandoning camp and provisions-a whole tribe, and that one of the bravest, routed by two shots from French muskets. This was in July, 1609. On his voyage of the following year he also taught the same Indians how to attack a fortified place. Until that time their warlike training had taught them only how to track a single enemy or to elude him; or at most, gathered in solid masses, to pour in showers of arrows furnished with those sharp stone heads so familiar in our collections. We know from descriptions elsewhere given by Champlain that the chief strategy of the Indians lay in arranging and combining these masses of bowmen. This they planned in advance by means of bundles of sticks a foot long, each stick standing for a soldier, with larger sticks for chiefs. Going to some piece of level ground five or six feet square, the head chief stuck these sticks in the ground according to his own judgment. Then he called his companions, and they studied the arrangements. It was a plan of the battle-a sort of Indian Kriegspiel, like the German military game that has the same object. The warriors studied the sticks under the eye of the chief, and comprehended the position each should occupy. Then they rehearsed it in successive drills. We are thus able to understand-what would otherwise be difficult to explain-the compact and orderly array which Champlain's pictures represent. It was with a band of warriors thus trained that Champlain set forth from Quebec, in June, 1610, to search for a camp of Iroquois. The Indian guides went first, armed, painted, naked, light-footed, and five Frenchmen marched after them, arrayed in heavy corselets for defence, and bearing guns and ammunition. It was an alliance of hare and tortoise, but in this case the hare kept in front. Champlain describes their discom forts as they tramped in their heavy accoutrements through pathless swamps, with water reaching to their knees, far behind their impatient leaders, whose track they found it hard to trace. Suddenly they came upon the very scene where the fight had begun, and when the savages perceived them, "they began to shout so that one could not have heard it thunder." In the midst of this tumult Champlain and his four companions approached the Iroquois fortress-built solidly of large trees arranged in a circle-and coolly began to fire their muskets through the logs at the naked savages within. He thus describes the scene, which is also vividly depicted in one of his illustrations, here given: "You could see the arrows fly on all sides as thick as hail. The Iroquois were astonished at the noise of our muskets, and especially that the balls penetrated better than their arrows. They were so frightened at the effect produced that, seeing several of their companions fall wounded and dead, they threw themselves on the ground whenever they heard a discharge, supposing that the shots were sure. We scarcely ever missed firing two or three balls at one shot, resting our muskets most of the time on the side of their barricade. But seeing that our ammunition began to fail, I said to all the savages that it was necessary to break down their barricades and capture them by storm, and that in order to accomplish this they must take their shields, cover themselves with them, and thus approach so near as to be able to fasten stout ropes to the posts that supported the barricades, and pull them down by main strength, in that way making an opening large enough to permit them to enter the fort. I told them that we would meanwhile, by our musketry fire, keep off the enemy as they endeavored to prevent them from accomplishing this; also that a number of them should get behind some large trees which were near the barricade, in order to throw them down upon the enemy, and that others should protect them with their shields, in order to keep the enemy from injuring them. All this they did very promptly." Thus were the military lessons begun-not lessons in the use of fire-arms alone, but in strategy and offensive tactics, to which the same class of instructors were destined later to add an improved mode of fortification. So completely did Champlain and his four Frenchmen find themselves the masters of the situation, that when some young fellows, countrymen of their own, and still better types of the voyageur than they themselves were, came eagerly up the river in some trading barks to see what was going on, Champlain at once ordered the savages who were breaking down the fortress to stop, "so that the new-comers should have their share in the sport.” He then gave the guns to the young French traders, and let them amuse themselves by shooting down a few defenceless. Iroquois before the walls fell. Out of a At last the fort yielded. "This, then, is the victory obtained by God's grace," as Champlain proudly says. hundred defenders, only fifteen were found alive. All these were put to death by tortures except one, whom Champlain manfully claimed for his share, and saved; and he was perhaps the first to describe fully those frightful cruelties and that astonishing fortitude which have since been the theme of so much song and story, and to point out, moreover, that in these refinements of barbarity the women exceeded the men. Later they were joined on the war-path by a large force of friendly Indians, "who had never before seen Christians, for whom they conceived a great admiration." This admiration was not destined, as in the case of the Spaniards and English, to undergo a stern reaction, but it lasted till the end of the French power on the American continent, and did a great deal to postpone that end. If the control of the New World could have been secured solely through the friendship and confidence of its native tribes, North America would have been wholly French and Roman Catholic to-day. |