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The migrations from Iroquoia to the mission settlements that occurred as a result of recent diplomatic and military offensives provided the key to Christian and League Iroquois reconciliation. Waves of newcomers to these settlements brought communities on either side of the divide closer to each other than they had been in recent years, with the newest Christian Iroquois softening the attitudes of long-time, more zealous community members. The conclusion of the Peace of Ryswick between the France and England in September of 1697 also did much to ease relations.69 Though Franco-Iroquois peace negotiations would remain inconclusive for a few years still, owing to Frontenac’s insistence that his Great Lakes allies be included in any treaty and to his unwillingness to accept anything less than full submission from the Five Nations, the state of intercolonial peace gave a new vitality to the dialogue between the French, the Christian Iroquois, and those of the League – and particularly the Mohawks, whose ties to the New Yorkers had been the strongest. Until this point, those who had travelled to the missions from Iroquoia or vice versa had generally done so alone or in small official delegations. Now they could travel in larger groups. Early in the summer of 1698, several Kahnawakes, motivated by “curiosity, or a desire to see their relatives” reached the Mohawk villages.70 Conversely, the French observed that during the fall “some Mohawk families came on a visit to their relatives at the Saut, and possibly some will settle there. They are left at perfect liberty, and walk daily in the streets of Montreal with as much confidence as if Peace were perfectly ratified. We do not wish to alarm them, and possibly their example will serve to bring the others to their duty.”71
Benefitting from a greater freedom of movement than at any time during the previous decade, the Christian Iroquois continued to act as diplomatic emissaries between Montreal and Onondaga. Otacheté, though discredited among both the French and his people for having entertained fanciful ambitions of full-scale migration, continued to relay messages to Oneida and Onondaga. A young man from Kahnawake named Tegayesté, who had accompanied him on one occasion to Onondaga, was himself entrusted with a wampum belt at the time of his return in the fall of 1698, with which the Onondagas asked the Canadian Iroquois to intercede with the governor to obtain peace. Similar overtures had been made in the past, but this one appears to have represented something of a turning point. During the ratification of the Great Peace in the summer of 1701, the Kahnawakes’ orator would remind the League delegates that “you sent us a belt three years ago to invite us to procure you peace,” as he presented them with another “to tell you that we have worked at it.”72
And work at it they did. When an intransigent Frontenac refused to receive the message and belt brought by the young Tegayesté, he exposed himself to the reproaches of the Christian Iroquois. According to the account of the meeting that reached the ears of the authorities in Albany, they expressed their amazement to Onontio that he was declining “those fair offers of peace, it is as if bereaved of your senses or drunk,” and compared him unfavourably with the New Yorkers and Mohawks who, they claimed, were now all doing their part to promote “the public good, peace and tranquility of us all.”73 An Onondaga resident of Kanehsatake named Tsihenne, known among the French as Massias, intervened at this juncture and convinced Frontenac to send Tegayesté back in his (Tsihenne’s) name to exchange conciliatory courtesies and to request that the Onondagas assemble all the Five Nations’ and deliver them to Montreal in forty or fifty days. If the Five Nations complied, promised Tsihenne, a “firm peace” would result. But “if you hear not my word,” his message to them went, “I will be the first to wage war against you.”74
The significance of migration patterns and kinship bonds as both the motivation and means for reconciliation is manifest. Tsihenne and his wife, a Frenchwoman named Anne Mouflet who had been captured during the attack on Lachine in 1689, had relocated to Kanehsatake with an infant son only circa 1697 – indeed, Tsihenne appears to have inherited his nickname Massias or “Mathias” from the name of her first husband, Mathias Chatouteau, who had not survived captivity. Tsihenne’s links to the people and leaders of Onondaga remained strong in spite of his withdrawal to the Saint Lawrence valley. Though he was recognized to be “entirely attached to the French nation,” he often spoke on behalf of Five Nation deputies during their meetings with the French. The fact that a grown son of his from a previous marriage remained among the Onondagas and was recognized there as “one of the principal chiefs” expedited affairs even further. In January of 1699, this Ohonsiowanne or Great Earth (“La Grande Terre”) reached the colony professing an inclination to visit his father.75
By this time the inhabitants of the mission settlements were exceedingly frustrated by the fact that the League Iroquois’s leaders seemed uncommitted to peace and reconciliation. Ohonsiowanne was challenged on several occasions by the people of Kahnawake and Kanehsatake to account for the fact that the Five Nations had not sent a formal delegation to discuss peace with the French. They entrusted him with belts of wampum to warn the four western nations that this was the last time they would be asked to come and negotiate with Onontio. They would warn them no more, they said, scolding them for being “worse than beasts.”76 During subsequent councils held in Montreal in July and September of 1700, as the peace negotiations dragged on owing in part to English interference, the Christian Iroquois again “made great reproaches, and spoke with much haughtiness to the deputies” of the Oneidas and Onondagas.77
Notwithstanding such forceful language, the bottom line was conciliatory. The Kahnawakes and Kanehsatakes assured their interlocutors that if the Five Nations came to discuss peace, the French would listen to them and “consider it done.”78 The confidence of the Christian Iroquois in this respect may have derived from the recent death of Frontenac, in November of 1698, and the belief that the new governor would not be as obdurate as the previous one. Sure enough, in the spring of 1699, the inhabitants of the missions warmly welcomed the news that Callière had been named to the post. Over the previous decade and a half, as governor of Montreal, he had collaborated closely with the inhabitants of the mission settlements and developed with them a relation of mutual trust and understanding. A Kanehsatake orator called Paul Tsiheoui by Bacqueville de La Potherie, but who may in fact have been the aforementioned Tsiehenne (whose baptismal name seems to have been René), declared that the king had been wise to choose Callière. “[W]e have no doubt that we will be forever happy under your conduct,” he told him publicly.79 Hyperbole aside, there is good reason to believe that what might in other circumstances have been an empty courtesy was, in fact, an expression of real relief among the Christian Iroquois. Nowhere in the record can we find them addressing the late Governor Frontenac in such a laudatory fashion.
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In March of 1699, two Christian Iroquois brought four prisoners to Onondaga to keep the flames of peace alive at a time when officials in Albany were doing their utmost to scuttle Franco-Iroquois accommodation.80 If the presence in the mission settlements of men and women who, like Tsihenne, had willingly migrated, could hardly be debated, the existence there of persons kept against their will continued to trouble the Five Nations. This concern was far from new. At Quebec in the spring of 1694, Teganissorens had asked Frontenac to allow those who showed an inclination to return home to do so freely, but had made no claims on the other “prisoners” who might prefer to stay in the colony. Recognizing that the Christian Iroquois had parallel preoccupations, as a token of goodwill, Teganissorens released an Iroquois woman from Kanehsatake, and pledged that all of the prisoners of the Five Nations who wished to return home would eventually be released.81 At Onondaga during the following winter, Thioratarion and Ononsista had in turn been asked to convince the people of their villages to deliver to Onontio all of the Iroquois and English held captive among them so that they might then be brought to Onondaga.82 In 1698, it had been Tegayesté’s turn to be entrusted by the Onondagas with a wampum belt for the people of Kah
nawake, asking them to intercede with the governor of Canada for the release of the prisoners.83
The Kahnawakes and Kanehsatakes responded to these entreaties by periodically releasing some of their prisoners. However, they continued to retain a significant number of men and women against their will. In September 1700, a Seneca orator again insisted on behalf of the Five Nations that Callière intervene to free all prisoners not only held by the nations of the Great Lakes but also those of the missions.84 At Onondaga in June of the following year, during an embassy headed by the officer Paul Le Moyne de Maricourt, one of Charles Le Moyne’s sons, and by Father Bruyas, for the purpose of obtaining the release of the French captives of the Five Nations, Teganissorens yet again asked for the liberation of Iroquois captives in Canada. “I do not speak of the prisoners that are among the Dowaganhaes [Odawas], but those that are under your roof in Caghnuage [Kahnawake],” he declared, pointing to Bruyas, “and if they do not come it will be your fault. You will stir them up, but we expect that all those that are unwilling [i.e. to leave the mission], you will bind them and throw in our canoes.”85 This frustrated appeal for the return not only of those held captive against their will, but now also of those who had found a happy home in the mission settlements, was a far cry from the position voiced in 1694.
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As noted previously, the Great Peace of Montreal has been described by some scholars as a triumph of French diplomacy and by others as a triumph of Iroquois diplomacy.86 Without taking away from the value of those interpretations, the evidence suggests that it should also be recognized as a triumph for the Christian Iroquois. The Kahnawakes, in particular, had emerged as a military and diplomatic force to be reckoned with – the most powerful of Onontio’s children east of the Great Lakes, and arguably of all his children on the continent. Warfare had confronted them with a challenge, but also provided them with an opportunity to assert in a powerful way their political and cultural independence from the Five Nations. They had demonstrated their ability to achieve results both as warriors and as diplomats. Much more than mere messengers relaying the communications of the French and the Five Nations, they had played a key role in bringing both parties to the negotiation table.
It is of much significance that when the delegates of the Five Nations and Great Lakes finally travelled to Montreal to take part in a great peace ratification conference in the summer of 1701, they first stopped and spent a day at Kahnawake. Bacqueville de La Potherie, who witnessed the proceedings, described in detail the arrival of the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Oneida ambassadors on 21 July, and of the peoples of the Great Lakes and the Senecas on the following day. The approaching canoes were greeted with joyous musket and canon salutes, and the village’s streets were cleared of weeds and swept clean for this special occasion. The event had airs of a great family reunion. As the Kahnawake orator Ontonnionk (The Eagle) explained, his people were always eager to greet “a father, a brother, an uncle or a cousin” and were distressed when ambassadors of the Five Nations neglected to stop at Kahnawake, as they had unfortunately done during the peace negotiations of the previous year.87
The three-day halt at Kahnawake played a crucial diplomatic function. For the Iroquois hosts and guests, it corresponded to what is known as the “wood’s edge” protocol, a key stage of the condolence ceremony when guests are ritually welcomed and the process of reconciliation begun. After disembarking, the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Oneida ambassadors headed straight for Tatakwiséré’s longhouse. It was there that Ontonnionk greeted the ambassadors. Thanking them at length for having made the difficult journey, he set up the relationship between Kahnawake as “a small fire of dried brambles to get one’s breath back,” and Montreal “where the mat has been properly laid.” He proceeded to go through the condolence ritual to ease their grief and clear their minds in preparation for the conference to come. The “true fire being at Montreal,” added Ontonnionk, “they should not be surprised if they did not enter into any of the details of affairs.” Still, even as he explained that Kahnawake was not the site of the council, he stressed that the Five Nations should henceforth always pass through here.88
A parallel ritual of reconciliation took place the next day after the arrival of the ambassadors of the Great Lakes and their entourage, who amounted to seven or eight hundred persons. Received with great excitement, their deputies and leading men entered the cabin of Haronhiateka (Burning Sky or Burning Cloud). “Chief of the Calumet,” in other words keeper of a ceremonial pipe of the type used among the Algonquians of the Great Lakes and Mississippi valley to seal alliances and to declare peace or war, Haronhiateka led the visitors through the ritual dance associated with the pipe, each man rhythmically miming and singing his exploits before making conciliatory statements. Feasting and dancing ensued into the night.89 Though universal in the western Great Lakes and Mississippi valley, calumet ritualism was only rarely practiced among the Iroquois: its deployment at Kahnawake is evidence of the community’s complex links to the French-allied nations of the interior, and of their great adaptability as diplomats. The importance of Haronhiateka during these proceedings is also meaningful for another reason: he too was a relative newcomer to the community, having settled there only circa 1699.90
The role of the Christian Iroquois during the peace conference at the “true fire” of Montreal between 23 July and 7 August was muted in comparison. This should not come as a surprise, given that they had already made their peace with the Five Nations. The issue of the prisoners, if it had not been perfectly resolved during the preceding year, may have been further discussed and closed. Another issue brought to the table, the progressive disappearance of fur-bearing animals and the sharing out of hunting grounds, was apparently resolved by an agreement according to which the hunting territories of new and old allies would be pooled; the territories were metaphorically represented as a great dish, and a ladle and a knife were distributed to everyone so that they might serve themselves from it.91 What part the Kahnawakes played in this arrangement was not recorded, though it is clear that over the next century they developed a strong conviction that they had on this occasion been given preeminence. In 1791, one of the village’s chiefs gave a speech to the British authorities in which he claimed that the French king had assembled all the nations of the continent and laid his “dish” at the “great fire” of Kahnawake. Though this late eighteenth-century memory of preeminence had much to do with eighteenth-century developments, there was nevertheless a kernel of truth to it insofar as the prominence of Kahnawake among France’s Indigenous allies would have been clear to the people assembled in 1701.92
During the closing speeches of the conference on 4 August 1701, Ontonnionk again asserted Kahnawake’s preeminence. “For us [the Kahnawakes] who have the advantage of knowing more intimately and from a closer distance than they the true feelings of your heart,” he declared to the French governor, referring to the other nations assembled, “we readily throw down the hatchet on your word, which we had only taken up at your command, and give the Tree of Peace that you have erected such strong, deep roots, that neither winds nor storms, nor other misfortune will be able to uproot it.” When he was done, an orator named Tsahouanhos (plausibly the aforementioned Tsihenne alias Massias) spoke with equal fervor on behalf of the Kanehsatakes, declaring that he had no hatchet “other than that of my Father. As he carries us in his bosom, I return mine to him, and at the same time withdraw my hand, for he throws away his [own] hatchet.”93 It was Haronhiateka who, in spite of his status as a newcomer or perhaps precisely because of it, affixed his mark to the final peace treaty in 1701 on behalf of his new community.94
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Unsurprisingly, the flowery rhetoric of devotion and obedience to Onontio made by Ontonnionk and Tsahouanhos during the proceedings of 1701 offer only an imperfect reflection of the course of war and peace during the previous two decades. The Christian Iroquois, undeniably, had had “the advantage of knowing more intimately and from a closer distance than they
the true feelings” of Onontio’s heart. But in their eyes Onontio’s views had not always been “so just and so reasonable,” and they had had as much of a hand as him in carrying the war hatchet against the enemy and laying it down. Under the leadership of men – and women, beyond the surface of the written record – whose influence was intertwined with the new religion, the inhabitants of the missions had decisively sided with the French in their campaigns against the distant and tenuously related Senecas. Drawn into a war against the English, and more reluctantly against their close relatives the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Onondagas, they had exchanged with the Iroquois of the League hatchet blows and wampum belts with disconcerting regularity – following a rhythm of violence and diplomacy that was very much their own, not merely dictated by the French.
Figure 8.1 Marks of “Haronhiateka chef du Sault” and “Mechayon chef de la Montagne” on the manuscript ratifying the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. These clan marks appear to represent deer, though it has been suggested by some scholars that Haronhiateka’s might instead be a bear, based on external evidence that his name belonged to this particular clan. (Detail from ANOM, Fonds des Colonies, C11A: 19, 43V)
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