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Updated: May 25, 2025
Without more mention of the court, we entered the Company's office, where sat the councillors in session around a long table. No one rose to welcome him who had brought such wealth on the Happy Return; and the reason was not far to seek. The post-chaise had arrived with Pierre Radisson's detractors, and allied with them were the Gillams and Governor Brigdar.
The Iroquois left their boats and swam for the opposite shore, where they threw up the usual barricade and entrenched themselves to shoot on Radisson's passing canoes. Using the captured beaver pelts as shields, the Upper Indians ran the gantlet of the Iroquois fire with the loss of only one man. The slightest defeat may turn well-ordered retreat into panic.
Indeed, when the ships stopped to take on water at a lonely 'hole in the wall' on the Labrador coast, the mutiny would have flamed into open revolt but for the sail of a pirate ship that appeared on the horizon. Thereupon Radisson's ships crowded sail to the wind and sped on up the coast. What pirate ship this was may be guessed from what happened three weeks later.
Radisson's treatment of his rivals hardly substantiates all the accusations of rascality trumped up against him. Just how many prisoners he took in this coup, no two records agree. Archives, September 24, 1683: Ordinance of M. de Meulles regarding the claims of persons interested in the expedition to Hudson Bay, organized by M. de la Chesnaye, Gitton, Bruneau, Mme.
That evening the united bands kindled an enormous campfire and with the scalps of the dead flaunting from spear heads danced the scalp dance, reënacting in pantomime all the episodes of the massacre to the monotonous chant-chant, of a recitative relating the foray. At the next camping-ground, Radisson's hair was shaved in front and decorated on top with the war-crest of a brave.
If Radisson suspected treachery on the part of jealous rivals from Quebec, it must have redoubled his fury; for the Indians from the Upper Country threw themselves in the breached barricade with such force that the Iroquois lost heart and tossed belts of wampum over the stockades to supplicate peace. It was almost night. Radisson's Indians drew off to consider the terms of peace.
Radisson tried to imitate the relentless Algonquin, but, unnerved with horror, he bungled the blow and lost hold of the hatchet just as it struck the Mohawk's head. The Iroquois sprang up with a shout that awakened the third man, but the Algonquin was ready. Radisson's blow proved fatal. The victim reeled back dead, and the third man was already despatched by the Algonquin. Radisson was free.
I repeated. "In and up and on there's mettle for you, lad!" And with that terse text which, I think, comprehended the whole of M. Radisson's philosophy we were back at the beach. The Indians were not in such a state as I have seen after many a trading bout. They were able to accompany us. In embarking, M. Radisson must needs observe all the ceremony of two races.
Of these designs, neither priests nor governor had the slightest suspicion. The Jesuits were thinking only of the Iroquois' soul; the French, of peace with the Iroquois at any cost. In 1656 Major Dupuis and fifty Frenchmen had established a French colony among the Iroquois. The hardships of these pioneers form no part of Radisson's life, and are, therefore, not set down here.
This account is drawn mainly from Radisson's Journal, partly from Father Ragueneau, and in one detail from a letter of Marie de l'Incarnation. Garneau says the feasters were drugged, but I cannot find his authority for this, though from my knowledge of fur traders' escapes, I fancy it would hardly have been human nature not to add a sleeping potion to the kettles.
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