1679-1726 The Iroquois Barrier
The importance of the Fort Niagara site was created by geography. The Great Lakes and their connecting straits form a continuous body of water from the Atlantic Ocean to the center of the North American continent. Along the southern and western edge of the lakes lie continental divides which separate the tributary streams of the Great Lakes from those draining into the Gulf of Mexico. To Native Americans and early Europeans, these waters provided natural highways through a rugged and heavily forested land.
At the eastern end of Lake Erie, the vast fresh water drainage of the Great Lakes is constricted into the Niagara River. From that point until its junction with Lake Ontario, some thirty miles to the north, the Niagara River drops four hundred feet in elevation. Most spectacular is the 182-foot plunge over Niagara Falls. The cataract, with its gorge and rapids, creates the single greatest impediment to waterborne traffic in the Great Lakes. The importance of this water highway and the portage necessitated by the falls ensured that the Niagara River would become a point of contention between the nations attempting to dominate North America.
While French, British and Dutch colonists all settled on the shores of North America at about the same time, the French were best situated to exploit the natural routes to the interior. Despite some troublesome rapids, the St. Lawrence River led directly from their settlements to Lake Ontario. The French were thus the first Europeans to attempt to control the Niagara Portage. This was not an easy goal. Located astride Lake Ontario and the portage were the Five Nations of the Iroquois, militarily and politically the most powerful group of native people in American history. The French had alienated the Iroquois by aligning with their ancestral enemies. Although moderated for short periods of time, animosity between the Iroquois and the French would never entirely disappear. The French thus found a powerful human obstacle to their use of the Niagara.
Fort Conti
Warfare between the French and the Iroquois was bitter but sporadic throughout the seventeenth century. During the 1670s, however, relations improved to the point where the explorer and trader Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was able to obtain permission from the Iroquois to use the Niagara Portage. He wished to construct a sailing vessel above Niagara Falls for use on the Upper Great Lakes. La Salle's party of explorers and ship carpenters were the first Europeans clearly documented to have explored the Niagara River and view its cataract. During the winter of 1678-79 they set about their work under the eyes of the still-suspicious Iroquois. La Salle's vessel, Griffon, was launched in the spring of 1679.
Early in 1679, La Salle established a small post on the Fort Niagara site to support his shipbuilding project. He found there a high bluff, largely cleared of trees, which offered a good location for a fortified storehouse. The stockade, dubbed Fort Conti, was well-situated to maintain communications with his base at Fort Frontenac on the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Fort Conti provided a place to store supplies for the men working above the falls. Sometime after La Salle had departed in his vessel, however, little Fort Conti accidentally burned and the site was abandoned. The post had existed for less than one year, but it represented the first challenge to the Iroquois barrier.
Fort Denonville
The thaw in relations between the French and the Iroquois soon ended. In 1687 the Governor of New France, Jacques-Rene de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville, planned a military expedition to remove the Iroquois threat to his colony. The French were also alarmed by growing British interest and influence in the Iroquois country. Britain's acquisition of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664 had placed an aggressive European rival within reach of the Great Lakes via the Hudson-Mohawk-Oneida Lake route to Lake Ontario.
Denonville, at the head of a formidable army, moved against the Seneca, westernmost of the five Iroquois nations. He attacked their villages along the Genesee River, south of modern Rochester, without decisive success. His force then moved west to the Niagara River to establish a fort. Late in July 1687 the troops erected a stockade which was named for Denonville. The governor then withdrew to Montreal leaving Captain Pierre de Troyes and a garrison of one hundred men at the new post.
The Iroquois were far from cowed by Denonville's attack, and the fort at Niagara was an unwelcome enemy presence on their land. Seneca warriors hovered near the post, combining with the harsh climate to isolate the garrison. Fort Denonville had been intended to control the Seneca, secure the portage and deny Niagara to the British. It became instead a trap for its garrison. Disease and starvation soon took their tolls. By the time Lake Ontario again became navigable, in the spring of 1688, only twelve of the garrison remained alive. Burials discovered inside Fort Niagara in 1929 were possibly the remains of De Troyes' unfortunate soldiers.
In spite of this disaster, a new garrison was assigned to Fort Denonville. The post was only occupied until September 1688, however, and then abandoned. Isolation and the Iroquois had rendered it untenable and had defeated French efforts to establish themselves at Niagara. The Iroquois barrier to the Great Lakes was shaken but unbroken. In periods of peace travelers crossed the portage, but it was not firmly under French control. More than three decades would pass before the French were able to reestablish themselves at Niagara.