Military officer; after reaching the rank of colonel in the
French army was appointed (1685) governor of
Canada, with instructions to “humble the pride of the
Iroquois,” who were the friends of the
English and had rejected overtures from the
French.
He took post at
Fort Frontenac, on the site of
Kingston, Canada, and there prepared for an expedition against a portion of the Five Nations.
He declared to his sovereign that the Indians sustained themselves only by the aid of the
English, who were “the chief promoters of the insolence and arrogance of the
Iroquois.”
He tried to induce them to meet him in council, to seduce them from the influence of the
English, and a few went to
Frontenac; but when
Dongan heard of the designs of the
French he invited representatives of the Five Nations to a council in New York City.
They came, and
Dongan told them the
King of
England would be their “loving father,” and conjured them not to listen to the persuasions of the
French.
Finally, in May, 1687,
De Nonville was joined by 800 French regulars from
France, and soon afterwards he, assembling more than 2,000 French regulars, Canadians, and
Indians, proceeded, at their head, to attack the Senecas.
He coasted along the southern shores of
Lake Ontario to
Irondequoit Bay, in Monroe county, where he landed and was joined by some French and Indians coming from the west.
Thence he penetrated to
Ontario county, where he was attacked by a party of Senecas in ambush, but he repulsed his assailants.
The next day two old
Seneca prisoners, after having been confessed by the
Jesuit priests, were cooked and eaten by the savages and the
French.
Withdrawing to a point in
Monroe county,
De Nonville proceeded to take possession of the whole
Seneca.
country (July, 1687) in the name of King Louis, with pompous ceremonies.
After destroying all the stored corn (more than 1,000,000 bushels), the growing crops, cabins, and a vast number of swine belonging to the natives whose country he had invaded,
De Nonville returned to
Irondequoit Bay and thence to
Montreal.
An act of gross treachery committed by him before he undertook the expedition, in seizing deputies from those nations and sending them to
France, gave the deathblow to Jesuit missions among the Five Nations.
Lamberville, a faithful missionary, barely escaped with his life, through the generosity of the Onondagas.
