Hochelagans and Mohawks: A Link in Iroquois HistoryLighthall, W. D. (William Douw)
History
Hochelagans and Mohawks: A Link in Iroquois History
Lighthall, W. D. (William Douw)
Indians of North America -- Québec (Province) -- History; Iroquois Indians; Mohawk Indians
The Iroquets or Hochelagans attributed their great disaster,--the
destruction of their towns and dispossession of their island,--to the
Hurons, but Charlevoix[9] records an Algonquin victory over them which
seems to have preceded, and contributed to, that event, though the
lateness of Charlevoix renders the story not so reliable in detail as
the personal recollections of the Iroquets above given: His story[10]
given "on the authority of those most versed in the old history of the
country", proceeds as follows: "Some Algonquins were at war with the
Onontcharonnons better known under the name of Tribe of Iroquet, and
whose former residence was, it is said, in the Island of Montreal. The
name they bear proclaims, they were of Huron speech; nevertheless it
is claimed that it was the Hurons who drove them from their ancient
country, and who in part destroyed them. However that may be, they were
at the time I speak of, at war with the Algonquins, who, to finish
this war at one stroke, thought of a stratagem, which succeeded". This
stratagem was an ambush placed on both sides of the River Bécancour
near Three Rivers, with some pretended fishermen out in canoes as
decoys. The Iroquets attacked and pursued the fishermen, but in the
moment of victory, a hail of arrows issued from the bushes along both
shores. Their canoes being pierced, and the majority wounded, they all
perished. "The tribe of Iroquet never recovered from this disaster; and
none to day remain. The quantity of corpses in the water and on the
banks of the river so infected it, that it retains the name of Rivière
Puante"; (Stinking River).
Charlevoix[11] gives, as well supported, the story of the origin of the
war between the Iroquois and Algonquins. "The Iroquois had made with
them a sort of alliance very useful to both." They gave grain for
game and armed aid, and thus both lived long on good terms. At last a
disagreement rose in a joint party of 12 young hunters, on account of
the Iroquois succeeding while the Algonquins failed in the chase. The
Algonquins, therefore, maliciously tomahawked the Iroquois in their
sleep. Thence arose the war.
In 1608, according to Ferland[12] based evidently upon the statement of
Champlain, the remnant of the Hochelagans left in Canada occupied the
triangle above Montreal now bounded by Vandreuil, Kingston and Ottawa.
This perhaps indicates it as the upper part of their former territory.
Sanson's map places them at about the same part of the Ottawa in the
middle of the seventeenth century and identifies them with La Petite
Nation, giving them as "Onontcharonons ou La Petite Nation". That
remnant accompanied Champlain against the Iroquois, being of course
under the influence of their masters the Hurons and Algonquins.
Doubtless their blood is presently represented among the Huron and
Algonquin mission Indians of Oka, Lorette, Petite Nation, etc., and
perhaps among those of Caughnawaga and to some extent, greater or less,
among the Six Nations proper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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