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Amerindian Power in the Early Modern Northeast: A Reappraisal
Emerson W. Baker and John G. Reid
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On April 20, 1700, the governor of New England and New York, the
earl of Bellomont, informed the English Board of Trade that, "if
... there should be a generall defection of the Indians, the English
in a moneth's time would be forced on all the Continent of America
to take refuge in their Towns, where I am most certain they could
not subsist two moneths, for the Indians would not leave 'em any
sort of cattle or corne." While this warning was based on concurrent
apprehensions of a Houdenasaunee-Wabanaki alliance—a feared
union that would never in fact occur—it was a striking estimation
of the dangers posed to the English imperial presence by aboriginal
coercive power. For Bellomont, the simple result would be that the
native forces "would in a short time drive us quite out of this
Continent."
1
Some eighteen years later, the intendant of New France, Michel Bégon,
echoed Bellomont by expressing his own fears of Wabanaki military
force. Bégon envisaged circumstances in which the Wabanakis
might be persuaded by the British "to pillage and destroy the habitations
on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, and even of all Canada."
This, he continued, "would be easy for them, those natives knowing
perfectly all the settlements of New France."
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Both of these statements were made
at times of critical change. Bellomont's belonged to the era leading
up to the Houdenasaunee-French reconciliation known as the "Grand
Settlement of 1701," while Bégon was reacting to the concessions
made by France in the Treaty of Utrecht earlier in 1713. Each statement
betrayed elements of fear and consternation. Yet neither was made
as a rhetorical exaggeration. Although both men were recent appointees
to their positions when their statements were made, each could expect
to carry weight with imperial authorities: Bellomont as an experienced
Whig politician, Bégon as a well-schooled marine administrator
whose father had also been an intendant.
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Neither had any need to impress by making extravagant statements,
and each had a strategy to recommend. Bellomont had come to North
America in 1698 unconvinced of the seriousness of the Wabanaki threat
that had preoccupied his Massachusetts predecessors Sir William
Phips and William Stoughton, but he now urged that the shoring up
of English relations with both Houdenasaunees and Wabanakis demanded
a high priority. Bégon, in the wake of the French surrender
at Utrecht, counseled a narrow interpretation of the French cession
of Acadia/Nova Scotia, to exclude most of the Wabanaki territory.
Thus, both statements were rational assessments of the situation.
Bellomont further substantiated his concerns with a brief analysis
of the tactical effectiveness of native warfare. Using the now-familiar
terminology, Bellomont described the native manner of "sculking
in the woods behind bushes, and flat on their bellies."
4
The governor confessed that "I us'd to ridicule the people here
for suffering 3 or 400 Indians to cut off five times their number,
of them: but I was soon convinced that it was not altogether the
want of Courage and Conduct in the English that gave the advantage
to the Indians this Last warr, but chiefly the Indians manner of
... using the advantage of the woods."
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