Cliffhanger
Agnimatt Mi’kmaq Gwatej Matntimg — A Mi’kmaq-Mohawk Conflict
Story of a battle that took place two centuries ago in Pictou County and how it had a sudden, surprise ending
The Fitzpatrick Mountain Trail in Pictou County is described as a “difficult two-hour walk, that will give one a keen sense of adventure and will be rewarded with amazing views of the countryside, Northumberland Strait and Prince Edward Island.” This elevated view also gives one a consciousness of what small movements are observed well below the 200-metre height. This commanding advantage was used over two centuries ago in an intertribal battle between the indigenous Mi’kmaq and Mohawk Matnaggewinu’g (warriors). Somewhere along the Fitzpatrick Mountain ridge history was made.
In a recently discovered document the event is explained in detail. The story begins “A piece of table land on the top of what is now called Fitzpatrick Mountain was selected by the Mi’kmaq Chief ‘Arrowhead’ to repulse the foe. One part of this mountain terminates abruptly in a frightful precipice and at the time occurred to the Mi’kmaq that this fearful brink might be turned to benefit over the attacking Mohawk Warriors,” led by Chief Grey Wolf. The Mi’kmaq Matnaggewinu’g watched and listened intently as their foe, silently and cunningly, ascended the mountain and “with a yell as if ten-thousand demons had burst from their cases, broke silence of the forest, and amid screams of startled birds, the cries of terrified wild animals, and an awful war whoop, the band of Mohawk cleared the woods and rushed the spot where their scouts had informed them the enemy lay.”
Traditional Indigenous oral stories and early European historians describe the Mi’kmaq Matnaggewinu as a fearsome fighter, “with no mercy shown to prisoners taken in battle; wars were fought, not for land, but to avenge an insult or the killing of one of their tribe.” To the “Mi’kmaq male there was no occupation more glorious than hunting and war: the one and the other provided the means to acquire honour and prestige, of displaying one’s courage and valour and receiving privileges in the councils and feasts of the nation.” The Mohawk and Mi’kmaq combatants were about to challenge this theory on top of a “Mountain called Fitzpatrick” on this day, centuries ago.
As the enemy approached, a “second yell” broke the commotion, and the “Mi’kmaq Matnaggewinu’g sprang to their feet and responded to the challenge.
Clouds of arrows now passed each other in the air, and the result of their fatal flight was made known in the groans of the wounded: hurried by skilful and nervous arms the deadly spears transfixed the combatants on either side; and now the Tomahawk in its unnerving sweep” smashed heads indiscriminately over the Fitzpatrick Mountain battle field. The rival chiefs stayed well back of the hand-to-hand combat, however, “cool as on a modern parade they handled their men and cheered on the havoc.” The brutal battle continued, and a truce was called. A common agreement “during formal types of intertribal warfare, fighting would, at a given signal, stop: both sides would agree to halt when the sun reached a certain place in the heavens.”
This gave Chief Grey Wolf an opportunity for a new tactic. He ordered the Mohawk Matnaggewinu’g to withdraw. His thought, “a position obtained at the rear of the enemy would be of great importance. To effect this, one hundred of his warriors were ordered to make a detour verging on the (Fitzpatrick) mountain precipice. The eye of the Mi’kmaq flashed fire at this movement of their foe, and a thrill of joy coursed through their veins: it was all that the Mi’kmaq warriors could wish and detaching a sufficient force and with a speed of a missile, from which Chief Arrowhead was named, the Mohawks were intercepted before the point of danger was passed.
What transpired next was disastrous for the Mohawk. The Mi’kmaq completely surprised their foes’ sneak attack. Chief Grey Wolf was caught, they were completely “hemmed in by a semicircular figure, advance or retreat was impracticable. Too late, the unhappy Mohawk perceived their fatal error for with one wild sweep they were hurled over the brink and reached the bottom of Fitzpatrick Mountain in a mangled and lifeless mass.”
The Mi’kmaq quickly descended the mountain top only to find and hear their tribal foes’ “spirits escaping from there earthly tenements.” Except, not all the Mi’kmaq’s foes were extinct; Chief Grey Wolf, dazed and angry, challenged his rival leader and the battle’s “victory hung on the result” of the match. “The iron frame of the “Grey Wolf” seemed at first to gain the advantage, but being past the prime of life, endurance failed, and the movements failed” and he was brought to the ground. “Stunned but not killed,” he was now a prisoner of the Piktuk (Pictou) Mi’kmaq Matnaggewinu’g. “Discouraged at the fall of their chief and the loss at the precipice, such of the invaders as survived and could extricate themselves from the grapple of their foe sprang to their feet and made their escape, but small was the number permitted to carry the tidings of defeat to the Mohawk camp.”
These two Indigenous nations waged intermittent war with each other for well over a century, beginning in the late 17th century. To bolster their warrior force, alliances were formed with other Indigenous neighbour nations. The Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot formed the Algonquian-speaking Wabanaki Confederacy in the early 1600s.
The Mohawk joined with the Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora peoples to form the Iroquois/Mohawk Confederacy, or League, possibly as far back as 1570. “Conflict between the Mi’kmaq and Mohawk was long standing.” Many oral stories and written accounts exist to this day of the fear and resentment the Mohawk inflicted on the Mi’kmaq during the intertribal warfare during the 1700s. This time in our province’s history was described as almost “universally about violence: the continual jockeying for power over Acadia (Nova Scotia) between the French, the Mi’kmaq, the English and their Mohawk allies.”
The Pictou Mi’kmaq possibly might have some leverage for future peace by capturing the great Mohawk Chief “Grey Wolf.” Next: Part 2 — Family ties for peace — the Battle of Fitzpatrick Mountain Special thanks to; Chief Andrea Paul, Pictou Landing First Nation
Dr. Daniel Paul, author, editor, and human rights activist Diane Chisholm, Mi’kmaq Resource Centre, Unama’ki College Trevor Gould, Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre Gerald Gloade, Mi’kmaq Artist Prof. John Reid — St. Mary’s University
Keith Mercer, Parks Canada, Mainland Nova Scotia Stephen Augustine, Associate Vice President, Indigenous Affairs & Unama’ki College Roger Lewis, Curator of Ethnology, Nova Scotia Archives Active Pictou County
Historical research
■ Red Earth Tales of the Micmac, Marion Robertson
■ Micmac Tribe of Indians, Legends of the Micmac, S.T. Rand
■ The Eastern Algonkian Wabanaki Confederacy, Frank G. Speck
■ The Mi’kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation, and Cultural Survival,
■ War Among the Northeastern Woodland Indians, Wendall S. Hadlock
■ We Were Not the Savages, Dr. Daniel Paul
■ Sou’west Nova Metis Council
■ An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets, Father Pierre Maillard
■ The Wabanaki- Mohawk Conflict A Folk History Conflict, Nicholas N Smith
■ Battleground: Nova Scotia: The British, French, and First Nations at War in the Northeast 1675-1760, Ronald E. Gaffney
■ The Old Man Told Us, Ruth Holmes Whitehead
■ The Aborigines of Nova Scotia, William Elder
■ Cape Breton University Mi’kmaq Resource Centre
■ The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada, Wallis & Wallis
■ In Indian Tents, Abby L. Alger
■ The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Cultures, 1504-1700 A Study. Alfred G. Bailey
■ Indian Trade in Nova Scotia to 1764, R.O MacFarlane
■ Micmac Documented Oral History Scott H McKeen (Dalhousie University)
■ The Native Peoples of Atlantic Canada, H F McGee
■ Cultural Aspects of Warfare: The Iroquois Institute of the Morning War, Candice Campbell