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 HURON

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HURON

numbers, and owing more than all else to the great advantage the Iroquois had in having been equipped by the Dutch with fire-arms, the little garrison was finally overcome. The inrushing horde of Iroquois found barely twenty Hurons alive within the ram- parts, most of them wounded and helpless. This victory cost the invaders one huntlred of their best men, and their leader, though he still lived, had been stricken down. On the other hand, the loss was an irreparable one for the Christian braves of Ossossane and Ste-Madeleine, who perished to a man.

On 19 March a sudden dread, wholly inexplicable, seized upon the Iroquois and they beat a hurried re- treat from the Huron Country. An old In^lian woman, who had escaped from the burning village of St-Ignace II, tardily brought to St-Michel (Scanon- aenrat) the news both of the disaster and of the pre- cipitous withdrawal of the victorious Iroquois. It seems inconceivable that no inkling of the terrible events, which were Ijeing enacted less than six miles from their village, should have reached this clan sooner, unless the fact be attributed to measures to intercept all communications taken by the astute invaders who in this particular, as in all others, showed themselves consummate tacticians. No sooner were they apprised of the situation than seven hundred bra\es of the One- White-Lodge set out from Scanonaenrat in hot pursuit of the retiring enemy. For two days they followed the trail, but %vhether it was that the rapidity of the retreat outstripped the eagerness of the pursuit, or that the much heralded avenging expedition was but a half-hearted undertak- ing from the very outset, the Iroquois were not over- taken. On their return to Huronia the braves of Scanonaenrat found their country one wide expanse of smouldering ruins. Every village had been aban- doned and given over to the flames, lest it should serve at some future time as a repair for the dreaded Iro- quois, for other events had taken place since their departure.

Forty-eight hours elapsed before Ossossan^, the erstwhile centre of the flourishing mission of La Con- ception, heard of the annihilation of its contingent. The news reached its inhabitants at midnight, 19 March. The village lay but ten miles farther west than St-Louis, and a cry went up that the enemy were at their doors. The panic spread from lodge to lodge, and the old men, women, antl children, a terror- stricken throng, streamed out upon the shores of Lake Huron. The bay (Nottawasaga) was still ice-bound; across it the fugitives made their way, and after eleven long leagues of weary march reached the Petun Nation. "A part of the country of the Hurons", writes Father Ragueneau at this date, " lies desolate. Fifteen towns have been abandoned, their inhabitants scattering whither they could, to thickets and forests, to the lakes and rivers, to the islands most unknown to the enemy. Others have betaken themselves to the neighbouring nations better able to bear the stress of war. In less than a fortnight our Residence of Ste- Marie [I] has seen itself stripped bare on every side. It is the only dwelling left standing in this dismal region. It is most exposed now to the incursions of the enemy, for those who have fled from their former homes set fire to them themselves to prevent their being used as shelters or fastnes.scs by the Iroquois". Reduced to these straits the missionaries resolved to transfer Ste-Marie I, the principal centre of the whole Huron mission, to some other location more out of reach of the Iroquois. Their attention was at first directed to the Island of Ste-Marie, now Manitoulin, but a deputation of twelve chiefs pleaded, on the part of the remnants of the nation, so long and eloquently in favour of the Island of St. Joseph (Ahouendoe), promising to make it "the Christian Island", that in the end it was chosen. Already a mission had been begun there in 1648, and Father Chaumonot had just

succeeded in leading back to its shores many who had sought refuge among the Petuns.

On 15 May, 1649, the whole establishment of Ste- Marie I, with its residence, fortress, and chapel, was given over to the flames by the missionaries, who, with an overpowering feeling of sadness and regret, stood by and witnessed the tlestruction in one short hour of what had cost ten years of laliour to produce, while the promise of a year's rich harvest was also destroyed. On the evening of 14 June the migration to St. Jo- seph's Island was begun on rafts and on a small vessel built for the purpose. In a few days the transfer was completed, antl none too soon, for a few belated strag- glers were intercepted by lurking bands of Iroquois. Fort Ste-Marie II was commenced without delay and was completed by November, 1649. It was situated not far from the shores of the great bay on the eastern coast of the island, where the little that modern \'an- dals have spared of its ruins is still to be seen, as are the foundations of Ste-Marie I on the River Wye.

But the year was not to end without further calami- ties. Two Hurons, who had made gootl their escape from the hands of the enemy, brought word that the Iroquois were on the point of striking a blow either at Ste-Marie II or at the Petun villages in the Blue Hills, then called the Mountains of St-Jcan. The Petuns were elated at the announcement, for they were confi- dent in their strength. After waiting patiently a few days for the onslaught at Etharita, or the village of St-Jean, their strongest bulwark on the frontier near- est to the enemy, they sallied forth in a southerly di- rection, a quarter from which they expected their foes to advance. Coming, as was their wont, from the east, the Iroquois found a defenceless town at their mercy. What followed was not a conflict but a butchery. Scarcely a soul escaped, and Father Charles Garnier, who had begged his superior as a favour to leave him at his post, was shot down while ministering to his flock. Etharita was taken and destroyed on the afternoon of 7 December. Father Noel Chabanel had been ordered to return to Ste- Marie II, so as not to expose to danger more than one missionary at the post. He had left the ill-fated vil- lage a day or so before its fall; but on his way to St. Joseph's Island, near the mouth of the Nottawasaga River, he was struck down by an apostate Huron, who afterwards openly boasted that he done the deed out of hatred for the Christian Faith. The mission of St-Mathias, or Ekarenniondi, the second principal town of the Petun Nation, was carried on unmolested until the spring or early summer of 1650.

Meanwhile the condition of the Hurons on St. Joseph's or Christian Island was deplorable in the extreme. If the bastions of Ste-Marie II, built of solid masonry seventeen feet high, were unassailable for the Iroquois, these nevertheless hekl the island so closely invested that any party of Hurons setting foot on the mainland for the purpose either of hunting or of renewing their exhausted supply of roots or acorns — for they had been reduced to such fare and worse — were set upon and massacred. Nor were the fishing parties less exposed to inevitable destruc- tion. The Iroquois were ubiquitous, and their attack was irresistible. Hundreds of Hurons were, in these endeavours to find food, cut off by their implacable foes, and perished at their hands in the midst of tor- tures. Finally so unbearable had the pangs of hunger become that off'al and carrion were sought with avid- ity, and mothers were driven, in their struggle to prolong life, to eat even the flesh of their offspring. With one accord both the missionaries and what sur- vived of their wretched flock, convinced that such a frightful state of things was no longer endurable, came to a final determination to withdraw forever — the former from the soil endeared to them by so many sacrifices, and watered with their sweat and very blood; the latter from the land of their sires, which —