Madame La Tour who was a Protestant
and disliked by the priests. He also admits that a number of the
defenders of the fort were executed, while others, probably the
traitors, had their lives spared. The attacks on Madame La Tour's
character are not warranted by impartial history, and clearly show the
bias of the book.

{110}

VIII.

THE CANADIAN INDIANS AND THE IROQUOIS:
THEIR ORGANISATION, CHARACTER, AND CUSTOMS.

At the time of Champlain's death we see gathering in America the forces
that were to influence the fortunes of French Canada--the English
colonies growing up by the side of the Atlantic and the Iroquois, those
dangerous foes, already irritated by the founder of Quebec. These
Indians were able to buy firearms and ammunition from the Dutch traders
at Fort Orange, now Albany, on the beautiful river which had been
discovered by Hudson in 1609. From their warlike qualities and their
strong natural position between the Hudson and Niagara rivers, they had
now become most important factors in the early development of the
French and English colonies, and it is consequently important to give
some particulars of their character and organisation. In the first
place, however, I shall refer to those Indian tribes who lived in
Canada, and were closely identified with the interests of the French
settlements. These Indians also became possessed of {112} firearms,
sold to them from time to time by greedy traders, despite the interdict
of the French authorities in the early days of the colonies.

[Illustration: Indian costumes, from Lafitau. 1. Iroquois; 2.
Algonquin.]

Champlain found no traces of the Indians of Cartier's time at Stadacona
and Hochelaga. The tribes which had frequented the St. Lawrence
seventy years before had vanished, and in their place he saw bands of
wandering Algonquins. It was only when he reached the shores of
Georgian Bay that he came to Indian villages resembling that Hochelaga
which had disappeared so mysteriously. The St. Lawrence in Cartier's
day had been frequented by tribes speaking one or more of the dialects
of the Huron-Iroquois family, one of the seven great families that then
inhabited North America east of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Hudson's Bay. The short and imperfect vocabulary of
Indian words which Cartier left behind, his account of Hochelaga, the
intimacy of the two Gaspe Indians with the inhabitants of
Stadacona--these and other facts