212 ISAAC JOGUES. [1641-42. 



with fire-arms. The Mohawks, the most easterly 

 of the Iroquois nations, had, among their seven or 

 eight hundred warriors, no less than three hundred 

 armed with the arquebuse, a weapon somewhat 

 like the modern carbine.^ They were masters of 

 the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, 

 had struck terror into their hearts. 



We have surveyed in the introductory chapter 

 the character and organization of this ferocious 

 people ; their confederacy of five nations, bound 

 together by a peculiar tie of clanship ; their chiefs, 

 half hereditary, half elective ; their government, an 

 oligarchy in form and a democracy in spirit ; their 

 minds, thoroughly savage, yet marked here and 

 there with traits of a vigorous development. The 

 war which they had long waged with the llurons 

 was carried on by the Senecas and the other West- 

 ern nations of their league ; while the conduct of 

 hostilities against the French and their Indian al- 

 lies in Lower Canada was left to the Mohawks. 

 In parties of from ten to a hundred or more, they 

 would leave their towns on the River Mohawk, 

 descend Lake Champlain and the Hiver Richelieu, 

 lie in ambush on the banks of the St. Lawrence, 

 and attack the passing boats or canoes. Some- 

 times they hovered about the fortifications of Que- 

 bec and Three Rivers, killing stragglers, or luring 



1 Vimont, Relation, 1643, 62. The Mohawks were the Agnies, or 

 Agneronons, of the old French writers. 



According to the Journal of New Netherland, a contemporary Dutch 

 document, (see Colonial Documents of New York, I. 179,) the Dutch at Fort 

 Orange had supplied the Mohawks with four hundred guns ; the profits 

 of the trade, which was free to the settlers, blinding them to the danger. 



