The Great Lakes: The Vessels That Plough Them: Their Owners, Their Sailors, and Their Cargoes, Together with a Brief History of Our Inland SeasCurwood, James Oliver
History
The Great Lakes: The Vessels That Plough Them: Their Owners, Their Sailors, and Their Cargoes, Together with a Brief History of Our Inland Seas
Curwood, James Oliver
Great Lakes (North America); Inland navigation -- United States; Shipping -- Great Lakes (North America)
News of the defeat of the French spread like wildfire. It penetrated
to the farthest fastnesses of the known wildernesses. English traders
began to swarm into the Lower Lake regions. The Indian nations allied
to the French were thrown into a panic. The war spirit of the Iroquois
was aroused to a feverish height by their victory, and they swarmed to
the invasion of the French dominions. Fort Frontenac was captured and
burned. Both the allies and the French were swept back with tremendous
slaughter, and their power upon the Lower Lakes was broken. “It
seemed,” said an early writer, “as if the Five Nations would sweep over
the entire Lake country, driving all enemies from their shores, and
thus delivering into the hands of the English all that the French had
gained.”
But, in this hour of victory, the shadow of doom was hovering over the
martial people of the Five Nations. For unnumbered years the conquerors
of the New World, the time had at last come for their fall. The War
of the Palatinate was at hand, and the hostilities of the French and
the English spread to land and sea. Rumours came that Frontenac was
about to sweep down upon New York, and the faithful Iroquois turned
back to defend the city of their White Father. They threw themselves
between the invaders and their friends, an unconquerable barrier. New
York was saved, but in the struggle the power of the Five Nations was
broken. For many years they still remained a force to be reckoned
with, but as the conquering Romans of the Wilderness and the terror of
a score of nations, extending even to the Mississippi, their history
was at an end. In their passing it must be said that a braver man, a
truer friend, or a more relentless foe never existed on the American
continent than the Iroquois warrior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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