De Crépieul clung to his arduous mission till 1702, when, broken by his long and severe labors, he retired to Quebec, where he died soon after.
Peter Michael Laure, who occupied the same field from 1720 to 1737, drew up a Montagnais grammar and dictionary, greatly aided, as his manuscript tells us, by the pious Mary Outchiwanich.
Father John Baptist La Crosse was the last of the old Jesuit missionaries at Tadousac and Chicoutimi, dying at the former post in 1782, after the suppression of his order and the disasters of his countrymen. He taught many of his flock to read and write, and they handed down the knowledge from parent to child, clinging to the religious books and Bible selections made for them by this missionary, of whom they still recount wonderful works.
The Missions at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Sillery.—The Jesuit missionaries on returning to Canada in 1632 resumed the instruction of the wandering Montagnais near Quebec, Father Le Jeune taking the lead; and when a post was established at Three Rivers, Father Buteux began there the devoted labors which ended only with his life. The missionaries during the time of trade when Indians gathered at the French posts endeavored to gain their good-will, and instructed all who evinced any good disposition; during the rest of the year they made visits to wandering bands, often wintering with them, sharing the dangers and privations of their hunting expeditions amid mountains, rapids, and forests.
PAUL LE JEUNE.
From a photograph (lent by Mr. Parkman) of an old print.
It was soon evident that their precarious mode of life, the rapid diminution of game when they began to kill the animals for their furs and not merely for food, small-pox and other diseases introduced by the French, and the slaughters committed by the Iroquois, would soon sweep away the Upper Montagnais, unless they could be made sedentary. A few endeavored to settle near the French and maintain themselves by agriculture, but in 1637 the missionaries began a kind of reduction at a place above Quebec called at first St. Joseph, but soon known as Sillery, from the name of the pious and benevolent Commander de Sillery in France, who gave means for the good work. Two families, comprising twenty souls in all, settled here, in houses built for them, and began to cultivate the ground. Others soon joined them, and plots were allotted to the several families. Of this settlement Noel Negabamat may be regarded as the founder. Though Sillery was ravaged by disease, which soon broke out in the cabins, the project seemed full of promise; the Indians elected chiefs, and a form of government was adopted. The nuns sent out in 1639 to found a hospital, for which the Duchesse d’Aiguillon gave the necessary means, aided the missionaries greatly. From the day they landed, these self-sacrificing nuns opened wards for the reception of sick Indians, and they decided to establish their hospital at Sillery. They carried out this resolution, and opened it on the first of December, 1640, receiving both French and Indian patients. Their services impressed the natives more deeply than did the educational efforts of the Jesuit Fathers and of the Ursuline nuns, who had schools for Indian children of various tribes at Quebec.
This mission was an object of especial care, and great hopes were entertained of its effecting much in civilizing and converting the Montagnais and Algonquins, both of which nations were represented in the first settlers at St. Joseph’s. These Indians were induced to cultivate the ground, but they still depended on their fishing, and the winter hunt carried them off to the woods. This the missionaries could not prevent, as the hunts supplied the furs for the trade of the company which controlled Canada.