| He (Dollard) approached the governor of New
France, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, in
Montreal.
Dollard proposed that he, along with a small force of
volunteers, could set up a defensive
position in the hope of preventing a junction of the two
Iroquois bands. He wanted to make his stand near the rapids of
Chute a Blondeau, where the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers
converge - - a place called the Long Sault.
Maisonneuve assented to Dollard's request, and Dollard
started to gather recruits. By the end of April, 1660, 16
men had come forward. They were all young men of humble station:
discharged soldiers, farmers and artisans. The oldest was 30.
Almost all the rest were in their early 20's. They all had
mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts in the
three settlements, and ,if their desperate efforts failed, they
would all die -- either by musket and tomahawk in the burning
villages, or by barbarous torture after capture. The task
of Dollard and his companions was to die so that the people that
they loved could live. With no doubt in their minds as to their
fate, the 17 young men confessed, made their wills, and received
the last sacrament in the stone chapel of the Hotel-Dieu.
After two weeks of arduous travel, Dollard and his men
reached the Long Sault. A short distance form the Ottawa, on the
Eastern side of the Sault, Dollard found an abandoned stockade,
but for some reason, he and his men dawdled instead of repairing
the stockade and provisioning it with food and water.
Dollard was joined by a party of 40 Huron under their chief,
Anahotaha, as well as by four Algonquin. After two days, scouts
at the head of the Sault spotted two Iroquois canoes coming
towards the stockade. The Frenchmen and their allies ambushed
the canoes but one brave escaped to warn the main party. Forty
or fifty canoes soon landed, and the Iroquois warriors
immediately rushed the stockade. Dollard and his men fired
volley after volley into them and they broke. A second attack
was launched, this time from all sides. When it and a third
attack failed, the Iroquois retreated and held a council of
war.
For five days, there was a lull in the fighting. Renegade Huron
fighting with the Iroquois directed a constant barrage of taunts
and promises at the Huron fighting with Dollard. One by one,
the Dollard Huron jumped over the barricades to join the
Iroquois. In the end, only the
gallant Anahotaha remained.
Inside the stockade, the 22 men stood by their loopholes and
waited. Dollard and his companions were stupefied from lack of
sleep. Water and food, like hope, had long since vanished.
Escape or rescue was impossible All they could do was to buy
some time to save their families.
On the fifth day, more than 500 warriors from the Richelieu
arrived, and now over 700 hundred Iroquois faced Dollard. For
three days, the Iroquois prepared for the final assault, keeping
up a day-and-night harassment against Dollard's little band.
On the morning of the fourth day, the assault was delivered
from all quarters, spearheaded by volunteers carrying torches
and crude shields. The attack was beaten back. A second assault
reached the barricades, and the braves started to set fire to
the stockade. In desperation, Dollard tried to toss a hand-made
grenade filled with musket balls and gunpowder over the stockade
into the midst of the attackers. The grenade struck the top of
the barricade and fell back into the stockade. It exploded
killing several of the defenders and blinding others. In the
following confusion, the Iroquois gained the barricade. In
hand-to-hand fighting, Dollard and all of his men were soon cut
down. The epic of the Long Sault was over.
The Iroquois returned to their own territories. They reasoned
that, if Dollard and his few followers could cause them so much
trouble at the Long Sault, an attack on Montreal would be far
too costly. |