| The foundation of Montreal. |
Religious enthusiasts founded Montreal, and the foundation of Montreal was a challenge to the Iroquois. Always the enemies of the French, the Five Nations saw in the settlement a new menace to their power. Above the Richelieu river, they looked on the St. Lawrence as more especially within their own domain; and when Frenchmen took up ground on the island of Montreal, the Indians resented the intrusion with savage bitterness and with more than savage foresight. On the part of the French, state policy had nothing to say to the new undertaking, nor was it a commercial venture. It was simply and solely the outcome of religious zeal untempered by discretion.
| The Jesuits in Canada. They did not promote colonization. |
The Jesuits had abundantly advertised in France the spiritual needs of Canada. They had much to tell, and they told it well, skilful in narrative as they were bold in action. They attracted money to the missionary cause, they enlisted brave men, and, still more, brave and beautiful women. Convents were founded in America, and hospitals; priests and nuns led and lost heroic lives, to widen the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and to convert the heathen. The deeds done, and the sufferings endured, commanded, and still command admiration, yet withal there was an element of barrenness in the work; it was magnificent, but it was not colonization. It was unsound in two main essentials. First and foremost, liberty was wanting. The white men and the red were to be dominated alike: North America and its peoples were to be in perpetual leading strings, prepared for freedom in the world to come by unquestioning obedience on this side the grave. The Protestant, however narrow and prejudiced in his dealings and mode of life, in theory held and preached a religion which set free, a gospel of glorious liberty. The Roman Catholic missionary preached and acted self-sacrifice so complete, that all freedom of action was eliminated. There was a second and a very practical defect in the system. What Canada wanted was a white population, married settlers, men with wives and children. What the Jesuits asked for, and what they secured, was a following of celibates, men and women sworn to childlessness. The Protestant pastor in New England lived among his flock as one of themselves; he made a human home, and gave hostages to fortune; a line of children perpetuated his name, and family ties gave the land where he settled another aspect than that of a mission field. The Roman Catholic priest was tied to his church, but to nothing else. At her call he was here to-day, and, it might be, gone to-morrow. He more than shared the sufferings and the sorrows of those to whom he ministered, but his life was apart from theirs, and he left no children behind him. Martyrs and virgins the Roman Catholic Church sent out to Canada, but it did not send out men and women. In comparing English and French colonization in America, two points of contrast stand out above all others—the much larger numbers of English settlers, and the much greater activity of French missionaries. Both facts were in great measure due to the influence of the Roman Catholic religion, and notably to the celibacy of its ministers.
| Religious enthusiasts in Canada. |
Histories of Canada give full space to the names, the characters, and the careers of the bishops, priests, and nuns who moulded the childhood of New France, and to the struggle for supremacy between the Jesuits and rival sects. We have portraits of the Jesuit heroes Breboeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, Isaac Jogues, and many others; of the ladies whose wealth or whose personal efforts founded the Hôtel Dieu at Quebec and at Montreal; of Madame de la Peltrie, Marie Guyard the Mère de l'Incarnation, Jeanne Mance, and Marguerite Bourgeoys; of Laval the first of Canadian bishops; but the record of their devoted lives has only an indirect bearing on the history of colonization. It will be enough to notice very shortly the founding of Montreal, and the episode of the Huron missions, as being landmarks in Canadian story.
| Montreal settled by a company connected with St. Sulpice. |
Montreal, it will be remembered, had been in Cartier's time the site of an Indian town, which afterwards disappeared. Champlain had marked it out as a place for a future settlement, and the keen eyes of the Jesuits looked to the island as a mission centre. It had become the property of De Lauzon, one of the One Hundred Associates and afterwards Governor of Canada, and he transferred his grant to a company, the Company of Montreal, formed exclusively for the service of religion, and especially connected with the priests of St. Sulpice. The first settlers numbered about sixty in all, in charge of a chivalrous soldier, De Maisonneuve, and including one of the religious heroines of the time, Mdlle. Jeanne Mance, who was entrusted with funds by a rich French lady to found a hospital. They arrived in Canada in 1641, and in spite of the warnings of the Governor, who urged that they should settle within reach of Quebec on the Island of Orleans, they chose their site at Montreal in the same autumn, and in the following spring began to build a settlement. Ville Marie was the name given to it at the time, the enterprise being dedicated to the Virgin. At the first ceremony, on landing, a Jesuit priest bade the little band of worshippers be of good courage, for they were as the grain of mustard seed; and now the distant, dangerous outpost of France in North America, which a few whole-hearted zealots founded, has become the great city of Montreal.
| The influence of religion on colonization. |
Religion has been a potent force in colonial history. On the one hand it has promoted emigration. It carried the Huguenots from France to other lands. It peopled New England with Puritans. On the other hand, it has sent forerunners of the coming white men among the coloured races, bearers of a message of peace, but too often bringing in their train the sword. As explorers and as pioneers, missionaries have done much for colonization; but from another point of view they have endangered the cause by going too fast and too far. In South Africa, a hundred years ago, the work, the speeches, and the writings of Protestant missionaries led indirectly to the dispersion of colonists, to race feuds, and to political complications which, but for this agency, would certainly have been postponed, and might possibly never have arisen. Similarly in Canada, Jesuit activity and forwardness added to the difficulties and dangers with which the French settlers and their rulers had to contend.