The Richelieu empties into the St. Lawrence below Montreal. On down the St. Lawrence, thick with melting ice, hastened the canoes, until Quebec, the capital of the province, was within sight.
Four miles above Quebec there had been founded another mission for Christian Indians. It was named Sillery. Here a number of Algonkins had erected a village of log huts, on a flat beside the river, under the protection of a priests" house, church and hospital.
As they approached Sillery, the Piskaret party raised their eleven scalps on eleven long poles. While they drifted, they chanted a song of triumph, and beat time to it by striking their paddles, all together, upon the gunwales of their canoes.
The two captives, believing that the hour of torture was near, sang their own songs of defiance.
That was a strange sight, to be nearing Sillery. So the good father in charge of Sillery sent a runner to Quebec. He himself, with his a.s.sistants, joined the crowd of Algonkins gathered at the river sh.o.r.e.
The canoes came on. The scalps and the two prisoners were plain to be seen. Piskaret! It was the noted warrior Piskaret! Guns were being fired, whoops were being exchanged, and the mission father waited, hopeful and astonished.
Now the chief of the Sillery Algonkins, who had been baptised to the name of Jean Baptiste, made a speech of welcome, from the sh.o.r.e.
Standing upright in his canoe, Piskaret the champion replied. And now a squad of French soldiers, hurrying in from Quebec, added to the excitement with a volley of salute.
Piskaret landed, proud not only that he had again whipped the Iroquois, but that he had acted like a Christian toward his captives. He had not burned them nor gnawed off their finger tips. And instead of giving them over for torture by other Algonkins, he had brought them clear down the river, to the governor.
The scalp trophies were planted, like flags, over the doorways of the Sillery lodges. The two captives were placed under guard until the governor should arrive from Quebec. The happy Father Jesuit bade everybody feast and make merry, to celebrate the double victory of Piskaret.
The governor of this New France hastened up from Quebec, hopeful that at last a way had been opened to peace with the dread Iroquois.
Clad in his brilliant uniform of scarlet and lace, he sat in council at the mission house, to receive Piskaret and the captives. With him sat the Father Jesuit, the head of the mission, and around them were grouped the Christian Algonkins.
The two Mohawks were brought in, and by a long speech Piskaret surrendered them to the governor. Governor Montmagny replied, praising him for his good heart and gallant deed--and of course rewarding him with presents, also.
The two Mohawks thought that their torture was only being postponed a little, until the French were on hand to take part in it. To their minds, the council was held for the purpose of deciding upon the form of torture. They had resolved to die bravely.
But to their great astonishment, the governor told them that their lives were spared and that they were to be well treated.
Rarely before, in all the years of war between the Iroquois and other nations, had such a thing occurred. To be sure, now and then a captive had been held alive, but only after he was so much battered that he was not worth finishing, or else had been well punished and was saved out, as a reward for his bravery.
So the big man, of the two captives, rose to make a speech in reply to the offer by the governor. He addressed him as "Onontio," or, in the Mohawk tongue, "Great Mountain," which was the translation of the name Montmagny.
"Onontio," he said, "I am saved from the fire; my body is delivered from death. Onontio, you have given me my life. I thank you for it.
I will never forget it. All my country will be grateful to you. The earth will be bright; the river calm and smooth; there will be peace and friendship between us. The shadow is before my eyes no longer.
The spirits of my ancestors slain by the Algonkins have disappeared.
Onontio, you are good: we are bad. But our anger is gone; I have no heart except for peace and rejoicing."
He danced, holding up his hands to the ceiling of the council chamber, as if to the sky. He seized a hatchet, and flourished it--but he suddenly flung the hatchet into the wood fire.
"Thus I throw down my anger! Thus I cast away the weapons of blood!
Farewell, war! Now I am your friend forever!"
Naturally, Piskaret might feel much satisfied with himself, that he had followed the teachings of the priests and had spared the enemies who had fallen into his hands.
The two captives were permitted to move about freely. After a while they were sent up-river to the trading-post and fort of Three Rivers, where there was another Iroquois. Having suffered cruel torture he had been purchased by the French commander of the post.
This Iroquois, after seeing and talking with the two, was given presents, and started home, to carry peace talk from Onontio to the Five Nations. The great Onontio stood ready to return the two other prisoners, also, unharmed, if the Iroquois would agree to peace.
In about six weeks the Iroquois peace messenger came into Three Rivers with two Mohawk chiefs to represent the Mohawk nation.
Now there was much ceremony, of speeches and feasts, not only by the French of the post, but also by the Algonkins and the Hurons. The governor came up. In a grand peace council Chief Kiosaton, the head amba.s.sador, made a long address. After each promise of good-will he pa.s.sed out a broad belt of wampum, until the line upon which the belts were hung was sagging with more than fifteen.
By these beaded belts the promises were sealed.
Piskaret was here. It was necessary for him to give a present that should "wipe out the memory of the Iroquois blood he had shed," and this he did.
With high-sounding words the Mohawks left by sailboat for the mouth of the Richelieu, to continue on south to their own country. Another council had been set, for the fall. Then the more distant tribes of the Algonkins and the Hurons should meet the Iroquois, here at Three Rivers, and seal a general peace.
At that greater council many belts of wampum were pa.s.sed--to clear the sky of clouds, to smooth the rivers and lakes and trails, to break the hatchets and guns and shields, and the kettles in which prisoners were boiled; to wash faces clean of war-paint and to wipe out the memory of warriors slain.
There were dances and feasts; and in all good humor the throng broke up.
Peace seemed to have come to the forests. The Piskaret party might well consider that they had opened the way. The happy priests gave thanks to Heaven that their prayers had been answered, and that the hearts of the Iroquois, the Algonkins and the Hurons were soft to the teachings of Christianity.
Now, would the peace last?
Yes--for twelve months, with the Mohawks alone. After which, saying that the Black Robe priests had sent them a famine plague in a box, the Mohawks seized new and sharper hatchets, again sped upon the war-trail to the St. Lawrence; and smote so terribly that at last they killed, in the forest, even Piskaret himself, while singing a peace-song he started to greet them.
The Algonkin peoples and the Hurons were driven like straw in the wind.
Many fled west and south, into the Great Lakes country, and beyond.
CHAPTER III
OPECHANCANOUGH, SACHEM OF THE PAMUNKEYS (1607-1644)
WHO FOUGHT AT THE AGE OF ONE HUNDRED
The first English-speaking settlement that held fast in the United States was Jamestown, inland a short distance from the Chesapeake Bay coast of Virginia, in the country of the Great King Powatan.
The Powatans, of at least thirty tribes, in this 1607 owned eight thousand square miles and mustered almost three thousand warriors.
They lived in a land rich with good soil, game and fish; the men were well formed, the women were comely, the children many.
But before the new settlers met King Powatan--whose t.i.tle was sachem (chief) and whose real name was Wa-hun-so-na-cook--they met his brother O-pe-chan-can-ough, sachem of the Pamunkey tribe of the Powatan league.
A large, masterful man was Opechancanough, sachem of the Pamunkeys.
The Indians themselves said that he was not a Powatan, nor any relation of their king; but that he came from the princely line of a great Southern nation, distant many leagues. This may be the reason that, although he was allied to Chief Powatan, he never joined him in friendship to the whites, who, he claimed, if not checked would over-run the Indians" hunting-grounds.
The Indians of Virginia did not wish to have the white men among them.
They were living well and comfortably, before the white men came; after the white men came, with terrible weapons and huge appet.i.tes which they expected the Indians to fill, and a habit of claiming all creation, clouds veiled the sky of the Powatans, their corn-fields and their streams were no longer their own.
Powatan, the head sachem, collected guns and hatchets and planned to stem the tide while it was small. But these English enticed his daughter Pocahontas aboard a vessel, and there held her for the good behavior of her father.
Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an English gentleman of the colony. Now for the first time Powatan was won, for he loved his daughter and the honest treatment of her at English hands pleased him.
Opechancanough but bided his time, until 1622. He was a thorough hater; his weapons were treachery as well as open war; he had resolved never to give up his country to the stranger.