Fall and Massacre of Fort William Henry
In early August 1757 the Marquis de Montcalm led a force of approximately 7,000 men — French regulars, troupes de la marine, colonial militia, and warriors from over forty indigenous nations — south from Lake Champlain to besiege the British Fort William Henry at the southern tip of Lake George. The garrison of roughly 2,300 under Lieutenant Colonel George Monro held out for five days of bombardment before surrendering on 9 August 1757, having received no relief from General Webb at nearby Fort Edward. Montcalm granted Monro's garrison the honours of war: the British would march away under parole, pledging not to fight for eighteen months in exchange for their freedom. The terms were conventional by European standards. But the indigenous warriors — who had travelled hundreds of miles from the Great Lakes and beyond, expecting the plunder and captives that constituted the rewards of a successful raid — rejected them. The following morning, indigenous warriors broke into the camp and began killing and capturing British soldiers, camp followers, women, and children. The precise death toll is uncertain: estimates range from 70 to over 180 killed, with between 300 and 500 taken captive. Montcalm and French officers physically intervened, Montcalm reportedly tearing open his coat and telling the attackers to kill him first. Some captives were recovered; others were marched north and sold or adopted. The massacre's political consequences far outweighed its military significance. The indigenous nations — most of them western allies from beyond New France's immediate sphere — returned home in anger, feeling that the French had denied them rightful rewards. Montcalm's preference for European-style siege warfare over the indigenous raiding tradition exposed an irreconcilable tension at the heart of French North American strategy: to win the formal military campaign he needed indigenous numbers; to fight that campaign on European terms he had to deny them indigenous incentives. The great indigenous coalition of 1757 never reassembled at the same scale. Meanwhile, the massacre galvanised British colonial opinion and provided powerful propaganda for the war effort.
- Year: 1757 CE
- Category: Military
