Update 15 - William F Crowley
Update 15 - William F. Crowley
(South Coast of New Found Land, June 1595)
William F. Crowley looked over the bow of his ship at the shoreline. It all looked the same to him from here. An unending rocky coastline with an impenetrable forest behind, broken by the occasional beach or marsh. There were no fields or villages, almost no sign of human habitation. The only Indians [1] they had met were a small group they had seen fishing down by the shore a week ago, although they had fled as soon as they saw Crowley's ship Princess Charlotte[2] approaching. The shoreline itself was inundated with coves, bays and the sea off the shore was scattered with shoals and small islands. Despite this, every piece of the land seemed equally barren, equally bleak, and equally wild.
It was Crowley's job to find a site on this savage coastline on which to found a settlement. He had been placed in charge of this expedition by King Henry himself. The King had asked Crowley to found a colony on the shores of New Found Land, in the hopes of creating a settlement which could be inhabited year-round. The winters at New Aberdeen [3] were too rough to keep the trading post operating year-round, and King Henry had hoped that a settlement to the south, where the winters should be milder, would be more successful. Looking at the landscape, Crowley began to doubt that a settlement here would have any chance of success at all.
At the same time, though, the land here did look more appealing than that around New Aberdeen. Crowley had travelled to New Aberdeen once when he was younger, and the landscape there had been barren even in the summertime. There had still been patches of snow on the ground in New Aberdeen in early June, and icebergs had regularly been sighted offshore. At least here, on the South coast of New Found Land, the ground was free of snow and the sea was free of ice.
Captain Woodruff, who commanded the Marlin Maiden, the smallest of the three ships in Crowley's expedition, had tried to convince Crowley to build his settlement farther East near where the cod fishermen would come ashore to dry their catch. Woodruff was a fisherman himself and had been sent along on this expedition as a guide who had much experience navigating the waters off New Found Land. He was a man of much character, to say the least.
When Crowley had asked him to rename his ship to something “more fitting of a Royal expedition”, Woodruff had bluntly replied “I've sailed the ocean for twenty years in the Marlin Maiden, and have never once hit a shoal. You ask me to sail to New Found Land in a ship called the King's Mistress and I'll probably sink before we make it past Ireland. You may be the expert on governing here but I am the expert on sailing. My ship may be in service to the King, but it's still my ship.”
That incident had made Crowley uneasy at first, but during the months it took to prepare the expedition for departure, Captain Woodruff had grown on him. On the day the expedition's three ships were scheduled to leave Bristol, Woodruff had refused to leave the harbour claiming that a storm was on its way. Sure enough, the next day the worst storm of the spring season had struck, and Woodruff had greeted Crowley with his best “I told you so” face. After that point, Crowely began to acknowledge that while Woodruff was crass and tactless, he certainly knew the sea better than any man Crowley had met before. Crowely had come to the conclusion that, difficult as he may be to work with, Woodruff would certainly be an asset to the expedition.
So, when Woodruff had showed the expedition the way to the New Found Land fish-drying grounds [4] and had suggested that the settlement be built there, it had been difficult to convince him otherwise. Given the rocky landscape of the fish-drying grounds, it had seemed obvious to Crowley that it was a poor spot for settlement. Crowley had hoped that sailing farther West along the South coast of New Found Land would yield less rocky terrain, although, so far at least, the landscape had changed very little.
The Princess Charlotte was currently anchored offshore at the mouth of a long inlet [5]. Her longboat had been sent up the inlet to look for a potential settlement site, while the Marlin Maiden and the Tudor Rose had been sent ahead to explore more of the coastline. The longboat had already returned with the same news as always: the landscape up the inlet was rocky and barren with little sign of fertile soils. Now Crowley was just waiting for the other two ships. If the Maiden and the Rose returned without finding a suitable settlement site, Crowley was ready to turn around and sail back east towards Woodruff's preferred site.
But then word was sent down from the lookout that the Tudor Rose had been spotted on the horizon. Soon the Rose was alongside the Princess Charlotte, their boat was lowered, and an excited crew came aboard the Crowley's ship. Leading this group was the expedition's cartographer Francis Burton.
“We've found it!” Burton said to Crowley as he came aboard. “At least we've found as good a place as any. As we rounded a group of islands, we caught site of the silver line of a beach. The Marlin Maiden continued up the coast as we went ashore. The beach is the largest I've seen on this side of the ocean, there's a river which drains into the lagoon behind the beach that we can use for fresh water. But, most importantly, there's soil. Real soil. It may be a little bit sandy, but sand is at least more fertile than rock.” [6]
“Sounds like it could be promising,” Crowley replied, “but I can't say for certain if it's suitable until I take a look. If we do choose to settle there, though, I will name the settlement Fort Burton after the man who found the site.”
* * * * *
(Isle of Mniku[7], October 1595)
Crowley had not expected to find himself at a diplomatic meeting with the High Chief of the L'Nuk nation. In fact, when he had left the settlement of Fort Burton he had no idea that the L'Nuk people even had a High Chief. He hadn't even known that these particular Indians called themselves the L'Nuk. [8]
When Crowley had left Fort Burton, the settlement had been struggling. The soil at their chosen site had proven to be less than fertile, and the food they had brought with them from England had almost run out. Woodruff had made a trip out to the fishing grounds in August, but the expedition didn't have enough salt to preserve the fish all winter. Even hunting expeditions had also come back empty-handed; the area around Fort Burton was empty of the deer that were so common elsewhere. [9]
Thus Crowley had set out to make contact with the local natives in the hopes of trading for food. The Indians of New Found Land seemed fearful and unwilling to engage in trade, but Woodruff had told Crowley that he had experience trading with the the Indians of Cape Breton [10] to the South, and even knew a few words of their language.
Thus, Woodruff, Crowley, and a handful of others had set out across the Cabot Strait in the Marlin Maiden, with a cargo of iron tools, cloth, and other trade goods. Making contact with the Indians of this land of Cape Breton was not difficult, and Woodruff seemed to know enough words of their langauge to make his intentions known. However, at one point during the trade negotiations, Woodruff had said the words “King of England” and pointed at Crowley. This had cause a commotion amongst the Indians, who had then demanded that Crowley come with them to this island of Mniku. Woodruff and the crew had stayed behind with the Marlin Maiden.
When they had arrived at Mniku, Crowley was met by a man named Sebastian, who was the son of a local L'Nuk woman and a Bristol fisherman who had been stranded in this land thirty years ago. Sebastian's father had returned home after three years amongst the L'Nuk, but Sebastian had picked up enough of his father's English that he had been able to serve as an interpreter between the L'Nuk and English fishermen and traders. Through Sebastian, Crowley was now able to communicate with the L'Nuk.
“You are lucky to have arrived here so close to the time of the Grand Council,” Sebastian said, “if you had arrived earlier in the summer, they might have kept you here for months before you were needed.”
“What do they need me for?” asked Crowley. “I'm not some sort of hostage, am I?” Crowley felt that he had been treated more like a guest of honor than a hostage, but the local warriors certainly hadn't been willing to let him leave.
“No, nothing like that,” replied Sebastian, “they told me that you are an emissary of the King of England. Have you been sent here to speak to our chiefs?”
“Not really, I do represent the King in that I have been put in charge of his Royal expedition. But, I am no diplomat. I simply came to negotiate a trade.”
“Well then your arrival must be a fortunate coincidence. All this year, the chiefs of the Wabenaki nations have been doing their best to try to enlist the support of your King. But all of the traders we've spoken too have laughed at us when we asked them to carry a message to England for us. We need a messenger who has the King's ear, and we think that that messenger is you.”
“And what do the chiefs want me to say on their behalf?” Crowley asked. “And who are the wabanegi?”
“Wabenaki is the name that is use to refer to the alliance between our people, the L'Nuk, and the Abenaki people farther inland. We have both come under attack by the Kwedech in the river valley beyond Gaspé [11]. We have discovered that these Kwedech are obtaining their terrifying weapons from the French, who we hear are the old enemies of you English. The chiefs want to buy weapons from you the same way that the Kwedech buy weapons from the French, and they are willing to offer you much in return.”
“What are they willing to offer?”
“Well, wait until the council begins. Once the chiefs meet, they will be able to make you an offer.”
This could be promising, thought Crowley. Crowley had a hatred for the French that dated back to his elder brother's death in battle at Amiens more than 10 years earlier. [12] However, King Henry's current treaty with King Charles of France meant that Crowley had no hope of getting his revenge on the battlefield. But, supplying weapons to those who could fight the French for him, that could be a better way to go.
* * * * *
(Fort Burton, April 1596)
It had been over six months since Crowley had last laid eyes on the small settlement at Fort Burton. Crowley had originally planned to return before the seas had begun to ice over, but the Grand Council he had attended had lasted a lot longer than expected. It had been early December before Crowley had returned to the Marlin Maiden. While the sea had still been mostly clear of ice at that time, Captain Woodruff was unwilling to cross the Cabot Strait in the unpredictable winter weather, so the Marlin Maiden had spent the winter in Cape Breton.
Now that the Spring thaw had come, the Marlin Maiden was returning to Fort Burton with a full load of food and furs obtained from the L'Nuk. Crowley was more than a little worried as to how the colonists would be doing. Unless they had succeeded at finding game, they would have run short of food months before. He hoped that he would be returning in time.
As the Marlin Maiden rounded the headland, and Crowley could see up the inlet, he could already see that something was wrong. Rather than two ships waiting at anchor, there was only one: his flagship the Princess Charlotte. And the Charlotte was not in good shape. She was listing to one side, and the sails that had been so neatly furled when Crowley had left were hanging in tatters from her yardarms. And she wasn't in the anchorage where she was supposed to be: once Crowley got closer he could se why. The Charlotte was perched on top of a shoal. She must have been clown free of her anchor, Crowley thought.
The absence of the Tudor Rose and the fact that the Charlotte had been left damaged on a reef filled Crowley with dread. If the colonists were still alive they surely wouldn't have left my ship like that, he thought. As the Marlin Maiden's boat pulled up to the beach, Crowley, Wodruff, and the sailors were greeted only with silence. There was no noise from any of the colony's buildings, and no sign of life anywhere around.
In fact, all that Crowley could see were signs of death. In the field to the North of the buildings, where they had planned to plant cabbage next spring, there were rows and rows of crosses. The crosses closest to the buildings were made of carved wood, while the ones farther away were often no more than two sticks lashed together. And in the farthest corner of the graveyard were four mounds covered in blankets. Crowley didn't need to lift up the blankets to know that they concealed the bodies of the last survivors.
Instead, Crowley walked toward the buildings and took a look inside. The mess hall was empty as was the store room. It was in the barracks that he found the bodies of two men, curled up around what must have been the last fire they had been able to keep lit. On a table next to the bodies was a folded piece of paper with the title “the Last Log of Fort Burton” scrawled on it. Crowley picked it up and read aloud.
“January 22, 1596. Burton is dead. Since Crowley is gone, and Woodruff with him, Burton put me, Gregory Smalls, in command. Rations are running low, but due to Burton's strict rationing, and his selfless policy of always taking the smallest portion for himself, we have enough food to last another month, or maybe 6 weeks. We hope that Crowley and Wodruff return with food soon.”
“February 16, 1596. Today, a scouting party captured a band of 5 Indians, in the hopes that they would have food to trade us. They didn't, and I almost had to shoot one of my men to keep him from killing the Indians. I think he meant to eat them. 'If they live like animals, we can treat them as game' he said. What hunger will drive us to do.”
“February 18, 1596. Fox has worked out a rough sign langauge to use when communicating with the Indians. One of the Indian boys seems to know when deer can be found, although he says that this is the wrong time of year to be hunting them. But Fox and Baker seem to think that he's just telling us that so that he can steal from us once we've all starved to death.” [13]
“February 21, 1596. Fox and Baker are trying to organize a party to go out and find the deer that the Indian boy speaks of. They have gathered a group of the dozen strongest men around them and are demanding half our food stores to feed them through the hunt. I have told them that they can have no more than their share of the food, but they insist that they will need more of it as they need to be strong enough to travel.”
“February 23, 1596. Fox and Baker are getting more restless. I have placed guards at the storeroom door, but many of my men are too hungry to shoot straight. I worry what would happen if it came to blows.”
“February 24, 1596. Today Fox and Baker chose to mutiny against my command. They killed 2 guards at the storeroom door, and ten more men were injured as Fox and Baker's gang made their escape to the Tudor Rose. While the Rose still lies at anchor, the mutineers have taken all of our boats, and I dare not order my men to swim out in the frigid cold water. I only have to hope that the mutineers have a change of heart. Fox and Baker have taken all but the last of our food, and I fear that we have very little time left.”
“March 10, 1596. Today we saw the last of the Tudor Rose. The ice that had been blocking the mouth of the anchorage was blown away by a storm last night, and the Rose slipped out of the anchorage just before sunup this morning. The same storm drove the Charlotte up on the rocks, so we have no hope of pursuing the mutineers. Two more passed away in the cold stormy night, and there are only fourteen of us left. Only five of us are still able to move from out beds.”
“March 15, 1596. Three weeks without food can certainly sap a man's strength. I no longer have the strength to bury the dead, although Davidson and I were able at least to drag the bodies of our last four comrades to the graveyard, and cover them with blankets to protect them from the elements. Even if we wanted to cook up the bodies to give us a little sustenance, neither of us has the strength to do so. I figure this log entry will be our last.”
Crowley put down the book. “Well it seems pretty clear what happened to them. I only wish we'd been able to come earlier.”
“We should be thankful that we've survived,” interjected Woodruff, “if we'd tried to cross the stormy waters any earlier, we may not have made it, and Smalls and Davidson would have still suffered the same fate.”
Crowley couldn't hold himself together. “Damn you Woodruff! Damn your seas and your storms! All you care about is your own ship and your own skin! If you hadn't been so damn selfish we could have been here in time! Why couldn't you....” Crowley broke down into tears. It's time to go home, he thought.
* * * * *
(Kespukwitk[14], July 1599)
Sebastian was standing on the beach as Crowley's boat pulled up to the shore. “Good to see you old friend,” Crowley called out.
“I was travelling in the area, when I heard news that your ship had been sighted off the shore. I figured I should put in an appearance. Besides, while your grasp of our language has gotten better over the past three years, it's still not enough that you couldn't use an interpreter.”
“Yes, your services will be very helpful,” replied Crowley. “I've spent the past year trading arquebuses to you Lennockians [15], but I've never been to this part of Lennockia before, and, I must say, I'm impressed. I'd always thought that Lennockia was all rocks and trees like New Found Land. But this valley here, it looks positively fertile. Who's land is this?”
“The Chief of this district, Kespukwitk, is Chief Membertou. [16] Do you remember him from the Grand Council.”
“The ancient-looking one who claimed to have met Jacques Cartier? Of course I remember him!”
“He did meet Jacques Cartier. He was impressed at first. Although, once he found out the French had befriended the Kwedech, he saw the French for the traitors that they are.”
“Anyways, in addition to the usual business I'll be doing with the local traders, I'd like to speak to Membertou. I have a proposal for him.”
A few hours later, Crowley and Sebastian were seated in Membertou's wigwam. The Chief sat across from them.
“We English have been trading with you Lannockians for a few years now. We've been supplying you with weapons to help fight against your Kwedech enemies, but we want to do more. The Kwedech have Frenchmen living with them, teaching them their ways. The Kwedech don't yet make their own arquebuses, but their blacksmiths are able make their own metal tools, putting you Lannockians at a disadvantage.”
Crowley waited for Sebastian to translate and then continued. “While we might be able to hold our own against the Kwedech for now, we think you will need some more help in order to decisively defeat the Kwedech. We think that to counter the fact that the Kwedech have Frenchmen living among them and providing them with military training, you should have Englishmen living here in Lannockia, teaching you all the things the Frenchmen have taught the Kwedech. We want to help you learn the skills you will need to finally beat the Kwedech.” [17]
Crowley stayed silent as Sebastian translated, and Membertou made his reply. “The Chief wants to know what you want in return,” Sebastian translated.
“Land is what we want,” replied Crowley. “We want land in this valley to build a settlement so that our people can come here. And we want you Lannockians to guarantee that you, and the other members of your Wabenaki confederacy, will never give land to any other European nation. We want you to make a permanent alliance between your nation and ours, so that the interests of Lannockia and England will always be as one. What do you say?”
After the usual pause while Sebastian translated, the Chief made a reply. “Your plan sounds good,” he said, “but I cannot speak for the whole Confederacy, or even for all of the L'Nuk. You will have to present your idea to the Kespukwitk council, and then the Grand Council, and only then may you present it to the other nations of the Confederacy.”
Good, Crowley thought, that will give us time to draw up a treaty.
Footnotes:
[1] Crowley would have used the term “Indians” for the Native Americans at this point, so it's the term I use when I write from his point of view. The Beothuk, who were native to Newfoundland were known OTL to be distrustful of Euorpeans, and to have little interest in trade or diplomacy, hence why they're making themselves so scarce.
[2] King Henry IX's eldest daughter is named Charlotte.
[3] Remember New Aberdeen is the Scottish trading post in Labrador which was originally founded with the hopes of becoming a permanent settlement. Many of the higher-ups in the Scottish Northwestern Trade Company that runs the New Aberdeen trade post are actually Englishmen, so there is much cooperation between Scotland and England in North America already, even though the two Kingdoms are not yet in Personal Union.
[4] The “fish-drying grounds” I write about are near the site of OTL St. John's, which was chose as an settlement site OTL largely because of its proximity to the Grand Banks.
[5] This inlet is OTL's White Bear Bay.
[6] The beach that Burton sighted was OTL's Sandbanks Provincial Park near the OTL town of Burgeo, Newfoundland.
[7] The Isle of Mniku in the salt-water-lake we know in OTL as the Bras d'Or is the traditional site of the L'Nuk Grand Council. My sources have been unclear about what time of year the Grand Council traditionally met, although other L'Nuk councils met in the Spring and/or Fall, so an October council meeting seems reasonable to me. The fact that the Grand Council meets in Cape Breton seemed too good to be true when I realized that the closest natives that these colonists would be able to trade with (again, the Beothuk are likely not really that interested in trade) would be in Cape Breton.
[8] Remember, L'Nuk is the autonym used by the people we know OTL as the Mi'kmaq.
[9] Deer and moose were, OTL, only introduced to Newfoundland in the past 150 years. Before that, the only big game available would have been caribou during certain parts of their migration route. When Crowley thinks of deer as “common elsewhere”, he's thinking of mainland North America. White-tailed deer and mosse do both range through coastal Labrador near the location of New Aberdeen, although that is the Northern limit of their range
[10] The name “Cape Breton” seems to predate the POD. It was named by Basque sailors who named it after the town of Capbreton in the French Basque country. Incidentally, Capbreton is part of the small coastal territory France ceded to Bourbon Navarre.
[11] The term Kwedech is used OTL in L'Nuk/Mi'kmaq oral history/mythology. It refers to a people to the Northwest with whom the L'Nuk fought many wars in pre-contact times. Some sources guess that the Kwedech were the Mohawk and/or other Iroquois nations, although I prefer the hypothesis that they were the St. Lawrence Iroquoians/”Kanatians”. Thus, in TTL the L'Nuk will used the term Kwedech to refer to the people the French refer to as Kanatians.
[12] The English seiged and captured Amiens during the war between King Charles IX of France and King Henry III of Navarre.
[13] The “deer” that the Beothuk boy is referring to are really caribou. The boy is trying to convey the fact that the caribou only visit Newfoundland once a year, and that they are currently around to be hunted.
[14] Kespukwitk is the Mi'kmaw name for what we know in OTL as Southwestern Nova Scotia. This scene is taking place near OTL Annapolis Royal.
[15] Lennockians is the anglicization of L'Nuk. Lennockia is the term that Crowley and the other English now use to refer to the land we know in OTL as the Maritime Provinces of Canada.
[16] This is the same Membertou from OTL. He supposedly was an adult when he met Jacques Cartier, so I decided that his position as District Chief wouldn't have been butterflied by the POD. However, in TTL, he is just a Disctrict Chief, not Grand Chief.
[17] The English are seeing the vassalage relationship between the Stadaconans and the French as the model for their own relationship with the natives. Given that the English didn't explore the region first, they're looking for a vassalage agreement with the natives as a way of establishing a claim to the land. Colonialism in TTL will look different than it did OTL.
(South Coast of New Found Land, June 1595)
William F. Crowley looked over the bow of his ship at the shoreline. It all looked the same to him from here. An unending rocky coastline with an impenetrable forest behind, broken by the occasional beach or marsh. There were no fields or villages, almost no sign of human habitation. The only Indians [1] they had met were a small group they had seen fishing down by the shore a week ago, although they had fled as soon as they saw Crowley's ship Princess Charlotte[2] approaching. The shoreline itself was inundated with coves, bays and the sea off the shore was scattered with shoals and small islands. Despite this, every piece of the land seemed equally barren, equally bleak, and equally wild.
It was Crowley's job to find a site on this savage coastline on which to found a settlement. He had been placed in charge of this expedition by King Henry himself. The King had asked Crowley to found a colony on the shores of New Found Land, in the hopes of creating a settlement which could be inhabited year-round. The winters at New Aberdeen [3] were too rough to keep the trading post operating year-round, and King Henry had hoped that a settlement to the south, where the winters should be milder, would be more successful. Looking at the landscape, Crowley began to doubt that a settlement here would have any chance of success at all.
At the same time, though, the land here did look more appealing than that around New Aberdeen. Crowley had travelled to New Aberdeen once when he was younger, and the landscape there had been barren even in the summertime. There had still been patches of snow on the ground in New Aberdeen in early June, and icebergs had regularly been sighted offshore. At least here, on the South coast of New Found Land, the ground was free of snow and the sea was free of ice.
Captain Woodruff, who commanded the Marlin Maiden, the smallest of the three ships in Crowley's expedition, had tried to convince Crowley to build his settlement farther East near where the cod fishermen would come ashore to dry their catch. Woodruff was a fisherman himself and had been sent along on this expedition as a guide who had much experience navigating the waters off New Found Land. He was a man of much character, to say the least.
When Crowley had asked him to rename his ship to something “more fitting of a Royal expedition”, Woodruff had bluntly replied “I've sailed the ocean for twenty years in the Marlin Maiden, and have never once hit a shoal. You ask me to sail to New Found Land in a ship called the King's Mistress and I'll probably sink before we make it past Ireland. You may be the expert on governing here but I am the expert on sailing. My ship may be in service to the King, but it's still my ship.”
That incident had made Crowley uneasy at first, but during the months it took to prepare the expedition for departure, Captain Woodruff had grown on him. On the day the expedition's three ships were scheduled to leave Bristol, Woodruff had refused to leave the harbour claiming that a storm was on its way. Sure enough, the next day the worst storm of the spring season had struck, and Woodruff had greeted Crowley with his best “I told you so” face. After that point, Crowely began to acknowledge that while Woodruff was crass and tactless, he certainly knew the sea better than any man Crowley had met before. Crowely had come to the conclusion that, difficult as he may be to work with, Woodruff would certainly be an asset to the expedition.
So, when Woodruff had showed the expedition the way to the New Found Land fish-drying grounds [4] and had suggested that the settlement be built there, it had been difficult to convince him otherwise. Given the rocky landscape of the fish-drying grounds, it had seemed obvious to Crowley that it was a poor spot for settlement. Crowley had hoped that sailing farther West along the South coast of New Found Land would yield less rocky terrain, although, so far at least, the landscape had changed very little.
The Princess Charlotte was currently anchored offshore at the mouth of a long inlet [5]. Her longboat had been sent up the inlet to look for a potential settlement site, while the Marlin Maiden and the Tudor Rose had been sent ahead to explore more of the coastline. The longboat had already returned with the same news as always: the landscape up the inlet was rocky and barren with little sign of fertile soils. Now Crowley was just waiting for the other two ships. If the Maiden and the Rose returned without finding a suitable settlement site, Crowley was ready to turn around and sail back east towards Woodruff's preferred site.
But then word was sent down from the lookout that the Tudor Rose had been spotted on the horizon. Soon the Rose was alongside the Princess Charlotte, their boat was lowered, and an excited crew came aboard the Crowley's ship. Leading this group was the expedition's cartographer Francis Burton.
“We've found it!” Burton said to Crowley as he came aboard. “At least we've found as good a place as any. As we rounded a group of islands, we caught site of the silver line of a beach. The Marlin Maiden continued up the coast as we went ashore. The beach is the largest I've seen on this side of the ocean, there's a river which drains into the lagoon behind the beach that we can use for fresh water. But, most importantly, there's soil. Real soil. It may be a little bit sandy, but sand is at least more fertile than rock.” [6]
“Sounds like it could be promising,” Crowley replied, “but I can't say for certain if it's suitable until I take a look. If we do choose to settle there, though, I will name the settlement Fort Burton after the man who found the site.”
* * * * *
(Isle of Mniku[7], October 1595)
Crowley had not expected to find himself at a diplomatic meeting with the High Chief of the L'Nuk nation. In fact, when he had left the settlement of Fort Burton he had no idea that the L'Nuk people even had a High Chief. He hadn't even known that these particular Indians called themselves the L'Nuk. [8]
When Crowley had left Fort Burton, the settlement had been struggling. The soil at their chosen site had proven to be less than fertile, and the food they had brought with them from England had almost run out. Woodruff had made a trip out to the fishing grounds in August, but the expedition didn't have enough salt to preserve the fish all winter. Even hunting expeditions had also come back empty-handed; the area around Fort Burton was empty of the deer that were so common elsewhere. [9]
Thus Crowley had set out to make contact with the local natives in the hopes of trading for food. The Indians of New Found Land seemed fearful and unwilling to engage in trade, but Woodruff had told Crowley that he had experience trading with the the Indians of Cape Breton [10] to the South, and even knew a few words of their language.
Thus, Woodruff, Crowley, and a handful of others had set out across the Cabot Strait in the Marlin Maiden, with a cargo of iron tools, cloth, and other trade goods. Making contact with the Indians of this land of Cape Breton was not difficult, and Woodruff seemed to know enough words of their langauge to make his intentions known. However, at one point during the trade negotiations, Woodruff had said the words “King of England” and pointed at Crowley. This had cause a commotion amongst the Indians, who had then demanded that Crowley come with them to this island of Mniku. Woodruff and the crew had stayed behind with the Marlin Maiden.
When they had arrived at Mniku, Crowley was met by a man named Sebastian, who was the son of a local L'Nuk woman and a Bristol fisherman who had been stranded in this land thirty years ago. Sebastian's father had returned home after three years amongst the L'Nuk, but Sebastian had picked up enough of his father's English that he had been able to serve as an interpreter between the L'Nuk and English fishermen and traders. Through Sebastian, Crowley was now able to communicate with the L'Nuk.
“You are lucky to have arrived here so close to the time of the Grand Council,” Sebastian said, “if you had arrived earlier in the summer, they might have kept you here for months before you were needed.”
“What do they need me for?” asked Crowley. “I'm not some sort of hostage, am I?” Crowley felt that he had been treated more like a guest of honor than a hostage, but the local warriors certainly hadn't been willing to let him leave.
“No, nothing like that,” replied Sebastian, “they told me that you are an emissary of the King of England. Have you been sent here to speak to our chiefs?”
“Not really, I do represent the King in that I have been put in charge of his Royal expedition. But, I am no diplomat. I simply came to negotiate a trade.”
“Well then your arrival must be a fortunate coincidence. All this year, the chiefs of the Wabenaki nations have been doing their best to try to enlist the support of your King. But all of the traders we've spoken too have laughed at us when we asked them to carry a message to England for us. We need a messenger who has the King's ear, and we think that that messenger is you.”
“And what do the chiefs want me to say on their behalf?” Crowley asked. “And who are the wabanegi?”
“Wabenaki is the name that is use to refer to the alliance between our people, the L'Nuk, and the Abenaki people farther inland. We have both come under attack by the Kwedech in the river valley beyond Gaspé [11]. We have discovered that these Kwedech are obtaining their terrifying weapons from the French, who we hear are the old enemies of you English. The chiefs want to buy weapons from you the same way that the Kwedech buy weapons from the French, and they are willing to offer you much in return.”
“What are they willing to offer?”
“Well, wait until the council begins. Once the chiefs meet, they will be able to make you an offer.”
This could be promising, thought Crowley. Crowley had a hatred for the French that dated back to his elder brother's death in battle at Amiens more than 10 years earlier. [12] However, King Henry's current treaty with King Charles of France meant that Crowley had no hope of getting his revenge on the battlefield. But, supplying weapons to those who could fight the French for him, that could be a better way to go.
* * * * *
(Fort Burton, April 1596)
It had been over six months since Crowley had last laid eyes on the small settlement at Fort Burton. Crowley had originally planned to return before the seas had begun to ice over, but the Grand Council he had attended had lasted a lot longer than expected. It had been early December before Crowley had returned to the Marlin Maiden. While the sea had still been mostly clear of ice at that time, Captain Woodruff was unwilling to cross the Cabot Strait in the unpredictable winter weather, so the Marlin Maiden had spent the winter in Cape Breton.
Now that the Spring thaw had come, the Marlin Maiden was returning to Fort Burton with a full load of food and furs obtained from the L'Nuk. Crowley was more than a little worried as to how the colonists would be doing. Unless they had succeeded at finding game, they would have run short of food months before. He hoped that he would be returning in time.
As the Marlin Maiden rounded the headland, and Crowley could see up the inlet, he could already see that something was wrong. Rather than two ships waiting at anchor, there was only one: his flagship the Princess Charlotte. And the Charlotte was not in good shape. She was listing to one side, and the sails that had been so neatly furled when Crowley had left were hanging in tatters from her yardarms. And she wasn't in the anchorage where she was supposed to be: once Crowley got closer he could se why. The Charlotte was perched on top of a shoal. She must have been clown free of her anchor, Crowley thought.
The absence of the Tudor Rose and the fact that the Charlotte had been left damaged on a reef filled Crowley with dread. If the colonists were still alive they surely wouldn't have left my ship like that, he thought. As the Marlin Maiden's boat pulled up to the beach, Crowley, Wodruff, and the sailors were greeted only with silence. There was no noise from any of the colony's buildings, and no sign of life anywhere around.
In fact, all that Crowley could see were signs of death. In the field to the North of the buildings, where they had planned to plant cabbage next spring, there were rows and rows of crosses. The crosses closest to the buildings were made of carved wood, while the ones farther away were often no more than two sticks lashed together. And in the farthest corner of the graveyard were four mounds covered in blankets. Crowley didn't need to lift up the blankets to know that they concealed the bodies of the last survivors.
Instead, Crowley walked toward the buildings and took a look inside. The mess hall was empty as was the store room. It was in the barracks that he found the bodies of two men, curled up around what must have been the last fire they had been able to keep lit. On a table next to the bodies was a folded piece of paper with the title “the Last Log of Fort Burton” scrawled on it. Crowley picked it up and read aloud.
“January 22, 1596. Burton is dead. Since Crowley is gone, and Woodruff with him, Burton put me, Gregory Smalls, in command. Rations are running low, but due to Burton's strict rationing, and his selfless policy of always taking the smallest portion for himself, we have enough food to last another month, or maybe 6 weeks. We hope that Crowley and Wodruff return with food soon.”
“February 16, 1596. Today, a scouting party captured a band of 5 Indians, in the hopes that they would have food to trade us. They didn't, and I almost had to shoot one of my men to keep him from killing the Indians. I think he meant to eat them. 'If they live like animals, we can treat them as game' he said. What hunger will drive us to do.”
“February 18, 1596. Fox has worked out a rough sign langauge to use when communicating with the Indians. One of the Indian boys seems to know when deer can be found, although he says that this is the wrong time of year to be hunting them. But Fox and Baker seem to think that he's just telling us that so that he can steal from us once we've all starved to death.” [13]
“February 21, 1596. Fox and Baker are trying to organize a party to go out and find the deer that the Indian boy speaks of. They have gathered a group of the dozen strongest men around them and are demanding half our food stores to feed them through the hunt. I have told them that they can have no more than their share of the food, but they insist that they will need more of it as they need to be strong enough to travel.”
“February 23, 1596. Fox and Baker are getting more restless. I have placed guards at the storeroom door, but many of my men are too hungry to shoot straight. I worry what would happen if it came to blows.”
“February 24, 1596. Today Fox and Baker chose to mutiny against my command. They killed 2 guards at the storeroom door, and ten more men were injured as Fox and Baker's gang made their escape to the Tudor Rose. While the Rose still lies at anchor, the mutineers have taken all of our boats, and I dare not order my men to swim out in the frigid cold water. I only have to hope that the mutineers have a change of heart. Fox and Baker have taken all but the last of our food, and I fear that we have very little time left.”
“March 10, 1596. Today we saw the last of the Tudor Rose. The ice that had been blocking the mouth of the anchorage was blown away by a storm last night, and the Rose slipped out of the anchorage just before sunup this morning. The same storm drove the Charlotte up on the rocks, so we have no hope of pursuing the mutineers. Two more passed away in the cold stormy night, and there are only fourteen of us left. Only five of us are still able to move from out beds.”
“March 15, 1596. Three weeks without food can certainly sap a man's strength. I no longer have the strength to bury the dead, although Davidson and I were able at least to drag the bodies of our last four comrades to the graveyard, and cover them with blankets to protect them from the elements. Even if we wanted to cook up the bodies to give us a little sustenance, neither of us has the strength to do so. I figure this log entry will be our last.”
Crowley put down the book. “Well it seems pretty clear what happened to them. I only wish we'd been able to come earlier.”
“We should be thankful that we've survived,” interjected Woodruff, “if we'd tried to cross the stormy waters any earlier, we may not have made it, and Smalls and Davidson would have still suffered the same fate.”
Crowley couldn't hold himself together. “Damn you Woodruff! Damn your seas and your storms! All you care about is your own ship and your own skin! If you hadn't been so damn selfish we could have been here in time! Why couldn't you....” Crowley broke down into tears. It's time to go home, he thought.
* * * * *
(Kespukwitk[14], July 1599)
Sebastian was standing on the beach as Crowley's boat pulled up to the shore. “Good to see you old friend,” Crowley called out.
“I was travelling in the area, when I heard news that your ship had been sighted off the shore. I figured I should put in an appearance. Besides, while your grasp of our language has gotten better over the past three years, it's still not enough that you couldn't use an interpreter.”
“Yes, your services will be very helpful,” replied Crowley. “I've spent the past year trading arquebuses to you Lennockians [15], but I've never been to this part of Lennockia before, and, I must say, I'm impressed. I'd always thought that Lennockia was all rocks and trees like New Found Land. But this valley here, it looks positively fertile. Who's land is this?”
“The Chief of this district, Kespukwitk, is Chief Membertou. [16] Do you remember him from the Grand Council.”
“The ancient-looking one who claimed to have met Jacques Cartier? Of course I remember him!”
“He did meet Jacques Cartier. He was impressed at first. Although, once he found out the French had befriended the Kwedech, he saw the French for the traitors that they are.”
“Anyways, in addition to the usual business I'll be doing with the local traders, I'd like to speak to Membertou. I have a proposal for him.”
A few hours later, Crowley and Sebastian were seated in Membertou's wigwam. The Chief sat across from them.
“We English have been trading with you Lannockians for a few years now. We've been supplying you with weapons to help fight against your Kwedech enemies, but we want to do more. The Kwedech have Frenchmen living with them, teaching them their ways. The Kwedech don't yet make their own arquebuses, but their blacksmiths are able make their own metal tools, putting you Lannockians at a disadvantage.”
Crowley waited for Sebastian to translate and then continued. “While we might be able to hold our own against the Kwedech for now, we think you will need some more help in order to decisively defeat the Kwedech. We think that to counter the fact that the Kwedech have Frenchmen living among them and providing them with military training, you should have Englishmen living here in Lannockia, teaching you all the things the Frenchmen have taught the Kwedech. We want to help you learn the skills you will need to finally beat the Kwedech.” [17]
Crowley stayed silent as Sebastian translated, and Membertou made his reply. “The Chief wants to know what you want in return,” Sebastian translated.
“Land is what we want,” replied Crowley. “We want land in this valley to build a settlement so that our people can come here. And we want you Lannockians to guarantee that you, and the other members of your Wabenaki confederacy, will never give land to any other European nation. We want you to make a permanent alliance between your nation and ours, so that the interests of Lannockia and England will always be as one. What do you say?”
After the usual pause while Sebastian translated, the Chief made a reply. “Your plan sounds good,” he said, “but I cannot speak for the whole Confederacy, or even for all of the L'Nuk. You will have to present your idea to the Kespukwitk council, and then the Grand Council, and only then may you present it to the other nations of the Confederacy.”
Good, Crowley thought, that will give us time to draw up a treaty.
Footnotes:
[1] Crowley would have used the term “Indians” for the Native Americans at this point, so it's the term I use when I write from his point of view. The Beothuk, who were native to Newfoundland were known OTL to be distrustful of Euorpeans, and to have little interest in trade or diplomacy, hence why they're making themselves so scarce.
[2] King Henry IX's eldest daughter is named Charlotte.
[3] Remember New Aberdeen is the Scottish trading post in Labrador which was originally founded with the hopes of becoming a permanent settlement. Many of the higher-ups in the Scottish Northwestern Trade Company that runs the New Aberdeen trade post are actually Englishmen, so there is much cooperation between Scotland and England in North America already, even though the two Kingdoms are not yet in Personal Union.
[4] The “fish-drying grounds” I write about are near the site of OTL St. John's, which was chose as an settlement site OTL largely because of its proximity to the Grand Banks.
[5] This inlet is OTL's White Bear Bay.
[6] The beach that Burton sighted was OTL's Sandbanks Provincial Park near the OTL town of Burgeo, Newfoundland.
[7] The Isle of Mniku in the salt-water-lake we know in OTL as the Bras d'Or is the traditional site of the L'Nuk Grand Council. My sources have been unclear about what time of year the Grand Council traditionally met, although other L'Nuk councils met in the Spring and/or Fall, so an October council meeting seems reasonable to me. The fact that the Grand Council meets in Cape Breton seemed too good to be true when I realized that the closest natives that these colonists would be able to trade with (again, the Beothuk are likely not really that interested in trade) would be in Cape Breton.
[8] Remember, L'Nuk is the autonym used by the people we know OTL as the Mi'kmaq.
[9] Deer and moose were, OTL, only introduced to Newfoundland in the past 150 years. Before that, the only big game available would have been caribou during certain parts of their migration route. When Crowley thinks of deer as “common elsewhere”, he's thinking of mainland North America. White-tailed deer and mosse do both range through coastal Labrador near the location of New Aberdeen, although that is the Northern limit of their range
[10] The name “Cape Breton” seems to predate the POD. It was named by Basque sailors who named it after the town of Capbreton in the French Basque country. Incidentally, Capbreton is part of the small coastal territory France ceded to Bourbon Navarre.
[11] The term Kwedech is used OTL in L'Nuk/Mi'kmaq oral history/mythology. It refers to a people to the Northwest with whom the L'Nuk fought many wars in pre-contact times. Some sources guess that the Kwedech were the Mohawk and/or other Iroquois nations, although I prefer the hypothesis that they were the St. Lawrence Iroquoians/”Kanatians”. Thus, in TTL the L'Nuk will used the term Kwedech to refer to the people the French refer to as Kanatians.
[12] The English seiged and captured Amiens during the war between King Charles IX of France and King Henry III of Navarre.
[13] The “deer” that the Beothuk boy is referring to are really caribou. The boy is trying to convey the fact that the caribou only visit Newfoundland once a year, and that they are currently around to be hunted.
[14] Kespukwitk is the Mi'kmaw name for what we know in OTL as Southwestern Nova Scotia. This scene is taking place near OTL Annapolis Royal.
[15] Lennockians is the anglicization of L'Nuk. Lennockia is the term that Crowley and the other English now use to refer to the land we know in OTL as the Maritime Provinces of Canada.
[16] This is the same Membertou from OTL. He supposedly was an adult when he met Jacques Cartier, so I decided that his position as District Chief wouldn't have been butterflied by the POD. However, in TTL, he is just a Disctrict Chief, not Grand Chief.
[17] The English are seeing the vassalage relationship between the Stadaconans and the French as the model for their own relationship with the natives. Given that the English didn't explore the region first, they're looking for a vassalage agreement with the natives as a way of establishing a claim to the land. Colonialism in TTL will look different than it did OTL.
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