392 THE SENECA NATION 



addicted to drink, now frequently drank to excess. Even 

 children of ten or twelve years of age were often seen intoxicated. 

 During the commotion caused by the frequent drunken bouts 

 the priests hid in their chapels, though even there they were not 

 always safe. 



The Maryland Council learned in August, 1681, from an 

 Onondaga and a Cayuga that "another nation called the Black 

 Mingoes are joined with the Sinnodowannes who are the right 

 Senecas". (*i) Who these "Black Mingoes" were is un- 

 known. The Senecas were called by the Maryland settlers 

 "Mingoes". 



~ In 1683 it seemed as 



^c^^^C-u^^t ctdZew"-*}^) though the insolence of the 



Senecas was to be punished 

 and their arrogance curbed, when M. de La Barre Governor of 

 Canada made plans to invade their country. In 1682, Frontenac had 

 been superseded as governor of New France by Le Febvre de la 

 Barre, an old naval officer. He proved to be unscrupulous and 

 grasping in illicit trade with the Indians, but timid, vacillating 

 and weak in his treatment of them. In 1683, news came that 

 the Senecas intended to attack the Illinois, Ottawas and Hurons 

 then grouped about Michilimackinac as a base. As this would 

 have cut off much of the Governor's private trade he was natur- 

 ally much alarmed and begged the King for troops to attack the 

 Senecas in their country. A council with the Iroquois sachems 

 at Onondaga resulted only in a truce, which was of so little ac- 

 count to the Senecas that they did not scruple to board a vessel 

 of La Barre's at anchor at Fort Frontenac and help themselves 

 to a quantity of goods and brandy. In the council the Iroquois 

 had been told specifically that they might plunder any French 

 traders who were "without permission" from the Governor. 

 This was intended to give them the opportunity to plunder La 

 Salle, but a Seneca war part) 7 operating in the Illinois country in 

 the spring of 1683, met one of La Barre's own parties, and failed 

 to distinguish between La Salle's party "without permission" 

 and De la Barre's traders with permission and so seized their 

 goods and made the party prisoners. La Barre was furious, and 

 began at once to plan to invade the Seneca country at the head 

 of a force large enough to compel respect. 



*i Maryland Archives, XVII, 5. 



