Читать книгу Canada and its Provinces - Various - Страница 18

The essence of the French policy towards the Indians is shown in the negotiations preceding the Treaty of Ryswick. The French commissioners were required to press for the following conditions:

(a) To have the sovereignty of the French court over the Iroquois admitted.

(b) If that be impossible, to have the Iroquois declared neutral.

(c) If the sovereignty of the English must be admitted, to require that the English authorities shall guarantee to prevent the Iroquois from making war on the French.

The Iroquois themselves maintained that they were not under the sovereignty of any nation, but were free to deal with either as their inclination or interests determined. This gave the French authorities a new standpoint. Henceforth, whenever they found it impossible to maintain their own authority over the Indians, they took the ground that the Indians were an independent people, being owners of their own lands and masters of their own policy, that the French were neither responsible for their actions nor for any claims they might make.

Taking advantage of the alarm which was excited in the minds of the Iroquois by the formal claims which the British authorities found it necessary to set up after the Treaty of Ryswick, the French officials in Canada opened negotiations with them, inviting them to a grand council at Montreal in September 1700. There the foundations for a lasting peace were laid and the tentative agreements arrived at were ratified in a definite treaty of peace which was signed at Montreal on August 4, 1701. By this stroke of policy, the mistakes of La Barre and Denonville were finally overcome and the efforts of Frontenac and the missionaries rewarded. The French certainly obtained a new lease of power in America, and thereafter held the balance of advantage by means of their Indian alliances throughout the interior of the continent.

By their natural temperament and personal qualities, and by their adaptability to the life of the woods, the French had many natural advantages over the English in dealing with the native tribes of America. Above all, through their religious system, which appealed to the imagination of the Indians, and the zeal of the missionaries who followed them to their homes, it was difficult, once the French had gained the favour of the Indians, to overcome their influence with them. The only advantage which the English colonists had over the French was the economic one of paying higher prices for furs and asking lower prices for goods, coupled with the circumstances which had from the first placed the French in conflict with the Iroquois tribes.