The Jesuit Missions : A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness

by Thomas Guthrie Marquis

Of religion as it is understood by Christians the Hurons had none, nothing but superstitions, very like those of other barbarous peoples. To everything in nature they gave a god; trees, lakes, streams, the celestial bodies, the blue expanse, they deified with okies or spirits. Among the chief objects of Huron worship were the moon and the sun. The oki of the moon had the care of souls and the power to cut off life; the oki of the sun presided over the living and sustained all created things. The great vault of heaven with its myriad stars inspired them with awe; it was the abode of the spirit of spirits, the Master of Life. Aronhia was the name they gave this supreme oki. This would show that they had a vague conception of God. To Aronhia they offered sacrifices, to Aronhia they appealed in time of danger, and when misfortune befell them it was due to the anger of Aronhia. But all this had no influence on their conduct; even in their worship they were often astoundingly vicious.

To such dens of barbarism had come men fresh from the civilization of the Old World—men of learning, culture, and gentle birth, in whose veins flowed the proudest blood of France. To these savages, indolent, superstitious, and vicious, had come Brebeuf, Noue, and Daillon, with a message of peace, goodwill, and virtue.

Until the middle of October the three fathers lived together at Toanche, save that Daillon went on a brief visit to Ossossane, on the shore of Nottawasaga Bay. The Recollet, however, had instructions from his superior Le Caron to go to the country of the Neutrals, of which Champlain's interpreter, Etienne Brule, had reported glowingly, but which was as yet untrodden by the feet of missionaries. And so on the 18th of October 1626 Daillon set out on the trail southward, with two French traders as interpreters, and an Indian guide. Arriving among the Neutrals, after a journey of five or six days, he was at first kindly received in each of the six towns which he visited. But this happy situation was not to last. The Neutral country, now the richest and most populous part of Ontario, boasting such cities as Hamilton and Brantford and London, was rich in fur-bearing animals and tobacco; and the Hurons were the middlemen in trade between the Neutrals and the French. The Hurons, fearing now that they were about to lose their business—for it was rumoured that Daillon was seeking to have the Neutrals trade directly with the French—sent messengers to the Neutrals denouncing the grey-robe as a sorcerer who had come to destroy them with disease and death. In this the Neutral medicine-men agreed, for they were jealous of the priest. The plot succeeded. The Indians turned from Daillon, closed their doors against him, stole his writing-desk, blanket, breviary, and trinkets, and even threatened him with death. But Brebeuf learned of his plight, probably from one of the Hurons who had raised the Neutrals against him, and sent a Frenchman and an Indian runner to escort him back to Toanche.

There was a break in the mission in 1627. Noue lacked the physical strength and the mental alertness essential to a missionary in these wilds. Finding himself totally unable to learn even the rudiments of the Huron language, he returned to Quebec, since he did not wish to be a burden to Brebeuf. For a year longer Brebeuf and the Recollet Daillon remained together at Toanche. But in the autumn of 1628 Daillon left Huronia. He was the last of the Recollets to minister to the Hurons.

Save for his French hired men, or engages, Brebeuf was now alone among the savage people. In this awful solitude he laboured with indomitable will, ministering to his flock, studying the Huron language, compiling a Huron dictionary and grammar, and translating the Catechism. The Indians soon saw in him a friend; and, when he passed through the village ringing his bell, old and young followed him to his cabin to hear him tell of God, of heaven the reward of the good, and of hell the eternal abode of the unrighteous. But he made few converts. The Indian idea of the future had nothing in common with the Christian idea. The Hurons, it is true, believed in a future state, but it was to be only a reflex of the present life, with the difference that it would give them complete freedom from work and suffering, abundant game, and an unfailing supply of tobacco.

Brebeuf's one desire now was to live and die among this people. But the colony at Quebec was in a deplorable condition, as he knew, and he was not surprised when, early in the summer of 1629, he received a message requesting his presence there. Gathering his flock about him he told them that he must leave them. They had as a sign of affection given him the Huron name Echon. Now Christian and pagan alike cried out: 'You must not leave us, Echon!' He told them that he had to obey the order of his superior, but that 'he would, with God's grace, return and bring with him whatever was necessary to lead them to know God and serve Him.' Then he bade them farewell; and, joining a flotilla of twelve canoes about to depart for Quebec, he and his engages set out. They arrived at Notre-Dame-des-Anges on the 17th of July, to find the Jesuits there in consternation at the rumoured report of the approach of a strong English fleet.

CHAPTER IV

THE ADVENTURERS OF CANADA

Charles Lalemant, superior of the Jesuit mission, had no sooner landed on the shores of New France than he became convinced that the mission and the colony itself were doomed unless there should be a radical change in the government. The Caens were thoroughly selfish. While discouraging settlement and agriculture, they so inadequately provided for the support of the colony that the inhabitants often lacked food. But the gravest evil, in Lalemant's mind, was the presence of so many Huguenots. The differences in belief were puzzling to the Indians, who naturally supposed that different sets of white men had different gods. True, the Calvinist traders troubled little with religion. To them the red man was a mere trapper, a gatherer of furs; and whether he shaped his course for the happy hunting ground of his fathers or to the paradise of the Christian mattered nothing. But they were wont to plague the Jesuits and Recollets at every opportunity; as when the crews of the ships at Quebec would lift up their voices in psalms purposely to annoy the priests at their devotions. Lalemant, an alert-minded ecclesiastic, came to a swift decision. The trading monopoly of the Huguenots must be ended and a new company must be created, with power to exclude Calvinists from New France. To this end Lalemant sent Father Noyrot to France in 1626, to lay the whole matter before the viceroy of New France. But from the Duc de Ventadour Noyrot got no satisfaction; the viceroy could not interfere. And Louis XIII was too busy with other matters to listen to the Jesuit's prayer. The king's chief adviser, however, Cardinal Richelieu, then at the height of his power, lent a sympathetic ear. The Huguenots were then in open rebellion in France; Richelieu was having trouble enough with them at home; and it was not hard to convince him that they should be suppressed in New France. He decided to annul the charter of the Caens and to establish instead a strong company composed entirely of Catholics. To this task he promptly set himself, and soon had enlisted in the enterprise over a hundred influential and wealthy men of the realm. The Company of New France, or, as it is better known, the Company of One Hundred Associates, thus came into being on April 29, 1627, with the great Richelieu at its head.

The One Hundred Associates were granted in feudal tenure a wide domain—stretching, in intention at least, from Florida to the Arctic Circle and from Newfoundland to the sources of the St Lawrence, with a monopoly of the fur trade and other powers practically unlimited. For these vast privileges they covenanted to send to Canada from two to three hundred colonists in 1628 and four thousand within the next fifteen years; to lodge, feed, and support the colonists for three years; and then to give them cleared land and seed-grain. Most interesting, however, to the Jesuits and Recollets were the provisions in the charter of the new company to the effect that none but Catholics should be allowed to come to the colony, and that during fifteen years the company should defray the expenses of public worship and support three missionaries at each trading-post.