Share on Facebook
Share on X
Share by Email
Share on Google Classroom
The Lachine raid was an attack led by some 1,500 Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) warriors on the settlement of Lachine, west of Montreal on 5 August 1689. The raid claimed 24 lives, with over 60 Lachine settlers captured by the Haudenosaunee.
Context
French westward expansion in the 1670s and 1680s cut off the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy from new sources of beaver and threatened New York's fur trade. As long as France and England were at peace, little could be done to impede French traders, but New York authorities could encourage the Haudenosaunee on the warpath.
The Raid
On the morning of 5 August 1689 some 1,500 Haudenosaunee warriors fell on the little settlement of Lachine just west of Montreal, killing 24 settlers and capturing more than 60 others. The ferocity of this attack terrorized the inhabitants of the Montreal region, who were to suffer many more such raids in the following decade (see Iroquois Wars).