THE SAVIORS OF MONTREAL

The Iroquois were smart. The Iroquois were patient. The Iroquois were the most terrifying warriors I’ve encountered in the literature of our species’ vast history of war and bloodshed. Entire villages would flee at the sight of a single Iroquois brave. They annihilated the tribe of the Eire. They annihilated the Huron. They traded furs to the Dutch at Albany for muskets, so they were well-armed.

Their cruelty was extreme. The most brutal scenes of Game of Thrones don’t approach the slow erasure of their victims’ humanity through pain, which their loved ones were forced to witness before their turn. Francis Parkman believes the reason for this sadism was the Iroquois disdained the act of compassion. It showed weakness and unmanliness. Captives recounted that sometimes at night, an Iroquois who harbored shameful feelings of pity would secretly do little kindnesses to relieve their suffering.

Montreal was founded by religious zealots—the type that fasted, prayed, baptized, and tended the sick. The soldiers who had been sent with them for protection were utterly outmatched by the Iroquois. Parkman explains: “At Villemarie, it was usually dangerous to pass beyond the ditch of the fort or the palisades of the hospital. Sometimes a solitary warrior would lie hidden for days, without sleep and almost without food, behind a log in the forest, or in the dense thicket, watching like a lynx for some rash straggler. Sometimes parties of a hundred or more made ambuscades near the village, and sent out a few of their number to lure out the soldiers by a petty attack and flight.”

Montreal would not have survived without the utter devotion, resolution, courage, wisdom, and discretion of their soldier-governor, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve; however, he could not have done it without the hero of this blog.

The hero is a dog. They received several from France, the most notable of which was Pilot, “who every morning made the rounds of the forests and fields about the fort, followed by a troop of her offspring. If one of them lagged, she bit him to remind him of his duty, and if any skulked and ran home, she punished them severely in the same manner on her return. When she discovered the Iroquois, which she was sure to do by their scent, if any were near, she barked fiercely, and ran at once straight to the fort, followed by the rest.”

The chronicler does lament that Pilot’s real inclination was to stalk squirrels.

Like the best of us, Pilot put duty above pleasure.