Champlain's War Party
1615
Image courtesy of the Canadian Trasport Sourcebook
In Bayshore Park, Albert Street, behind the Legion Hall, 190 Quinte St., Trenton
Commemoration
In September 1615, a small party of Frenchmen, commanded by Samuel de Champlain, and some five hundred Huron Indians, passed down the Trent River on their way to attack the Iroquois who lived in what is now northern New York State. Joined by a band of Algonkians they skirted the eastern end of Lake Ontario and journeyed southward to a palisades Onondaga village near the present site of Syracuse, NY. Champlain was wounded, the attack repulsed and the discomfited allies returned to Huronia. This expedition increased the hostility of the Five Nations toward the French and their Indian supporters which culminated in the defeat and dispersal of the Hurons 1640-50.
Background
Champlain’s military adventure was part of what is known as the Beaver Wars. The Iroquois fought other aboriginal nations to gain control of the lucrative beaver pelt trade. The Hurons were one of those attacked. The French aided the Hurons in their endeavours which earned them the enmity of the Iroquois. In the end, the Hurons were largely wiped out by Iroquois who later came to occupy their land in southwestern Ontario after the American Revolution as United Empire Loyalists.
The Hurons were not the only nation wiped out by the Iroquois. South of them, the Mohicans and others were also destroyed.