PART I. 



CIVIL AND POLITICAL DISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 



TO THE DISCOVERY. 



The territory, now distinguished by the general designation, 

 of the valley of Lake Champlain was for nearly a century, a de- 

 batable ground between the powers of France and England. 

 Claimed by each under arbitrary charters or imaginary titles, 

 overrun and subverted in turn by both, and permanently occu- 

 pied by neither, it derived from the presence of their armies, 

 little amelioration of its primitive savage aspect. 



Earlier than this period, the same region seems to have been 

 the frontier between tribes, or confederacies of tribes of abori- 

 gines, who waged a perpetual warfare of ferocious extermination. 

 These circumstances, it is probable had con.-igned it to desolation 

 and prevented the occupation of the country by a race, which 

 would have been allured to it, by the strong attractions to the 

 savage mind, created by the profusion of its game and lisli. Tlie 

 possessions of the Indians were apparently most extended and 

 permanent on the eastern shores of the lake. Few vestiges of 

 their existence have been discovered, upon its western borders. 

 They appear, however, to have congregated in numerous villages 

 alon<r the lakes and rivers of the interior. The bold and loftr 

 mountains which (mvelop tliit region, formed to them a bul- 

 wark against the assaults of tlieir foes, while the forests and the 

 streams yielded an abund.mt supply (»f their humble wants. 



At a period nearly cotemporaneous with tlie discovery of Canada 

 by the Frencli, the Uoman energies and the extrat^rdinary mili- 

 tary prowess of the ^Tohawks appear to have borne their arms and 



