America, and a select council was appointed to consider CHAP. IV. their affairs.* 1669. Fabricius The Duke of York, by conviction a Roman Catholic, felt a sympathy with all who dissented from the Established Church of England. This feeling led him, in apparent contradiction to the arbitrary impulses of his nature, to become the friend of religious toleration. Soon after Nicolls came to New York, he allowed the Lutherans in the province to send to Germany for a minister. The Reverend Jacobus Fabricius accordingly came over, and Lovelace 20 Febr'y. gave him leave to exercise his office as long as he and his Lutheran people should behave themselves orderly. At first Fabri- minister. cius labored at Albany; but his conduct was so offensive to 19 April. the magistrates and the Dutch congregation that the governor was obliged to suspend him from his functions there, 28 May. allowing him, nevertheless, to preach at New York. On receiving his dispatches from England, Lovelace wrote to 13 October. the Albany magistrates "that His Royal Highness doth approve of the toleration given to the Lutheran Church Religious in these parts. I do therefore expect that you will live friendly and peaceably with those of that profession, giving them no disturbance in the exercise of their religion; as they shall receive no countenance in, but, on the contrary, strictly answer any disturbance they shall presume to give unto any of you, in your divine worship."+ toleration. of the Re Dutch The provincial ministers of the Reformed Dutch Church Ministers at this time were the Domines Schaats at Albany, Polhe- formed mus at Flatbush and Brooklyn, and Megapolensis and Church. Drisius, colleagues at New York. Blom's place at Esopus remained vacant. Samuel Megapolensis had returned to 9 April. Holland in the spring, under a pass from the governor. The following winter, Domine Johannes Megapolensis was December. "snatched away by death," after twenty-seven years' ministerial service in the province; and the metropolitan church was left in care of Drisius, whose declining health almost prevented his doing active duty. Privileged by the articles of capitulation, the Dutch churches in New York maintained their former discipline, and remained for a century in * Col. Doc., iii., 184, 185; Mass. H. S. Coll., xxxvii., 311, 316; ante, p. 54. + Gen. Ent., i., 71; Ord., Warr., etc., ii., 335, 394, 423; Court of Assizes, ii., 424; S. IIazard, 373; Dunlap, i., 120, 126, 484; Munsell, iv., 24; ante, vol. i., p. 634, 642, 656, 681. CHAP. IV. direct subordination to the mother Classis of Amsterdam, in Holland.* 1669. 4 Novem. At the Court of Assizes it was ordered that uniformity Meeting of of weights and measures should be enforced throughout the province. But as there were not enough English stand1670. ard weights and measures in the country, the governor was 1 January. obliged to suspend the execution of the law by his proclamation, "sealed with the seal of the colony."+ 1669. At the same Assizes petitions from East and West 5 Novem. Chester, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Flushing, Jamaica, Newfrom Long town, and Gravesend, against several grievances, were pre Petitions Island towns. sented. These grievances were "that what was promised upon our submission by Governor Nicolls and the rest of His Majesty's Commissioners should be made good to us: Namely, That we should be protected by His Majesty's lawes, and enjoy all such priviledges as other, His Majesty's subjects in America, do injoye;-which priviledges consist in advising about and approving of all such lawes with the Governor and his council as may be for the good and benefit of the common-wealth, not repugnant to the Lawes of England, by such deputies as shall be yearly chosen by the freeholders of every Towne or parish; and likewise to be informed what is required of us His Majesty's subjects by virtue of the Commission granted from His Royal Highness the Duke of York." Some of the smaller grievances complained of were remedied. But Lovelace had no power to grant the demand for an Assembly to make laws with the governor and council. Indeed, Nicolls had distinctly refused it at the Hempstead meeting in the spring of 1665. To the statement of the petitioners. Answer of the Court of Assizes replied: "It doth not appear that of Assizes. Colonel Nicolls made any such promise; and the Governor's Instructions directing him to make no alterations in the Lawes of the Government settled before his arrivall, they cannot expect his Honor can comply with them therein;-And for their desire to know what is required of them, there is nothing required of them but obedience and submission to the Lawes of the Government, as appears by His * Ord., Warr., etc., ii., 381; Corr. Cl. Amst.; Col. Doc, ii., 251; iii., 183; vii., 586; N. Y. H. S. Coll., iii. (ii.), 144, 145; ante, vol. i., 614. 724, 762. + Court of Assizes, ii., 226; Col. MSS., xxii., SS, 96, 98; Munsell, iv., 8, 9, 11; N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., 421. Royal Highness's Commission, which hath often been read CHAP. IV. unto them."* 1669. sion. In the spring of this year a Mohawk embassy asked The Mo Courcelles, at Quebec, that other missionaries might be hawk Missent to assist Pierron, and that their nation might be protected from the Mahicans by the King of France, to whom their country now belonged "by the force of arms." Father Francis Boniface was accordingly selected to help in the mission, the prosperity of which, piously attributed to the death of Jogues at Caghnawaga, seemed to verify the words of Tertullian, that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians."+ Mahican the Mo But the Mohawk country was a battle-ground. At day- 18 August. break, toward the end of summer, three hundred Mahican war with warriors attacked the palisaded village of Caghnawaga, hawks. which the Mohawks bravely defended, while their squaws made balls for their firelocks. The news was quickly carried to Tionnontoguen, and at eight o'clock a large force, accompanied by Pierron, set out to relieve their beleaguered friends. The enemy had retired, however, after two hours' fighting; and the Mohawks, descending the river in canoes, hid themselves below the Mahicans in an ambuscade which commanded the road to Schenectady, at a place called "Kinaquariones." A conflict followed, in which the Mohawks put the Mahicans to flight. The Mohawks then 19 August. induced the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas to make common cause; and four hundred confederate warriors went to surprise a Mahican fort "situated near Manhattan." But this enterprise failed, and the Iroquois came home with two wounded. They quickly appealed to Love- 27 October. lace, who-anxious that they should hunt beaver rather and Winthan fight-endeavored, in concert with Winthrop, to make try to peace between them and the Mahicans.‡ K Frémin, the New York Jesuit superior, now summoned his missionary brethren to meet him at Onondaga. Pierron from the Mohawks, Bruyas from Oneida, Garnier and Court of Assizes, ii., £28-234; Journals Leg Council, i., Introd., vi., vii.; Wood, 91; Thompson, i., 145, 146; Dunlap, i., 120; ante, p. 33, 66, 69. + Relation, 1669, 2-6; Shea, 264; ante, 129; i., 423. + Relation, 1670, 23-27; 1671, 17; Col. MSS., xxii., 132; Court of Assizes, ii., 426; Ord., Warr., etc., ii., 485; Munsell, iv., 10, 20; Mass. H. S. Coll., i., 166, 167; xxx., 79; Holmes, i., 352; Col. Rec. Conn, ii., 549. Lovelace throp make pence. 1669. council at 6 Septem. CHAP. IV. Millet of Onondaga, and Carheil from Cayuga, accordingly met Frémin, from the Senecas, in council. After deliber29 August, ating for a week, the superior detached Garnier to assist Jesuit him among the distant Senecas, leaving Millet alone in Onondaga. charge of the Onondagas. On reaching their remote sta27 Septem. tion, Frémin assigned Garnier to the village of Gandachiwith Fré- ragou, himself remaining in charge of the mission of "Saint the Sene Michael," at Gandagarae. This village was composed of refugees from three different nations, the Neutres or Attiwandaronk, and the Hurons, which had been conquered by the Iroquois.* Garnier min among cas. 15 May. Talon in France. plorations in the West. Talon now went for a short visit to France, where he induced Colbert to instruct Courcelles to visit the Iroquois country at least once in two years, with all his forces, so as to impress the savages with respect for the French. Six companies of the Carignan regiment, which had returned with Tracy, were also ordered back to Canada.† Meanwhile Talon's energy had aroused enterprise in Jesuit ex- Canada. The Jesuit Father Claude Allouez had, in 1665, visited Lakes Huron and Superior, or Tracy, by way of the Ottawa River, and had heard of "the great River called Messipi." In 1667 he was again on his way to the West with Father Louis Nicolas. The next year Nicolas returned; and Allouez, after a short visit to Quebec in 1669, went back to the Falls of Saint Mary, accompanied by Father Claude Dablon, where, with Father James Marquette, who had meanwhile arrived there from the Ottawas, they established a mission among the Chippewas.‡ Up to this time the disciples of Loyola had been the pioneers of western exploration in New France. Their honors were now to be shared by others. A young man of a good family at Rouen, Robert Cavelier de la Salle, after studying with the Jesuits, had emigrated to Canada in 1667, and had established himself on a fief granted to him, * Relation, 1641, 72; 1651, 4; 1670, 26, 45, 46, 69, 72-77; Shea, 279, 290, 291. In Barber and Howe's N. Y. Hist. Coll., 393, and Clark's Onondaga, i., 194, is an extract from Governor Clinton's Memoir, giving an account of the massacre of a French and Spanish party at the Butternut Creek, near the present village of Jamesville, on the first of November, 1669. The story rests on the traditionary statements of some Onondaga sachems, and is not alluded to in the contemporary Relations of the Jesuits. † Col. Doc., ix., 62, 86, 787; Charlevoix, ii., 166, 188, 189; Garneau, i., 198–201. + Relation, 1667, 2-26; 1668, 21; 1669, 17–20; Charlevoix, ii., 167–176, 186, 187; La Potherie, ii., 124; Bancroft, iii., 149-152; Shea's Missions, 357-361; Discovery of the Miss., xxiv., xlvii., 67, 68, 69; Sparks's Life of La Salle, 2, 3. at "La chasipi," or er. which he named Saint Sulpice, at the head of the Rapids of CHAP. IV. Saint Louis, just above Montreal.* Enterprising, medita- 1669. tive, and abounding in courage and resources, La Salle thought that there must be a route to China and Japan through the Saint Lawrence and the unknown countries to the south and west of the great lakes. He talked so much about discovering it, that his home on the Saint Lawrence got the derisive name of "La Chine," which it bears to this La Salle day. Champlain had early heard of a great dividing cat- Chine." aract; and in 1641 the Jesuit missionaries had argued that if the French were once the masters of the shore of Lake Ontario nearest to the Iroquois, they could easily go up by the Saint Lawrence beyond "Onguiahra" to the farther savage tribes. The information which La Salle gained from "many savages of different nations" satisfied him that "by means of a great River, which the Iroquois call Hohio, emptying into the Meschasipi (which in the Illinois The "Mestongue signifies Great River), one could penetrate even to Great Rivthe sea." In the summer of 1669, La Salle, encouraged by Courcelles, joined the Sulpitian fathers François Dollier de Casson and René de Galinée, of Montreal-whose brethren had already established a mission at Quinté, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario-" in an expedition to 6 July. explore a passage which they expected to discover, com- Dollier, municating with Japan and China." They proposed to née explore visit "divers Indian nations situated along a great River, tario and called by the Iroquois, Ohio, and by the Ottawas, Missis- Eric. sippi." Ascending the Saint Lawrence in canoes, they coasted along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and visited the Seneca village just at the time Frémin was absent August. at Onondaga. After observing the Falls of Niagara, La Salle was seized with a violent fever, which obliged him to Septem. return to Montreal. Dollier and Galinée, however, continued their explorations, and visited the country between Lakes Ontario and Erie, of all of which they took possession Possession in the name of the king. The royal arms were erected, the and a map was prepared showing the new discoveries. * La Salle does not appear to have actually entered the Society of Jesus. Mr. Shea informs me that Father F. Martin, of Quebec, could not find La Salle's name in the Catalogues of the Order, all of which he examined. See also Shea's note to his "Early Voyages,” etc. : Munsell, 1861. Faillon, iii., 228, says that La Salle was a "novice," by becoming which he lost his patrimony. La Salle, and Gali Lakes On taken by French. |