The French in the Champlain Valley: Isle la Motte and the “Forgotten Wars”
- Timothy Dusablon
- 2 hours ago
- 16 min read
Je Me Souviens
This is the official motto of Quebec. You see it on Quebec license plates, as well as the Quebec Coat of Arms. It translates to English as "we remember." Indeed, the Quebecois remember the heritage of their region with a fiercely defiant and independent spirit. Quebec is very different from the rest of Canada; not only in language, but also in culture. French is still the official language of La Belle Province. This despite many attempts in the 19th and 20th centuries to anglicize Quebec by the wealthy English class. This is because the Quebecois remember their heritage and their struggles.
Today, we in the Champlain Valley see this incredibly unique culture whenever we cross the Canadian border in Northern New York or Vermont. Once we cross that imaginary line near the 45th parallel, we see this beautiful and distinct region. Now, the border was the 45th parallel in the late 1700's and early 1800's, but is now 3/4 of a mile north of the 45th. More on that "blunder" in a future episode
Of course, the Champlain Valley does extend into present day Canada. Much of Missisquoi Bay is within the limits of Canada with the municipalities of Saint-Armand, Venise-en-Quebec, Saint-Georges-de-Clarenceville, Noyan, and Lacolle all bordering Lake Champlain. The later two municipalities are located where Lake Champlain empties into the Richelieu River at the international boundary.
But that border, that boundary, has a complex history that goes much further back than the histories of the present nations of the United States and Canada. It goes back even further than the conflicts between New France and the English Colonies. The borderland of the Champlain Valley can actually be traced back to the First Nations. The Western Abenaki had their traditional territory on the eastern side of Lake Champlain. The western side of the lake was the home of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people, specifically the Mohawk tribe. Dating back to at least 1500, there is archeological evidence of two distinct cultures on either side of the lake. It is no wonder that the Abenaki called the lake Bitow'bagok, or the Lake Between.
But in 1609, the arrival of Europeans to the Champlain/Hudson corridor by - well - Samuel de Champlain and Henry Hudson, began a complex series of events and wars that would shift allegiances with First Nations and Europeans. These conflicts shifted borders and boundaries in a manner that wouldn't be settled until 1842. This is why the Champlain Valley is truly the Crossroads of a Continent.
Samuel de Champlain
This war party engaged with the Mohawk at none other than the Ticonderoga Peninsula, the site of so many other pivotal moments in North American history. Champlain had something that the Mohawk did not, European weaponry. He utilized his arquebus, killed three Mohawk leaders, and quickly emerged victorious. This engagement, however, would be a precursor for hostilities between the French and the Mohawk for the next 150 years. More about this a little later on. Champlain would engage with the Haudenosaunee again in 1610 near the mouth of the Richelieu River in Sorel. After the 1610 engagement, Champlain temporarily achieved his goal - peace with the Haudenosaunee. This would last for about 17 years and would open up the Champlain Valley for trade and religious missions.
The Emergence of New France
The years of 1635-1665 were tenuous for New France, to say the least. The population of Europeans settlers to the region was negligible. In those thirty years, the population grew from 100 to 2,500, a much slower pace of immigration than the English settlers to the south. The harsh winter climate and continual threat of raids from the Haudenosaunee deterred many would-be settlers to avoid going to New France. Population growth was limited to the fur traders and merchants who often intermarried with First Nations women. This was the emergence of the Metis, the offspring of a European/Native relationship, which was often encouraged by officials in New France. Many North Americans can trace their ancestry back to the Metis.
30 years of hostile conflict with the Haudenosaunee, particularly the Mohawk, took their toll on the fledgling colony. Much of this conflict had to do with the trade of highly valuable Beaver pelts, which further intensified pre-existing tribal conflict among the First Nations. Since the French allied with the traditional enemies of the Haudenosaunee, conflict predictably emerged. Those who did stay in New France were faced with the constant threat of raiding parties of the Haudenosaunee. The settlement areas ranged along the St. Lawrence River from Quebec to the emerging settlement of Ville-Marie (Montreal). They were easy targets for the raiding parties. As a result, the settlers of New France began to excel at guerilla warfare as means of survival. This fighting identity would mark the warfare of New France for the next 100 years.
In the words of famed Canadian historian W. J. Eccles, "In short order every Canadian male became an irregular soldier, and expert guerilla fighter in a war that had a high casualty rate. By 1652, of the first forty settlers at Trois Rivieres fewer than ten had survived the Iroquois assaults; and in that year, 1652, the governor of the fort, along with twenty-one settlers and garrison soldiers, were killed... the French could not remain prisoners in their forts forever."
The raids took a heavy toll. On top of this, the Company of One Hundred Associates, the organizing body that oversaw the fur trade and administration of the colonies of New France, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Some high ranking officials believed New France would have to be abandoned unless they received desperately needed aid from the French Crown.
The year 1663 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Canada. This new chapter began with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Controller General of Finances in France. He saw the untapped financial possibilities of New France and other French colonies, and looked to implement a more organized mercantile approach. Colbert was able to convince King Louis XIV to strip the Company of One Hundred Associates of the command of Canada, and make New France an official French province. This meant that it was no longer a purely commercial and religious venture as it had been up to that point.
But before Colbert could implement any of his new policies, the issue of Haudenosaunee raids had to be dealt with. In 1665, over one thousand soldiers from the famed Carignan-Salieres Regiment came to Canada with the goal of securing the St. Lawrence River Valley. Since the Haudenosaunee warriors primarily used the Lake Champlain/Richelieu River corridor for their raids, this area became the primary focus of the new regiment.
Fort St. Anne and the Beaver Wars
A series of conflicts between the French and the Haudenosaunee became known collectively as the Beaver Wars. The arrival of military reinforcements from France marked a temporary turning point in this conflict.
The newly appointed Governor General of New France, Daniel de Remy de Courcelles, wanted to strike at the Mohawk, who had refused to meet with French officials earlier in 1665. This despite 3 of the Haudenosaunee nations (those being the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga) making formal peace with New France. In his haste, he led an ill-advised wintertime raid into the Mohawk River Valley. On January 6th, 1666, Courcelles led 500 of the Carignan Salieres regiment and Canadians, opting not to wait on their First Nations allies who were supposed to be their guides.
The group of 500 marched down a frozen Lake Champlain to Ticonderoga, where they marched along frozen Lac du Saint Sacrement, then through the wilderness to the Hudson River. Once they crossed the Hudson, the group seemed hopelessly lost. Freezing temperatures and starvation had already decimated the war party. Those who marched on were suffering from hypothermia and snow blindness. They burned what they thought was a Mohawk village, but was actually the outskirts of the Dutch community of Schenectady. From a military perspective, all this march had accomplished was arousing the English of French activities in the area. A conflict with the English was the last thing they wanted at this time. Only 400 of the 500 who made the trek had survived.
Fort Sainte Anne
Although the winter march had been a disaster, progress was made on fortifying the Richelieu River. Fort Sorel, at the outlet of the Richelieu into the St. Lawrence River, was completed the previous year. As was Fort Chambly and Fort Sainte Therese, just north of Saint Jean. The last in this chain of four military fortifications was on Lake Champlain, on an island just south of the outlet of Lake Champlain into the Richelieu River.
In July 1666, the new fort was dedicated to Sainte Anne, as the work was completed on her feast day. Fort Sainte Anne was a wooden palisade fort, as the others to the north were. The approximate measurement of the fort was 144 ft. long by 96 ft. wide. The walls were 15ft. high. The Captain stationed at this fortification was Pierre de St. Paul, Sieur de la Motte. To this day, the island on which this fort was constructed is called Isle la Motte.
Even during the construction of this fort, the hostilities with the Mohawk were a constant threat. In July, Mohawk delegates were meeting with French officials, including Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy, the Lieutenant General of the Americas (Courcelles superior) looking for a peace agreement. One of Tracy's nephews was another captain stationed at Fort Sainte Anne. Sometime during June or early July, he was on a group hunting trip across the lake near the mouth of a river. He was killed by a band of Mohawk warriors along with others in the party. The man's name was Captain de Chazy. The river and the town in northern New York were named by the French in his memory.
When news reached Tracy regarding his nephew being killed by a band of Mohawks, peace talks immediately broke down. Tracy then decided on another raid into Mohawk territory. In mid-September 1666, a much larger raiding party of approximately 1200 rendezvoused at Fort Sainte Anne. Over 300 boats rowed south on Lake Champlain, porting at Ticonderoga, where they constructed a small wooden fort before proceeding south along Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake George).
They encountered few obstacles as they reached the Mohawk Valley. They burned four Mohawk villages that had largely been abandoned. Tracy even gave brief thought of continuing south to capture the newly acquired New Amsterdam, today’s New York City, from the English. The English and the French were officially at war back in Europe. However, the council of war decided the risks were too high. They made their way back to Fort Sainte Anne by early November. The raid was a resounding success and showed the Mohawk that the French were able and unafraid to go on the offensive.
Back at Fort Sainte Anne on Isle la Motte, the winter of 1666 into 1667 was incredibly harsh. The cold, wind-swept island proved to be very inhospitable to the soldiers of the Carignan Salieres Regiment. A Sulpician priest named Francois Dollier de Casson was stationed at the fort. Casson was a former soldier himself in the Nantes region of France as a cavalryman. He wrote of the horrific scene and the toll that scurvy took on the soldiers stationed there. He recounts that, of the 60 soldiers wintering at Fort Sainte Anne, 40 were either sick or dying with scurvy. As we now know, the root cause of scurvy is actually caused by vitamin C deficiency. It is understandable that the soldiers suffered during this long winter, considering their diet consisted of bacon and bread made from flour that was damaged during the journey across the Atlantic.
As winter mercifully ended and spring emerged, an alarm came over the fort that the Haudenosaunee were approaching. The fort prepared for conflict, and soldiers took their positions. However, as the Haudenosaunee party came closer, it became apparent this was not a war party. As they approached, a French prisoner told the men not to fire, as the group came in peace. The Haudenosaunee delegates were on their way to Quebec to renew peace talks, and had several French prisoners to exchange as a gesture of good will. They eventually did reach a peace agreement - one that lasted almost twenty years. The Fall 1666 raid had succeeded in its mission to bring peace to the St. Lawrence River Valley.
According to records, the rest of the existence of Fort Sainte Anne seems very quiet as a result of the peace. A joyous event took place in 1668 when the first ever Bishop of New France, Francois de Laval, visited Fort Sainte Anne. Also at this time, Pierre de St. Paul, Sieur de la Motte left the post and became interim Governor of Montreal before going back to France. It appears that by 1670, the fort was no longer garrisoned or maintained.
The Forgotten Wars
We Americans have a bad habit of skipping over a large portion of our history. In school, we are often taught about the Native Americans (not nearly enough, however), Christopher Columbus in 1492, then Jamestown and The Mayflower in the early 1600s. Then we skip the next 150 years to the Boston Massacre. The problem is, there's a whole lot of history that happened in those 150 years that played a major role in what would become the United States of America. Included in that time frame are a series of conflicts that I like to call the "Forgotten Wars". These wars consist of King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1702 - 1713), and King George's War (1744 -1748).
One author has written 3 fantastic books on each of these conflicts. Michael Laramie’s books, named after the wars themselves, are must-reads for anyone looking into pre-French and Indian War colonial conflict. He has also written several fantastic books about the Champlain Valley, including his works “By Wind and Iron”, “The Colonial Forts of the Champlain and Hudson Valleys”, and “The Road to Ticonderoga”. I highly recommend all of his works.
Now, with all three of these conflicts, they would primarily involve the English in conflict against the French. Hostilities typically started in Europe and spilled into North America. Given the two protagonists of these wars, it comes as no surprise that the Champlain Valley would be a major warpath in these conflicts.
King William's War
Leading into King William’s War, the nearly twenty year peace between the French and the Haudenosaunee ended when the French launched an attack against the Seneca nation in 1687. Two years later in 1689, a large Haudenosaunee force of almost 1500 attacked the French village of La Chine on the island of Montreal. Many of these Mohawk warriors came from the Champlain Valley. 200 were killed and another 120 captured. The French suspected the English of collaborating and arming the Haudenosaunee warriors and vowed retaliation.
A new military leader emerged in this conflict that would have a profound impact on how the French conducted warfare in the new world. Louis de Buade de Frontenac made the best use of the limited number of men he could draw upon in times of conflict. He decided the best course of action was not large military expeditions, but rather smaller, devastating raids like the ones used in large part by the First Nations Warriors. This new style of warfare for Europeans was called "Petit Guerre" or small warfare. In the words of Eliot A. Cohen in his fantastic book “Conquered into Liberty”, "Raiding warfare was psychological warfare: a combination of terror and clemency intended to demoralize and split." It worked with resounding success for the next 65 years.
In February of 1690, a force of 210 Frenchman and First Nations Warriors set south along a frozen Lake Champlain to the Hudson River Valley. Among those who took part in the voyage down the Champlain Valley was Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, the future founder of Louisiana. The force initially planned an attack on Fort Orange at Albany, but decided instead to raid the village of Schenectady. The strike was quick and effective.
The following year, a small force under Captain Johannes Schuyler, the grandfather of future American Major General Phillip Schuyler, moved north on Lake Champlain and attacked Fort la Prairie on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, across from Montreal.
In an effort to spy on the activities of the French, Captain Jacobus de Worm set up base on Lake Champlain, building a small stone fort in the present day area of Chimney Point, VT.
Yet another winter raid would be led by the French in January of 1693. Frontenac would organize this successful raid, but the French would be followed on the way back by Peiter Schuyler. They would have a skirmish near Saratoga. A sudden thaw made Lake du Saint Sacrement impassable, so the group was forced to make a treacherous journey along the shoreline, freeing captives along the way due to the difficult marching conditions. When they arrived at Pointe a la Chevelure (Crown Point, NY), the provisions they had left for the return journey had spoiled. The starving army made it as far as the mouth of the Chazy River, where they miraculously found some potatoes, and used some old shoes to put into a stew. They awaited provisions from Chambly before continuing back to Montreal.
King William's War ended in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick, however many of the underlying issues with North American settlement remained, well, unsettled. Conflict was sure to continue. But the conflict that was sure to reignite would take a markedly different tone, due to an event in Montreal that changed the continent of North America.
The Great Peace of Montreal
Looking to resolve tribal conflicts with the Haudenosaunee, as well as conflicts among various French-allied First Nations, the Governor of Montreal, Louis-Hector de Calliere, sought a large-scale peace agreement unlike anything in post- contact North American history. Calliere partnered with a gifted ambassador and natural orator, Kondiaronk, a leader of the Petun First Nation. Together, these two organized one of the largest gatherings of First Nations in recorded history.
39 First Nations sent 1,300 delegates to Montreal for a grand assembly. Among them were First Nations from the Great Lakes region as far west as Illinois, and the nations of the Maritimes. Most importantly, all 5 nations of the Haudenosaunee were also present, including the Mohawk.
The Haudenosaunee were able to agree on a tenuous peace agreement with many enemy First Nations, as well as New France, in this agreement. The French permitted free trade and reduced cost of goods. In exchange, the Haudenosaunee agreed to allow the French to expand into the Detroit area, and further pledged neutrality in any future conflict between the French and the English. This paved the way for the French to expand into the Mississippi River Valley. It was excellent timing for the French, as they were right on the eve of Queen Anne's War breaking out in the region. This tenuous peace would last until King George's War in the 1740's.
This was an incredible success for New France and their First Nations Allies. At this time the English settlers of New England were increasingly hostile to the First Nations, to the point where cohabitation became untenable. The French became the most obvious ally for the New England First Nations that were left after the Pequot War, and King Philip's War. This included the Abenaki. Even the traditional ally of the English, the Haudenosaunee (with the exception of the Mohawk) also began to favor the French for trade.
Queen Anne's War
It did not take long for the predicted conflict to reignite between France and the English colonies. In 1702, Queen Anne's War broke out in North America, spilling over from Europe as the larger conflict, the War of Spanish Succession. The French continued the use of petit guerre, or woodland warfare, to launch more devastating raids on the New England colonies. Many of these raids went through the Champlain Valley, including the most notorious, the Deerfield Raid of 1704.
In February of that year, some 50 French regulars led by Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, and 250 First Nations Warriors (including Western Abenaki Warriors from the villages of Missisquoi and Winooski) proceeded south along Lake Champlain to the Winooski River. They proceeded up the Winooski River overland to the Connecticut River, and south to Deerfield, Massachusetts.
The raid was quick and devastating. 50 residents were killed, another 110 taken captive, and almost half of the structures in the village were destroyed. The grueling march back to Canada via the same route (including a brief stop at Missisquoi) took even more lives. Williams wrote a very popular account of his and his family's captivity in a book called "The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion".
In response to this and other raids on the English frontier, a bold plan of attack against Canada was planned for 1709. This plan was a dual-pronged attack against Quebec City from the east via the St. Lawrence River, and against Montreal via the Champlain Valley. Colonel Francis Nicholson, the former Lieutenant Governor of New York, led the 1,600 troops north towards Lake Champlain. Among the group, once again, was Johannes Schuyler.
In Quebec, Governor Vaudreuil gained intelligence of the English plan of attack from captives and native scouts. He sent over 1,600 of his own troops to Fort Chambly on the Richelieu River. They were to be commanded by the Governor of Montreal, Claude de Ramezay. Ramezay proceeded south on Lake Champlain to Pointe aux Sables (Ausable Point). Here a couple of native scouts informed Ramezay that an English force was in the vicinity of Pointe a la Chevelure (Crown Point). Ramezay detached a small unit under his nephew, Pierre La Perade to proceed south to Pointe a la Chevelure. He would then meet up with the main force at the mouth of Otter Creek afterwards.
Perade, however, was young and inexperienced. He proceeded to Pointe a la Chevelure where he found no signs of the enemy. He proceeded south on Lake Champlain and spotted a column of smoke. Perade planned an ambush, and several First Nations Warriors landed. However, they fell into a brilliant trap and were actually ambushed themselves. They regrouped and proceeded north on Lake Champlain to Porter Bay near the mouth of Otter Creek. For Ramezay, the element of surprise was now gone, and he had no further intelligence of the enemy's numbers.
In 1711, Francis Nicholson once again proceeded to Lake Champlain, rebuilding one of the forts closest to the lake and renaming it Fort Ann, the namesake of the present town in New York. And, once again, they awaited word on the second prong of the planned attack, a naval campaign against Quebec City. They waited until September, when they found out about the tragic fate of the Quebec naval campaign. Eight of the transport vessels had crashed into the rocky north shores of the St. Lawrence River. Over 1,000 soldiers were believed to have perished. Nicholson retreated back to Albany.
Peace came out of this conflict with the Treaty of Utrecht, which attempted to resolve the land dispute between the French and the English. The treaty created a new border, and that line was Split Rock Point on Lake Champlain.
For Part 2 of this article, click here. Sources included at the end of Part 2.