Contents
The Jesuits in North America
NATIVE TRIBES.
Divisions • The Algonquins • The Hurons • Their Houses • Fortifications • Habits • Arts • Women • Trade • Festivities • Medicine • The Tobacco Nation • The Neutrals • The Eries • The Andastes • The Iroquois • Indian Social and Political Organization • Iroquois Institutions, Customs, and Character • Indian Religion and Superstitions • The Indian Mind
[CHAPTER I.] 1634.
NOTRE-DAME DES ANGES.
Quebec in 1634 • Father Le Jeune • The Mission-House • Its Domestic Economy • The Jesuits and their Designs
LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS.
Conversion of Loyola • Foundation of the Society of Jesus • Preparation of the Novice • Characteristics of the Order • The Canadian Jesuits
[CHAPTER III.] 1632, 1633.
PAUL LE JEUNE.
Le Jeune's Voyage • His First Pupils • His Studies • His Indian Teacher • Winter at the Mission-House • Le Jeune's School • Reinforcements
[CHAPTER IV.] 1633, 1634.
LE JEUNE AND THE HUNTERS.
Le Jeune joins the Indians • The First Encampment • The Apostate • Forest Life in Winter • The Indian Hut • The Sorcerer • His Persecution of the Priest • Evil Company • Magic • Incantations • Christmas • Starvation • Hopes of Conversion • Backsliding • Peril and Escape of Le Jeune • His Return
[CHAPTER V.] 1633, 1634.
THE HURON MISSION.
Plans of Conversion • Aims and Motives • Indian Diplomacy • Hurons at Quebec • Councils • The Jesuit Chapel • Le Borgne • The Jesuits Thwarted • Their Perseverance • The Journey to the Hurons • Jean de Brébeuf • The Mission Begun
[CHAPTER VI.] 1634, 1635.
BRÉBEUF AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
The Huron Mission-House • Its Inmates • Its Furniture • Its Guests • The Jesuit as a Teacher • As an Engineer • Baptisms • Huron Village Life • Festivities and Sorceries • The Dream Feast • The Priests accused of Magic • The Drought and the Red Cross
[CHAPTER VII.] 1636, 1637.
THE FEAST OF THE DEAD.
Huron Graves • Preparation for the Ceremony • Disinterment • The Mourning • The Funeral March • The Great Sepulchre • Funeral Games • Encampment of the Mourners • Gifts • Harangues • Frenzy of the Crowd • The Closing Scene • Another Rite • The Captive Iroquois • The Sacrifice.
[CHAPTER VIII.] 1636, 1637.
THE HURON AND THE JESUIT.
Enthusiasm for the Mission • Sickness of the Priests • The Pest among the Hurons • The Jesuit on his Rounds • Efforts at Conversion • Priests and Sorcerers • The Man-Devil • The Magician's Prescription • Indian Doctors and Patients • Covert Baptisms • Self-Devotion of the Jesuits
[CHAPTER IX.] 1637.
CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.
Jean de Brébeuf • Charles Garnier • Joseph Marie Chaumonot • Noël Chabanel • Isaac Jogues • Other Jesuits • Nature of their Faith • Supernaturalism • Visions • Miracles
[CHAPTER X.] 1637-1640.
PERSECUTION.
Ossossané • The New Chapel • A Triumph of the Faith • The Nether Powers • Signs of a Tempest • Slanders • Rage against the Jesuits • Their Boldness and Persistency • Nocturnal Council • Danger of the Priests • Brébeuf's Letter • Narrow Escapes • Woes and Consolations
[CHAPTER XI.] 1638-1640.
PRIEST AND PAGAN.
Du Peron's Journey • Daily Life of the Jesuits • Their Missionary Excursions • Converts at Ossossané • Machinery of Conversion • Conditions of Baptism • Backsliders • The Converts and their Countrymen • The Cannibals at St. Joseph
[CHAPTER XII.] 1639, 1640.
THE TOBACCO NATION—THE NEUTRALS.
A Change of Plan • Sainte Marie • Mission of the Tobacco Nation • Winter Journeying • Reception of the Missionaries • Superstitious Terrors • Peril of Garnier and Jogues • Mission of the Neutrals • Huron Intrigues • Miracles • Fury of the Indians • Intervention of Saint Michael • Return to Sainte Marie • Intrepidity of the Priests • Their Mental Exaltation
[CHAPTER XIII.] 1636-1646.
QUEBEC AND ITS TENANTS.
The New Governor • Edifying Examples • Le Jeune's Correspondents • Rank and Devotion • Nuns • Priestly Authority • Condition of Quebec • The Hundred Associates • Church Discipline • Plays • Fireworks • Processions • Catechizing • Terrorism • Pictures • The Converts • The Society of Jesus • The Foresters
[CHAPTER XIV.] 1636-1652.
DEVOTEES AND NUNS.
The Huron Seminary • Madame de la Peltrie • Her Pious Schemes • Her Sham Marriage • She visits the Ursulines of Tours • Marie de Saint Bernard • Marie de l'Incarnation • Her Enthusiasm • Her Mystical Marriage • Her Dejection • Her Mental Conflicts • Her Vision • Made Superior of the Ursulines • The Hôtel-Dieu • The Voyage to Canada • Sillery • Labors and Sufferings of the Nuns • Character of Marie de l'Incarnation • Of Madame de la Peltrie
[CHAPTER XV.] 1636-1642.
VILLEMARIE DE MONTREAL.
Dauversiére and the Voice from Heaven • Abbé Olier • Their Schemes • The Society of Notre-Dame de Montreal • Maisonneuve • Devout Ladies • Mademoiselle Mance • Marguerite Bourgeoys • The Montrealists at Quebec • Jealousy • Quarrels • Romance and Devotion • Embarkation • Foundation of Montreal
[CHAPTER XVI.] 1641-1644.
ISAAC JOGUES.
The Iroquois War • Jogues • His Capture • His Journey to the Mohawks • Lake George • The Mohawk Towns • The Missionary Tortured • Death of Goupil • Misery of Jogues • The Mohawk "Babylon" • Fort Orange • Escape of Jogues • Manhattan • The Voyage to France • Jogues among his Brethren • He returns to Canada
[CHAPTER XVII.] 1641-1646.
THE IROQUOIS—BRESSANI—DE NOUË.
War • Distress and Terror • Richelieu • Battle • Ruin of Indian Tribes • Mutual Destruction • Iroquois and Algonquin • Atrocities • Frightful Position of the French • Joseph Bressani • His Capture • His Treatment • His Escape • Anne de Nouë • His Nocturnal Journey • His Death
[CHAPTER XVIII.] 1642-1644.
VILLEMARIE.
Infancy of Montreal • The Flood • Vow of Maisonneuve • Pilgrimage • D'Ailleboust • The Hôtel-Dieu • Piety • Propagandism • War • Hurons and Iroquois • Dogs • Sally of the French • Battle • Exploit of Maisonneuve
[CHAPTER XIX.] 1644, 1645.
PEACE.
Iroquois Prisoners • Piskaret • His Exploits • More Prisoners • Iroquois Embassy • The Orator • The Great Council • Speeches of Kiotsaton • Muster of Savages • Peace Confirmed
[CHAPTER XX.] 1645, 1646.
THE PEACE BROKEN.
Uncertainties • The Mission of Jogues • He reaches the Mohawks • His Reception • His Return • His Second Mission • Warnings of Danger • Rage of the Mohawks • Murder of Jogues
[CHAPTER XXI.] 1646, 1647.
ANOTHER WAR.
Mohawk Inroads • The Hunters of Men • The Captive Converts • The Escape of Marie • Her Story • The Algonquin Prisoner's Revenge • Her Flight • Terror of the Colonists • Jesuit Intrepidity
[CHAPTER XXII.] 1645-1651.
PRIEST AND PURITAN.
Miscou • Tadoussac • Journeys of De Quen • Druilletes • His Winter with the Montagnais • Influence of the Missions • The Abenaquis • Druilletes on the Kennebec • His Embassy to Boston • Gibbons • Dudley • Bradford • Eliot • Endicott • French and Puritan Colonization • Failure of Druilletes's Embassy • New Regulations • New-Year's Day at Quebec.
[CHAPTER XXIII.] 1645-1648.
A DOOMED NATION.
Indian Infatuation • Iroquois and Huron • Huron Triumphs • The Captive Iroquois • His Ferocity and Fortitude • Partisan Exploits • Diplomacy • The Andastes • The Huron Embassy • New Negotiations • The Iroquois Ambassador • His Suicide • Iroquois Honor
[CHAPTER XXIV.] 1645-1648.
THE HURON CHURCH.
Hopes of the Mission • Christian and Heathen • Body and Soul • Position of Proselytes • The Huron Girl's Visit to Heaven • A Crisis • Huron Justice • Murder and Atonement • Hopes and Fears
[CHAPTER XXV.] 1648, 1649.
SAINTE MARIE.
The Centre of the Missions • Fort • Convent • Hospital • Caravansary • Church • The Inmates of Sainte Marie • Domestic Economy • Missions • A Meeting of Jesuits • The Dead Missionary
[CHAPTER XXVI.] 1648.
ANTOINE DANIEL.
Huron Traders • Battle at Three Rivers • St. Joseph • Onset of the Iroquois • Death of Daniel • The Town Destroyed
[CHAPTER XXVII.] 1649.
RUIN OF THE HURONS.
St. Louis on Fire • Invasion • St. Ignace captured • Brébeuf and Lalemant • Battle at St. Louis • Sainte Marie threatened • Renewed Fighting • Desperate Conflict • A Night of Suspense • Panic among the Victors • Burning of St. Ignace • Retreat of the Iroquois
[CHAPTER XXVIII.] 1649.
THE MARTYRS.
The Ruins of St. Ignace • The Relics found • Brébeuf at the Stake • His Unconquerable Fortitude • Lalemant • Renegade Hurons • Iroquois Atrocities • Death of Brébeuf • His Character • Death of Lalemant
[CHAPTER XXIX.] 1649, 1650.
THE SANCTUARY.
Dispersion of the Hurons • Sainte Marie abandoned • Isle St. Joseph • Removal of the Mission • The New Fort • Misery of the Hurons • Famine • Epidemic • Employments of the Jesuits
[CHAPTER XXX.] 1649.
GARNIER—CHABANEL.
The Tobacco Missions • St. Jean attacked • Death of Garnier • The Journey of Chabanel • His Death • Garreau and Grelon.
[CHAPTER XXXI.] 1650-1652.
THE HURON MISSION ABANDONED.
Famine and the Tomahawk • A New Asylum • Voyage of the Refugees to Quebec • Meeting with Bressani • Desperate Courage of the Iroquois • Inroads and Battles • Death of Buteux
[CHAPTER XXXII.] 1650-1866.
THE LAST OF THE HURONS.
Fate of the Vanquished • The Refugees of St. Jean Baptiste and St. Michel • The Tobacco Nation and its Wanderings • The Modern Wyandots • The Biter Bit • The Hurons at Quebec • Notre-Dame de Lorette.
[CHAPTER XXXIII.] 1650-1670.
THE DESTROYERS.
Iroquois Ambition • Its Victims • The Fate of the Neutrals • The Fate of the Eries • The War with the Andastes • Supremacy of the Iroquois
THE END.
Failure of the Jesuits • What their Success would have involved • Future of the Mission
The Jesuits in North America
in the Seventeenth Century
by Francis Parkman
[INTRODUCTION.]
NATIVE TRIBES.
Divisions • The Algonquins • The Hurons • Their Houses • Fortifications • Habits • Arts • Women • Trade • Festivities • Medicine • The Tobacco Nation • The Neutrals • The Eries • The Andastes • The Iroquois • Indian Social and Political Organization • Iroquois Institutions, Customs, and Character • Indian Religion and Superstitions • The Indian Mind
America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution. North and South, tribe was giving place to tribe, language to language; for the Indian, hopelessly unchanging in respect to individual and social development, was, as regarded tribal relations and local haunts, mutable as the wind. In Canada and the northern section of the United States, the elements of change were especially active. The Indian population which, in 1535, Cartier found at Montreal and Quebec, had disappeared at the opening of the next century, and another race had succeeded, in language and customs widely different; while, in the region now forming the State of New York, a power was rising to a ferocious vitality, which, but for the presence of Europeans, would probably have subjected, absorbed, or exterminated every other Indian community east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio.
The vast tract of wilderness from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and from the Carolinas to Hudson's Bay, was divided between two great families of tribes, distinguished by a radical difference of language. A part of Virginia and of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Southeastern New York, New England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Lower Canada were occupied, so far as occupied at all, by tribes speaking various Algonquin languages and dialects. They extended, moreover, along the shores of the Upper Lakes, and into the dreary Northern wastes beyond. They held Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, and detached bands ranged the lonely hunting-ground of Kentucky. [1]
[1] The word Algonquin is here used in its broadest signification. It was originally applied to a group of tribes north of the River St. Lawrence. The difference of language between the original Algonquins and the Abenaquis of New England, the Ojibwas of the Great Lakes, or the Illinois of the West, corresponded to the difference between French and Italian, or Italian and Spanish. Each of these languages, again, had its dialects, like those of different provinces of France.
Like a great island in the midst of the Algonquins lay the country of tribes speaking the generic tongue of the Iroquois. The true Iroquois, or Five Nations, extended through Central New York, from the Hudson to the Genesee. Southward lay the Andastes, on and near the Susquehanna; westward, the Eries, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and the Neutral Nation, along its northern shore from Niagara towards the Detroit; while the towns of the Hurons lay near the lake to which they have left their name. [2]
[2] To the above general statements there was, in the first half of the seventeenth century, but one exception worth notice. A detached branch of the Dahcotah stock, the Winnebago, was established south of Green Bay, on Lake Michigan, in the midst of Algonquins; and small Dahcotah bands had also planted themselves on the eastern side of the Mississippi, nearly in the same latitude.
There was another branch of the Iroquois in the Carolinas, consisting of the Tuscaroras and kindred bands. In 1715 they were joined to the Five Nations.
Of the Algonquin populations, the densest, despite a recent epidemic which had swept them off by thousands, was in New England. Here were Mohicans, Pequots, Narragansetts, Wampanoags, Massachusetts, Penacooks, thorns in the side of the Puritan. On the whole, these savages were favorable specimens of the Algonquin stock, belonging to that section of it which tilled the soil, and was thus in some measure spared the extremes of misery and degradation to which the wandering hunter tribes were often reduced. They owed much, also, to the bounty of the sea, and hence they tended towards the coast; which, before the epidemic, Champlain and Smith had seen at many points studded with wigwams and waving with harvests of maize. Fear, too, drove them eastward; for the Iroquois pursued them with an inveterate enmity. Some paid yearly tribute to their tyrants, while others were still subject to their inroads, flying in terror at the sound of the Mohawk war-cry. Westward, the population thinned rapidly; northward, it soon disappeared. Northern New Hampshire, the whole of Vermont, and Western Massachusetts had no human tenants but the roving hunter or prowling warrior.
We have said that this group of tribes was relatively very populous; yet it is more than doubtful whether all of them united, had union been possible, could have mustered eight thousand fighting men. To speak further of them is needless, for they were not within the scope of the Jesuit labors. The heresy of heresies had planted itself among them; and it was for the apostle Eliot, not the Jesuit, to essay their conversion. [3]
[3] These Indians, the Armouchiquois of the old French writers, were in a state of chronic war with the tribes of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Champlain, on his voyage of 1603, heard strange accounts of them. The following is literally rendered from the first narrative of that heroic, but credulous explorer.
"They are savages of shape altogether monstrous: for their heads are small, their bodies short, and their arms thin as a skeleton, as are also their thighs; but their legs are stout and long, and all of one size, and, when they are seated on their heels, their knees rise more than half a foot above their heads, which seems a thing strange and against Nature. Nevertheless, they are active and bold, and they have the best country on all the coast towards Acadia."—Des Sauvages, f. 34.
This story may match that of the great city of Norembega, on the Penobscot, with its population of dwarfs, as related by Jean Alphonse.
Landing at Boston, three years before a solitude, let the traveller push northward, pass the River Piscataqua and the Penacooks, and cross the River Saco. Here, a change of dialect would indicate a different tribe, or group of tribes. These were the Abenaquis, found chiefly along the course of the Kennebec and other rivers, on whose banks they raised their rude harvests, and whose streams they ascended to hunt the moose and bear in the forest desert of Northern Maine, or descended to fish in the neighboring sea. [4]
[4] The Tarratines of New-England writers were the Abenaquis, or a portion of them.
Crossing the Penobscot, one found a visible descent in the scale of humanity. Eastern Maine and the whole of New Brunswick were occupied by a race called Etchemins, to whom agriculture was unknown, though the sea, prolific of fish, lobsters, and seals, greatly lightened their miseries. The Souriquois, or Micmacs, of Nova Scotia, closely resembled them in habits and condition. From Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence, there was no population worthy of the name. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, the southern border of the great river had no tenants but hunters. Northward, between the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, roamed the scattered hordes of the Papinachois, Bersiamites, and others, included by the French under the general name of Montagnais. When, in spring, the French trading-ships arrived and anchored in the port of Tadoussac, they gathered from far and near, toiling painfully through the desolation of forests, mustering by hundreds at the point of traffic, and setting up their bark wigwams along the strand of that wild harbor. They were of the lowest Algonquin type. Their ordinary sustenance was derived from the chase; though often, goaded by deadly famine, they would subsist on roots, the bark and buds of trees, or the foulest offal; and in extremity, even cannibalism was not rare among them.
Ascending the St. Lawrence, it was seldom that the sight of a human form gave relief to the loneliness, until, at Quebec, the roar of Champlain's cannon from the verge of the cliff announced that the savage prologue of the American drama was drawing to a close, and that the civilization of Europe was advancing on the scene. Ascending farther, all was solitude, except at Three Rivers, a noted place of trade, where a few Algonquins of the tribe called Atticamegues might possibly be seen. The fear of the Iroquois was everywhere; and as the voyager passed some wooded point, or thicket-covered island, the whistling of a stone-headed arrow proclaimed, perhaps, the presence of these fierce marauders. At Montreal there was no human life, save during a brief space in early summer, when the shore swarmed with savages, who had come to the yearly trade from the great communities of the interior. To-day there were dances, songs, and feastings; to-morrow all again was solitude, and the Ottawa was covered with the canoes of the returning warriors.
Along this stream, a main route of traffic, the silence of the wilderness was broken only by the splash of the passing paddle. To the north of the river there was indeed a small Algonquin band, called La Petite Nation, together with one or two other feeble communities; but they dwelt far from the banks, through fear of the ubiquitous Iroquois. It was nearly three hundred miles, by the windings of the stream, before one reached that Algonquin tribe, La Nation de l'Isle, who occupied the great island of the Allumettes. Then, after many a day of lonely travel, the voyager found a savage welcome among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name; and then circling west and south for a hundred and fifty miles of solitude, he reached for the first time a people speaking a dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Here all was changed. Populous towns, rude fortifications, and an extensive, though barbarous tillage, indicated a people far in advance of the famished wanderers of the Saguenay, or their less abject kindred of New England. These were the Hurons, of whom the modern Wyandots are a remnant. Both in themselves and as a type of their generic stock they demand more than a passing notice. [5]
[5] The usual confusion of Indian tribal names prevails in the case of the Hurons. The following are their synonymes:—
Hurons (of French origin); Ochateguins (Champlain); Attigouantans (the name of one of their tribes, used by Champlain for the whole nation); Ouendat (their true name, according to Lalemant); Yendat, Wyandot, Guyandot (corruptions of the preceding); Ouaouakecinatouek (Potier), Quatogies (Colden).