Siege and Massacre of Fort William Henry
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_William_Henry#Massacre
Cet événement américain du 9 et 10 août 1757 ressemble étrangement aux événements du 7 octobre 2023 en Palestine. Il fait partie de la longue histoire du génocide commis contre les indigènes de l’Amérique du Nord. Dans le contexte de la guerre de la Conquête (1754-1760) ou la guerre de Sept Ans (1756-1763) les armées coloniales francaises et britanniques récrutaient des mercenaires indigènes réputés pour leur bravoure et cruauté.
Après avoir été trahi et privé du butin promis par leurs alliés européens ces guerriers se sont dédommagés en commettant un massace parmi les colons et militaires britanniques vaincus. Ils ont également pris des otages, comme les militaires Francais, qu’ils ont emporté comme esclaves ou échange contre rancon.
Les informations disponibles à son époque ont servi à James Fennimore Cooper pour la composition du roman Le Dernier des Mohicans .
The terms of surrender were that the British and their camp followers would be allowed to withdraw, under French escort, to Fort Edward with full honours of war if they refrained from fighting for 18 months. They were allowed to keep their muskets and a single symbolic cannon but no ammunition. In addition, British authorities were to release French prisoners within three months.
Montcalm, before agreeing to these terms, tried to make sure that his Indian allies understood them and that the chiefs would undertake to restrain their men. The process was complicated by the diversity within the Indian camp, which included some warriors who spoke languages that were not understood by any European present. The British garrison was then evacuated from the fort to the entrenched camp, and Monro was quartered in the French camp. The Indians then entered the fort and plundered it and butchered some of the wounded and the sick left behind by the British. The French guards posted around the entrenched camp were only somewhat successful at keeping the Indians out of that area, and it took much effort to prevent plunder and scalping there. Montcalm and Monro initially planned to march the prisoners south the following morning, but after seeing the Indian bloodlust, they decided to attempt the march that night. When the Indians became aware that the British were getting ready to move, many of them massed around the camp, which caused the leaders to call off the march until morning.
The next morning, even before the British column had begun to form up for the march to Fort Edward, the Indians renewed attacks on the largely defenceless British. At 5 a.m., Indians entered huts in the fort that housed wounded British, who were supposed to be under the care of French doctors, and the Indians killed and scalped them. Monro complained that the terms of capitulation had been violated, but his contingent was forced to surrender some of its baggage to be able even to begin the march. As the British marched off, they were harassed by the swarming Indians, who snatched at them, grabbed for weapons and clothing, and pulled away with force those that resisted their actions, including many of the women, children, servants, and slaves. As the last of the men left the encampment, a war whoop sounded, and a contingent of Abenaki warriors seized several men at the rear of the column.
Montcalm is depicted wearing a uniform and three-cornered hat and faces an Indian who has raised a tomahawk over his head, as if to strike at Montcalm, while he steps over a wounded soldier. Bodies lie about, and an Indian is seen holding a white baby away from a woman who is trying to reach for it.
Engraving of Louis-Joseph de Montcalm trying to stop Native Americans from attacking British soldiers and civilians as they leave the fort
Although Montcalm and other French officers attempted to stop further attacks, others did nothing, and some explicitly refused to provide further protection to the British. The column then dissolved, as some tried to escape the Indian onslaught, and others actively tried to defend themselves. Massachusetts Colonel Joseph Frye reported that he was stripped of much of his clothing and repeatedly threatened. He fled into the woods and did not reach Fort Edward until 12 August.
At last with great difficulty the troops got from the Retrenchment, but they were no sooner out than the savages fell upon our rear, killing and scalping, which occasioned an order for a halt, done in great confusion at last, but, as soon as those in the front knew what was doing in the rear they again pressed forward, and thus the confusion continued & encreased till we came to the advanced guard of the French, the savages still carrying away Officers, privates, women and children, some of which later they kill’d & scalpt in the road. This horrid scene of blood and slaughter obliged our officers to apply to the French Guard for protection, which they refus’d told them they must take to the woods and shift for themselves.
— Joseph Frye
Estimates of the numbers killed, wounded, and captives vary widely. Ian Steele has compiled estimates ranging from 200 to 1,500.[36] His detailed reconstruction of the siege and its aftermath indicates that the final tally of British missing and dead ranges from 69 to 184, at most 7.5% of the 2,308 who had surrendered.
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Aftermath
The reconstructed fort is a wooden log construction, painted brown, roughly a single story tall. There are four flagpoles, from which fly a variety of flags, including the American flag and a British Union Jack. Mountains are visible in the background.
The reconstructed fort today
On the afternoon after the massacre, most of the Indians left and headed back to their homes. Montcalm secured the release of 500 captives they had taken, but the Indians still took with them another 200.
Return of captives
On 14 August, Montcalm wrote letters to Loudoun and Webb and apologized for the behaviour of the Indians but also attempted to justify it. Many captives who were taken to Montreal by the Indians were also eventually repatriated through prisoner exchanges negotiated by Vaudreuil. On 27 September, a small British fleet left Quebec and carried paroled or exchanged prisoners taken in a variety of actions, including those at Fort William Henry and Oswego. When the fleet arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, about 300 people captured at Fort William Henry were returned to the colonies. The fleet continued to Europe, where a few more former captives were released. Some of them also eventually returned to the colonies.
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Legacy
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Ian Steele notes that two primary accounts dominate much of the historical record. The first is the record compiled by Montcalm, including the terms of surrender and his letters to Webb and Loudoun, which received wide publication in the colonies (both French and British) and in Europe. The second was the 1778 publication of a book by Jonathan Carver, an explorer who had served in the Massachusetts militia and had been at the siege. According to Steele, Carver originated, without any supporting analysis or justification, the idea that as many as 1,500 people had been “killed or made prisoner” in his widely-popular work.[49] Yale College President Timothy Dwight, in a history published that was posthumously in 1822, apparently coined the phrase “massacre at Fort William Henry,” based on Carver’s work. His book and Carver’s were likely influences on Cooper, and they tended to fault Montcalm for the Indian transgressions.[50] Steele himself adopts a more nuanced view of the underlying cause of the massacre. Montcalm and the French leaders repeatedly promised the Indians opportunities for the glory and trophies of war, including plunder, scalping, and the taking of captives.[51] In the aftermath of the Battle of Sabbath Day Point, captives taken were ransomed, which meant the Indians had no visible trophies. The terms of surrender at Fort William Henry effectively denied the Indians appreciable opportunities for plunder: the war provisions were claimed by the French army and the personal effects of the British were to stay with them, which left nothing for the Indians. According to Steele, that decision bred resentment, as it appeared that the French were conspiring with their enemies, the British, against their friends, the Indians, who were left without any of the promised war trophies.
Bataille de Fort William Henry - après le siège
►https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Fort_William_Henry#Apr%C3%A8s_le_si%C3%A8ge
Pour certains, les Amérindiens auront commis des actes injustifiés le 9 août et 10 août 1757 mais, pour ces derniers, ils avaient été trahis par Montcalm puisque ce dernier aurait donné sa parole à l’effet que la contribution directe des Amérindiens dans la bataille leur permettrait de disposer de Fort William Henry comme bon leur semblerait après la reddition des tuniques rouges.
À la suite de cette tuerie, l’état-major britannique refuse de reconnaître les conditions de la capitulation et décide de ne plus accorder, à l’avenir, les honneurs de la guerre aux troupes françaises.
Fort William Henry, 1757 : A Fate Worse Than Surrender
►https://www.historynet.com/fort-william-henry-1757-a-fate-worse-than-surrender
Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects.…The flow of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a torrent
—James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
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Lord Loudoun, still determined to launch an all-out attack on Québec, placed Brig. Gen. Daniel Webb in charge of the New York frontier, basing him at Fort Edward, 16 miles south of Fort William Henry. Loudoun had received false intelligence that Montcalm was gathering in his forces to defend Québec. In fact, the French commander intended to foil Loudoun’s plans by preemptively destroying Fort William Henry.
In late July Monro sent out a reconnaissance in force—350 men in 22 whaleboats that had survived Rigaud’s attack. They were ambushed by a superior force mainly composed of Indians, who slaughtered nearly 100 men and took another 150 prisoner; only four boats escaped. The carnage was horrific. “Some were cut to pieces,” recalled Father Pierre Roubaud, a French Jesuit missionary accompanying the Abenakis on expedition, “and nearly all were mutilated in the most frightful manner.”
The day after the survivors’ return Webb dispatched an additional 1,000 men and six cannons to Fort William Henry, boosting Monro’s strength to 2,351 men, though many remained seriously ill. The transfer left Webb with only 1,600 men at Fort Edward.
By then Montcalm had assembled more than 6,200 regulars, provincials and milice, as well as 1,800 warriors from 18 Indian nations. Having heard of the British trouncing at Oswego, some had traveled more than 1,500 miles on the promise of scalps, prisoners and plunder.
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Over the next several days some 600 panicked survivors from Fort William Henry wandered into Fort Edward, their versions of the attack exaggerated with every telling. Word spread throughout New York and New England of women horribly abused, babies dashed against rocks and men scalped alive. The rumored number of those killed or taken prisoner soared as high as 1,700. Then, on August 14, Montcalm—who had realized his objective by demolishing Fort William Henry—sent word to Webb he was holding Monro and 500 soldiers and civilians for their own protection and would shortly have them escorted to Fort Edward.
While a precise tally proves elusive, somewhere between 50 and 174 unarmed soldiers and civilians were massacred in the march from Fort William Henry. Such atrocities were not uncommon on the frontier, as evinced by the Oswego attack and Lake George ambush. And they were perpetrated by both sides. Two years after the Fort William Henry massacre Robert Rogers himself staged an attack on a sleeping Abenaki village, killing its occupants indiscriminately, though the desecration of his brother’s body doubtless served as motivation.
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