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.Quarrels among his Indian allies and a growing fear as theypushed farther into Iroquois territory caused several of hisIndian allies to abandon him.Champlain doggedly pushed on.By late July, the partyreached the largest freshwater lake Champlain had ever seen, The Father of New France 45In the early seventeenth century, French explorer Samuel de Champlain,depicted here in a statue on Nepean Point in Ottawa, Ontario, developeda lucrative trading colony near Stadacona, which his party named Kebec, an Algonquian word meaning  where the river narrows.Champlain would go on to serve as the unofficial governor ofQuebec and would later discover the lake in New York State thatbears his name. 46 THE ST.LAWRENCE RIVERwhich he named after himself.On the evening of June 29, alongthe lake where a major French garrison, Fort Ticonderoga,would one day stand, Champlain and his men spotted canoesof the Mohawks, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois.Whatfollowed was a strange encounter in the wilderness of NorthAmerica:  The two parties approached each other openly and achallenge to battle was exchanged in jeering voices across thetranquil water. 32 The Iroquois could not be lured out into thewater for a fight, however, choosing instead to go ashore, wherethey built campfires and began to dance and chant war songs, ascare tactic they kept up throughout the night.Champlain andhis allies lashed their canoes together, spending the night in therelative safety of the water.The next day delivered war to the shores of the remotefrontier lake:In the morning the three Frenchmen donned their breast-plates, which were so highly polished that they caught therays of the rising sun and sent fingers of reflected light outacross the waters of the lake.Champlain himself donned acasque [helmet] with a white plume as the mark of leadership.The men loaded their carbines and filled the ammunitionstraps slung across their shoulders.Each of them wasequipped as well with sword and dagger.Their fingers weresteady and their eyes did not waver as they peered into thedepths of the forest where the Iroquois were preparing.33As the Iroquois approached for battle, Champlain soonrealized that he was facing as many as 200 warriors, whovastly outnumbered his allies.Leading them were three chiefscarrying stone hatchets.The Frenchmen knew they had anadvantage because of their firearms.Native Americans didnot yet have access to such weapons, and the arquebuses(matchlock guns) proved vital to the outcome of the day s The Father of New France 47bloody encounter.As the three chiefs approached, Champlainraised his large-barreled weapon, which was loaded with fourbullets, and took aim at the Iroquois chiefs.In a fiery gun blast,a new sight to the Iroquois, Champlain managed to down allthree chiefs, killing two instantly.Stunned, confused, andangered, the Iroquois launched a barrage of arrows toward thegathered Hurons.In seconds, one of Champlain s men emergedon the Iroquois flank and fired into a band of warriors, whichcaused a general panic and retreat.Inspired by the effects ofthe Frenchmen s gunshots, the Algonquians sprang intoaction, chasing the fleeing Iroquois with war clubs, hatchets,and scalping knives.They caught several of the enemy, killedthem, and managed to capture a dozen warriors.The Iroquoisencampment was taken, and the Algonquians seized theirenemies canoes and destroyed them.The battle was overalmost as soon as it had begun.That evening, the Algonquians took one of their captives andtortured him,  tearing out his fingernails, pressing red-hotstones to his writhing limbs, ripping deep strips of flesh fromhis hide after breaking his bones and exposing the tendons. 34Champlain wrote how the Algonquians  ordered him to sing[his death song], if he had the heart.He did so, but it was a verysad song to hear. 35 Sickened by the display, Champlain wasgranted permission to fire a bullet into the suffering warrior.The quick and decisive victory against the Iroquois broughtabout by the use of French guns caused the Algonquians todevelop a strong alliance with the French, one that wouldcontinue for nearly two centuries.Champlain engaged in asecond attack against the Iroquois a year later; this attackamounted to little more than a massacre of dozens of Iroquoiswarriors, with firearms again ruling the day [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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