Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
In the same manner as they received us, so they accompanied us a league onward on our way, whereupon my husband alighting out of the Conde's coach, and having with me taken leave of all the company, both he and I got upon horseback; and here we took our leave of my Lord Dongan, who with great kindness brought us so far from Xerez.
In Boston, the people received with dismay the news of the failure of an expedition which had ended so ignobly and involved them so heavily in debt. The Iroquois, in league with the English of New York, where the able governor Dongan and his successor Andros, carefully watched over the interests of their colony, continued to be a constant menace to the French on the St.
Denonville, on his side, with like feelings, could not give up the claim to suzerainty over the land of the Iroquois. The domain of the Five Nations was not the only part of America where French and English clashed. The presence of the English in Hudson Bay excited deep resentment at Quebec and Montreal. Here Denonville ventured to break the peace as Dongan had not dared to do.
The Governor-general, in reply to these not quite unfounded boastings and arrogant assumptions, said that Colonel Dongan claimed the Iroquois as English subjects, and admonished the deputies that, if such were the case, then they must act according to his orders, which would necessarily be pacific, France and England not now being at war; whereupon the deputies responded, as others had done before, that the confederation formed an independent power; that it had always resisted French as well as English supremacy over its subjects; and that the coalesced Iroquois would be neutral, or friends or else enemies to one or both, at discretion; "for we have never been conquered by either of you," they said; adding that, as they held their country immediately from God, they acknowledge no other master.
By an act of poetic justice the Iroquois a few months later plundered a convoy of canoes which La Barre himself had sent out to the Mississippi for trading purposes. The season of 1684 proved even less prosperous for the French. Not only Dongan was doing his best to make the Iroquois allies of the English; Lord Howard of Effingham, the governor of Virginia, was busy to the same end.
They did not like Governor Andros because they thought that he taxed them too heavily, and they sent so many petitions to the Duke of York that, in 1681, Andros was recalled, and Colonel Thomas Dongan was appointed the new Governor.
Menard had laughed when the word came, in 1684, from Father de Lamberville, whose influence worked so far toward keeping the Iroquois quiet, that Dongan had pompously set up the arms of his king in each Iroquois village, even dating them back a year to make his claim the more secure. Every old soldier knew that more than decrees and coats of arms were needed to win the Five Nations.
This was not without cause, for a report had come from Canada that the French were about to march on Albany to destroy it. McGregory soon arrived, and Dongan sent him back to Canada as an emissary with a civil message to Denonville. He added another demand, which must have been singularly galling to his rival. Denonville was sorely perplexed.
This specious appeal for maintaining French Jesuits on English territory, or what was claimed as such, was lost on Dongan, Catholic as he was. He regarded them as dangerous political enemies, and did his best to expel them, and put English priests in their place. Another of his plans was to build a fort at Niagara, to exclude the French from Lake Erie.
The English Governor Dongan, of New York, dared not to fight openly for it, but he armed the Iroquois and set them against the French.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking