A School History of the United States — John Shaqi
A School History of the United StatesMcMaster, John Bach
History
A School History of the United States
McMaster, John Bach
United States -- History
%72. The Struggle for Acadia and New France; "King William's
War."%--In 1688-89 there was a revolution in England, in the course
of which James II. was driven from his throne, and William and Mary, his
nephew and daughter, were seated on it. James took refuge in France, and
when Louis XIV. attempted to restore him, a great European war
followed, and of course the colonists of the two countries were very
soon fighting each other. As the quarrel did not arise on this side of
the ocean, the English colonists called it "King William's War"; but on
our continent it was really the beginning of a long struggle to
determine whether France or England should rule North America.
The French recognized this at once, and sent over a very able
soldier--Count Frontenac--with orders to conquer New York; but the
colony was saved by the Iroquois, who in the summer of 1689 began a war
of their own against the French, laid siege to Montreal, and roasted
French captives under its walls. Frontenac was compelled to put off his
attack till 1690, when in the dead of winter a band of French and
Indians burned Schenectady, N.Y. Salmon Falls in New Hampshire was next
laid waste (1690), and Fort Loyal, where Portland, Me., is, was taken
and destroyed. A little later Exeter, N.H., was attacked. The boldness
and suddenness of these fearful massacres so alarmed the people exposed
to them that in May, 1690, delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth,
Connecticut, and New York met at New York city to devise a plan of
attack on the French. Now, at the opening of the war, there were three
French strongholds in America. These were Montreal and Quebec in Canada,
and Port Royal in Acadia. In 1690 a Massachusetts fleet led by Sir
William Phips destroyed Port Royal. It was decided, therefore, to send
another fleet under Phips to take Quebec, while troops from New York and
Connecticut marched against Montreal. Both expeditions were failures,
and for seven years the French and Indians ravaged the frontier. In 1692
York, in Maine, was visited and a third of the inhabitants killed. In
1694 Castine was taken and a hundred persons scalped and tomahawked. At
Durham, in New Hampshire, prisoners were burned alive. Groton, in
Massachusetts, was next visited; but the boldest of all was the
massacre, in 1697, at Haverhill, a town not thirty-five miles from
Boston. In 1696, Frontenac, at the head of a great array of Canadians,
_coureurs de bois_, and Indians, invaded the country of the Onondagas,
and leveled their fortified town to the earth.
[Illustration: MAP OF PART OF ACADIA]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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