by Dan Snow
The eventual subjugation and near extermination of the Native peoples of North America by industrial societies armed with repeating rifles and shrapnel shells distorts the reality of a conflict that was, in fact, fought over centuries and had, at times, promised a very different outcome. The first English and French colonies in North America in modern-day Virginia and Quebec respectively were abandoned in the face of Native American hostility. French Canada had teetered on the verge of destruction at the hands of her Native enemies for a century after its foundation. Right up until the large deployments of European troops during the Seven Years War the Iroquois Confederation represented the most powerful military entity on the eastern half of the continent. Their one lethal vulnerability was the lack of a developed industrial base to produce their own weapons and powder, on which they had become utterly dependent. But as long as European powers competed for North America then this weakness was hidden as all sides supplied muskets and ammunition in an attempt to gain favour or at least ensure neutrality.
French power relied on the acquiescence of the Native tribes west of Quebec. New France was more of an alliance than an empire. Native Americans took every opportunity to signal their independence. Bougainville recorded the speech of one Iroquois from La Presentation: ‘we have not renounced our liberty or the rights we hold from the Master of Life,’ he insisted. ‘It is only we who can give ourselves chiefs.’45 New French defence against the more populous British colonies had always depended on mobilizing Native warriors to pin British colonials back behind the Alleghenies. Many Native tribes were willing to fight for the French against the British because the French offered the prospect of coexistence whereas the British model of colonization clearly did not. A pro-French Native American spoke to his comrades in 1754 about the difference between the British and French:
Brethren, are you ignorant of the difference between our father [the French] and the English? Go and see the forts our father has created, and you will see that the land beneath their walls is still hunting ground, having fixed himself in those places we frequent only to supply our wants; whilst the English, on the contrary, no sooner get possession of a country than the game is forced to leave; the trees fall down before them, the earth becomes bare.46
The British came in vast numbers as farmers, hungry for land. The French, as the Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Pownall, realized, ‘have insinuated themselves into an influence with the Indians’. They had achieved this ‘by becoming hunters and creating alliances with the Indians as brother sportsmen…[behaving] according to the true spirit of the Indian laws of nations’.47 Frenchmen and Canadians travelled great distances with Native Americans in search of furs. It was not unusual for these men to take a Native wife and settle among them.
Scotsman Robert Kirk was captured in 1759 by Native Americans and was forcibly assimilated into a tribe to replace a lost relative. He asked his Native ‘brother’ ‘what was the reason, he and the rest of his nation had so much regard for the French, and such an antipathy to the English, and why they acted with so much inhumanity towards the settlers’. The Native American replied that ‘the French were kind to them, and dealt in everything towards them with honesty, whereas the English used them quite otherwise, several having wronged and in short given them nothing in return for their goods’. He added ‘that the lands now possessed by the English, formerly belonged to them, and that the French promised they should be restored; he remarked that the English instead of making this restitution were daily encroaching, and curtailing them of what was left’. When Kirk pointed out that God was not at all pleased ‘about all this murder’, the Native American pointed out that the Lord ‘was certainly angry with the white people for taking their lands’. It was particularly unfair since God ‘had given them [the Europeans] some things easy, their cows and other cattle coming home quiet and tame, whereas the Indians had great trouble in hunting and bringing home their provisions, and were frequently in extreme want when the snow fell deep’. This hostility to the British was bolstered by French gold. Kirk’s ‘brother’ admitted that the French ‘paid them well for all the scalps they took, which induced them more’.This payment was vital ‘as by that they were enabled to provide themselves with many necessaries, which they should otherwise be in want of’. The Native Americans had become reliant on European manufactured goods, scalps were one of the few commodities they could offer in return.48
There is a disagreement over the origin of scalping. Recent finds at Vindolanda, a Roman fort just south of Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England, suggest that Roman legionaries from Gaul, modern France, may have practised it.49 So it is possible that the habit was brought over with the French to Canada. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ explained that ‘there is no method of certifying their [Native American] services but by their producing some tokens of their exploits, the scalp is the most portable’. This led to ‘an inveteracy [that] has fathered all degrees of cruelty’ and meant that ‘inhumanity is inseparable from an Indian war’.50 Scalps became receipts for payment and tokens of military prowess. Warriors carried dried, stretched scalps on hoops on their belts. Bougainville wrote that ‘these are their trophies, their obelisks, their arches of triumph; the monuments which attest to other tribes and consign to posterity the valor [and] the exploits of the warriors’.51
Despite routinely referring to the Native Americans as ‘savages’, Vaudreuil regarded their friendship and support as central to the defence of New France. ‘We shall never be able to make those Indians move according to our desires,’ he wrote to Versailles at the beginning of 1759, ‘if we be not in a situation to relieve at least their most urgent wants.’52 Relations varied from tribe to tribe. Some Native Americans had settled in communities close to Quebec and adopted Christianity and European dress. These were the so-called ‘Mission Indians’ such as the Huron of Lorette. Others lived at St François and Sillery; they were the remnants of New England Algonquian who had found shelter among the Mahican, western Abenaki, and Mohegan, and smaller tribes of the Hudson River all of whom shared a hatred of the British colonists who had devastated their ancestral lands and driven the survivors into exile. The Abenaki of St François, in particular, were New France’s greatest allies. For years they had halted the expansion north of Massachusetts and were determined to protect their land, containing the bones of their ancestors, from annexation. Native Americans from further west were less subject to French control. The Missisaugas of Toronto, Ottawas and Potowatomis from Detroit, the Iowas, Foxes and Delawares from even further west came and went as they pleased. They would defend New France but only if they were well rewarded.
Bougainville’s diaries are dominated by descriptions of attempts by his general to keep the Native Americans onside. On one occasion he notes that the ‘Indians determine the route, the halts, the scouts, and the speed to make, and in this sort of warfare it is necessary to adjust to their ways’. It was certainly not how the officers of Louis’ army had expected to conduct operations. Bougainville never lost his distaste for it. Bending Native American troops to one’s will required ‘authority, brandy, equipment, food and such. The job never ends and is very irksome.’ Their different outlook proved exasperating for regular officers brought up to regard speed and decision as the greatest of virtues. On one occasion Bougainville lamented that ‘the caprice of an Indian is of all possible caprices the most capricious’.53
Yet despite the groaning of the regulars they were not just tolerated but actively encouraged because every man was a hunter and a warrior. At a time and in a situation of their choosing they could annihilate an enemy and put so great a fear in the hearts of the survivors that they never wanted to take to the field ever again. The Vikings, who briefly touched on the east coast of Newfoundland in the early eleventh century, recorded tales in their sagas of constant Native attacks from all sides, which forced them to retreat. Centuries later little had changed apart from the weapons. Native Americans were absolutely at home in the thick woodland
, patient in pursuit of a quarry, masters of their weapons, and Bougainville remarks that ‘one could not have better hearing than those people’.54 One of the Christian Native Americans told de Lévis that ‘thou hast brought into these places the art of war of this world which lies beyond the great ocean’. ‘We know that in this art you are a great master,’ he continued, ‘but for the science of the craft of scouting, we know more than thee. Consult us and thou will derive benefit from it.’55 Wise French commanders took his advice. Native Americans had to be left to fight in their own manner.
A Mohawk chief, Tecaughretanego, defined their doctrine just before the Seven Years War; ‘the art of war,’ he said, ‘consists in ambushing and surprising our enemies and in preventing them from ambushing and surprising us’.56 Throughout skirmishes with Native Americans they would remain unseen. At Monongahela one survivor wrote that ‘if we saw of them five or six at one time [it] was a great sight and they either on their bellies or behind trees or running from one tree to another almost on the ground’.57 They always strove to surround their enemy, spaced out so that every man had a clear field of fire. When pressed they withdrew and took up positions further back. If the terrain allowed, a blundering enemy could be drawn into their concave line, caught in a withering crossfire. Five years later William Smith was ‘attacked by savages’. He describes the sense of bewilderment: ‘He cannot discover them, though from every tree, log or bush, he receives an incessant fire, and observes that few of their shots are lost.’ If the defender attempts to counter-attack, ‘he will charge in vain. For they are as cautious to avoid a close engagement, as indefatigable in harassing his troops.’ ‘Notwithstanding all his endeavours,’ he concluded, ‘he will still find himself surrounded by a circle of fire, which, like an artificial horizon, follows him everywhere.’58 These tactics could destroy the morale of an enemy. Bougainville watched one encounter in 1757 in which ‘the English, terrified by the shooting, the sight, the cries and the agility of these monsters, surrendered almost without firing a shot’.59
John Johnson leaves a vivid description of a Native American’s method of attacking. They began ‘concealed behind some tree…in which station they continue with the utmost secrecy’. When the victim approaches, ‘they fire and very often kill him dead on the spot; for they seldom miss their aim, being excellent marksmen’. Without waiting to see the effect of their shot, ‘they immediately spring up to him, and with their butt, strike at his head and endeavour to beat out his brains’. If there is fight left in the victim, they will not close for the kill but stand off and ‘taking a cool and deliberate aim, they throw their Tomahawk…which they throw with great certainty for a considerable distance and seldom miss’. ‘No sooner have they delivered the Tomahawk,’ he reports, ‘but they spring up to him, with their scalping knife; which is made in every respect like our Kitchen carving knives, and generally at the first approach rip him open, and sometimes take out his heart.’
Finally, ‘they cut round the top of the crown, to the skull bone, and raising up one side of the skin, with the knife, with a jerk they tear it off by the hair, and the work is done; upon which they set up the Indian whoop, as a signal to their barbarous companions that the work is finished, as also a shout of triumph’.60 Bougainville relates atrocities performed by the Native Americans in battle, ‘even the recital of which is horrible’. ‘The cruelties and insolence of these barbarians is horrible,’ he wrote, ‘their souls are as black as pitch. It is an abominable way to make war; the retaliation is frightening, and the air one breathes here is contagious of making one accustomed to callousness.’ At the fall of Fort William Henry he watched as ‘they put in the pot and ate three prisoners’. ‘All have become slaves unless they are ransomed,’ he continued. ‘A horrible spectacle to European eyes.’61 Warriors wore scalps on their belts to demonstrate their military prowess or sold them to the French in return for gold. For both these reasons huge importance was attached to them, and securing them became an obsession which could derail an attack as Native Americans forgot the objective in an orgy of scalp taking. In 1755 a French commander ordered that ‘the Indians were not to amuse themselves scalping until the enemy be entirely defeated, inasmuch as ten men can be killed whilst one is being scalped’.62 The prospect of slaves and plunder also undermined their obedience, vague at the best of times. As a result the warriors were capable of frustrating their French superiors as much as they terrified the enemy. They inspired admiration and horror in equal measure, but despite their weaknesses Bougainville insisted that ‘in the midst of the woods of America one can no more do without them than without cavalry in open country’.63
It seems as though the fighting against the Native Americans and the Canadians, who stalked the British column along the track, was tough enough to make Brigadier Monckton reconsider the advance. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ was scathing. It claimed that Monckton gathered his senior officers around him and held ‘a kind of council’ at which they each ‘gave their opinion whether the post was tenable’. The journal reports that Wolfe ‘was amazed when he heard that such a counsel had been held, as he had given positive orders to occupy the post [Point Lévis], which he knew would be highly essential in his future operations’.64
Across the river Vaudreuil and the people of Quebec had been watching, quite literally, the course of the battle. Many had gathered by the batteries in the Upper and Lower Towns to squint at the column of red coats as it moved haltingly towards Point Lévis about two thousand yards away. Vaudreuil regarded the dogged performance of his beloved Canadians and Native Americans as justification for his high opinion of them. He wanted to reinforce the men on the south shore with ‘1000 or 2000 men, Canadians and Savages’. Advocates of this plan pointed out that the broken terrain was ‘most congenial to the habits and inclinations of Canadians and savages, who passed their lives in the woods, and forests; and their local knowledge would afford them many means of annoying the enemy, and give them so decided a superiority, as must ensure their defeating the English however numerous they might be’.65 A journal, written by a usually disparaging French regular officer, agreed. He records that the Native Americans arrived back on the north bank with thirty scalps, a figure that roughly tallies with Knox’s estimate. In the light of this success, he writes that ‘had a more considerable force been ordered out upon this service, sufficient to have brought on a serious affair, and to have ended it to our advantage, it certainly had been more for the interest of our generals’. He mentions that it ‘was proposed’, but ‘did not tally with the plan of defence agreed on’ so it was ‘rejected and dropped’.66
Confusingly Montcalm’s journal suggests that he agreed with the proposal. It states that ‘Montcalm went to the town to confront Vaudreuil with the need to send more troops to Lévis before the English settled in.’67 The reason for French hesitation on this occasion, apart from an ambiguous command structure which choked bold decision making, was that they were thoroughly tricked by a newly arrived British prisoner captured by the Native Americans. His name is lost to history although his impact on the campaign was substantial. Prisoners and deserters were by far the most effective source of information available to either general, one of the only ways to get a sense of what was happening in their enemy’s camp. Generals would very often carry out the interrogations themselves, such was their value. Montresor recorded that three prisoners were captured by Monckton’s men during the course of their march and they ‘were brought over to Major General Wolfe and were examined’.68 A French journal records that during the interrogation this British prisoner insisted that the ‘landing at the Point Levis, was merely a stratagem to veil the real designs of the English’ and instead Wolfe ‘intended that very night making an attack upon Beauport with 10,000 men’.69 This was utter fantasy. Not only did Wolfe not have 10,000 men, he had absolutely no intention of throwing his army in a night attack against an impregnable French position on the north shore of the river, especially not when he regarded the naval situ
ation in the basin as unacceptable thanks to the timidity of his fleet. It was a stunning bluff but Vaudreuil and the French fell for it completely. A French officer wrote that the news ‘disconcerted a plan which had been formed, to convey a large body of troops across the river to drive the enemy from that quarter before securing the position there’. Vaudreuil countermanded his orders to the Canadian militiamen who were preparing to cross. Instead, every man who could shoulder a musket spent the night armed and ready in the town and the camp having taken ‘all possible precautions to give them a warm reception on landing’.70 Canadians, French regulars, and cavalrymen waited at their battle-stations. One Canadian journal records that ‘everybody was under arms during the night’ and ‘the gates of the town were closed for the first time’.71 Montcalm and Bougainville inspected the army’s positions with an engineer in tow. Montcalm’s journal says scornfully that Vaudreuil and Bigot were present but were ready in a flash ‘to jump on their horses and save themselves’.72
The attack never came. Panet lamented that ‘nothing could have been so untrue’.73 The expectant French troops were overwhelmed by nerves and exhaustion. They mistook a ripple, a seabird, or a friendly sentry for a landing. A French officer wrote that ‘it happened at break of day; by some misunderstanding, the origin of which could not be discovered, the militia of the right fired without any cause, a general discharge of musketry; we thought ourselves attacked in that quarter; the whole army flew to arms and rushed thither’.74 The noise was enough to catch the attention of Wolfe, who noted in his journal that there was ‘great firing…a little before daybreak’. He assumed it was ‘an attack upon some post of Br. Monckton’s corps’. In fact, ‘it turned out to be a false alarm in the French camps on the Beauport side’.75 Little did he know that he had a British soldier to thank that it was the latter rather than the former.
