SIXTH REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR ICfOO, 205 



Indians for war and by the whites for exploration. They pro- 

 ceeded in canoes up the St Lawrence and turned south into the 

 Richelieu, and in the early days of July after many vicissitudes 

 and the desertion of the greater part of the Indians they dragged 

 their canoes around the rapids of the river and came to the foot 

 of the lake on whose shores we stand. They proceeded up the lake 

 with all the precautions of Indian warfare in an enemy's country. 

 As they approached the head of the lake they rested concealed by 

 day and urged forward their canoes by night. At last, in this month 

 of July three hundred years ago, they came upon a war party of the 

 Iroquois. Both parties landed in the neighborhood of the present 

 Ticonderoga and with the coming of the dawn joined battle. Pro- 

 tected by the light armor of the period Champlain advanced to 

 the front in full view of the contending parties, and as the Iroquois 

 drew their bows upon him he fired his arquebus. One of his white 

 companions also fired. The Iroquois chief and several of his war- 

 riors fell killed or wounded, and the entire band amazed and terror 

 stricken by their first experience with the inexplicable, miraculous 

 and death-dealing power of firearms fled in dismay. They were 

 pursued by the Algonquins, some were killed, some were taken 

 prisoners, and the remainder returned to their homes to spread 

 through all the tribes of the Iroquois the story that a new enemy 

 had arisen bringing unheard of and supernatural powers to the 

 aid of their traditional Algonquin foes. The shot from Champlain's 

 arquebus had determined the part that was to be played in the ap- 

 proaching conflict by the most powerful military force among the 

 Indians of North America. It had made the confederacy of the 

 Iroquois and all its nations and dependencies the implacable ene- 

 mies of the French and the fast friends of the English for all the 

 long struggle that was to come. 



A century or more before the white settlement five Indian na- 

 tions of the same stock and language under the leadership of ex- 

 traordinary political genius had formed a confederacy for the 

 preservation of internal peace and for common defense against 

 external attack. Their territories extended in 1609 from the St 

 Lawrence to the Susquehanna ; from Lake Champlain and the Hud- 

 son to the Genesee, and a few years later to the Niagara. There 

 dwelt side by side the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the 

 Cayugas and the Senecas in the firm union of Ho-de-no-sau-nee -^- 

 the Long House of the Iroquois. 



The Algonquin tribes that surrounded them were still in the 

 lowest stage of industrial life and for their food added to the 



