Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/642

 HURON

576

HURON

not through any want of bravery but rather through lack of vigilance, unity of purpose, and preconcerted action — they had shown themselves incapable of defending. The last missionaries had been called in from their posts, and, on 10 June, the pilgrim convoy pushed off from the landing of Ste-Marie II. Hu- ronia became a wilderness, occupied by no tribe as a permanent home, but destined to lie fallow until the ploughman, more than a century and a half later, unread in the history of his adopted land, should muse in wonderment over the upturned relics of a departed nation.

The party included si.xty Frenchmen — in detail, thirteen Fathers, four lay brothers, twenty-two dnnni's, eleven hired men, four boys, and six soldiers. The number of Hurons in the first exodus did not much exceed throe hundred, and their purpose was to pass the remainder of their days under the sheltering walls of Quebec. Midway on their downward journey they met Father Bressam's party of forty Frenchmen and a few Hurons. These had set out from Three Rivers, 7 Jime, reaching Montreal on the 15th, and were hastening, with .supplies and additional help, to the relief of the Mission. It was already too late. Informed of the appalling events of the preceding twelve-month, and of the utter ruin of the Huron country, they turned back, and both flotillas in com- pany proceeded eastward. They reached Montreal safely, and on 28 July, 16.50, landed at Quebec, after a journey of nearly fifty days.

The Neutral Nation, or Attiouandaronk (also called Attiouandarons, Atiraguenek, Atirhangenrets, Atti- uoindaron.s, etc., or, in modern times, Attiwandarons), the third great branch of the Huron family, whose country, as has been said, extended from the Niagara Peninsula to the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair, had remained passive witnesses of the final struggle be- tween the Iroquois, on the one hand, and the Hurons proper and the Petun Nation, on the other. In this they were but conforming to their traditional policy which had earned them their name. Mr. William R. Harris has atlvanced a plausible theory to account for this neutrality prolonged for years. Along the east end of Lake Erie, which was included within their territory, lay immense quantities of flint. Spear and arrow-heads of flint were a necessity for both Huron and Iroquois, .so that neither could afford to make the Neutrals its enemy [Publications, Buffalo Hist. Soc, IV (1896), 239]. At all events, towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the Iroquois stood no longer in need of such implements of war. Thanks especially to the Dutch, they were fully provided with fire-arms, and this may have been the reason of their readiness to pick a quarrel with the Neutrals as early as 1647. The Senecas had even gone so far as to treacherously massacre or take captive nearly all the inhabitants of the principal Aondironnon town, which, though situated beyond the Niagara River (see Du- creux's map), then formed part of the Neutral Nation. A Seneca Indian, who the previous winter had struck out alone on the war-path, as frequently happened in Indian warfare, had succeeded in slaying several of his enemies. Hotly pursued by a band of Hurons, he was overtaken and made prisoner within the limits of the Neutral Nation, but before he could seek sanctuary on the mat of any Neutral lodge;. This, according to accepted usage was deemed a law- fid prize. Three hundred Senecas, dissimulating their resentment, repaired to the Aondironnon town and, as it was in time of peace, were given a friendly welcome. They adroitly managed to quarter them- selves on different families, so that a feast was pro- vided in every lodge. This had been planned before- hand in furtherance of their treacherous design. Wlien rejoicing was at its height, at a given signal, they fell upon their unsuspecting hosts, who were unarmed, so that before any serious resistance could

be offered the Senecas had brained all within reach and had made off with as many prisoners as they could handle. The rest of the Neutral Nation in- advisedly overlooked this outrage and continued to live on friendly terms with the Senecas, as if nothing had happened in violation of the peace existing between the two nations.

But this was not an isolated instance of a national wrong inflicted on the Neutrals. Similar happenings marked the autumn of 16:)8. The Oucnrohronons, who until then had lieen acknowledged by the Neutral Nation as constituting an integral part of their federa- tion, occupied the frontier territory on the side near the Iroquois. They may thus Ije presumed to have dwelt in one of the three or four vdlages beyond the Niagara River, in the region mapped by Ducreux as inhabited by the "Ondieronii", and having for chief town "Ondieronius Pagus". These Ouenrohronons had been maltreated and threatened with extermina- tion by their immediate Irocpiois neighbours, the Senecas. As long, however, as they could count upon the su|)port of the bulk of the Neutral Nation, they managetl to hold their own; but when disowned and left to their own resources they had no choice but to forsake their homes and seek an asylum elsewhere. Having beforehand assured themselves of a welcome they set out, to the number of six hundred, on their journey to Huronia, lying some eighty leagues to- wards the north. There they were adopted by the Hurons proper and assigned to different villages, the greater number, however, accepting the hospitality of Ossossan^, the principal town of the Bear Clan.

If ever a faint-hearted policy proved a short- sighted policy, it was in the case of the Neutrals. They had basely sacrificed their outlying posts be- yond the Niagara, and had entered into no compact for mutual defence with the Hurons and the Petuns. There can be no doubt that with preconcerted action the three great Huron nations could not only have driven back the more astute Iroqiiois, but could have made their tribal territory imassailable, so admirably was it protected by the natural features of its geo- graphical position, even had there been no thought of retaliation by carrying the war into the heart of the Iroquois cantons. Their turn was now to come. The power of the Hurons proper and of the Petuns had been separately and effectually crushed, and the restless ambition of the Iroquois yearned for fresh conquests. What brought about the final clash with the Neutrals is not recorded, but the Relation (1C51, Queb. ed., 4; Clev. ed., XXXVI, 177) informs us that the main body of the Iroquois forces invaded their territory. They carried by assaidt two of the frontier towns, Teotondiaton and probably Kandoucho, one of which too confidently relied on its sixteen hundreil defenders. The first was taken towards the close of the autumn of 16.50, and the second in the early spring of 1651. Bloody as had been the conflict, the slaugh- ter which followed this latest succe.ss of the Iroquois was exceptionally ghastly, especially that of the aged and of the children who had not the strength to follow the enemy to their country. The number of captives was unusually large, consisting principally of young women chosen with a view of increasing the Iroquois population. The disa.ster to the Neutral Nation took on such proportions that it entailed the utter ruin and desolation of the country. Word of it soon reached the most remote towns and villages, and struck terror into every breast. Hastily all aban- doned their possessions and their very fatherland. Self-condemned exiles, they fled in consternation far from the cruelty of their conejuerors. Famine fol- lowed in the wake of war, and though they plunged into the densest forests, and .scattered along the shores of far-distant lakes and unknown rivers, in their efforts to sustain life, for many of them the only respite to the misery which pursued them was death