Natives versus Settlers: the Fort Lachine Massacre of 1689

The Beaver Wars of the 17th century were a period of intense violence and conflict on all sides.  The beaver trade was lucrative business and colonial authorities rigorously maintained their trading connections with Native tribes who supplied the pelts.  Likewise, the tribes struggled to protect trading advantages and hunting range, while coping with incursions on to their land from Settlers and other displaced Natives, disease, warfare, and cultural disruption due to missionary activity by the Settlers.  When all of the above came to a head, as it frequently did, things turned tragic.

Lachine was a French settlement at the lower end of Montreal Island.  It was in land claimed by the Iroquois, particularly the Mohawk.  Beginning in 1688, King William's War/Nine Years War broke out in Europe and North America.  Both French and English colonists incited Native auxiliaries to raids on each other's settlements.  These, in turn, brought reprisals from angry colonists.  Natives raided other tribes and White settlements for a variety of reasons, but one in particular was to take captives who would replace tribal members killed by warfare or disease.  These "mourning raids" were often the most bitterly misunderstood aspects of Native life and instant propaganda for colonists seeking more punitive measures against Natives.  To add to the situation, the Iroquois were beginning to resent the Jesuit and other missionaries who insisted that they no longer practice cultural traditions but adhere strictly to Christianity.

The citizens of Lachine were probably not aware of any of the above on August 5, 1689, when a force of 1500 Mohawk warriors descended on their town, population of roughly 375 people.  The warriors began going from house to house, breaking down doors and taking Settlers captive.  When some of them fled to larger buildings within the town and barricade themselves in, the warriors set the buildings on fire and waited for those inside to flee.  Most likely, around 24 people were killed and 70 captured, those estimates of those killed swelled to over 250, or almost half the entire population of the town.  A commander of the local French garrison mobilized a force and prevented the Mohawk from raiding other settlements.  However, the Governor of New France, stationed in Montreal, knew that his forces were not up to a full-scale confrontation with the Mohawk and their allies and prevented further military action, instead hoping to negotiate for the release of some of the captives.

Both English and French propaganda capitalized on the cruelty of the Iroquois toward their prisoners with salacious stories.  According to second and third-hand accounts, men were tied to stakes and burned alive.  Parents were forced to cast their children on funeral pyres.  Some people were tortured and small children eaten.  Though the Natives did practice ritual killing and some survivors did report being tortured, the reports were most likely exaggerated in the telling.  Because no one attempted to get any reports from Mohawk survivors, their side of the story, including the exact reasons for the raid, will never be known.  The Governor of Montreal was able to negotiate the release of some captives, but many would never return to their families again.  A year later, the French retaliated against both the Mohawk, and the English settlers whom they believed were the true motivators of the incident, by a raid on Schenectady, New York.  Eventually, though, the French realized that they only solution to the enmity with the Iroquois was to treaty with them and make fur trade with the French more lucrative than that with the British.  This incident led indirectly to the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701.