A chapel sprang, as it were, instantly into being, for the enthusiasm of the Indians finished it in a day; and the services of the Romish Church were chanted in the Mohawk tongue. Christianity was thus planted among the Onondagas, who dwelling on the banks of the Oswego, which was included within the charter of the Hundred Associates, was claimed as a part of the French empire. Chaumonot made his way to “the more fertile and densely-peopled land” of the Senecas, the most powerful tribe of the confederacy, while René Mesnard was reserved as a missionary by the Cayugas, and a chapel erected in their village, the interior of which was hung with mats, on which were displayed pictures of the Virgin and the Infant Saviour which attracted the admiring gaze of the converts. While Christian missions were thus established throughout the other nations, the chapel of the Onondagas becoming too small for its increasing worshippers, was enlarged, and for a moment it seemed as if the religion of peace had taken root in the blood-stained soil of the Five Nations. At the close of 1657, Jesuit priests published their faith from the Mohawk to the Genesee, Onondaga remaining the central station. A little colony of fifty Frenchman was also established on the Oswego.[[9]]
But neither settlements nor missionary labours could change the nature of the inveterate savage. A war of extermination was carried on by them against their neighbours, the Eries; and the tortures of the captives, even women and children, which were brought to the villages, called forth protests from the missionaries. These excited the displeasure of the Indians, and three Frenchmen were murdered. In vain was aid solicited from Canada; the growing ill-will of the Onondagas compelled the missionaries to abandon their chapel and the colonists their settlement. The Mohawks obliged Le Moyne to depart; and the following year war again broke out with the Five Nations.
The same year the first bishop of New France, the able Montigny, arrived at Quebec, and the island of Montreal having been granted in fief to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, at Paris, a deputation of monks came over, and the foundation of the present city was laid, by the establishment of a hospital, to serve in which religious women came from France. “To the unassisted energy of Margeurite Bourgeoise,” says Hildreth, “the institution of the Daughters of the Congregation owes its origin. With no other resource than her courage and her confidence in God, she undertook the establishment of a convent at Montreal, to secure to all female children, however poor and destitute, a useful and respectable education. The whole island of Montreal, in fact, resembled a religious community.”
The puritanic rigidity of life in New England was equalled by that of catholic Montreal. As a picture of the manners of those days in that religious city, we may give the description of La Hontan:—“We have here a misanthropical bigot of a curé, under whose spiritual despotism play and visiting the ladies are reckoned among the deadly sins. If you have the misfortune to be on his black list, he launches at you publicly from the pulpit. In order to keep well with Messieurs the priests of St. Sulpice, our temporal lords, it is necessary to communicate once a month. No one dare be absent from great masses and sermons. These Arguses have their eyes constantly on the conduct of the women and the girls. Fathers and husbands may sleep in all assurance, unless they have suspicion of these vigilant sentinels themselves. Of all the vexation of these disturbers, I find none so intolerable as their war upon books. None are to be found here but books of devotion. All others are prohibited and condemned to the flames.”
While civilisation was labouring to establish itself in the north, the adventurous Jesuits had penetrated to the far west. In 1656, two young fur-traders returned to St. Louis, after a two years’ travel of 500 leagues, bringing back with them a great number of Ottawas. They related wonderful and exciting histories of vast lakes in the west, and numerous tribes of Indians, as yet unknown to the white man. New fields were opened for commerce and missionary labours.
Gabriel Dreuillettes, formerly missionary in Maine, and Louis Gareau, an old Huron missionary, were deputed to this service, and accompanied by the Ottawas, returned with them in their canoes. But the Mohawks, enemies of the Ottawas, attacked the little fleet and Gareau was killed. In 1660, two other fur-traders, who had passed the winter on the banks of Lake Superior, returned to Quebec, again escorted by a great number of canoes rowed by Algonquins and laden with peltry. The Mohawks and their confederate nations had carried on a war of extermination against the Eries, and were now advancing against other nations lying more to the south and west. The Algonquins, therefore, besought an alliance with the French against these powerful enemies.
Again the missionary enthusiasm was excited; the very bishop of Quebec himself was eager to undertake the enterprise; but the decision being by lot, René Mesnard, late missionary among the Cayugus, was chosen. He was already advanced in years, and experienced in missionary service. “I go,” said he, “trusting in Providence, who feeds the little birds of the desert and clothes the wild flowers of the forest.” “In three or four months,” wrote he to a friend, “you may add me to the memento of deaths.” In the autumn he reached the southern shore of Lake Superior, and the following year, being on his way to the Bay of Chegoimegon, on the western extremity of that great lake, he lost his way in the forest and never more was seen; his cassock and breviary being kept for long years afterwards as amulets among the Sioux.
Again the Mohawks made war on the French, and Montreal was in danger; the abandonment of the country was even thought of and might have been carried out, but that Colbert, the minister of the young Louis XIV., who had just come to the throne, estimating at its true value the commercial relationship of France with the Canadian colony, was the means of its being transferred to a new West India company, the original company of New France having resigned its rights to the sovereign. Under this new management, “a royal regiment, under the indefatigable Tracy as viceroy, was sent over for its defence; Courcelles, a veteran soldier, was appointed governor, and Talon, a man of business and integrity, as royal representative in civil affairs. Every omen was favourable, save the conquest of New Netherlands by the English, which took place at this time, and which circumstance, in a quarter of a century, made the hunting-fields of the Iroquois the battle-grounds of these two European rivals.”
Under the better prospects which the change of administration introduced into New France, Father Allouez, nothing daunted by the cruel fate of Gareau and Mesnard, set out on a mission to the remote west. His journey commenced in August, 1665, and early in September he entered the great lake, reverenced by the Indians as a divinity, “and sailing along the lofty banks and pictured rocks of its southern shore, passed beyond the Bay of Keweena, obtaining knowledge of those copper mines known immemorially to the Indians, and for which that region is now celebrated, and so arrived at Chegoimegon, where landing, he celebrated mass and inscribing the cross on a lofty tree of the forest, claimed the country for the Christian king of France.”
The great village of the Chippewas was situated on Chegoimegon Bay, and at the moment of Allouez’ arrival a grand council of ten or twelve nations had assembled there to prevent war between the Chippewas and the Sioux. Into this assembly advanced the fearless missionary, and in the names of Christ and of the monarch of France commanded peace; offering to them the advantage of commerce, and protection from the French against their common enemy the Iroquois.