European Rivals and the Seneca Frontier

The stagnant heat draped over the weary marchers like a heavy blanket. The still air muffled any sound. The eerie silence only gnawed at their nerves.

Suddenly, the quiet forest erupted with sharp cries.

The startled Frenchmen stopped in their tracks. Before they could think, puffs of smoke popped from the thicket before them. Instantly, speeding musket balls whizzed through the ranks.

In an instant, two soldiers lay dead. Stunned by the ambush, the remaining staggered. But only for a moment.

The ordered march had devolved into disordered disarray. Officers shouted, struggling to steady the line. The men fell into their platoons and returned fire. The white haze of spent powder from hundreds of muskets quickly thickened with every volley.

Immersed in the literal fog of war, they could see nothing—only flashes, smoke, and the shadowy movement of…who?

They could not tell who they were firing at—or if they were firing at their own..

The attackers wore the same marks as their allies. In the smoke and confusion, friend and foe were indistinguishable.

In a moment, it was over. The heavy fire stopped.

The Seneca had shed their guns and what they carried, then sprinted like deer into the dark woods.

Fearing another trap in less familiar terrain, Denonville called off any attempt to pursue the ambushers. He meticulously surveyed the landscape, seeking the highest ground with the best line of sight. They would spend the night there.

He didn’t know how lucky he’d been.

*           *           *           *            *

That brief clash in the woods was no isolated encounter.

For more than two decades, the Iroquois Confederacy held sway over a large swath of territory stretching from the Hudson River to the Mississippi River and as far north as the upper Great Lakes. Their aggressive expansionist policy conquered their smaller neighboring tribes either by pushing them off the map or erasing them as distinct peoples. The fur trade was all theirs.

The Seneca, the westernmost of the Five Nations, had the responsibility of guarding the frontier as “Keepers of the Western door.” While the Confederacy’s earlier battles had been against those they originally shared this portion of the continent with, those tribes had a powerful ally—the French.

By coincidence of geography (i.e., where they landed), the French developed early alliances with “numerous and diverse tribes of savages” with whom they swore friendship in exchange for trade.¹ These two nations were at war with the Iroquois Confederacy long before the Europeans landed on the shores of the Atlantic.² Naturally, France sided with its allies whenever a conflict occurred.

And it did, initially with Champlain near the lake that bears his name (somewhere between Crown Point and Ticonderoga). At approximately ten o’clock on the evening of July 29, 1609, both sides met and agreed to wait until daylight to do battle “so as to be able to recognize each other.”³

It proved a costly decision.

At first light, Champlain saw three chiefs marked by tall plumes rising above the others. Urged on by his allies,⁴ he raised his arquebus, loaded with four balls, and fired. Two chiefs fell instantly. A third staggered, mortally wounded.⁵

Needless to say, the French did not make a good impression on the Iroquois, and this battle was the start of a not-so-beautiful relationship. This had been the first time the Confederacy (specifically, the Mohawk) had seen such weapons. By coincidence, roughly six weeks later, Henry Hudson would sail up his namesake river; thus, beginning a profitable (for both parties) trade exchange between the Iroquois and the Dutch. The Dutch received furs. In return, the Iroquois received arms.

And, after the English replaced the Dutch, the Iroquois welcomed them as allies, too. And received armaments superior to those of their foes, which, as we learned previously, they put to good use during the Beaver Wars.

The outcome of those wars put the French in a bind. While the Confederacy decimated the Erie, other nations escaped into French territory in northern Canada. The French recognized that, had they not defended their allies, these Indians might have “submitted to the Iroquois, and placed themselves under the protection of the English.”⁶

The situation left Jacques-René de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville, the newly installed governor of New France with little choice. He had to tame the Iroquois Confederacy should France wish to keep its colony. In January 1687, he outlined a strategy to attack the Confederacy on two fronts, one on each flank. Of the two, he maintained, “the first and principal attack must be on the Seneca Nation on the borders of Lake Ontario.”⁷

So, on a very hot midsummer day in yet another July—this time in 1687—Denonville marched from Irondequoit Bay into the heart of the Seneca in what has more significance for its eyewitness documentation of the terrain (as well as the event) than for any lasting military consequence.

We are fortunate to have five primary sources for what has come to be known as the Denonville Expedition: Two from Denonville himself (his official letters contemporary regarding the campaign, as well as his daily journal compiled several years later; the journal of Louis-Henri de Baugy, Chevalier de Baugy, Denonville’s aide-de-camp during the campaign; in a letter dated September 19, 1687 from Reverend Father Thierry Beschefer to Monsieur Esprit Cabart de Villermont; and, the journal of Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan, a minor officer serving under Denonville.

Here’s an abbreviated summary of the Denonville Expedition as it relates to the Greater Western New York Region:

On July 10, 1687, two armies of Frenchmen arrived very nearly at the same time on the sand bar where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario.⁸ They spent the next day and a half building a small redoubt to act as a defense and protect their boats. Denonville left 400 men there as a guard.⁹ In mid-afternoon on the 12^th, the remaining men began their march into the interior. Loaded with 13 days’ provisions, they took a path through lofty trees with enough open space to march in three columns.¹⁰

On the 13^th, the French and their Indian confederates moved cautiously through the open woods on the well-worn but narrow Seneca trail. They had been scouted even before landing and knew they were being watched as they progressed south, at one point being teased by the Seneca, who warned that, while they will kill all in the French army, “they were tired of eating white meat.”¹¹ They passed through two “wretched” defiles (narrow ravines), half expecting the Seneca to ambush them there.¹²

After exiting the second defile, his soldiers “fatigued through the extraordinary and sultry heat of the weather,” Denonville decided to rest for the night before moving on to Ganondagan, the first Seneca village they hoped to attack. Louis-Hector de Callière, second in command and governor of Montreal, led the vanguard towards the third and final defile. He had 300 Frenchmen and an equal number of Ottawa allies split on either flank. The troops were attacked at about three o’clock in the afternoon.¹³

Here we find the greatest divergence between the original sources. Loss totals vary with de Baugy saying, “Two Frenchmen were killed in their tracks, and fifteen wounded”¹⁴ while Lahontan claimed, “We lost on this occasion ten savages and a hundred Frenchmen; we had twenty or twenty-two wounded.”¹⁵

They all agreed that they heard the yells and cries of the attackers just before being fired upon, that they didn’t expect the attack, and that they were so confused they didn’t know who they were firing at.¹⁶ And after a short exchange of “heavy” fire, the Seneca dropped their “gun and clothing”¹⁷ and fled through the woods “like deer.”¹⁸

That evening, the French “witnessed the painful sight of the usual cruelties of the savages, who cut the dead into quarters, as is done in slaughter houses, in order to put them into the kettle; the greater number were opened while still warm that their blood might be drank.”¹⁹

Luck was with Denonville that day. Luck or military smarts. The Seneca had set up a pincher trap. The attack on the vanguard was meant to push the French back into a larger number of Seneca lying in wait at the rear of Denonville’s columns. Even as the French were firing “pell-mell,” they moved forward, not backward. It was a perfect trap laid by the Seneca that never got sprung. The French found this out only afterward.²⁰

This battle took place roughly a mile northwest of what is now the Village of Victor, New York. To the village’s south and west lies the historic site of Ganondagan, Denonville’s first target. When he and his troops marched there on July 14^th, they expected to meet an entrenched enemy. Instead, they found the abandoned village reduced to ashes.²¹

They spent the next several days burning all the corn they could find, either in the field or stored. On the 19^th they came to the Village of Totiakton, about a mile northwest of Honeoye Falls on the bend of Honeoye Creek. The Seneca had tried to burn it, but only a few cabins had been destroyed.²² It was on this day that Denonville issued his Proces verbal, essentially formally proclaiming Totiakton “together with all the lands which are in the vicinity, however far they extend, conquered in the name of his Majesty.”²³

Congratulations, Western New Yorkers, you can now claim to be citizens of France!

Well, the British may have had a thing or two to say about that. The war that finally settled that question took place all around Western New York and beyond but, ironically, mostly outside Western New York. Yet Western New York represented a critical corridor in the trade routes and alliance systems—much more than most outsiders realize.

Harking back to the heyday of the Iroquois Confederacy, when the Seneca held the key position of guarding the western door, that “western door” became an imperial obsession: whoever holds the Niagara peninsula controls movement, supply, and influence. And it was here, at the Battle of Fort Niagara, that the tipping point was reached where the British finally brought about the undoing of France in North America.

This isn’t the same fort Denonville built in 1687. It was the third fort built by the French on the same plot of land (the first was Fort Conti, built by La Salle in 1678). For nineteen days in July (would it be any other month) of 1759, the British Laid siege to the French fort. When the British and their Iroquois allies ambushed the French relief force at the Battle of La Belle-Famille on July 24, the French commander of Fort Niagara had no choice but to surrender.

Just as it was ironic that the Seneca towns suffered the same fate at the hands of Denonville as the Erie did at the hands of the Seneca, so, too, is it ironic that François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery, who commanded the French relief force at the Battle of La Belle-Famille fell for the same trap set for Denonville by the Seneca. Denonville survived by not retreating and charging into the ambush. Lignery was defeated and mortally wounded when he took the retreat option (which led him directly into the trap).

The loss of Fort Niagara triggered a chain reaction that ultimately crippled France’s efforts in North America. In a weakened position, French forces abandoned several forts across their frontier, effectively ceding territory to the British. With the British now in firm control of Lake Ontario, France saw its supply lines disrupted and its naval capabilities diminished. Together with other key victories, the Battle of Fort Niagara essentially ended the ground campaign of the French and Indian War, although a formal peace treaty wouldn’t be signed until 1763.

So what, if anything, did the Denonville Expedition accomplish? Perhaps nothing from a military standpoint. And definitely nothing from a diplomatic standpoint. But, from a sense of history, it is significant. Denonville gave us the very first written record of the natural beauty of Western New York. Lahontan described what he saw as “The country which we saw is the most beautiful, level and charming in the world. The woods we traversed abounded in oak, walnut and wild chestnut trees.”²⁴

More intriguing is de Baugy’s comment regarding where they camped on the hike back from Totiakton. He wrote, “we came upon three very pretty little lakes. We did not dare pass them by on account of the water they afforded us. This we have not been meeting with as often as our guides led us to believe we should. The trail is like the one we took in coming into the Seneca villages. Its beginning has been very beautiful, running through open woods.”²⁵

He’s offering the very first documented description of what today we call Mendon Ponds Park.

The Seneca survived the French invasion by disappearing into the dense forests where the French were at a disadvantage. They rebuilt, adapted, and remained a force on the frontier.

Denonville had marched deep into their homeland, burned their towns, and claimed their lands in the name of the French king.

But claims on paper did not match reality on the ground.

The Seneca still occupied the land.

The French could not hold it.

And the English were already positioning themselves to take advantage of both.

Which raised a far more complicated question—one no musket or marching column could settle:

Who actually owned Western New York?

¹ Voyages of Samuel de Champlain 1604-1818, W.L. Grant, ed., Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1907. p. 360.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid., pp. 163-164.
⁴ Ibid., p. 164.
⁵ Ibid., p. 165.
⁶ Broadhead, John Romeyn, “Jacques-René de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville to Seignelay, Aug. 1687,” Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York Vol. IX., E.B. O’Callaghan, ed, Weed, Parsons & Co, 1855, p. 336.
⁷ Ibid., “Memoir on the State of Canada. Memoir for the Marquis de Seignelay Regarding the dangers that threaten Canada, the means of remedying them, and of firmly establishing religion, commerce and the King’s power in North America. January, 1687,” p. 321.
⁸ Jacques René de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville, journal, in Orsamus H. Marshall, Narrative of the Expedition of the Marquis de Nonville, against the Senecas, in 1687 (Buffalo, 1848), p. 176.
⁹ Louis Henri, Chevalier de Baugy, journal, trans. Nathaniel S. Olds, in Edward R. Foreman, ed., The Rochester Historical Society Publication Fund Series, Vol. IX (Rochester, 1930), p. 34.
¹⁰ Broadhead, p. 364.
¹¹ de Baugy, p. 34.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Denonville, Narrative of the Expedition of the Marquis de Nonville, against the Senecas, in 1687, p. 177.
¹⁴ de Baugy, p. 34.
¹⁵ Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan, excerpt from “Travels in America” (1715), in Marshall, Narrative of the Expedition of the Marquis de Nonville (1848), Appendix II, p. 191.
¹⁶ Lahontan. p. 190.
¹⁷ Denonville, Narrative of the Expedition of the Marquis de Nonville, against the Senecas, in 1687, p. 178.
¹⁸ Thierry Beschefer to Cabart de Villermont, 19 Sept. 1687, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. LXIII (Cleveland, 1900), p. 273.
¹⁹ Broadhead, John Romeyn, “Jacques-René de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville to Seignelay, Aug. 1687,” Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York Vol. IX., E.B. O’Callaghan, ed, Weed, Parsons & Co, 1855, p. 338.
²⁰ de Baugy, p. 36.
²¹ Denonville, Narrative of the Expedition of the Marquis de Nonville, against the Senecas, in 1687, p. 178.
²² Ibid., p. 180.
²³ “Record of the taking possession of the country of the Iroquois, called Sonnontouant,” in Marshall (1848), Appendix I, p. 189.
²⁴ Lahontan. p. 190.
²⁵ de Baugy, p. 44.