^°No!°7bf^^' APPALACHIAN REGION ANCIENT TRIBES — HOFFMAN 207 



The Onondaga also blamed the Huron for this, claiming that those who 

 took refuge among the Erie "stirred up this war which is filling the 

 Iroquois with alarm" (Thwaites, ed., 1896-1901, vol. 41, p. 83). 



Whatever the cause, the war started unauspiciously for the New 

 York Iroquois. In 1653, apparently, the Erie took and burned a 

 frontier town of the Seneca, cut to pieces the rearguard of 80 picked 

 men of a Seneca expedition returning from Lake Huron, and captured 

 and burned a great captain of the Seneca and one of the Onondaga 

 (ibid., vol. 41, p. 81). Curiously, the French accounts of this early 

 phase of the Erie-Iroquois war make no mention of the Susquehan- 

 nock or Andaste, but Printz wrote in this year, as previously men- 

 tioned, that war had broken out between the Arrigahaga and Sus- 

 quahannoer. 



In 1654 the Iroquois secured their rear by concluding a peace 

 treaty with the French, at which time they announced: 



Our young men will wage no more warfare with the French; but, as they are 

 too warlike to abandon that pursuit, you are to understand that we are going to 

 wage a war against the Ehriehronnons (the Cat Nation), and this very summer we 

 shall lead an army thither. The earth is trembling yonder, and here all is quiet. 

 [Le Mercier, 1655; in Thwaites, ed., 1896-1901, vol. 41, p. 75.] 



While preparations were being made for this invasion, Erie war parties 

 still lurked around the New York towns, even ambushing three men 

 within 1 day's journey of Onondaga (Thwaites, ed., 1896-1901, 

 vol. 41, p. 75). 



The Iroquois attack, when it finally was carried out in August of 

 1654, was massive, involving some 700 (or 1,200) men. After its 

 entry into their country the northern Ehriehronon abandoned their 

 frontier towns and retreated some 5 days before taking refuge in the 

 fortified town of Rique, inhabited by the Eiquehronnon (Rigueron- 

 non), who apparently had just experienced an attack by the "Anda- 

 stogueronnons" or Susquehannock. Here the Erie beat off the initial 

 attacks in heavy fighting. Finally, carrying their canoes before 

 them as shields and then using them as ladders to scale the walls, 

 the Iroquois stormed the fort. The Eries' gunpowder supply be- 

 coming exhausted, the defense coUapsed, and the defenders were 

 massacred to the number of 2,000 men, plus women and children 

 (ibid., vol. 41, p. 121; vol. 42, pp. 178-179, 187-188, 191, 195; vol. 45, 

 p. 209). 



At approximately the same time, that is, in 1654 or 1655, a battle 

 took place between a party of Black Minqua and Englishmen from 

 Virginia in which the latter suffered a defeat of some proportions. 



I also want to mention briefly what happened among the Black Minquas further 

 in the [interior of the] country, with 15 individual Englishmen whom they had 

 taken prisoners; from which one can learn of the horrible cruelty of the Minquas. 



