Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

History of Montgomery and Fulton Counties, NY
F. W. Beers & Co. 36 Vesey Street, 1878

THE HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY

CHAPTER II.

THE MOHAWKS, AND THEIR WARS WITH THE FRENCH-
FIRST COUNCIL IN THEIR COUNTRY-THEIR CASTLES.

The Mohawks were the most eastern of the Five Nations. They claimed dominion over a region extending from the vicinity of Albany, on the Hudson, westerly to the head waters of the Susquehanna and Delaware, and thence northerly to the St. Lawrence river, and embracing all the land between this river and Lake Champlain. Their actual northern limits were not definitely fixed, but they appear to have claimed as hunting grounds all the lands between the St. Lawrence and St. Johns rivers. This was a subject of continual dispute between them and other tribes. The French began the settlement of Canada in 1603, under a patent granted by Henry IV. to Pierre Du Gast, and were the first Europeans with whom the Mohawks came in contact. The circumstances were such as to make these Indians for a long period bitterly hostile to the French, the latter having been first met by them as allies of the Algonquins, enemies of the Mohawks. To overcome this hostility, which was most prejudicial to the commercial interests of France, was the task of the French priests. As soon as the settlement of Canada was fairly begun, La Carnon, a Franciscan, at the solicitation of Champlain, governor of the new colony, entered the field as a missionary, and as early as 1616 had penetrated the wilderness to the Mohawk country, being undoubtedly the first white man to behold the now famous river, and its beautiful valley. The Franciscans were succeeded in 1633 by the Jesuits, who, in the interest of trade as well as religion, went alone and unarmed among the savages, exhibiting in their exposure to perils and hardships the most striking examples of courage, patience, and self-denial. Among the Five Nations, however, the labors of the priests were for more than half a century of little avail, especially among the Mohawks, at whose hands three of the Jesuit missionaries suffered martyrdom with the spirit of the primitive apostles. The captivity and fate of Jogues exemplify their persistence, and the heroism with which they met death. In 1642 he and a number of others were captured, by a party of the Iroquois, on the St. Lawrence. While being taken into the interior they came into the hands of the Mohawks near Lake George, and were compelled to run the gauntlet . On reaching the villages of the Mohawks Jogues was made to run the gauntlet twice more for their amusement. During his captivity he was frequently tormented with the most heartless cruelty. His fingers and toes were removed joint by joint, and his body and limbs mutilated with burning sticks and hot irons. He suffered in this way for fifteen months, when, through the influence of the Dutch, he was released, and returned to France. He afterward came back to this country, and in 1646 repaired to the scenes of his sufferings to prosecute his missionary work. He was immediately apprehended, and put to death by the most excruciating tortures, at the village of Caughnawaga, where Fonda now stands. However interrupted in their labors the Jesuits would not give them up, until they had finally, about 1670, converted these very Indians of Caughnawaga, and induced them to remove to Canada.

In 1659 the Mohawks, suffering from their conflicts with the French, and crippled by their warriors getting liquor from the Dutch, sent a delegation to Albany, then called Fort Orange, to ask for aid and a stoppage of the sale of liquor. The speaker of the tribe complained of the Dutch, saying that they called his people brothers, and were bound to them by a chain; but this continued only so long as they had beavers, after which they were no longer thought of. He complained because the gunsmith refused to repair their arms, and that ammunition was withheld from them when they had no wampum. He requested that men and horses might be furnished them, to cut and draw timber, so they could build forts for their protection. The commander at Fort Orange could give them no reply, but promised to submit their request to the governor, whose arrival was daily expected. The governor, however, not making his appearance in several days, the people at Fort Orange began to be alarmed, and deemed it prudent to send ambassadors to the Mohawks, to reply to their request. A formal council for this purpose was held at Caughnawaga in September, 1659, which was the first ever held in the Mohawk country.

In the spring of 1666, the Governor of Canada resolved upon the total destruction of the Mohawks, and invaded their country with the Adirondacks, and a strong French force, but his success was not so complete" as he had contemplated. The march through the primitive forests was tedious. When the expedition had finally arrived near the Mohawk villages the Indians abandoned them and retired to the woods,and all that the French were able to do in lessening their numerical force was to murder some of the old men who chose to die rather than desert their houses. Having planted the cross, (the triumph and glory of which were made the pretence for this expedition,) celebrated Mass, and sung the TE DEUM, the invaders set fire to the palisades and wigwams, and retraced their steps to Canada. The Indians, who were awed by the great number of the enemy, and their firearms, thought it proper to ask for peace, which was concluded the following year.

Not only were the Mohawks harrassed by the French and their Indian allies from the north, but they were involved in bloody war with the Mohicans, through which they became so much weakened and humbled, that in the spring of 1669 they sent an embassy to Quebec to solicit aid, asking that their nation might be protected from the Mohicans by the King of France. They were so far successful as to secure the co-operation of the Jesuit missionaries, in resisting an attack upon them by the Mohicans. The latter, and their allies invaded the Mohawk country, and on the i8th of August, 1669, besieged the palisaded village of Caughnawaga. The resistance offered by the Mohawks was so spirited and effectual that they soon retreated. The Mohawks descended the river in pursuit, and getting in advance of them, formed an ambuscade at a place commanding the road to Schenectady, where they waited their approach. A conflict ensued, in which the Mohawks were at length repulsed. The Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas joined with the Mohawks and invaded the country of the Mohicans, but without success.

The French, having instigated some of the Iroquois to commit depredations on the frontier of Virginia, the latter were called to account at a council held at Albany, in 1684, at which Governor Dougan so completely won them over that they requested that the coat of arms of the Duke of York might be displayed in all their castles. Dongan gladly complied with a request which could be interpreted as submission to the English authority, if it should become desirable to put that construction upon it ; and he also presented some of the chiefs with medals showing that they were English subjects.

At the opening of the year 1690, France and England being at war, the converted Caughnawaga Indians, who had removed to Canada, joined the French under Count Frontenac in a descent upon the lower Mohawk settlements. Near midnight, on the 8th of February, the inhabitants of Schenectady were roused from their slumbers by the horrid yells of the savages as they burst into the town, broke open the doors and began an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children. The torch was applied to complete the destruction, and only one of the eighty well built houses in the village was spared. Sixty persons lost their lives in this massacre and twenty-seven were carried into captivity. The remainder fled, naked, toward Albany, through a deep snow, while a fierce storm was raging, and twenty-five of these poor fugitives were so badly frozen that they lost their limbs. The Mohawks residing in the village were spared in order to show that tribe, as well as the other nations of the confederacy, that it was not them but the English whom the French wished to afflict. But the Mohawks, instead of being won over to the French by terror of these scenes, only sympathized with their suffering and unfortunate neighbors, joined with a party from Albany in pursuit of the invaders in their retreat, and sent their war parties to again harrass the Canadian frontier. But the civil commotions which the colony of New York continued to experience so engrossed public attention, that the Five Nations were left to contend with the common enemy without much assistance from the English, and consequently they became disaffected, insomuch that at the solicitation of the Caughnawagas. the Mohawks sent an embassy to Canada to confer with Count Frontence about peace. To defeat this purpose, a council was held at Albany with the other nations of the confederacy, who renewed the chain of friendship, and resolved to prosecute the war against the French. The Mohawks afterwards confessed to having had negotiations with the French, and hastened to join in renewing their league with the English.

Count Frontenac finally finding all his efforts for accomplishing a peace with the Five Nations unavailing, determined to invade the country of the Mohawks. Collecting an army of six or seven hundred French and Indians at Montreal for this purpose, he set out in January, 1693, and after a tiresome march through the snow, arrived at and surprised the lower castle of the Mohawks, situated near the confluence of the Mohawk and Schoharie rivers. This castle was captured without much resistance, and the middle castle was taken with equal ease, the warriors being mostly absent. On assailing the upper castle, however, the invaders met with more resistance. They found about forty warriors engaged in a war-dance preparatory to some expedition they were about to enter upon. A conflict ensued, in which the French lost about thirty men before they succeeded in subduing their enemies. About three hundred of the Mohawks were taken prisoners in this invasion. The people of Schenectady, though apprised of the enemy's march, gave the Mohawks, their neighbors, no assistance nor informed them of the approaching danger. At this the Mohawks were much displeased. Immediately on hearing of this invasion, Schuyler, with the militia of Albany, joined by a party of the Indians, pursued and harrassed them in their retreat, and succeeded in retaking about fifty of the Indian captives.

It is difficult to locate the site of some of the Mohawk villages designated castles, a term which, implied places furnished with palisades or some other protection that distinguished them from more migratory and less defensible villages. At an early day these Indians built their huts near together, the better to resist an invading foe. Great danger from an enemy, however, sometimes compelled a migration of the camp, or convenience of hunting or fishing dictated it. The Mohawks once had a strong castle nearly four miles south of Fort Plain, in a well chosen position, on an elevated tongue of land between two streams, called Indian Hill. This plateau presents on the west toward the Otsquene an impractic able bluff. The northern declivity of the hill is more gentle, and thirty or forty rods below its termination the stream mentioned empties into the Otsquago. Upon the hillside the entrance of the castle may still be traced, as the ground has never been cultivated. The relics found here, including fragments of pottery, bones, bone implements, fresh water clam shells, etc., indicate that the place was probably early and long one of the chief strongholds of the tribe. It is believed that the occupancy of this site should be dated more than 250 years ago. The Mohawks also had a castle within the present limits of Fort Plain, at the termination of the high ground on the east side of the Otsquago, now called Prospect Hill. This site was occupied much later than the other, as shown by the discovery of rings, wampum shells, etc., introduced by the Jesuits, or others of the first white men who ventured into the valley. The position of this village was also well chosen for defence and observation. It is said to have been called by the Indians Ta-ragh-jo-rees-Healthy Place.

For the last half century of the tribal existence of the Mohawks in their own beautiful valley they had but two villages designated as castles. Of these the Canajoharie, or upper castle, was situated in the present town of Danube, and the lower on the east bank of the Schoharie creek, at its junction with the Mohawk. The latter bore the Indian name of Dyiondarogon.

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