Editing Fort Frontenac (section)

===Iroquois siege and reconstruction===
[[Image:fort frontenac.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Plans for Fort Frontenac from 1685.]]
Fur trade rivalries continued to cause friction between the French and the Iroquois in the 1680s. The French began a campaign against the Iroquois to resolve the Iroquois threat, beginning with Governor [[Antoine Lefèbvre de La Barre]]'s unsuccessful expedition to Fort Frontenac and into [[Seneca nation|Seneca]] territory south of Lake Ontario in 1684. In 1687 La Barre's successor, the [[Marquis de Denonville]], gathered an army to travel into the Seneca territory. To quell suspicion about his motives, Denonville let on that he was merely travelling to a peace council at Fort Frontenac. As Denonville and his army moved up the St. Lawrence toward the fort, several Iroquois, many of whom were friendly to the French, including women and children and some prominent leaders, were captured and imprisoned at Fort Frontenac by [[intendant]] de Champigny ostensibly to prevent them from revealing Denonville's troops' location.<ref>Parkman 1877, ch. VIII, pp. 140–142</ref><ref>Adams 1986, pp. 10, 13</ref> Some were held hostage and sent to Montreal in the event that any French were captured, and some were sent to France to be used as [[galley slaves]]. Denonville's troops and native allies went on to attack the Seneca.

In retaliation for these incidents the Iroquois laid [[siege]] to Fort Frontenac and blockaded Lake Ontario. The fort and the settlement at Cataraqui were besieged for two months in 1688. Although the fort was not destroyed, the settlement was devastated and many inhabitants died, mostly from [[scurvy]]. The French abandoned and destroyed the fort in 1689, claiming that its remoteness prevented proper defense and that it could not be adequately supplied. However, the French again took possession of the fort in 1695, and it was rebuilt and strengthened to serve primarily as a military base of operations. It was from Fort Frontenac that a 2,000-strong French force organized an attack on the Iroquois who inhabited areas south of Lake Ontario.<ref>Parkman 1877, ch. XIX, p. 410.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mancall |first=Peter C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=933CD777ifsC&oi=fnd&pg=PA283&dq=From+Fort+Frontenac+in+1696,+the+French+organized+an+attack+on+the+Iroquois&ots=1VGxlCcCZp&sig=XZ1E9qBn4gW07pxblh_BFgHfbY8#v=onepage&q=1696&f=false |title=American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers from European Contact to Indian Removal, 1500-1850 |last2=Merrell |first2=James Hart |date=2000 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-92375-0 |pages=295 |language=en}}</ref>

Increased tension between the British and the French in the 1740s led to the French upgrading the fort's defensive capabilities by adding new guns, building new [[barracks]] and increasing the size of the garrison.<ref>Bazely 2007.</ref> However, when the  [[Louis-Joseph de Montcalm|Marquis de Montcalm]] arrived at the fort in 1756 to launch an attack on the British at [[Fort Oswego|Oswego]], he was not impressed with its construction. One of his engineers noted that:

{{Quote|The fort has a simple revetement of masonry, with poor foundations of small stones badly set, and the lime is bad; one could easily damage it with a sledge or a pick. The wall is about three to three and a half feet thick at the bottom and two at the top; it has been necessary to build walls for cover. The walls are from 20 to 25 feet high; there are no moats. The trees have been cut down within cannon-shot north and west and about two cannon-shots from the west to the south. ...As for the interior, a wooden scaffold has been built all around except along the north curtain where the commandant's house and chapel are, where the buildings are against the wall. This scaffold is too high; battlements have been let in on a level with the scaffold only eight inches high, which makes them useless. There are two openings for cannons on certain faces of the basions and one on the flanks. There are some places where the scaffold and even the wall would not stand cannon-fire long.<ref>Osborne 2011, pp. 14, 15.</ref>}}

The fort's strategic significance gradually decreased as other forts such as [[Fort Niagara]], [[Fort Detroit]], and [[Fort Michilimackinac]] with commanding positions on the new trade routes became more important.<ref name="Chartrand"/> By the 1750s, Fort Frontenac essentially served only as a supply storage depot and harbour for French naval vessels, and its garrison had dwindled.