Many French missionaries from Canada worked in the district stretching from the St. Lawrence to Lake Superior, and missions were established by the Jesuits in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. In 1673 Father Marquette (1636-75) undertook a journey southward to visit the great river about which he had heard from the Indians, and to open up new fields of work for himself and his associates. He succeeded in reaching the Mississippi, and sailed down the river as far as the mouth of Arkansas. As a result of the information acquired from those who returned from this voyage of exploration, expeditions were sent out by the French to take possession of the new territories and to erect fortifications against the further advance westward of the English colonists. The city of New Orleans was founded in 1717. Missionaries—Capuchins, Jesuits, and priests of the Society for Foreign Missions—preached the gospel with great success to the natives in Louisiana, Mississippi, Iowa, Arkansas, and Ohio.
The Jesuits, under the leadership of Father White, who settled in the colony founded in Maryland (1534), devoted themselves to the conversion of the Indians, but the expulsion of Lord Baltimore in 1644 and the victory of the Puritans led to the almost complete destruction of these Indian missions. —————
[1] Launay, /Histoire generale de la Societe des Missions-Etrangeres/, 1894.
[2] Coleridge, /Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier/, 1902.
[3] Bertrand, /La Mission du Madure/, 1847.
[4] Brucker, /Le Pere Mattieu Ricci/ (/Etudes/, 1910).
[5] Daniel, /Histoire apologetique de la conduite des Jesuites de la Chine/, 1724. Pray, /Historia Controvers. de ritibus Sinicis/, 1724.
[6] Pages, /Histoire de la religion chretienne au Japan, 1598-1651/,
1869.
[7] Dutto, /The Life of Bartolome de las Casas and the First Leaves of
American Ecclesiastical History/, 1902.
[8] De Berbourg, /Histoire des nations civilisees du Mexique et de
l'Amerique centrale/, 1851.