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Title: The Jesuit Missions:
A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness
Author: Thomas Guthrie Marquis
Release Date: August, 2003 [Etext# 4388]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on January 20, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Jesuit Missions, by Thomas Guthrie Marquis
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CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
Volume 4
THE JESUIT MISSIONS
A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness
By THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS
TORONTO, 1916
CHAPTER I
THE RECOLLET FRIARS
For seven years the colony which Champlain founded at
the rock of Quebec lived without priests. [Footnote:
For the general history of the period covered by the
first four chapters of the present narrative, see 'The
Founder of New France' in this Series.] Perhaps the lack
was not seriously felt, for most of the twoscore inmates
of the settlement were Huguenot traders. But out in the
great land, in every direction from the rude dwellings
that housed the pioneers of Canada, roamed savage tribes,
living, said Champlain, 'like brute beasts.' It was
Champlain's ardent desire to reclaim these beings of the
wilderness. The salvation of one soul was to him 'of more
value than the conquest of an empire.' Not far from his
native town of Brouage there was a community of the
Recollets, and, during one of his periodical sojourns in
France, he invited them to send missionaries to Canada.
The Recollets responded to his appeal, and it was arranged
that several of their number should sail with him to the
St Lawrence in the following spring. So, in May 1615,
three Recollet friars--Denis Jamay, Jean d'Olbeau, Joseph
Le Caron--and a lay brother named Pacificus du Plessis,
landed at Tadoussac. To these four men is due the honour
of founding the first permanent mission among the Indians
of New France. An earlier undertaking of the Jesuits in
Acadia (1611-13) had been broken up. The Canadian mission
is usually associated with the Jesuits, and rightly so,
for to them, as we shall see, belongs its most glorious
history; but it was the Recollets who pioneered the way.
When the friars reached Quebec they arranged a division
of labour in this manner: Jamay and Du Plessis were to
remain at Quebec; D'Olbeau was to return to Tadoussac
and essay the thorny task of converting the tribes round
that fishing and trading station; while to Le Caron was
assigned a more distant field, but one that promised a
rich harvest. Six or seven hundred miles from Quebec, in
the region of Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay, dwelt
the Hurons, a sedentary people living in villages and
practising a rude agriculture. In these respects they
differed from the Algonquin tribes of the St Lawrence,
who had no fixed abodes and depended on forest and stream
for a living. The Hurons, too, were bound to the French
by both war and trade. Champlain had assisted them and
the Algonquins in battle against the common foe, the
Iroquois or Five Nations, and a flotilla of canoes from
the Huron country, bringing furs to one of the trading-
posts on the St Lawrence, was an annual event. The
Recollets, therefore, felt confident of a friendly
reception among the Hurons; and it was with buoyant hopes
that Le Caron girded himself for the journey to his
distant mission-field.
On the 6th or 7th of July, in company with a party of
Hurons, Le Caron set out from the island of Montreal.
The Hurons had come down to trade, and to arrange with
Champlain for another punitive expedition against the
Iroquois, and were now returning to their own villages.
It was a laborious and painful journey--up the Ottawa,
across Lake Nipissing, and down the French River--but at
length the friar stood on the shores of Lake Huron, the
first of white men to see its waters. From the mouth of
the French River the course lay southward for mere than
a hundred miles along the east shore of Georgian Bay,
until the party arrived at the peninsula which lies
between Nottawasaga and Matchedash Bays. Three or four
miles inland from the west shore of this peninsula stood
the town of Carhagouha, a triple-palisaded stronghold of
the Hurons. Here the Indians gave the priest an enthusiastic
welcome and invited him to share their common lodges;
but as he desired a retreat 'in which he could meditate
in silence,' they built him a commodious cabin apart from
the village. A few days later Champlain himself appeared
on the scene; and it was on the 12th of August that he
and his followers attended in Le Caron's cabin the first
Mass celebrated in what is now the province of Ontario.
Then, while Le Caron began his efforts for the conversion
of the benighted Hurons, Champlain went off with the
warriors on a very different mission--an invasion of the
Iroquois country. The commencement of religious endeavour
in Huronia is thus marked by an event that was to intensify
the hatred of the ferocious Iroquois against both the
Hurons and the French.
Le Caron spent the remainder of the year 1615 among the
Hurons, studying the people, learning the language, and
compiling a dictionary. Champlain, his expedition ended,
returned to Huronia and remained there until the middle
of January, when he and Le Caron set out on a visit to
the Petun or Tobacco Nation, then dwelling on the southern
shore of Nottawasaga Bay, a two-days' journey south-west
of Carhagouha. There had been as yet no direct communication
between the French and the Petuns, and the visitors were
not kindly received. The Petun sorcerers or medicine-men
dreaded the influence of the grey-robed friar, regarded
him as a rival, and caused his teachings to be derided.
After an uncomfortable month Champlain and Le Caron
returned to Carhagouha, where they remained until the
20th of May, and then set out for Quebec.
When Le Caron reached Quebec on the 11th of July (1616)
he found that his comrades had not been idle. A chapel
had been built, in what is now the Lower Town, close to
the habitation, and here Father Jamay ministered to the
spiritual needs of the colonists and laboured among the
Indians camped in the vicinity of the trading-post. Father
d'Olbeau had been busy among the Montagnais, a wandering
Algonquin tribe between Tadoussac and Seven Islands, his
reward being chiefly suffering. The filth and smoke of
the Indian wigwams tortured him, the disgusting food of
the natives filled him with loathing, and their vice and
indifference to his teaching weighed on his spirit.
The greatest trial the Recollets had to bear was the
opposition of the Company of St Malo and Rouen, which
was composed largely of Huguenots, and had a monopoly of
the trade of New France. Many of the traders were actively
antagonistic to the spread of the Catholic religion and
they all viewed the work of the Recollets with hostility.
It was the aim of the missionaries to induce the Indians
to settle near the trading-posts in order that they might
the more easily be reached with the Gospel message. The
traders had but one thought--the profits of the fur trade;
and, desiring to keep the Indians nomadic hunters of
furs, they opposed bringing them into fixed abodes and
put every possible obstacle in the way of the friars.
Trained interpreters in the employ of the company for
both the Hurons and the various Algonquin tribes were
ordered not to assist the missionaries in acquiring a
knowledge of the native languages. The company was pledged
to support six missionaries, but the support was given
with an unwilling, niggardly hand.
At length, in 1621, as a result of the complaints of
Champlain and the Recollets, before the authorities in
France, the Company of St Malo and Rouen lost its charter,
and the trading privileges were given to William and
Emery de Caen, uncle and nephew. But these men also were
Huguenots, and the unhappy condition of affairs continued
in an intensified form. Champlain, though the nominal
head of the colony, was unable to provide a remedy, for
the real power was in the hands of the Caens, who had in
their employment practically the entire population.
Yet, in spite of all the obstacles put in their way, the
Recollets continued their self-sacrificing labours. By
the beginning of 1621 they had a comfortable residence
on the bank of the St Charles, on the spot where now
stands the General Hospital. Here they had been granted
two hundred acres of land, and they cultivated the soil,
raising meagre crops of rye, barley, maize, and wheat,
and tending a few pigs, cows, asses, and fowls. There
were from time to time accessions to their ranks. Between
the years 1616 and 1623 the fathers Guillaume Poullain,
Georges le Baillif, Paul Huet, Jacques de la Foyer,
Nicolas Viel, and several lay brothers, the most noted
among whom was Gabriel Sagard-Theodat, laboured in New
France. They made attempts to christianize the Micmacs
of Acadia, the Abnaki of the upper St John, the Algonquin
tribes of the lower St Lawrence, and the Nipissings of
the upper Ottawa. But the work among these roving bands
proved most disheartening, and once more the grey-robed
friars turned to the Hurons.
The end of August 1623 saw Le Caron, Viel, and Sagard in
Huronia. Until October they seem to have laboured in
different settlements, Viel at Toanche, a short distance
from Penetanguishene Bay, Sagard at Ossossane, near
Dault's Bay, an indentation of Nottawasaga Bay, and Le
Caron at Carhagouha. It does not appear that they were
able to make much of an impression on the savages, though
they had the satisfaction of some baptisms. During the
winter Sagard studied Indian habits and ideas, and with
Le Caron's assistance compiled a dictionary of the Huron
language. [Footnote: Sagard's observations were afterwards
given to the world in his 'Histoire du Canada et Voyages
des Peres Recollects en la Nouvelle-France.'] Then, an
June 1624, Le Caron and Sagard accompanied the annual
canoe-fleet to Quebec, and Viel was left alone in Huronia.
The Recollets were discouraged. They saw that the field
was too large and that the difficulties were too great
for them. And, after invoking 'the light of the Holy
Spirit,' they decided, according to Sagard, 'to send one
of their members to France to lay the proposition before
the Jesuit fathers, whom they deemed the most suitable
for the work of establishing and extending the Faith in
Canada.' So Father Irenaeus Piat and Brother Gabriel
Sagard were sent to entreat to the rescue of the Canadian
mission the greatest of all the missionary orders--an
order which 'had filled the whole world with memorials
of great things done and suffered for the Faith'--the
militant and powerful Society of Jesus.
CHAPTER II
THE JESUITS AT QUEBEC
The 15th of June 1625 was a significant day for the colony
of New France. On that morning a blunt-prowed, high-pooped
vessel cast anchor before the little trading village that
clustered about the base of the great cliff at Quebec.
It was a ship belonging to the Caens, and it came laden
to the hatches with supplies for the colonists and goods
for trade with the Indians. But, what was more important,
it had as passengers the Jesuits who had been sent to
the aid of the Recollets, the first of the followers of
Loyola to enter the St Lawrence--Fathers Charles Lalemant,
Ennemond Masse, Jean de Brebeuf, and two lay brothers of
the Society. These black-robed priests were the forerunners
of an army of men who, bearing the Cross instead of the
sword and labouring at their arduous tasks in humility
and obedience but with dauntless courage and unflagging
zeal, were to make their influence felt from Hudson Bay
to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the sea-girt shores of
Cape Breton to the wind-swept plains of the Great West.
They were the vanguard of an army of true soldiers, of
whom the words
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
might fittingly have been written. The Jesuit missionary
in North America had no thought of worldly profit or
renown, but, with his mind fixed on eternity, he performed
his task ad majorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory
of God.
The Jesuits had sailed from Dieppe on the 26th of April
in company with a Recollet friar, La Roche de Daillon,
of whom we shall presently hear more. The voyage across
the stormy Atlantic had been long and tedious. On a vessel
belonging to Huguenots, the priests had been exposed to
the sneers and gibes of crew and traders. It was the
viceroy of New France, the Duc de Ventadour, a devout
Catholic, who had compelled the Huguenot traders to give
passage to these priests, or they would not have been
permitted on board the ship. Much better could the
Huguenots tolerate the humble, mendicant Recollets than
the Jesuits, aggressive and powerful, uncompromising
opponents of Calvinism.
As the anchor dropped, the Jesuits made preparations to
land; but they were to meet with a temporary disappointment.
Champlain was absent in France, and Emery de Caen said
that he had received no instructions from the viceroy to
admit them to the colony. Moreover, they were told that
there was no room for them in the habitation or the fort.
To make matters worse, a bitter, slanderous diatribe
against their order had been distributed among the
inhabitants, and the doors of Catholics and Huguenots
alike were closed against them. Prisoners on the ship,
at the very gate of the promised land, no course seemed
open to them but to return on the same vessel to France.
But they were suddenly lifted by kindly hands from the
depths of despair. A boat rowed by men attached to the
Recollets approached their vessel. Soon several friars
dressed in coarse grey robes, with the knotted cord of
the Recollet order about their waists, peaked hood hanging
from their shoulders, and coarse wooden sandals on their
feet, stood before them on the deck, giving them a
wholehearted welcome and offering them a home, with the
use of half the buildings and land on the St Charles.
Right gladly the Jesuits accepted the offer and were
rowed ashore in the boat of the generous friars. On
touching the soil of New France they fell on their knees
and kissed the ground, in spite of the scowling traders
about them.
The disappointment of these aggressive pioneers of the
Church must have been great as they viewed Quebec. It
was now seventeen years since the colony had been founded;
yet it had fewer than one hundred inhabitants. In the
whole of Canada there were but seven French families and
only six white children. Save by Louis Hebert, the first
to cultivate the soil at Quebec, and the Recollets, no
attempt had been made at agriculture, and the colony was
almost wholly dependent on France for its subsistence.
When not engaged in gathering furs or loading and unloading
vessels, the men lounged in indolence about the
trading-posts or wandered to the hunting grounds of the
Indians, where they lived in squalor and vice. The avarice
of the traders was bearing its natural fruit, and the
untiring efforts of Champlain, a devoted, zealous patriot,
had been unavailing to counteract it. The colony sorely
needed the self-sacrificing Jesuits, but for whom it
would soon undoubtedly have been cast off by the mother
country as a worthless burden. To them Canada, indeed,
owed its life; for when the king grew weary of spending
treasure on this unprofitable colony, the stirring appeals
of the Relations [Footnote: It was a rule of the Society
of Jesus that each of its missionaries should write a
report of his work. These reports, known as Relations,
were generally printed and sold by the booksellers of
Paris. About forty volumes of the Relations from the
missions of Canada were published between 1632 and 1672
and widely read in France.] moved both king and people
to sustain it until the time arrived when New France was
valued as a barrier against New England.
Scarcely had the Jesuits made themselves at home in the
convent of the Recollets when they began planning for
the mission. It was decided that Lalemant and Masse should
remain at Quebec; but Brebeuf, believing, like the
Recollets, that little of permanent value could be done
among the ever-shifting Algonquins, desired to start at
once for the populous towns of Huronia. In July, in
company with the Recollet La Roche de Daillon, Brebeuf
set out for Three Rivers. The Indians--Hurons, Algonquins,
and Ottawas--had gathered at Cape Victory, a promontory
in Lake St Peter near the point where the lake narrows
again into the St Lawrence. There, too, stood French
vessels laden with goods for barter; and thither went
the two missionaries to make friends with the Indians
and to lay in a store of goods for the voyage to Huronia
and for use at the mission. The captains of the vessels
appeared friendly and supplied the priests with coloured
beads, knives, kettles, and other articles. All was going
well for the journey, when, on the eve of departure, a
runner arrived from Montreal bringing evil news.
For a year the Recollet Nicolas Viel had remained in
Huronia. Early in 1624 he had written to Father Piat
hoping that he might live and die in his Huron mission
at Carhagouha. There is no record of his sojourn in
Huronia during the winter 1624-25. Alone among the savages,
with a scant knowledge of their language, his spirit must
have been oppressed with a burden almost too great to be
borne; he must have longed for the companionship of men
of his own language and faith. At any rate, in the early
summer of 1625 he had set out for Quebec with a party of
trading Hurons for the purpose of spending some time in
retreat at the residence on the banks of the St Charles.
He was never to reach his destination. On arriving at
the Riviere des Prairies, his Indian conductors, instead
of portaging their canoes past the treacherous rapids in
this river, had attempted to run them, and a disaster
had followed. The canoe bearing Father Viel and a young
Huron convert named Ahaustic (the Little Fish) had been
overturned and both had been drowned.
[Footnote: This rapid has since been known as Sault au
Recollet and a village near by bears the name of Ahuntsic,
a corruption of the young convert's name. Father A. E.
Jones, S. J., in his 'Old Huronia' (Ontario Archives),
points out that no such word as Ahuntsic could find a
place in a Huron vocabulary.]
The story brought to Cape Victory was that the tragedy
had been due to the treacherous conduct of three
evil-hearted Hurons who coveted the goods the priest had
with him. On the advice of the traders, who feared that
the Hurons were in no spirit to receive the missionaries,
Brebeuf and Daillon concluded not to attempt the ascent
of the Ottawa for the present, and returned to Quebec.
Ten years later, such a report would not have moved
Brebeuf to turn back, but would have been an added
incentive to press forward.
CHAPTER III
IN HURONIA
The Jesuits, with the exception of Brebeuf, spent the
winter of 1625-26 at the convent of the Recollets, no
doubt enduring privation, as at that time there was a
scarcity of food in the colony. Brebeuf, eager to study
the Indians in their homes, joined a party of Montagnais
hunters and journeyed with them to their wintering grounds.
He suffered much from hunger and cold, and from the
insanitary conditions under which he was compelled to
live in the filthy, smoky, vermin-infested abodes of the
savages. But an iron constitution stood him in good stead,
and he rejoined his fellow-missionaries none the worse
for his experience. He had acquired, too, a fair knowledge
of the Montagnais dialect, and had learned that boldness,
courage, and fortitude in suffering went far towards
winning the respect of the savages of North America.
On the 5th of July the eyes of the colonists at Quebec
were gladdened by the sight of a fleet of vessels coming
up the river. These were the supply-ships of the company,
and on the Catherine, a vessel of two hundred and fifty
tons, was Champlain, on whom the Jesuits could depend as
a friend and protector. In the previous autumn Lalemant
had selected a fertile tract of land on the left side of
the St Charles, between the river Beauport and the stream
St Michel, as a suitable spot for a permanent home, and
had sent a request to Champlain to secure this land for
the Jesuits. Champlain had laid the request before the
viceroy and he now brought with him the official documents
granting the land. Nine days later a vessel of eighty
tons arrived with supplies and reinforcements for the
mission. On this vessel came Fathers Philibert Noyrot
and Anne de Noue, with a lay brother and twenty labourers
and carpenters.
The Jesuits chose a site for the buildings at a bend in
the St Charles river a mile or so from the fort. Here,
opposite Pointe-aux-Lievres (Hare Point), on a sloping
meadow two hundred feet from the river, they cleared the
ground and erected two buildings--one to serve as a
storehouse, stable, workshop, and bakery; the other as
the residence. The residence had four rooms--a chapel,
a refectory with cells for the fathers, a kitchen, and
a lodging-room for the workmen. It had, too, a commodious
cellar, and a garret which served as a dormitory for the
lay brothers. The buildings were of roughly hewn planks,
the seams plastered with mud and the roofs thatched with
grass from the meadow. Such was Notre-Dame-des-Anges. In
this humble abode men were to be trained to carry the
Cross in the Canadian wilderness, and from it they were
to go forth for many years in an unbroken line, blazing
the way for explorers and traders and settlers.
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of Noyrot and Noue
a flotilla of canoes laden deep with furs came down from
the Huron country. Brebeuf had made up his mind to go to
far Huronia; Noue and the Recollet Daillon had the same
ambition; and all three besought the Hurons to carry them
on the return journey. The Indians expressed a readiness
to give the Recollet Daillon a passage; they knew the
'grey-robes'; but they did not know the Jesuits, the
'black-robes,' and they hesitated to take Brebeuf and
Noue, urging as an excuse that so portly a man as Brebeuf
would be in danger of upsetting their frail canoes. By
a liberal distribution of presents, however, the Hurons
were persuaded to accept Brebeuf and Noue as passengers.
Towards the end of July, just when preparations were
being made to break ground for the residence of
Notre-Dame-des-Anges, the three fathers and some French
assistants set out with the Hurons on the long journey
to the shores of Georgian Bay. Brebeuf was in a state of
ecstasy. He longed for the populous towns of the Hurons.
He had confidence in himself and believed that he would
be able to make the dwellers in these towns followers of
Christ and bulwarks of France in the New World. For
twenty-three years he was to devote his life to this
task; for twenty-three years, save for the brief interval
when the English flag waved over Quebec, he was to dominate
the Huron mission. He was a striking figure. Of noble
ancestry, almost a giant in stature, and with a soldierly
bearing that attracted all observers, he would have shone
at the court of the king or at the head of the army. But
he had sacrificed a worldly career for the Church. And
no man of his ancestors, one of whom had battled under
William the Conqueror at Hastings and others in the
Crusades, ever bore himself more nobly than did Brebeuf
in the forests of Canada, or covered himself with a
greater glory.
The journey was beset with danger, for the Iroquois were
on the war-path against the Hurons and the French, and
had attacked settlers even in the vicinity of Quebec.
The lot of the voyagers was incessant toil. They had to
paddle against the current, to haul the canoes over
stretches where the water was too swift for paddling,
and to portage past turbulent rapids and falls. The
missionaries were forced to bear their share of the work.
Noue, no longer young, was frequently faint from toil.
Brebeuf not only sustained him, but at many of the
portages, of which there were thirty-five in all, carried
a double load of baggage. The packs contained not only
clothing and food, but priestly vestments, requisites
for the altar, pictures, wine for the Mass, candles,
books, and writing material. The course lay over the
route which Le Caron had followed eleven years before,
up the Ottawa, up the Mattawa, across the portage to Lake
Nipissing, and then down the French River. Arrived in
Penetanguishene Bay, they landed at a village called
Otouacha. They then journeyed a mile and a half inland,
through gloomy forests, past cultivated patches of maize,
beans, pumpkins, squashes, and sunflowers, to Toanche,
where they found Viel's cabin still standing. For three
years this was to be Brebeuf's headquarters.
Huronia lay in what is now the county of Simcoe, Ontario,
comprising the present townships of Tiny, Tay, Flos,
Medonte, and Oro. On the east and north lay Lakes Simcoe
and Couchiching, the Severn river, and Matchedash Bay;
on the west, Nottawasaga Bay. Across the bay, or by land
a journey of about two days, where now are Bruce and Grey
counties, lived the Petuns, and about five days to the
south-west, the Neutrals. The latter tribe occupied both
the Niagara and Detroit peninsulas, overflowed into the
states of Michigan and New York, and spread north as far
as Goderich and Oakville in Ontario. All these nations,
and the Andastes of the lower Susquehanna, were of the
same linguistic stock as the Iroquois who dwelt south of
Lake Ontario. Peoples speaking the Huron-Iroquois tongue
thus occupied the central part of the eastern half of
North America, while all around them, north, south, east,
and west, roamed the tribes speaking dialects of the
Algonquin.
Most of the Huron [Footnote: The name Huron is of uncertain
origin. The word HURON was used in France as early as
1358 to describe the uncouth peasants who revolted against
the nobility. But according to Father Charles Lalemant,
a French sailor, on first beholding some Hurons at
Tadoussac in 1600, was astonished at their fantastic way
of dressing their hair--in stiff ridges with shaved
furrows between--and exclaimed 'Quelles hures!'--what
boar-heads! In their own language they were known as
Ouendats (dwellers on a peninsula), a name still extant
in the corrupted form Wyandots.] towns were encircled by
log palisades. The houses were of various sizes and some
of them were more than two hundred feet long. They were
built in the crudest fashion. Two rows of sturdy saplings
were stuck in the ground about twenty-five feet apart,
then bent to meet so as to form an arch, and covered with
bark. An open strip was left in the roof for the escape
of smoke and for light. Each house sheltered from six to
a dozen families, according to the number of fires. Two
families shared each fire, and around the fire in winter
clustered children, dogs, youths, gaily decorated maidens,
jabbering squaws, and toothless, smoke-blinded old men.
Privacy there was none. Along the sides of the cabin,
about four feet from the ground, extended raised platforms,
on or under which, according to the season or the
inclination of the individual, the inmates slept.
The Huron nation was divided into four clans--the Bear,
the Rock, the Cord, the Deer--with several small dependent
groups. There was government of a sort, republican in
form. They had their deliberative assemblies, both village
and tribal. The village councils met almost daily, but
the tribal assembly--a sort of states-general--was summoned
only when some weighty measure demanded consideration.
Decisions arrived at in the assemblies were proclaimed
by the chiefs.
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.
Now began the preparations on a great scale for the
colonization of New France. By the spring of 1628 a fleet
of eighteen or twenty ships belonging to the company
assembled in the harbour of Dieppe, laden deep with food,
building materials, implements, guns, and ammunition,
including about one hundred and fifty pieces of ordnance
for the forts at the trading-posts. Out into the English
Channel one bright April day this fleet swept, under the
command of Claude de Roquemont, one of the Associates.
On the decks of the ships were men and women looking
hopefully to the New World for fortune and happiness,
and Recollets and Jesuits going to a field at this time
deemed broad enough for the energies of both. Lalemant,
who early in 1627 had followed Noyrot to France, was now
returning to his mission with his hopes realized. A
Catholic empire could be built up in the New World, the
savages could be christianized, and the Iroquois, the
greatest menace of the colony, if they would not listen
to reason, could be subdued. The Dutch and the English
on the Atlantic seaboard could be kept within bounds;
possibly driven from the continent; then the whole of
North America would be French and Catholic. Thus, perhaps,
dreamed Lalemant and his companions, the Jesuit Paul
Ragueneau and the Recollets Daniel Boursier and Francois
Girard, as they paced the deck of the vessel that bore
them westward.
But there was a lion in the path. The revolt of the
Huguenots of La Rochelle had led to war between France
and England, and this gave Sir William Alexander (Earl
of Stirling) the chance he desired. In 1621 Alexander
had received from James I a grant of Nova Scotia or
Acadia, and this grant had been renewed later by Charles
I. And it was Alexander's ambition to drive the French
not only from their posts in Acadia but from the whole
of North America. To this end he formed a company under
the name of the Adventurers of Canada. One of its leading
members was Gervase Kirke, a wealthy London merchant,
who had married a Huguenot maiden, Elizabeth Goudon or
Gowding of Dieppe. Now when war broke out the Adventurers
equipped three staunch privateers. Captain David Kirke,
the eldest son of Gervase, commanded the flagship Abigail,
and his brothers, Lewis and Thomas, the other two ships.
The fleet, though small, was well suited for the work in
hand. While making ready for sea the Adventurers learned
of the much larger fleet of the One Hundred Associates;
but they learned, too, that the vessels were chiefly
transports, of little use in a sea-fight. David Kirke
was, on the other hand, equipped to fight, and he bore
letters of marque from the king of England authorizing
him to capture and destroy any French vessels and 'utterly
to drive away and root out the French settlements in Nova
Scotia and Canada.' The omens were evil for New France
when, early in the spring of 1628, the Kirkes weighed
anchor and shaped their course for her shores.
The English privateersmen arrived in the St Lawrence in
July and took up their headquarters at Tadoussac. Already
they had captured several Basque fishing or trading
vessels. At Tadoussac they learned that at Cap Tourmente,
thirty miles below Quebec, there was a small farm from
which the garrison of Quebec drew supplies; and, as a
first effort to 'root out' the French, David Kirke decided
to loot and destroy this supply-post. A number of his
crew went in a fishing-boat, took the place by surprise,
captured its guard, plundered it, and killed the cattle.
When his men returned from the raid, Kirke dispatched
six of his Basque prisoners, with a woman and a little
girl, to Quebec. By one of them he sent a letter to
Champlain, demanding the surrender of the place in most
polite terms. 'By surrendering courteously,' he wrote,
'you may be assured of all kind of contentment, both for
your persons and your property, which, on the faith I
have in Paradise, I will preserve as I would mine own,
without the least portion in the world being diminished.'
Champlain replied to Kirke's demand with equal courtesy,
but bluntly refused to surrender. In his letter to the
English captain he said that the fort was still provided
with grain, maize, beans, and pease, which his soldiers
loved as well as the finest corn in the world, and that
by surrendering the fort in so good a condition, he should
be unworthy to appear before his sovereign, and should
deserve chastisement before God and men. As a matter of
fact this was untrue, for the French at Quebec were
starving and incapable of resistance. A single well-directed
broadside would have brought Champlain's ramshackle fort
tumbling about his ears. His bold front, however, served
its purpose for the time being; Kirke decided to postpone
the attack on Quebec and to turn his attention to
Roquemont's fleet. He burned the captured vessels and
plundered and destroyed the trading-post at Tadoussac,
and then sailed seaward in search of the rich prize.
Kirke had three ships; the French had eighteen. Numerically
Kirke was outclassed, but he knew that the enemy's fleet
was composed chiefly of small, weakly armed vessels.
Learning that Roquemont was in the vicinity of Gaspe Bay,
he steered thither under a favouring west wind. And as
the Abigail rounded Gaspe Point the English captain saw
the waters in the distance thickly dotted with sail. Dare
he attack? Three to eighteen! It was hazarding much; and
yet victory would bring its reward. Kirke was a cautious
commander; and, desiring if possible to gain his end
without loss, he summoned the French captain to surrender.
In answer Roquemont boldly hoisted sail and beat out into
the open. But despite this defiant attitude Roquemont
must have feared the result of a battle. Many of his
ships could give no assistance; even his largest were in
no condition to fight. Most of the cannon were in the
holds of the transports, and only a few of small calibre
were mounted. His vessels, too, overloaded with supplies,
would be difficult to manoeuvre in the light summer wind
of which his foe now had the advantage. The three English
privateers bore on towards the French merchantmen, and
when within range opened fire. Far several hours this
long-range firing continued. When it proved ineffective,
David Kirke decided to close in on the enemy. The Abigail
crept up to within pistol-shot of Roquemont's ship, swept
round her stern, and poured in a raking broadside. While
the French sailors were still in a state of confusion
from the iron storm that had beaten on their deck, the
English vessel rounded to and threw out grappling-irons.
Over the side of the French ship leaped Kirke's pikemen
and musketeers. There was a short fight on the crowded
deck; but after Roquemont had been struck down with a
wound in his foot and some of his sailors had been killed,
he surrendered to avert further bloodshed. Meanwhile,
Lewis and Thomas Kirke had been equally successful in
capturing the only two other vessels capable of offering
any serious resistance. The clumsy French merchantmen,
though armed, were no match for the staunchly built,
well-manned English privateers, and after a few sweeping
broadsides they, too, struck their flags. The remaining
craft, incapable of fight or flight, surrendered. In
this, the first naval engagement in the waters of North
America, eighteen sail fell into the hands of the Kirkes,
with a goodly store of supplies, ammunition, and guns,
Alas for the high hopes of Father Lalemant and his
fellow-missionaries!--all were now prisoners and at the
mercy of the English and the Huguenots. Having more
vessels than he could man, Kirke unloaded ten of the
smallest and burned them. He then sailed homeward with
his prizes, calling on his way at St Pierre Island, where
he left a number of his prisoners, among them the
Recollet fathers, and at Newfoundland, where he watered
and refitted. When the convoy reached England about the
end of September, great was the rejoicing among the
Adventurers of Canada. For had they not crippled the
Romish Company of the One Hundred Associates? And had
they not gained, at the same time, a tenfold return of
their money?
Meanwhile Quebec was in grave peril. The colony faced
starvation. There were no vessels on which Champlain with
his garrison and the missionaries could leave New France
even had he so desired, and there were slight means of
resisting the savage Iroquois. Yet with dogged courage
Champlain accepted the situation, hoping that relief
would come before the ice formed in the St Lawrence.
But no relief was there to be this year for the anxious
watchers at Quebec. On reaching England Lalemant had
regained his liberty, and had hastened to France. He
found that Father Noyrot had a vessel fitted out with
supplies for the Canadian mission, and decided to return
to Canada with Noyrot on this vessel. But nature as well
as man seemed to be battling against the Jesuits. As they
neared the Gulf of St Lawrence a fierce gale arose, and
the ship was driven out of its course and dashed to pieces
on the rocky shores of Acadia near the island of Canseau.
Fourteen of the passengers, including Noyrot and a lay
brother, Louis Malot, were drowned. Lalemant escaped with
his life, and took passage on a trading vessel for France.
This ship, too, was wrecked, near San Sebastian in the
Bay of Biscay, and again Lalemant narrowly escaped death.
Meanwhile the English Adventurers were full of enthusiasm
over the achievement of the Kirkes. The work, however,
was not yet finished. The French trading-posts in Acadia
and on the St Lawrence must be utterly destroyed. By
March 1629 a fleet much more powerful than the one of
the previous year was ready for sea. It consisted of the
Abigail, Admiral David Kirke, the William, Captain Lewis
Kirke, the George, Captain Thomas Kirke, the Gervase,
Captain Brewerton, two other ships, and three pinnaces.
On the 25th of March it sailed from Gravesend, and on
the 15th of June reached Gaspe Bay without mishap. All
save two of the vessels were now sent to destroy the
trading-posts on the shores of Acadia, while David Kirke,
with the Abigail and a sister ship, sailed for Tadoussac,
which was to be his headquarters during the summer. The
raiders did their work and arrived at Tadoussac early in
July. Kirke then detached the William and the George and
sent them to Quebec under the pilotage of French traitors.
At Quebec during the winter the inhabitants had lived on
pease, Indian corn, and eels which they obtained from
the natives; and when spring came all who had sufficient
strength had gone to the forest to gather acorns and
nourishing roots. The gunpowder was almost exhausted,
and the dilapidated fort could not be held by its sixteen
half-starved defenders. Accordingly Champlain sent the
Recollet Daillon, who had a knowledge of the English
language, to negotiate with the Kirkes the terms of
capitulation; and Quebec surrendered without a shot being
fired. For the time being perished the hopes of the
indomitable Champlain, who for twenty-one years had
wrought and fought and prayed that Quebec might become
the bulwark of French power in America. On the 22nd of
July the fleur-de-lis was hauled down from Fort St Louis
to give place to the cross of St George. The officers of
the garrison were treated with consideration and allowed
to keep their arms, clothing, and any peltry which they
possessed. To the missionaries, however, the Calvinistic
victors were not so generous. The priests were permitted
to keep only their robes and books.
The terms of surrender were ratified by David Kirke at
Tadoussac on the 19th of August, and on the following
day a hundred and fifty English soldiers took possession
of the town and fort. Such of the inhabitants as did not
elect to remain in the colony and all the missionaries
were marched on board the waiting vessels [Footnote:
There were in all eighty-five persons in the colony,
thirty of whom remained. The rest were taken prisoners
to England; these included the Jesuit fathers Ennemond
Masse, Anne de Noue, and Jean de Brebeuf; the Recollet
fathers Joseph Le Caron and Joseph de la Roche de Daillon;
and several lay brothers of both orders.] and taken to
Tadoussac, where they remained for some weeks while the
English were making ready for the home voyage.
There were many Huguenots serving under the Kirkes, and
the Huguenots, as we have seen, were bitterly hostile to
the Jesuits. On the voyage to England Brebeuf, Noue, and
Masse had to bear insult and harsh treatment from men of
their own race, but of another faith. And they bore it
bravely, confident that God in His good time would restore
them to their chosen field of labour.
The vessels reached Plymouth on the 20th of November, to
learn that the capture of Quebec had taken place in time
of peace. The Convention of Susa had ended the war between
France and England on April 24, 1629; thus the achievement
of the Adventurers was wasted. Three years later, by the
Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, the Adventurers were forced
not only to restore the posts captured in North America,
but to pay a sum to the French for the property seized
at Quebec.
Towards the end of November the missionaries, both
Recollets and Jesuits, left the English fleet at Dover
roads, and proceeded to their various colleges in France,
patiently to await the time when they should be permitted
to return to Canada.
CHAPTER V
THE RETURN TO HURONIA
After the Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, which restored
to France all the posts in America won by the Adventurers
of Canada, the French king took steps to repossess Quebec.
But, by way of compensation to the Caens for their losses
in the war, Emery de Caen was commissioned to take over
the post from the Kirkes and hold it for one year, with
trading rights. Accordingly, in April 1632, Caen sailed
from Honfleur; and he carried a dispatch under the seal
of Charles I, king of England, addressed to Lewis Kirke
at Quebec, commanding him to surrender the captured fort.
On the 5th of July the few French inhabitants at Quebec
broke out into wild cries of joy as they saw Caen's ship
approaching under full sail, at its peak the white flag
sprinkled with golden lilies; and when they learned that
the vessel brought two Jesuit fathers, their hearts
swelled with inexpressible rapture. During the three
years of English possession the Catholics had been without
priests, and they hungered for their accustomed forms of
worship. The priests now arriving were Paul Le Jeune,
the new superior-general, and Anne de Noue, with a lay
brother, Gilbert Burel. They hastened ashore; and were
followed by the inhabitants to the home of the widow
Hebert, the only substantial residence in the colony,
where, in the ceremony of the Mass, they celebrated the
renewal of the Canadian mission.
Quebec was in a sad condition. The English, knowing of
the negotiations for its return to the French, had left
the ground uncultivated and the buildings in ruins. The
missionaries found the residence of Notre-Dame-des-Anges
plundered and partly destroyed; but they went to work
cheerfully to restore it, and before autumn it was quite
habitable. Meanwhile Le Jeune had begun his labours
tentatively as a teacher. His pupils were an Indian lad
and a little negro, the latter a present from the English
to Madame Hebert. The class grew larger; during the winter
a score of children answered the call of Le Jeune's bell,
and sat at his feet learning the Credo, the Ave, and the
Paternoster, which he had translated into Algonquin
rhymes. In order to learn the Indian language Le Jeune
was himself a pupil, his teacher a Montagnais named
Pierre, a worthless wretch who had been in France and
had learned some French. Le Jeune passed the winter of
1632-33 in teaching, studying, and ministering to the
inhabitants at the trading-post. Save for a short period,
he had the companionship of Noue, a devoted missionary,
eager to play his part in the field, but, as we have
seen, without the necessary vigour of mind or body. Though
Noue had failed in Huronia, he thought he might succeed
on the St Lawrence. And in the autumn, just as the first
snows were beginning to whiten the ground, when a band
of friendly Montagnais, encamped near the residence,
invited him to their wintering grounds, he bade farewell
to Le Jeune and vanished with the Indians into the northern
forest. But the rigours of the wigwams were too much for
him, and after three weeks he returned to Notre-Dame-
des-Anges in an exhausted condition.
In the meantime the Hundred Associates were getting ready
to enter into the enjoyment of their Canadian domain,
but now without the hopeful ardour and exalted purpose
which had characterized their first ill-fated expedition.
The guiding hand in the revival of the colony, under the
feudal suzerainty of Richelieu's company, was Champlain.
He was appointed on March 1, 1633, lieutenant-general in
New France, 'with jurisdiction throughout all the extent
of the St Lawrence and other rivers.' Twenty-three days
later he sailed from Dieppe with three armed ships, the
St Pierre, the St Jean, and the Don de Dieu. These ships
carried two hundred persons, among them the Jesuit fathers
Jean de Brebeuf and Ennemond Masse. At Cape Breton they
were joined by two more Jesuits, Antoine Daniel and
Ambroise Davost, who had gone there the year before.
There were no Recollets in the company, for, greatly to
their disappointment, the Recollets were now barred from
the colony. For this the Jesuits have been unjustly
blamed. It was, however, wholly due to the policy of the
Hundred Associates. At one of their meetings Jean de
Lauzon, the president, afterwards a governor of New
France, formally protested against the return of the
Recollets. The Associates desired to economize, and did
not wish to support two religious orders in the colony;
and so the mendicant Recollets were excluded.
The vessels appeared at Quebec on the 23rd of May, and
landed their passengers amid shouts of welcome from the
settlers, soldiers, and Indians. Presently Champlain's
lieutenant, Duplessis-Bochart, on behalf of the Hundred
Associates, received the keys of the fort and habitation
from Emery de Caen; and at that moment ended the regime
of the Huguenot traders in Canada. Thenceforth, whether
for good or for evil, New France was to be Catholic.
During the English occupation the Indians had almost
ceased to visit Quebec. At first the fickle savages had
welcomed the invaders, for they ever favoured a winner,
and had thronged about the fort, expecting presents galore
from the strong people who had ousted the French. But
instead of presents the English gave them only kicks and
curses; and so they held aloof. Now, however, on hearing
that Champlain had returned, the Indian dwellers along
the Ottawa river and in Huronia flocked to the post.
Hardly more than two months after his arrival, a fleet
of a hundred and forty canoes, with about seven hundred
Indians, swept with the ebb tide to the base of the rock
that frowned above the habitation and the dilapidated
warehouses. Drawing their heavily laden craft ashore,
the chiefs greeted Champlain and proceeded to set up
their camp-huts on the strand. Among them were many
warriors, now grown old, who had been with him in the
attack on the Iroquois in 1615. There were some, too,
who had listened to the teaching of Brebeuf. For the
eager missionaries this was an opportunity not to be
lost; and, resolved to go up with the Hurons, who willingly
assented, Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost got ready for the
journey to Huronia. On the eve of departure the three
missionaries brought their packs to the strand, and lodged
for the night in the traders' storehouse, hard by the
Indian encampment. But they had an enemy abroad. All in
this party were not Hurons; some were Ottawas from
Allumette Island, under a one-eyed chief, Le Borgne. This
wily redskin wished for trouble between the Hurons and
the French, in order that his tribe might get a monopoly
of the Ottawa route, and carry all the goods from the
nations above down to the St Lawrence. At this time an
Algonquin of La Petite Nation, a tribe living south of
Allumette Island, was held at Quebec for murdering a
Frenchman. His friends were seeking his release; but
Champlain deemed his execution necessary as a lesson to
the Indians. Le Borgne rose to the occasion. He went
among the Hurons, urging them to refuse passage to the
Jesuits, warning them that, since Champlain would not
pardon the Algonquin, it would be dangerous to take the
black-robes with them. The angry tribesmen of the murderer
would surely lay in wait for the canoes, the black-robes
would be slain or made prisoners, and there would be war
on the Hurons too. The argument was effective; Champlain
would not release the prisoner; and the Jesuits were
forced to return to their abode, while the Indians embarked
and disappeared.
There were now six fathers at Notre-Dame-des-Anges. They
kept incessantly active, improving their residence,
cultivating the soil, studying the Indian languages, and
ministering to the settlers and to the red men who had
pitched their wigwams along the St Charles and the St
Lawrence in the vicinity of Quebec. In spite of Noue's
failure among the Montagnais, the courageous Le Jeune
resolved personally to study the Indian problem at first
hand; and in the autumn of 1633 he joined a company of
redskins going to their hunting ground on the upper St
John. During five months among these savages he suffered
from 'cold, heat, smoke, and dogs,' and bore in silence
the foul language of a medicine-man who made the
missionary's person and teachings subjects of mirth. At
times, too, he was on the verge of death from hunger.
Early in the spring he returned to Quebec, after having
narrowly escaped drowning as he Crossed the ice-laden St
Lawrence in a frail canoe. He had made no converts; but
he had gained valuable experience. It was now more evident
than ever that among the roving Algonquins the mission
could make little progress.
In 1634 the Hurons visited the colony in small numbers,
for Iroquois scalping parties haunted the trails, and a
pestilence had played havoc in the Huron villages. Those
who came to trade this year gathered at Three Rivers;
and thither went Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost to seek once
more a passage to Huronia. The Indians at first stolidly
refused to take them; but at length, after a liberal
distribution of presents, the three priests and four
engages were permitted to embark, each priest in a separate
canoe. They had the usual rough experiences. Davost and
Daniel, who had no acquaintance with the Huron language,
fared worse than Brebeuf. Davost was abandoned among the
Ottawas of Allumette Island, his baggage plundered and
his books and papers thrown into the river. Daniel, too,
was deserted by his savage conductors. Both, however,
found means to continue the journey. When Brebeuf reached
Otouacha, on the 5th of August, his Indian guides, in
haste to get to their villages, suddenly vanished into
the forest. But he knew the spot well; Toanche, his old
mission, was but a short distance away. Thither he hurried,
only to find the village in ruins. Nothing remained of
the cabin in which he had spent three years but the
charred poles of the framework. A well-worn path leading
through the forest told him that a village could not be
far distant, and he followed this trail till he came to
a cluster of cabins. This was a new village, Teandeouiata,
to which the inhabitants of his old Toanche had moved.
It was twilight as the Indians caught sight of the
stalwart, black-robed figure emerging from the forest,
and the shout went up, 'Echon has come again!' Presently
all the inhabitants were about him shouting and
gesticulating for joy.
Daniel and Davost arrived during the month, emaciated
and exhausted, but rejoicing. The missionaries found
shelter in the spacious cabin of a hospitable Huron,
Awandoay, where they remained until the 19th of September.
Meanwhile they had selected the village of Ihonatiria,
a short distance away near the northern extremity of the
peninsula, as a centre for the mission. There a cabin
was quickly erected, the men of the town of Oenrio vying
with the men of Teandeouiata in the task. This residence,
called by Brebeuf St Joseph, was thirty-five feet long
and twenty wide and contained a storehouse, a living-room
and school, and a chapel.
For three years this humble abode was to be the headquarters
of the missionaries in Huronia. During the first year of
the mission all went smoothly. To the Indians the fathers
were medicine-men of extraordinary powers; moreover, the
hired men who came with them had arquebuses that would
be valuable in case of attack in force by the Iroquois.
Objects which the missionaries possessed inspired awe in
the savages; a handmill for grinding corn, a clock, a
magnifying lens, and a picture of the Last Judgment were
supposed to be okies of the white man. For a time eager
audiences crowded the little cabin. Few converts were
made, however; for the present the savages were too firmly
wedded to their customs and superstitions to accept the
new okies. Unfortunately, in 1635, a drought smote the
land, and the medicine-men used this calamity to discredit
their rivals the black-robes. According to these fakirs,
it was the red cross on the Jesuit chapel which frightened
away the bird of thunder and caused the drought. Brebeuf,
to disarm suspicion, had the cross painted white; yet
the thunder-bird still held aloof, and the incantations
and drummings of the sorcerers availed not to bring rain.
Brebeuf then advised the Indians to try the effect of an
appeal to his God. In despair they consented. A procession
was formed and the priests said Masses and prayers. The
result was dramatic. Almost immediately a sudden refreshing
rain deluged the ground; the crops were saved and the
medicine-men humiliated. Still, no perceptible religious
progress was made. Though children came to the residence
to be instructed by the black-robes, they were attracted
more by the 'beads, raisins, and prunes' which they
received as inducements to come back than by the lessons
in Christian truth. For the most part the elders listened
attentively to the missionaries, but to the question of
laying aside their superstitions and accepting Christianity
they replied: 'It is good for the French; but we are
another people, with different customs.'
Winter was the season of greatest trial. The cabins,
crowded to suffocation, were made the scenes of savage
mirth and feasting. The Hurons were inveterate gamblers;
sometimes village would challenge village; and, as the
game progressed, night would be made hideous with the
beating of drums and the hilarious shouts of the spectators.
Feasts were frequent, since any occasion afforded an
excuse for one, and all feasts were accompanied by gluttony
and uproar. The Dream Feast was a maniacal performance.
It was agreed upon in a solemn council of the chiefs and
was made the occasion of great licence. The guests would
rush about the village feigning madness, scattering
fire-brands, shouting, leaping, smiting with impunity
any they encountered. Each one would seek some object
which he pretended to have learned about in a dream. Only
when this object was found would calmness follow; if it
was not found, there would be deepest despair. Feasts,
too, were prescribed by the medicine-men as cures for
sickness; the healthy, not the sick, would take the
medicine, and would take it till they were gorged. To
leave a scrap of food on their platters might mean the
death of the patient.
Only one of the social customs of the Hurons had any real
religious significance. Every ten or twelve years the
great Feast of the Dead took place. It was the custom of
the Hurons either to place the dead in the earth, covering
them with rude huts, or, more commonly, on elevated
platforms. The bodies rested till the allotted time for
final interment came round. Then at some central point
an immense pit would be dug as a common grave. In 1636
a Feast of the Dead was held at Ossossane. To this place,
from the various villages of the Bear clan, Indians came
trooping, wailing mournful funeral songs as they bore
the recently dead on litters, or the carefully prepared
bones of their departed relatives in parcels slung over
their shoulders. All converged on the village of Ossossane,
where a pit ten feet deep by thirty feet wide had been
dug. There on scaffolds about the pit they placed the
bodies and bones, carefully wrapped in furs and covered
with bark. The assembled mourners then gave themselves
up to feasting and games, as a prelude to the final act
of this drama of death. They lined the pit with costly
furs and in the centre placed kettles, household goods,
and weapons for the chase, all these, like the bodies
and bones, supposed to be indwelt by spirits. They laid
the dead bodies in rows on the floor of the pit, and
threw the bundles of bones to Indians stationed within,
who arranged the remains in their proper places.
The Jesuits were witnesses of this weird ceremony. They
saw the naked Indians going about their task in the pit
in the glare of torches, like veritable imps of hell. It
was a discouraging scene. But a greater trial than the
Feast of the Dead was in store for them. By a pestilence,
a severe form of dysentery, Ihonatiria was almost denuded
of its population. In consequence the priests, who had
now been reinforced by the arrival of Fathers Francois
Le Mercier, Pierre Pijart, Pierre Chastelain, Isaac
Jogues, and Charles Garnier, had to seek a more populous
centre as headquarters for their mission in Huronia. The
chiefs of Oenrio invited the Jesuits to their village.
But Brebeuf's demands were heavy. They should believe in
God; keep His commandments; abjure their faith in dreams;
take one wife and be true to her; renounce their assemblies
of debauchery; eat no human flesh; never give feasts to
demons; and make a vow that if God would deliver them
from the pest they would build a chapel to offer Him
thanksgiving and praise. They were ready to make the vow
regarding the chapel, but the other conditions were too
severe--the pest was preferable. And so the Jesuits turned
to Ossossane, where the people agreed to accept these
conditions.
Formerly Ossossane had been situated on an elevated piece
of ground on the shore of Nottawasaga Bay; but the village
had been moved inland and, under the direction of the
French, a rectangular wall of posts ten or twelve feet
high had been built around it. At opposite angles of the
wall two towers guarded the sides. A platform extended
round the entire wall, from which the defenders could
hurl stones on the heads of an attacking party, or could
pour water to extinguish the blaze if an enemy succeeded
in setting fire to the palisades.
Here the Jesuits were to live for two years. Outside
the walls of the town a commodious cabin seventy feet
long was built for them; and on June 5, 1637, in the part
of the cabin consecrated as a chapel, Father Pijart
celebrated Mass. The residence was named La Conception
de Notre Dame. For a wilderness church it was a marvel.
At the entrance were green boughs adorned with tinsel;
pictures hung on the walls; crucifixes, vessels, and
ornaments of shining metal ornamented the chapel. From
far and near Indians flocked to see this wondrous edifice.
Best of all, a leading chief offered himself for baptism.
The future looked promising; the Indians showed the
fathers 'much affection' and a rich harvest of souls
seemed about to be garnered.
But all this was to be changed. A hunch-backed, ogre-like
medicine-man who claimed to be of miraculous birth came
to Ossossane. The pest was still raging, and he laid the
blame for it at the door of the missionaries. According
to him their prayers and litanies were charms and
incantations; their pictures were evil okies. It was, he
declared, by the influence of these and other agencies
that they had spread the pestilence among the Hurons.
Some of the older and most influential Hurons joined with
the sorcerer in his denunciation of the priests, and soon
the inhabitants of the whole village turned against them.
Squaws shut the doors of the cabins at their approach,
young braves threatened them with death, children followed
them about hooting and pelting them with sticks and
stones. At last the priests were summoned to a public
council and openly accused of being the cause of the
misfortunes that had recently visited the Huron people.
Brebeuf replied to the accusations with unflinching
courage, denying the charges, and showing their absurdity.
He then boldly addressed his audience on the truths of
Christianity, held before them the awful future that
awaited those who refused to obey the words of Christ,
and declared that the pest was a punishment for their
evil lives. The council was deeply impressed by his
courage and evident sincerity, and for the time being
the lives of the missionaries were in no danger. But they
knew that at any moment the blow might fall, and none
ever went abroad without the feeling that a tomahawk
might descend on his unguarded head.
On October 28, 1637, Brebeuf prepared, as he thought, a
farewell letter to his friends at Quebec. He and the four
other missionaries at Ossossane signed it and sent it to
the superior-general Le Jeune. It opens with the words:
'We are perhaps on the point of shedding our blood and
sacrificing our lives in the service of our Lord and
Saviour, Jesus Christ.' There is no note of fear in this
letter. 'If,' it runs, 'you should hear that God has
crowned our labours, or rather our desires, with martyrdom,
return thanks to Him, for it is for Him we wish to live
and die.' Such was the spirit of these bearers of the
Cross. Their humility, courage, and disinterestedness
kept them for the present from 'the crown of martyrdom.'
But the hunch-backed sorcerer continued his agitation
and the storm once more broke over their heads. To show
the Indians that he knew their hearts, and that he could
meet death with the stoical courage of one of their own
chiefs, Brebeuf summoned them to a festin d'adieua farewell
feast--and while his guests, in ominous silence, ate the
portions set before them he addressed them in burning
words. He was about to die, but before he departed this
life he would warn them of the life to come. Their
resistance to Christ's message, their abuse and persecution
of Christ's messengers, would have to be atoned for in
eternity. His actions and words took effect.
Though the sorcerer still schemed, the Jesuits went about
their labours unscathed, preaching to the unregenerate,
visiting and caring for the sick, and baptizing the dying.
For a year after the establishing of the mission of La
Conception at Ossossane three fathers--Pierre Chastelain,
Pierre Pijart, and Isaac Jogues--ministered to the remnant
of the Hurons at Ihonatiria. But the pest was still
raging, and by the spring of 1638 Ihonatiria was little
more than a village of empty wigwams. It was useless to
remain longer at this spot, and the missionaries looked
about for another field for their energies. The town of
Teanaostaiae, the largest town of the clan of the Cord,
about fifteen miles north of the present town of Barrie,
seemed suitable for a central mission. Brebeuf visited
the place, talked with the inhabitants, met the council
of the nation, and won its consent to establish a residence.
In June the mission of St Joseph was moved to Teanaostaiae.
Before the end of the summer Jerome Lalemant, who for
the next eight years was to be the superior of the Huron
mission, Simon Le Moyne, and Francois du Peron arrived
in Huronia. There was now a new distribution of the
mission forces, five priests under Lalemant's immediate
leadership taking up their abode at Ossossane, while
three in charge of Brebeuf settled at Teanaostaiae.
So far Brebeuf had been the recognized leader in Huronia.
He had been nobly supported by his brother priests and
his hired men. The residences at both Ihonatiria and
Ossossane had been kept well supplied with food, even
better than many of the Indian households. Game was scarce
in Huronia, but the fathers had among their engages an
expert hunter, Francois Petit-Pre, ever roaming the forest
and the shores in search of game to give variety to their
table. Robert Le Coq, a devoted engage, later a donne,
[Footnote: An unpaid, voluntary assistant whose only
remuneration was food and clothing, care during illness,
and support in old age.] was their 'negotiator' or business
man. It was Le Coq who made the yearly trips to Quebec
for supplies, and who with infinite labour brought many
heavy burdens over the difficult trails. Brebeuf had
proved himself essentially an enthusiast for souls, a
mystic, a spirit craving the crown of martyrdom, yet
withal a man of great tact, and a powerful exemplar to
his fellow-priests. Lalemant, while lacking Brebeuf's
dominating enthusiasm, was a more practical man, with
great organizing ability. After viewing the wide and
dangerous field to be administered, the new superior
decided to concentrate the separate missions into one
stronghold of the faith. The site he chose was remote
from any of the centres of Indian population. It was on
the eastern bank of the river Wye between Mud Lake and
Matchedash Bay. Here the missionaries built a strong
rectangular fort with walls of stone surmounted by
palisades and with bastions at each corner. The interior
buildings--a chapel, a hospital, and dwellings for the
missionaries and the engages--although of wood, were
supported on foundations of stone and cement.
The new mission-house they named Ste Marie; and from this
central station the missionaries went forth in pairs to
the farthest parts of Huronia and beyond. The missions
to the Petuns and the Neutrals, however, ended in failure.
The Petuns hailed Garnier and Jogues as the Famine and
the Pest and the priests barely escaped with their lives.
In the following year (1640), when Brebeuf and Chaumonot
went among the Neutrals, they found Huron emissaries
there inciting the Neutrals to kill the priests. These
Hurons, while themselves fearing to murder the powerful
okies of the French, as they regarded the black-robes,
desired that the Neutrals should put them to death. But
no such tragedy found place as yet. After visiting nineteen
towns, meeting everywhere maledictions and threats,
Brebeuf and Chaumonot returned to Ste Marie.
The good work went on, notwithstanding trials and reverses.
The story of the Cross was being carried even to the
Algonquins and Nipissings of the upper Ottawa and Georgian
Bay. At Ste Marie neophytes gathered in numbers, and here
there were no medicine-men, 'satellites of Satan,' to
seduce them from their vows. But, just at the time when
the harvest seemed richest in promise, a cloud appeared
on the horizon--a forerunner of darker clouds, heavy with
calamity, and of the storm which was to bring destruction
to the Huron people.
Meanwhile, how fared the mission at Quebec? Champlain
had died on Christmas Day 1635, and the Jesuits had lost
a staunch friend and never-failing protector. His successor,
however, was Charles Huault de Montmagny, a knight of
Malta, a man of devout character, thoroughly in sympathy
with the missions. Under Montmagny's rule New France
became as austere as Puritan New England.
The Relations of the Jesuits, sent yearly to France and
published and widely read, had roused intense enthusiasm
among wealthy and pious men and women. Thus Noel Brulart,
Chevalier de Sillery, was moved to take an interest in
the Canadian mission and to endow a home for Christian
Indians. Le Jeune chose a site on the bank of the St
Lawrence, four miles above Quebec; and in 1637 the Sillery
establishment was erected there, consisting of a chapel,
a mission-house, and an infirmary, all within strong
palisades.
About the same time two wealthy enthusiasts, the Duchesse
d'Aiguillon, a niece of Cardinal Richelieu, and Madame
de la Peltrie, were likewise inspired by the Relations
to undertake charitable work in New France. These ladies
founded, respectively, the Hotel-Dieu of Quebec and the
Ursuline Convent. In 1639 Madame de la Peltrie, who had
given herself as well as her purse to the work, arrived
in Quebec, accompanied by Mother Marie de I'Incarnation
and two other Ursulines and three Augustinian nuns. The
Ursulines at once began their labours as teachers with
six Indian pupils. But a plague of small-pox was raging
in the colony, and for the first year or two after their
arrival these heroic women had to aid the sisters of the
Hotel-Dieu in fighting the pest.
The Jesuits themselves were busy with the education of
the Indians and had already established a college and
seminary for the instruction of young converts. The
colony, however, was not growing. The Hundred Associates
had not carried out the terms of their charter. There
were less than four hundred settlers in the whole of New
France, and only some three hundred soldiers to guard
the settlements from attack. Canada as yet was little
more than a mission; and such it was to remain for another
twenty and more years.
CHAPTER VI
THE MARTYRS
We have observed that the Hurons were at war with the
Five Nations and that Iroquois scalping parties haunted
the river routes and the trails to waylay Huron canoemen
and cut off hunters and stragglers from their villages.
When or how the feud began, between the Iroquois on the
one side and the Hurons and Algonquins on the other, no
man can tell. It antedated Champlain; and, as we have
seen, he had involved the French in it. There were, no
doubt, many bloody encounters of which history furnishes
no record. At first the warriors had fought on equal
terms, the weapons of all being the bow and arrow, the
tomahawk, the knife, and the war-club. But now the Iroquois
had firearms, procured from the Dutch of the Hudson, and
were skilled in the use of the musket, which gave them
a great advantage over their Huron and Algonquin foes.
On the south-east frontier of Huronia, about four miles
from Orillia, stood a town of the clan of the Rock,
Contarea, a 'main bulwark of the country.' The inhabitants
were pagans who had resisted the missionaries, and refused
them permission to build a chapel, not even deigning to
listen to their appeals. In the early summer of 1642 the
people of Contarea were living in fancied security; and
when runners brought word that in the forests to the east
a large force of Iroquois were encamped, the Contarean
warriors felt confident that, from behind their strong
palisades, they could resist any attack. No Iroquois
appeared; and, believing the rumour false, many of the
warriors left the town for the accustomed hunting and
fishing grounds. Suddenly, early on a June morning, the
sleepy guards were roused by savage yells. The Iroquois
were upon them. The alarm rang out; the towers were
manned, and the palisades lined with defenders. But in
vain. Arrows and bullets swept towers and palisades, and
through breaches made in the walls in rushed a horde of
bloodthirsty demons. In a few minutes all was over; the
town became a shambles; young and old fell beneath the
tomahawks of the infuriated invaders. Then the torch!
And the Iroquois hied them back in triumph to their homes
by the Mohawk, exulting in this first effective blow at
the enemy in his own country.
When news arrived of the destruction of Contarea, there
was wild alarm in the mission towns. But it was no part
of the Iroquois plan to attack at once the other Huron
strongholds. Huronia could wait until the tribes of the
St Lawrence and the Ottawa, allies of the Hurons, should
be destroyed. Then the Five Nations could concentrate
their forces on the Hurons.
And so six years passed over the Jesuits in the
mission-fields. Scalping parties occasionally haunted
the outskirts of the villages where they were stationed.
The Iroquois frequently attacked the annual fleet of
canoes on its journey to Quebec, and on several occasions
captured and carried off priests and their assistants.
But during these years no large body of Iroquois invaded
Huronia. The insatiable warriors of the Five Nations were
busy devastating the St Lawrence and the Ottawa, pressing
the tribes back and ever back, until scarcely a wigwam
could be seen between Ville Marie and Lake Nipissing.
The Algonquins who had not fallen had left their villages
and had sought safety on the bleak shores and islands of
Georgian Bay, or among the Hurons.
The mission was prospering under the guidance of Paul
Ragueneau, who in 1645 succeeded Lalemant as superior,
when the latter journeyed to Quebec to take over the
office of superior-general of the Canada mission. Ste
Marie, a wilderness Mecca of the faith, entertained yearly
thousands of Indians, many of whom professed Christianity.
On one occasion seven hundred Indians sought this sanctuary
within a fortnight, and to each of these the fathers from
their abundant stores gave two meals. About the walls
fields of corn, beans, pumpkins, and wheat spread fair
to the eye. Within the enclosure all was activity. Ambroise
Brouet was busy in his kitchen; Louis Gauber was at his
forge; Pierre Masson, when not occupied at his tailor's
bench, was hard at work in the garden, the pride of the
mission; Christophe Regnaut and Jacques Levrier were
mending or fashioning shoes and moccasins; Joseph Molere
prepared potions for the sick and had charge of the
laundry; and Charles Boivin, the master-builder,
superintended the erection of new buildings or the
strengthening and improving of those already built. The
appearance of permanency about the place was enhanced by
the fowls, pigs, and cattle. There were two cows and two
bulls, which had been brought with incredible toil from
Quebec.
The teaching and example of the fathers were winning a
way to the hearts of the Indians. In 1648 eleven or twelve
mission stations stood throughout Huronia, among the
Algonquins, and among the Petuns, now settled in the Blue
Hills south of Nottawasaga Bay. Seven of these stations
had chapels and in six it had been found necessary to
establish residences. In some of the villages, such as
Ossossane, the Christians outnumbered the pagans. The
Christian Hurons gave active help to the fathers in the
work of the mission, some among their own people, and
others among the Petuns and the Neutrals. The chapels
had bells--on some discarded kettles served this purpose--to
call the flocks to worship; and crosses studded the land.
Huronia was in a fair way of being completely won; and
the missionaries were already looking to the unexplored
regions round and beyond Lake Superior, and even to the
land of the Iroquois. Then, with the suddenness of a
volcanic eruption, their flocks were scattered and their
dearest hopes crushed.
In 1647 there was no communication between Ste Marie and
Quebec. Owing to the danger from Iroquois along the route,
the annual canoe-fleet did not go down, although a small
party of Hurons, it seems, went as far as Ville Marie.
The necessities of the mission were, however, urgent,
and in the spring of the following year Father Bressani
set out with a strong contingent of two hundred and fifty
Huron warriors, fully half of whom were Christians. No
sooner had this expedition begun its descent of the Ottawa
than an Iroquois war-party, which had wintered near Lake
Nipissing, stole southward through the forests towards
Huronia.
Contarea had been destroyed. The dangerous position of
St Jean-Baptiste, situated near the site of Cahiague on
Lake Simcoe, whence Champlain had set out against the
Iroquois in 1615, had led the Jesuits to abandon it. St
Joseph or Teanaostaiae, with about two thousand inhabitants,
was therefore the frontier town on the south-east of
Huronia. Father Daniel, in charge of this station, had
just returned from his annual eight-day retreat at Ste
Marie. For four years he had laboured in this mission;
and, though his flock had been a stiff-necked one, his
work had brought its reward. On the 4th of July his little
chapel was crowded for the celebration of early Mass,
and as he gazed at the congregation of his converts his
spirit rejoiced within him. He had just finished the
service, when shrill through the morning air rang the
cry: 'The Iroquois! The Iroquois!' Rushing out he saw
the foe already hacking at the palisades and many of the
defenders falling beneath a storm of arrows and bullets.
His first thought for his flock, he hurried back into
the chapel, beseeching them to save themselves. They
pressed about him, praying for baptism and for absolution;
and, as they held to him appealing hands, he dipped his
handkerchief in the font and baptized the crowd by
aspersion. Then he boldly strode to the door of his chapel
and faced the enemy. For a moment the savage fiends
hesitated before the stern-eyed priest standing in his
vestments, protecting, as it seemed, the flock that
cowered behind him; but only for a moment. Yelling defiance
at the white medicine-man, they directed their weapons
against him; and this dauntless soldier of the Cross
received the crown of martyrdom which he had prayed might
be his. His slayers fell upon his body, stripped it of
clothing, mutilated it, and cast it into the now flaming
chapel, a fitting funeral pyre for the first martyr of
the Huron mission. The entire village was given to the
flames, and the smoke of the burning cabins and palisades
rolled over the forest. A small village not far away, on
the trail to Ossossane, shared the same fate. The slaughter
glutted the ferocity of the Iroquois for the time being;
and, with some seven hundred prisoners, they stole back
to their villages south of Lake Ontario.
After this calamity the pall of a great fear hung over
the Hurons. Paralysed and inert, the warriors took no
steps to defend the country against the Iroquois peril.
In spite of the exhortations of the Jesuits, they lay
idle in their wigwams or hunted in the forest, dejectedly
awaiting their doom.
An Iroquois war-party twelve hundred strong spent the
winter of 1648-49 on the upper Ottawa; and as the snows
began to melt under the thaws of spring these insatiable
slayers of men directed their steps towards Huronia. The
frontier village on the east was now St Ignace, on the
west of the Sturgeon river, about seven miles from Ste
Marie. It was strongly fortified and formed a part of a
mission of the same name, under the care of Brebeuf and
Father Gabriel Lalemant, a nephew of Jerome Lalemant.
About a league distant, midway to Ste Marie, stood St
Louis, another town of the mission, where the two fathers
lived. On the 16th of March the inhabitants of St Ignace
had no thought of impending disaster. The Iroquois might
be on the war-path, but they would not come while yet
ice held the rivers and snow lay in the forests. But that
morning, just as the horizon began to glow with the first
colours of the dawn, the sleeping Hurons woke to the
sound of the dreaded war-whoop. The Iroquois devils had
breached the walls. Three Hurons escaped, dashed along
the forest trail to St Louis, roused the village, and
then fled for Ste Marie, followed by the women and children
and those too feeble to fight. There were in St Louis
only about eighty warriors, but, not knowing the strength
of the invaders, they determined to fight. The Hurons
begged Brebeuf and Lalemant to fly to Ste Marie; but they
refused to stir. In the hour of danger and death they
must remain with their flock, to sustain the warriors in
the battle and to give the last rites of the Church to
the wounded and dying.
Having made short work of St Ignace, the Iroquois came
battering at the walls of St Louis before sunrise. The
Hurons resisted stubbornly; but the assailants outnumbered
them ten to one, and soon hacked a way through the
palisades and captured all the defenders remaining alive,
among them Brebeuf and Lalemant.
The Iroquois bound Brebeuf and Lalemant and led them back
to St Ignace, beating them as they went. There they
stripped the two priests and tied them to stakes. Brebeuf
knew that his hour had come. Him the savages made the
special object of their diabolical cruelty. And, standing
at the stake amid his yelling tormentors, he bequeathed
to the world an example of fortitude sublime, unsurpassed,
and unsurpassable. Neither by look nor cry nor movement
did he give sign of the agony he was suffering. To the
reviling and abuse of the fiends he replied with words
warning them of the judgment to come. They poured boiling
water on his head in derision of baptism; they hung
red-hot axes about his naked shoulders; they made a belt
of pitch and resin and placed it about his body and set
it on fire. By every conceivable means the red devils
strove to force him to cry for mercy. But not a sound of
pain could they wring from him. At last, after four hours
of this torture, a chief cut out his heart, and the noble
servant of God quitted the scene of his earthly labours.
Lalemant, a man of gentle, refined character, as delicate
as Brebeuf was robust, also endured the torture. But the
savages administered it to him with a refinement of
cruelty, and kept him alive for fourteen hours. Then at
last he, too, entered into his rest.
Ten years before Brebeuf had made a vow to Christ: 'Never
to shrink from martyrdom if, in Your mercy, You deem me
worthy of so great a privilege. Henceforth, I will never
avoid any opportunity that presents itself of dying for
You, but will accept martyrdom with delight, provided
that, by so doing, I can add to Your glory. From this
day, my Lord Jesus Christ, I cheerfully yield unto You
my life, with the hope that You will grant me the grace
to die for You, since You have deigned to die for me.
Grant me, O Lord, so to live, that You may deem me worthy
to die a martyr's death Thus my Lord, I take Your chalice,
and call upon Your name. Jesu! Jesu! Jesu!' How nobly
this vow was kept.
CHAPTER VII
THE DISPERSION OF THE HURONS
Meanwhile at Ste Marie Ragueneau and his companions
learned from Huron fugitives of the fate of their comrades;
and waited, hourly expecting to be attacked. The priests
were attended by about twoscore armed Frenchmen. All day
and all night the anxious fathers prayed and stood on
guard. In the morning three hundred Huron warriors came
to their relief, bringing the welcome news that the Hurons
were assembling in force to give battle to the invaders.
These Hurons were just in time to fall in with a party
of Iroquois, already on the way to Ste Marie. An encounter
in the woods followed. At first some of the Hurons were
driven back; but straight-away others of their band rushed
to the rescue; and the Iroquois in turn ran for shelter
behind the shattered palisades of St Louis. The Hurons
followed, and finally put the enemy to rout and remained
in possession of the place.
Now followed an Indian battle of almost unparalleled
ferocity. Never did Huron warriors fight better than in
this conflict at the death-hour of their nation. Against
the Hurons within the palisades came the Iroquois in
force from St Ignace. All day long, in and about the
walls of St Louis, the battle raged; and when night fell
only twenty wounded and helpless Hurons remained to
continue the resistance. In the gathering darkness the
Iroquois rushed in and with tomahawk and knife dispatched
the remnant of the band.
But the Iroquois had no mind for further fighting, and
did not attack Ste Marie. They mustered their Huron
captives--old men, women, and children--tied them to
stakes in the cabins of St Ignace, and set fire to the
village. And, after being entertained to their satisfaction
by the cries of agony which arose from their victims in
the blazing cabins, they made their way southward through
the forests of Huronia and disappeared.
Panic reigned throughout Huronia. After burning fifteen
villages, lest they should serve as a shelter for the
Iroquois, the Hurons scattered far and wide. Some fled
to Ste Marie, some toiled through the snows of spring to
the villages of the Petuns, some fled to the Neutrals
and Eries, some to the Algonquin tribes of the north and
west, and some even sought adoption among the Iroquois.
Ste Marie stood alone, like a shepherd without sheep:
mission villages, chapels, residences, flocks--all were
gone. The work of over twenty years was destroyed. Sick
at heart, Ragueneau looked about him for a new situation,
a spot that might serve as a centre for his band of
devoted missionaries as they toiled among the wanderers
by lake and river and in the depths of the northern
forest.
He first thought of Isle Ste Marie (Manitoulin Island)
as the safest place for the headquarters of a new mission,
but finally decided to go to Isle St Joseph (Christian
Island), just off Huronia to the north. There, on the
bay that indents the south-east corner of the island, he
directed that land should be cleared for the building.
The work of evacuating Ste Marie began early in May, and
on the 15th of the month the buildings were set on fire.
The valuables of the mission were placed in a large boat
and on rafts; and, with heavy hearts, the fathers and
their helpers went aboard for the journey to their new
home twenty miles away.
The new Ste Marie which the Jesuits built on Isle St
Joseph was in the nature of a strong fort. Its walls were
of stone and cement, fourteen feet high and loopholed.
At each corner there was a protecting bastion, and the
entire structure was surrounded by a deep moat. It was
practically impregnable against Indian attack, for it
could not be undermined, set on fire, or taken by assault.
A handful of men could hold it against a host of Iroquois.
About the sheltering walls of Ste Marie the Indians
gathered, to the number of seven or eight thousand by
the autumn of 1649. Here the missionaries continued the
good work. The only outposts now were among the Algonquins
along the shore of Georgian Bay, and the Petun missions
of St Mathias, St Matthieu, and St Jean. But the Petuns
were presently to share the fate of the Hurons; and
Garnier and Chabanel, who were stationed at St Jean, were
to perish as had Daniel, Brebeuf, and Lalemant.
During the autumn Ragueneau learned that a large body of
Iroquois were working their way westward towards St Jean.
He sent runners to the threatened town, and ordered
Chabanel to return to Ste Marie and warned Garnier to be
on his guard. On the 5th of December Chabanel set out
for Ste Marie with some Petun Hurons, and Garnier was
left alone at St Jean. Two days later, while the warriors
were out searching for their elusive foes, a band of
Senecas and Mohawks swept upon the town, broke through
the defences, and proceeded to butcher the inhabitants.
Garnier fell with his flock. In the thick of the slaughter,
while baptizing and absolving the dying, he was smitten
down with three bullet wounds and his cassock torn from
his body. As he lay in agony the moans of a wounded Petun
near by drew his attention. Though spent with loss of
blood, though his brain reeled with the weakness of
approaching death, he dragged himself to his wounded red
brother, gave him absolution, and then fell to the ground
in a faint. On recovering from his swoon he saw another
dying convert near by and strove to reach his side, but
an Iroquois rushed upon him and ended his life with a
tomahawk.
In a sense Chabanel was less fortunate than Garnier. On
the day following the massacre of St Jean he was hastening
along the well-beaten trail towards Ste Marie, when the
sound of Iroquois war-cries in the distance alarmed his
guides, and all deserted him save one. This one did worse,
for he slew the priest and cast his body into the
Nottawasaga river. This murderer, an apostate Huron,
afterwards confessed the crime, declaring that he had
committed it because nothing but misfortune had befallen
him ever since he and his family had embraced Christianity.
For some months after the death of Garnier and Chabanel
the Jesuits maintained the mission of St Mathias among
the Petuns in the Blue Hills. Here Father Adrien Greslon
laboured until January 1650, and Father Leonard Garreau
until the following spring. Garreau was then recalled,
leaving not a missionary on the mainland in the Huron or
the Petun country.
The French and Indians on Isle St Joseph, though safe
from attack, were really prisoners on the island. Mohawks
and Senecas remained in the forests near by, ready to
pounce on any who ventured to the mainland. When winter
bridged with ice the channel between the island and the
main shore, it was necessary for the soldiers of the
mission to stand incessantly on guard. And now another
enemy than the Iroquois stalked among the fugitives. The
fathers had abundant food for themselves and their
assistants; but the Hurons, in their hurried flight, had
made no provision for the winter. The famishing hordes
subsisted on acorns and roots, and even greedily devoured
the dead bodies of dogs and foxes. Disease joined forces
with famine, and by spring fully half the Hurons at Ste
Marie had perished. Some fishing and hunting parties left
the island in search of food, but few returned.
It soon appeared that for the Hurons to remain on the
island meant extinction. Two of the leading chiefs waited
on Father Ragueneau and begged him to move the remnant
of their people to Quebec, where under the sheltering
walls of the fortress they might keep together as a
people. It was a bitter draught for the Jesuits; but
there was no other course. They made ready for the
migration; and on the 10th of June (1650) the thirteen
priests and four lay brothers of the mission, with their
donnes, hired men, and soldiers, in all sixty French,
and about three hundred Hurons, entered canoes and headed
for the French River. On their way down the Ottawa they
met Father Bressani, who had gone to Quebec in the previous
autumn for supplies, and who now joined the retreating
party. And on the 28th of July, after a journey of fifty
days, all arrived safely at the capital of New France.
[Footnote: For a time the Hurons encamped in the vicinity
of the Hotel-Dieu. In the spring of 1651 they moved to
the island of Orleans. Five years later their settlement
was raided by Mohawks and seventy-one were killed or
taken prisoner. The island was abandoned and shelter
sought in Quebec under the guns of Fort St Louis, and
here they remained until 1668, when they removed to
Beauport. In the following year they were placed at
Notre-Dame-de-Foy, about four miles from Quebec. In 1673
a site affording more land was given them on the St
Charles river about nine miles from the fortress. Here
at Old Lorette a chapel was built for them and here they
remained for twenty-four years. In 1697 they moved to
New Lorette--Jeune Lorette--in the seigneury of St Michel,
and at this place, by the rapids of the St Charles, four
or five hundred of this once numerous tribe may still be
found.]
The war-lust of the Five Nations remained still unsatiated.
They continued to harass the Petuns, who finally fled in
terror, most of them to Mackinaw Island. Still in dread
of the Iroquois, they moved thence to the western end of
Lake Superior; but here they came into conflict with the
Sioux, and had to migrate once more. A band of them
finally moved to Detroit and Sandusky, where, under the
name of Wyandots, we find them figuring in history at a
later period. The Iroquois then found occasion for quarrels
with the Neutrals, the Eries, and the Andastes; and soon
practically all the Indian tribes from the shores of
Maine to the Mississippi and as far south as the Carolinas
were under tribute to the Five Nations. Only the Algonquin
tribes of Michigan and Wisconsin and the tribes of the
far north had not suffered from these bloodthirsty
conquerors.
The Huron mission was ended. For a quarter of a century
the Jesuits had struggled to build up a spiritual empire
among the heathen of North America, but, to all appearances,
they had struggled in vain. In all twenty-five fathers
had toiled in Huronia. Of these, as we have seen, four
had been murdered by the Iroquois and one by an apostate
Huron. Nor was this the whole story of martyrdom. Six
years after the dispersion Leonard Garreau was to die by
an Iroquois bullet while journeying up the Lake of Two
Mountains on his way to the Algonquin missions of the
west. Another of the fathers, Rene Menard, while following
a party of Algonquins to the wilds of Wisconsin, lost
his way in the forest and perished from exposure or
starvation; and Anne de Noue, Brebeuf's earliest comrade
in Huronia, in an effort to bring assistance to a party
of French soldiers storm-bound on Lake St Peter, was
frozen to death. But misfortune did not cool the zeal of
the Jesuits. Into the depths of the forest they went
with their wandering flocks, and raised the Cross by lake
and stream as far west as the Mississippi and as far
north as Hudson Bay. Already they had found their way
into the Long Houses of the Iroquois.
CHAPTER VIII
THE IROQUOIS MISSION
While labouring among the Hurons the Jesuits had their
minds on the Iroquois. It was, they thought, within their
sphere of duty even to tame these human tigers. They well
knew that such an attempt would involve dangers vastly
greater than those encountered in Huronia; but the greater
the danger and suffering the greater the glory. And yet
for a time it seemed impossible to make a beginning of
missionary work among the Iroquois. As we have seen,
Champlain had made them the uncompromising enemies of
the French, and since then all Frenchmen stood in constant
peril of their lives from marauding bands in ambush near
every settlement and along the highways of travel. Thus
nearly twenty years passed after the arrival of the
Jesuits in Canada before an opening came for winning a
way to the hearts of these ruthless destroyers.
It came at last, fraught with tragedy. From 1636 to 1642
Father Isaac Jogues had been engaged in missionary work
in Huronia. He was a man of saintly character, delicate,
refined, scholarly; yet he had borne hardships among the
Petuns enough to break the spirit of any man. He had
toiled, too, among the Algonquin tribes, and at one time
had preached to a gathering of two thousand at Sault Ste
Marie. In 1642 he was chosen to bring much-needed supplies
to Huronia--a dangerous task, as in that year large bodies
of Iroquois were on the war-path. And in August he was
ascending Lake St Peter with thirty-six Hurons and three
Frenchmen in twelve canoes. His French companions were
a labourer and two donnes--Rene Goupil, who, having had
some hospital experience, was going to Ste Marie as a
surgeon, and Guillaume Couture, a man of devotion, energy,
and courage. The canoes bearing the party were threading
the clustered islands at the western end of Lake St Peter,
and had reached a spot where the thickly wooded shores
were almost hidden from view by tall reeds that swayed
in the summer wind, when suddenly out of the reeds darted
a number of Iroquois warriors in canoes. The surprise
was complete; three of the Hurons were killed on the
spot, and Jogues, Goupil, and Couture, and twenty-two
Hurons were taken prisoner. The raiders then plundered
the canoes and set out southward, up the Richelieu, with
their prisoners. At every stopping-place on the way Jogues
and the donnes were brutally tortured; finally, in the
Mohawk country they were dragged through the three chief
towns of the nation, held up to ridicule, beaten with
clubs, their fingers broken or lopped off, and their
bodies burned with red-hot coals. Couture had slain a
Mohawk warrior during the attack on Lake St Peter; but
his courageous bearing so impressed the savages that one
of them adopted him in place of a dead relative, and he
thus escaped death. Goupil, after several months among
the Mohawks, was brutally murdered. But Jogues's life
was providentially preserved, and during nearly a year,
a year of intense suffering, he went among his persecutors
glorying in the opportunity of preaching the Gospel under
these hard conditions.
At length a fishing and trading party of Mohawks took
him to the Dutch settlement at Fort Orange (Albany).
Already the Dutch authorities had tried in vain to gain
his release. They now took advantage of his presence
among them, generously braving the wrath of his tyrant
masters, and aided him to escape. He found shelter on a
Dutch vessel and finally succeeded in reaching France.
The story of his capture had arrived before him, and his
brothers in France welcomed him as a saint and martyr,
as one miraculously snatched from the jaws of death. But
he had no thought of remaining to enjoy the cloistered
quiet and peace of a college in France; back to the
hardships and dangers of North America his unconquerable
spirit demanded that he should go. According to the rules
of the Church he could not administer the sacraments with
his mutilated hands; but, having obtained a special
dispensation from the Pope, he once more fearlessly
crossed the ocean, in search of the crown of martyrdom.
The next missionary to reach the Iroquois country was
Father Joseph Bressani, an Italian priest who had been
attracted to the Canadian mission-field through reading
the Relations of the missionaries to Huronia. On April
27, 1644, with six Hurons and a French boy twelve years
old, he set out from Three Rivers. It was thought that
the Iroquois would not yet have reached the St Lawrence
at this early time of the year; but this was an error,
as the sequel proved. A party of twenty-seven warriors
in ambush surprised Bressani and his fellow-travellers,
slew several of the Hurons, and carried the rest with
Bressani and the French boy to the Mohawk towns. Bressani
they put to torture even more severe than that which
Jogues had endured; not sparing the young lad, who manfully
faced his tormentors till death freed him. Bressani
escaped death only because an old squaw adopted him; but
so mangled were his hands, so burned and broken was his
body, that she deemed her slave of little value and sent
him with her son to Fort Orange to be sold. The Dutch
acted generously; paid a liberal ransom; and gave Bressani
passage on a Dutch vessel, which landed him at La Rochelle
on November 15, 1644. But, like Jogues, his one thought
was to return to New France; and in the following year
we find him in Huronia, his mutilated hands, torn and
broken by the enemies of the Hurons, mute but efficacious
witnesses of his courage.
For a time the hopes of the Jesuits for a mission among
the Iroquois were damped by the experiences of Jogues
and Bressani. But in 1645 an incident took place that
opened the way for an attempt to carry the Gospel to this
savage people. A band of Algonquins captured several
Mohawks and brought them to Sillery. The captives fully
expected to be tortured and burned; but the Jesuits at
Quebec and the governor, Montmagny, were desirous of
winning the goodwill of the Iroquois. They persuaded the
Algonquins to free the prisoners, then treated them
kindly, and sent one of them home on the understanding
that he would try to make peace between his people and
the French and their allies. On the advice of Guillaume
Couture, who was still among the Mohawks and was much
esteemed and trusted by them, the Mohawks sent ambassadors
to Three Rivers to consult with the governor. The result
was a temporary peace; the Mohawks agreed to bury the
hatchet; and early in the following spring (1646) Montmagny
decided to send to them a special messenger who might
make the peace permanent and set up among them a mission.
Isaac Jogues, having returned to Canada after his brief
rest in France, was now stationed at Ville Marie. His
knowledge of the Mohawk language and character made him
the most fitting person to send as envoy to the Mohawks,
in the twofold capacity of diplomat and missionary. At
first, as his sufferings rose before his mind, he shrank
from the task, but only for a moment. He would go fearlessly
to these people, though they lived in his memory only by
the tortures they had inflicted on him. He set out; and
on arriving at the Mohawk towns he found the savages
friendly. Everywhere the Mohawks bade him welcome. They
listened attentively to the message from the governor,
and accepted the wampum belts and gifts which he bore.
Apparently the Mohawks were eager for the amity of the
French. To both Jogues and Couture it seemed that at last
the time was ripe for an Iroquois mission--the Mission
of the Martyrs. Before saying farewell to the Mohawks
Jogues left with his hosts, as a pledge that he would
return, a locked box; and by the end of June he was back
in Quebec to report the success of his journey. He then
prepared to redeem his pledge to the Mohawks. He left
Quebec towards the end of August, with a lay brother
named Lalande and some Hurons. He had forebodings of
death, for on the eve of the journey he wrote to a friend
in France: Ibo et non redibo, I shall go and shall not
return. Arrived at the Richelieu, he was told by some
friendly Indians that the attitude of the Mohawks had
changed. They were in arms, and were once more breathing
vengeance against the French and their allies. At this
Jogues's Huron companions deserted him, but he and Lalande
pressed on to their destination. The alarm was only too
well founded. The Mohawks at once crowded round them,
scowling and threatening. They stripped Jogues and his
comrade of their clothing, beat them, and repeated the
tortures which Jogues had suffered four years before.
The innocent cause of this outbreak of Mohawk fury was
the box which Jogues had left behind him. From this box,
as the ignorant savages thought, had come the drought
and a plague of grasshoppers, which had destroyed the
crops, and also the pest which was now raging in the
Mohawk towns. Some Huron captives among the Mohawks, no
doubt to win favour with their masters, had maligned
Jogues, proclaiming him a sorcerer who had previously
brought disaster to the Hurons, and had now come to
destroy the Mohawks. Undoubtedly, they declared, it was
from the box that had come all the ills which had befallen
them. Jogues protested his innocence; but as well might
he have tried to reason with a pack of wolves. They
demanded his death, and the inevitable blow soon fell.
On the 18th of October, as he sat wounded and bruised
and starving in a wigwam, a chief approached and bade
him come to a feast. He knew what the invitation meant;
it was a feast of death; but he calmly rose, his spirit
steeled for the worst. His guide entered a wigwam and
ordered him to follow; and, as he bent his head to enter,
a savage concealed by the door cleft his skull with a
tomahawk. On the following day Lalande shared a similar
fate. Their heads were chopped off and placed on the
palisades of the town, and their bodies thrown into the
Mohawk river. The Mission of the Martyrs was at an end
for the time being.
Ten years were to pass before missionary work was renewed
among the Iroquois--ten years of disaster to the Jesuits
and to the colony. In these years, as we have already
seen, the Hurons, Petuns, and Neutrals were destroyed or
scattered, and the French and Indian settlements along
the St Lawrence were continually in danger. There was no
safety outside the fortified posts, and agriculture and
trade were at a standstill. The year 1653 was particularly
disastrous; a horde of Mohawks were abroad, hammering at
the palisades of every settlement and spreading terror
even in the strongly guarded towns of Ville Marie, Three
Rivers, and Quebec. But light broke when all seemed
darkest. The western Iroquois--the Oneidas, Onondagas,
and Senecas--were at war with the Eries. While thus
engaged it seemed to them good policy to make peace with
the French, and they dispatched an embassy to Ville Marie
to open negotiations. The Mohawks, too, fearing that
their western kinsmen might gain some advantage over
them, sent messengers to New France. A grand council was
held at Quebec. But even while making peace the Iroquois
were intent on war. They desired nothing short of the
utter extermination of the Huron nation, and viewed with
jealousy the Huron settlement under the wing of the French
on the island of Orleans. Both Onondagas and Mohawks
plotted to destroy this community. The proposed peace
was merely a ruse to open a way to attack the Hurons in
order to kill them or to adopt them into the Five Nations,
which, on account of losses in war, needed recruits. The
Mohawks requested that the Hurons be removed to the Mohawk
villages; the Onondagas stipulated for a French colony
in their country, in the hope that the Hurons would be
attracted to such a settlement, and that then both French
and Hurons would be in their power. The governor of New
France, now Jean de Lauzon, a weak old man who thought
more of the profits of the fur trade and of land-grants
for himself and his family than of the welfare of the
colony, knew not how to act. A negative answer he dared
not give; and he equally feared the effect of a definite
promise. On the one hand was the certainty that war would
break out again in all its fury; on the other the equal
certainty that the fate which had befallen the Hurons in
Huronia would almost inevitably overtake the poor remnant
of Christian Hurons whom it was his duty to protect.
The Jesuits, however, were anxious to labour among the
Iroquois, and at their request the governor adopted a
temporizing policy. Before giving a final reply it was
deemed wise to send an ambassador to the Five Nations to
spy out the land and confirm the peace. This dangerous
task was assigned to the veteran missionary Father Simon
Le Moyne. In the spring of 1654 Le Moyne visited the
Onondagas. His diplomacy and eloquence succeeded with
them, but the Mohawks still continued their raids on the
settlements. Nevertheless in 1655 the Mohawks again sent
messengers to Quebec professing friendship. Le Moyne once
more took up the task of diplomat and journeyed to the
Mohawk country in the hope of making a binding treaty
with the fiercest and most inveterate foes of New France.
In this same year a large deputation of Onondagas arrived
at Quebec. They wished the French to take immediate action
and establish a mission and colony in their midst. Once
more their sincerity seemed doubtful; and Fathers Chaumonot
and Dablon were dispatched to Onondaga to ascertain the
temper and disposition of the Indians there. After spending
the winter of 1655-56 in the country, where they had
conferences in the great council-house of the Five Nations
with representatives of all the tribes, the two fathers
believed that the time was ripe for a mission. A colony,
too, in their judgment, would be advisable; it would
serve at once as a centre of civilization for the Iroquois
and a barrier against the Dutch and English of New York,
who hitherto had monopolized the trade of the Iroquois.
In the spring of 1656 Dablon returned to Quebec to advise
the governor to accept the terms of the Onondagas, while
Chaumonot remained at Onondaga to watch over his new
flock both as missionary and as political agent.
An expedition, the entire expense of which fell on the
Jesuits, was at once fitted out. The town major of Quebec,
Zachary du Puys, took military command of the party,
which consisted of ten soldiers, thirty or forty white
labourers, four Jesuit fathers--Menard, Le Mercier,
Dablon, and Fremin--two lay brothers, and a number of
Hurons, Senecas, and Onondagas. On the 17th of May the
colonists left Quebec in two large boats and twelve
canoes. They began their journey with forebodings as to
their fate, for the Mohawks were once more haunting the
St Lawrence. Scarcely had Du Puys and his men passed out
of sight of Quebec when they were attacked. The Mohawks,
however, pretended that they had supposed the party to
be Hurons, expressed regret for the attack, and allowed
the expedition to proceed. At Montreal the boats were
discarded in favour of canoes for the difficult navigation
of the upper St Lawrence. Save for Le Moyne, Chaumonot,
and Dablon, these colonists were the first whites to
ascend the St Lawrence between Montreal and Lake Ontario;
the first to toil up against the current of those swift
waters and to portage past the turbulent rapids; the
first to view the varied beauty of the lordly river, its
broad stretches of sparkling blue waters, its fairyland
mazes of islands, and its great forests rising everywhere
from the shore to the horizon. At length they reached
Lake Ontario and skirted its southern shore until they
entered the Oswego river. Ascending this river they were
met by Chaumonot and an Onondaga delegation. On Lake
Onondaga the canoes formed four abreast behind the canoe
of the leader, from which streamed a white silk flag with
the name Jesus woven on it in letters of gold. Then, with
measured stroke of paddle and song of praise, the flotilla
swept ashore to the site which Chaumonot had chosen for
the headquarters of the colony. Here, from the crest of
a low hill, commanding a beautiful view of one of the
most picturesque of inland lakes, they cleared the trees
and erected a commodious and substantial house, with
smaller buildings about it, all enclosed in the usual
palisade.
The Jesuits announced that they had come not as traders
but as 'messengers of God,' seeking no profit; and they
began work under most favourable conditions. Owing to
Chaumonot's exertions the Onondagas seemed genuinely
friendly. The fathers, too, found in every village many
adopted Hurons, from their old missions in Huronia, who
still professed Christianity. Indeed, one whole village
was composed largely of Hurons and Petuns. The mission
was not confined to the Onondagas; the Cayugas, Senecas,
and Oneidas were included; and the new field seemed rich
in promise.
But it soon became evident that the fickle Iroquois were
not to be trusted. The Mohawks continued their raids on
the Hurons at Quebec and carried off captives from under
the very walls of Fort St Louis. Learning of this, the
Onondagas sent an expedition to Quebec to demand that
some Hurons should be given to them also, and the weak
administrator of the colony, Charles de Lauzon-Charny,
being too cowardly to resist, complied with this demand.
On the way back to Onondaga the Indians slew some of the
captives. On arriving at home they tortured and burned
others, among them women and helpless children. The
colonists at Onondaga frequently witnessed such scenes,
but they were powerless to interfere. Presently they
learned that it was with evil intentions that they had
been invited to Onondaga. A statement made to one of the
missionaries by a dying convert served only to confirm
the rumour already current, namely, that the death of
the colonists had been decreed from the first, and that
the Jesuits were to meet the fate which had befallen
Jogues and their brothers in Huronia.
Prompt action was necessary. Orders were sent to the
missionaries in the outlying points to return to
headquarters, and towards the end of March the colonists,
fifty-three in all, were behind the palisades of their
houses on Lake Onondaga. But they had slight chance of
escape, for they had not canoes enough to carry more than
half the party. Moreover, they were closely watched:
Onondaga warriors had pitched their wigwams about the
palisades and several had stationed themselves immediately
in front of the gate. The greatest need of the French,
however, being adequate means of transportation, they
addressed themselves to this problem. In the principal
dwelling was a large garret, and here they built two
strong boats, each capable of bearing fifteen men. But
the difficulty still remained of getting these boats to
the lake without the knowledge of the savages.
Among the colonists was a young man, Pierre Esprit
Radisson, who three years before had been a prisoner
among the Iroquois and who was afterwards to figure
prominently in the history of the Canadian wilderness.
He was unscrupulous but resourceful; and on this occasion
his talents came into good use. He knew the Indians well
and he knew that they could not resist a feast, especially
a feast of a semi-religious character. He persuaded a
young man of the mission to feign illness and to invite
the Onondagas to aid in his cure by attending a festin
a manger tout--a feast where everything must be eaten.
To sanction this no doubt went much against the grain of
the Jesuits, who had been upbraiding the Indians for
their superstition and gluttony; but in this case the
end seemed assuredly to justify the means. The Onondagas
attended the banquet. In huge iron pots slung over fires
outside the gate of the palisades the French boiled an
immense quantity of venison, game, fish, and corn. They
had brought with them to the colony a number of hogs,
and these they slew to add to the feast. The Indians
squatted about the kettles, from which the soldiers,
employees, and fathers ladled the food; as fast as a
warrior's dish was emptied it was refilled; and when a
reveller signified that he had eaten enough, the pretended
invalid cried out: 'Would you have me die?' and once more
the gorged Onondaga fell to. To add to the entertainment,
some of the Frenchmen, who had brought violins to the
wilderness, fiddled with might and main. At length the
gluttony began to take the desired effect: one after
another the Onondagas dropped to sleep to the soothing
music of the violins. Then, when brute slumber had sealed
the eyes of all, the colonists roused themselves for
flight. Some one, probably Radisson, suggested that they
were fifty-three wide-awake Frenchmen to one hundred
sleeping savages, and that it would be easy to brain
their enemies as they slept; but the Jesuits would not
sanction such a course. The Frenchmen threw open the
gate, and carried the boats from the garret to the
lakeside. They put up effigies of soldiers at conspicuous
points within the enclosure, barred and locked the gate,
and launched the vessels. They had swept across the lake
and were well down the Oswego before day had dawned and
the Indians had awakened from their heavy slumber.
When the Onondagas recovered consciousness they were
surprised at the deathlike stillness. They peered through
the palisades; and, seeing the effigies of the soldiers,
believed that their intended victims were within. But no
sounds except the clucking and crowing of some fowls fell
on their ears. They became suspicious and hammered at
the gate; and, when there was no answer, broke it down
in fury, only to find the place deserted. An examination
of the shore showed that heavy boats had been launched
a few hours before. Believing that the powerful God of
the white man was in league with the colonists, and had
supplied them with these boats, the savages made no
attempt to follow the fugitives, who, after sustaining
the loss of three men in the rapids of the St Lawrence,
reached Quebec on the 23rd of April.
For another decade no further effort was to be made to
civilize and christianize the Iroquois. During this
period, however, a radical and much-needed change took
place in the government of New France. Hitherto chartered
companies had been in control, and their aim had been
trade, not colonization. Until 1663 Canada remained a
trading station and a mission rather than a true colony.
But in this year the king, Louis XIV, cancelled the
charter of the Hundred Associates, proclaimed the colony
under royal government, and sent out strong men from the
motherland to govern the country.
It was not long before the Iroquois began to feel the
resistance of new forces in the settlements along the St
Lawrence; and in 1665, when a strong regiment of veterans,
the Carignan-Salieres, under the Marquis de Tracy, landed
in New France, the Iroquois who had been smiting the
settlements slunk away to their fortified towns. In
January 1666 Courcelle, the governor, invaded the Mohawk
country; and though his expedition was a failure, it
served as a warning to the Five Nations. In May Senecas
and Mohawks came to Quebec to treat for peace. They
assumed their ancient haughty air; but Tracy was in no
mood for this. He sentenced to death a Mohawk who had
the boldness to boast of having tomahawked a Frenchman,
and dismissed the ambassadors with angry words. The
Indians, discomfited, returned to their strongholds. At
their heels followed Tracy and Courcelle with thirteen
hundred men. At the approach of this army the Mohawks
deserted their villages and escaped death. But the French
set fire to the villages and desolated the Mohawk country.
In the spring of 1667 the Mohawks came to Quebec humbly
begging that missionaries, blacksmiths, and surgeons
should be sent to live among them. The other tribes of
the Five Nations followed their example. Once more the
Jesuits went to the Iroquois and established missions
among the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, and Senecas.
For twenty years the devoted fathers laboured in this
hard field. During the administrations of the governors
Courcelle and Frontenac the Iroquois remained peaceable,
but they became restless after the removal of Frontenac
in 1682. The succeeding governors, La Barre and Denonville,
proved weak rulers, and the Mohawks began once more to
send war-parties against the settlements. At length, in
1687, open war broke out. The missionaries, however, had
been withdrawn from the Iroquois country, just in time
to escape the fury of the savages.
Not in vain did the Jesuits labour among the Five Nations.
They made numerous converts, and persuaded many of them
to move to Canada. Communities of Christian Iroquois and
Hurons who had been adopted by the Five Nations settled
near the Bay of Quinte, at La Montagne on the island of
Montreal, and at Caughnawaga by the rapids of Lachine.
The large settlements of 'praying Indians' still living
at Caughnawaga and at St Regis, near Cornwall, are
descendants of these Indians.
CHAPTER IX
THE MISSION OF VILLE MARIE
While the Jesuits carried the Cross to the Hurons, the
Algonquins, and the Iroquois, other crusaders, equally
noble and courageous, planted it on the spot where now
stands the foremost city of the Dominion. The settlement
of the large and fertile island at the confluence of the
Ottawa and the St Lawrence had a motive all its own.
Quebec was founded primarily for trade; and so with
practically all other settlements which have grown into
great centres of population. But Montreal was originally
intended solely for a mission station. Its founders had
no thought of trade; indeed, they were prohibited from
dealing in furs, then the chief marketable product of
the colony.
We have seen that the men and women who founded the
Sillery mission, and the Hotel-Dieu and the Ursuline
convent at Quebec, received their inspiration from the
Relations of the Jesuits. So likewise did the founders
of the settlement on the island of Montreal. Jerome le
Royer de la Dauversiere of La Fleche in Anjou, a receiver
of taxes, and Abbe Jean Jacques Olier of Paris, were the
prime movers in the undertaking. Each independently of
the other had conceived the idea of establishing on the
island of Hochelaga a mission for the conversion of the
heathen in Canada. Meeting by accident at the Chateau of
Meudon near Paris, they planned their enterprise, and
decided to found a colony of devotees, composed of an
order of priests, an order of sisters to care for the
sick and infirm, and an order of nuns for the teaching
of young Indians and the children of settlers at the
mission. These two enthusiasts went to work in a quite
practical way to realize their ambition. They succeeded
in interesting the Baron de Fancamp and three other
wealthy gentlemen, and soon had a sum--about $75,000--
ample for the establishment of the colony. While they
were busy at this work, Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, a
courageous and devout woman, was moved by one of Father
Le Jeune's Relations to devote her life to the care of
the wounded and suffering in the wilds of New France;
and the projected colony on the island of Montreal offered
an opportunity for the fulfilment of her desire. Madame
de Bullion, a rich and very charitable woman, had agreed
to aid Olier and Dauversiere by endowing a hospital in
the colony, and Jeanne Mance offered her services as
nurse and housekeeper. A leader was needed, a man of
soldierly training and pious life; and in Paul de Chomedy,
Sieur de Maisonneuve, a veteran of the wars in Holland,
the ideal man was found. No attempt was made at this time
to secure teachers; there would be at first neither white
nor red children to teach, for there were no Indians
living on the island of Montreal, and the colonists would
not at first bring their families to this wilderness
post. The funds collected and the leader found, the next
step was to get permission from the Hundred Associates
to settle on the island; and here was a difficulty. The
Associates had been liberal in land-grants to their own
members; and Jean de Lauzon, the president, had received
for himself large concessions, among them the entire
island of Montreal. However, he was persuaded, probably
for a consideration, to part with a grant that brought
him no return, and which he could visit only at the risk
of his scalp. Olier and Dauversiere and their associates
secured the land, and Maisonneuve was appointed governor
of the new colony.
The Jesuits had played an important part in this
undertaking. It was their Relations that had given the
impulse, and the promoters of the colony had the able
assistance of Father Charles Lalemant, whom we have
already met as the first superior of the Jesuit order in
New France. It was he who persuaded Jean de Lauzon to
consent to surrender his grant, and it was to him that
Maisonneuve first came to seek advice as to how he could
best consecrate his sword to the Church in Canada. And
it was largely on Lalemant's recommendation that
Maisonneuve received his appointment as leader of the
colonists and governor of the colony. To Lalemant, too,
came Jeanne Mance when she first heard the clear call to
the new mission.
The promoters of the 'Society of Our Lady of Montreal'
now set to work to collect recruits for the mission,
provide supplies, and prepare vessels to transport the
colonists to New France. All was ready about the middle
of June 1641, and, while Dauversiere, Olier, and Fancamp
remained in France to look after the interests of the
colony there, Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance, with three
other women and about fifty men, set sail and arrived in
Quebec before the end of August. Here they did not find
the enthusiastic welcome which they expected. Maisonneuve
had come with a special commission as governor of Montreal,
and was coldly received by Montmagny, who was jealous of
him, and who moreover believed, no doubt rightly, that
a divided authority would not be in the best interests
of struggling New France. The Jesuits at Quebec tried to
persuade Maisonneuve to abandon his enterprise. There
were, they said, no inhabitants on the island of Montreal,
it was in the direct route of the Mohawks, who annually
haunted the Ottawa and St Lawrence, and swift destruction
would surely be the fate of the colony. But Maisonneuve
could not be moved from his fixed purpose; he would go
to Montreal even 'if every tree on that island were to
be changed to an Iroquois.'
Accompanied by Father Vimont, the superior of the Jesuits,
and Governor Montmagny, Maisonneuve went up the river,
and took formal possession of the island on the 15th of
October in the name of the 'Society of Our Lady of
Montreal.' The colonists spent the winter at St Michel,
near Sillery, for there was no room for the Montrealers
in the buildings at Quebec. On May 8, 1642, Maisonneuve
led his company--in a pinnace, a barge, and two row-boats
--to the site of the new colony. Here, too, were Father
Vimont and Madame de la Peltrie, who for the nonce had
deserted her Ursulines to accompany Jeanne Mance to a
field that offered greater excitement and danger. On the
18th of May, at a spot where tall warehouses now abound
and where the varied roar of the traffic of a great city
never ceases, they set up an altar, and Father Vimont
consecrated the island mission. In the course of his
sermon he uttered the prophetic words: 'You are a grain
of mustard seed that shall rise and grow till its branches
overshadow the earth. You are few, but your work is the
work of God. His smile is upon you and your children
shall fill the land.' The city of Montreal, the throbbing
heart of the business life of Canada, with its half-million
and more inhabitants and its magnificent charitable,
religious, and educational institutions, is the fulfilment
of his words.
But the beginnings were feeble and disheartening. A few
houses, flanked by a windmill and fort, and connected by
a footpath where now runs St Paul Street, represented
the beginnings of Montreal--or Ville Marie, as the
settlement had been christened by the Society in Paris.
The Iroquois soon learned of Ville Marie. Within a few
months a scalping party of Mohawks paid it a visit, and
killed several workmen and wounded others. The wounded
became the care of Jeanne Mance, who never henceforth
lacked patients. Between the labourers injured by accident
in the forest and the wounded from Iroquois fights, the
gentle-handed nurse and her assistants were kept always
busy. Many of her patients were friendly Indians who had
suffered in the raids; sometimes even a sorely smitten
Iroquois would be borne to the rude hospital.
But the mission did not grow. The Algonquins and Hurons
viewed the island of Montreal as too exposed for a
permanent encampment, for the Iroquois ever hovered about
it. At no season of the year was Ville Marie immune from
attack; night and day the inhabitants had to be on the
alert; and often the cry 'The Iroquois!' sent the entire
population to the shelter of the fort. For fifteen years
there was little change in the population, and year after
year the same dangers and hardships faced the people.
But Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance hoped on, confident that
Ville Marie was destined to have a glorious future. In
1653 Marguerite Bourgeoys, a woman of great force of
character, arrived in the colony to open a school. Finding
no white pupils, she gathered about her a few red children,
and made her school-room in a stable assigned to her by
Maisonneuve. Presently more pupils came, and among them
some white children. In 1658 she returned to France to
secure assistants, and when, in the following year, she
resumed her labours at Ville Marie, it was as the head
of the 'Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame,' an
organization that has so greatly developed as to make
its influence felt, not only in Canada, but in the United
States as well.
Meanwhile, in 1642, Abbe Olier had founded the Seminary
of St Sulpice in Paris; and during the intervening years
had been assiduously training missionaries to take over
the spiritual control of Ville Marie. Since its founding
the Jesuits Poncet, Du Peron, Le Moyne, and Pijart, who
had been trained in the difficult school of the Huron
mission, and Le Jeune and Druillettes, had ministered to
the inhabitants. But in August 1657 the Sulpician priests
Gabriel de Queylus, Gabriel Souart, and Dominic Galinier
arrived at Ville Marie, and the Jesuits immediately
surrendered the parish to them. Henceforth Ville Marie
was to be the peculiar care of the Sulpicians, giving
them for many years enough of both difficulty and danger.
The Iroquois peril did not abate. Never a month passed
but the alarm-bell rang out to warn the settlers that
the savages were at hand. Even the priests went about
their duties with sword at side; and two of them, Vignal
and Le Maitre, fell beneath the tomahawk. Only the courage,
watchfulness, and foresight of Maisonneuve and of such
men as Sergeant-Major Lambert Closse, who gave his life
for the colony, saved Ville Marie from utter destruction.
And as years went on the Iroquois grew bolder. Having
scattered the Hurons and the Algonquins, they now threatened
every trading-post and mission station in Canada.
In 1660 the climax came. Early in the spring of that year
the harassed mission at Ville Marie learned that several
hundred Iroquois, who had wintered on the upper Ottawa,
were coming down, and that another horde, approaching by
way of the Richelieu, would join forces with them. It
was the purpose of the savages to destroy Ville Marie
and Three Rivers and Quebec, and to wipe out the French
on the St Lawrence for good and all.
There was at this time in Ville Marie a young soldier
named Adam Daulac, or Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux,
twenty-five years old. He believed that the best defence
was attack, and boldly proposed to ascend the Ottawa,
with a band of sixteen volunteers, and waylay the Iroquois
coming from the north-west. And so the gallant young men
bade farewell to their friends and set out. In two large
canoes they paddled up the Ottawa, past the swift waters
at Ste Anne, through the smooth stretch of the Lake of
the Two Mountains, up the fierce current at Carillon,
and then on to the rapids of the Long Sault. Here they
paused; this was a fitting place for battle. The Iroquois
would never expect to find a handful of Frenchmen here,
and they could be surprised as they raced down the rapids.
On a level stretch near the foot of the Sault there was
a rude fort ready at hand, a palisaded structure which
had served during the previous autumn as a shelter for
an Algonquin war-party. The French drew the canoes up on
the shore, and stored the provisions and ammunition in
the fort. Then all save the watchful sentinels lay down
for a much-needed rest. On the following day Daulac's
band was reinforced by four Algonquins and forty Hurons,
the Hurons led by the chief Annahotaha, an inveterate
foe of the Iroquois, who had on more than one occasion
taken terrible revenge on the enemies of his people.
Daulac, now in command of sixty men, confidently awaited
the Iroquois. In the meantime axe and saw and shovel were
plied to erect a second row of palisades and to fill the
space between with earth to the height of a man's breast.
Scouts went out and discovered the encampment of the
Iroquois, and at last brought the news that two canoes
were running the rapids. Daulac hurriedly placed several
of his best marksmen in ambush at a spot where the Iroquois
were likely to land. The musketeers, however, in their
excitement, did not kill all the canoemen. Two of the
Iroquois escaped and sped back through the forest to warn
their countrymen, and soon a hundred canoes came leaping
down the turbulent waters. For a moment Daulac and his
men watched the advancing savages. Then they dashed into
the fort to prepare for the fight. Against their defences
rushed the Iroquois. Again and again the defenders drove
them back with great loss. And for a week the heroic
band, living on short rations of crushed corn and water
from a well they had dug within the fort, kept the
assailants at bay. During this time the Iroquois received
large reinforcements, but to no avail. At length they
made shields of split logs heavy enough to resist bullets;
and presently the bewildered defenders of the fort saw
a wooden wall advancing against them. They fired rapid,
despairing volleys; a few of the shield-bearers fell,
but their places were quickly filled from those in the
rear. At the foot of the palisades the Iroquois cast
aside the shields, and, hatchet in hand, hacked an opening.
The end had come. The Iroquois breached the wall. But
Daulac and his men stood to the last, brandishing knife
and axe, while with fierce war-cries the Iroquois bounded
into the fort; and when the sounds of battle ceased there
remained only three Frenchmen, living but mortally wounded,
on whom the savages could glut their vengeance.
[Footnote: The story of the fight was brought to Montreal
by some Hurons who deserted Daulac's party and escaped.]
The Iroquois had won, but they had no stomach for raiding
the settlements. If seventeen Frenchmen, assisted by a
few Indians, could keep their hosts at bay for a week,
it would be useless to attack strongly fortified posts.
And so Daulac and his men at this 'Canadian Thermopylae'
had really turned aside the tide of war from New France.
The settlements were saved, and for a time traders and
missionaries journeyed along the St Lawrence and the
Ottawa unmolested.
In 1663, when Louis XIV took New France under his wing,
the surviving members of the original Society of Our Lady
of Montreal made over the island to the Sulpicians, who
assumed the liabilities of the Society, and took up the
task of looking after the education of the inhabitants
and the care of the sick. Four years later the Seminary
of St Sulpice was given judicial rights in the mission
of Ville Marie. In 1668 five more Sulpicians came to the
colony, among them Rene de Galinee and Dollier de Casson,
who were to win distinction as missionaries and explorers.
Many Sulpician missions pushed out from Ville Marie,
along the upper St Lawrence and the north shore of Lake
Ontario.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the complexion
of Ville Marie, then generally called Montreal, had
somewhat changed. The Jesuits, the Recollets, who had
returned to New France in 1670, and the Sulpicians all
laboured there. Moreover, from a mere mission station it
had become an important trading centre; and as such it
was to continue. In position it was well adapted for the
fur trade, and after the British took possession in 1760
it became the emporium of a great traffic in the fur-fields
of the north and west. But its glorious days are those
of its infancy, the days of Maisonneuve and Daulac, of
Jeanne Mance and Marguerite Bourgeoys, of Rene de Galinee
and Dollier de Casson.
CHAPTER X
THE MISSIONARY EXPLORERS
The establishment of royal government in 1663 gave new
life to the missions of Canada, and the missionaries
pressed forward with unflagging zeal. They penetrated to
the remotest known tribes and blazed fresh trails for
traders and settlers in the western and northern
wildernesses. We have not space here to tell the story
of these pathfinders, but a few examples may be given.
In 1665 Father Claude Allouez went to Lake Superior to
begin a sojourn of twenty-five years among the Indians
in the region which now forms part of the states of
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In 1666 Father Gabriel
Druillettes, 'the patriarch' of the Abnaki mission, who
had already borne the Cross to the Crees of the north,
began his labours among the Algonquins of Georgian Bay
and Lake Superior. In 1669 and 1670 the Sulpicians Dollier
de Casson and Rene de Galinee explored and charted Lake
Erie and the waters between it and Lake Huron. In 1670
Father Claude Dablon, superior of the western missions,
joined Father Allouez at the mission of St Francois-Xavier
on Green Bay; and, among the Winnebagoes of this region
and the Mascoutens and Miamis between the rivers Fox and
Wisconsin, he learned of 'the famous river called the
Mississippi.' In 1672 Father Charles Albanel toiled from
the Saguenay to Hudson Bay, partly as missionary, but
chiefly to lay claim to the country for New France, and
to watch the operations of the newly founded Hudson's
Bay Company.
It was the 25th of May 1670 when Galinee and Casson
arrived at Sault Ste Marie, after an arduous canoe journey
from their wintering camp on Lake Erie, near the site of
the present town of Port Dover. At the Sault they found
a thriving mission. It had a capacious chapel and a
comfortable dwelling-house; it was surrounded by a palisade
of cedars, and about it were cultivated bits of ground
planted with wheat, Indian corn, peas, and pumpkins. Near
by were clusters of bark wigwams, the homes of Ojibwas
and other Indians, who came here each year to catch the
whitefish that teemed in the waters of the rapids fronting
the settlement.
One of the priests in charge of this mission, when the
Sulpicians halted at it on their circuitous journey back
to Montreal, was the young Jesuit Jacques Marquette, a
man of delicate mould, indomitable will, keen intellect,
and ardent faith. He was not to remain long at Sault Ste
Marie; for he had heard 'the call of the west'; and in
the summer of this year he set out for the mission of St
Esprit, at La Pointe, on the south-west shore of Lake
Superior. Here there was a motley collection of Indians,
among them many Hurons and Petuns, who had fled to this
remote post to be out of reach of the Iroquois. These
exiles from Huronia still remembered the Jesuits and
retained 'a little Christianity.' St Esprit was not only
a mission; it was a centre of the fur trade, and to it
came Illinois Indians from the Mississippi and Sioux from
the western prairies. From these Marquette learned of
the great river, and from their description of it he was
convinced that it flowed into the Gulf of California. He
had a burning desire to visit the savage hordes that
dwelt along this river, and a longing to explore it to
its mouth. But while he meditated the journey war broke
out between the Sioux--the Iroquois of the west--and the
Hurons and Ottawas of St Esprit. The Sioux won, and the
vanquished Hurons and Ottawas took to flight, the Hurons
going to Michilimackinac and the Ottawas to Great Manitoulin
Island. Marquette followed the Hurons, and set up a
mission at Point St Ignace, on the north shore of the
strait of Michilimackinac.
Meanwhile 'the great intendant,' Talon, was pushing out
in all directions for new territory to add to the French
dominions in America. And just before the end of his
brilliant administration he commissioned the explorer
Louis Jolliet to find and explore the Mississippi, of
which so much had been heard from missionaries, traders,
and Indians. Like Marquette, Talon believed that this
river flowed into the Western Sea--the Pacific ocean--and
that it would open a route to China and the Indies; and
it was directed that Marquette should accompany Jolliet
on the journey.
Jolliet left Montreal in the autumn of 1672 and reached
Michilimackinac, where he was to spend the winter with
Marquette, just as the ice was forming on lake and river.
When he drew up his canoe in front of the palisaded
mission at Point St Ignace, Marquette felt that his
ambitions were about to be realized. He was disappointed
in his flock of Algonquins and the feeble remnant of
Hurons, and he hoped to gather about him on the Great
Plains--of whose vegetation and game he had heard
marvellous accounts--a multitude of Indians who would
welcome his Gospel message. Dablon and Allouez had already
touched the outskirts of this country, and their success
was an earnest of great things in store.
The winter passed slowly for Marquette; but at length,
on May 17, 1673, the explorer and the missionary with
five assistants--a feeble band to risk a plunge into the
unknown--launched their canoes and headed westward.
The explorers first shaped their course along the northern
shore of Lake Michigan, then steered south-west until
they reached the mouth of the Menominee river, flowing
into Green Bay. Here they rested for a brief period among
friendly Menominees, who tried to persuade them to give
up their venture. According to the Menominees, the banks
of the Mississippi were infested by savage tribes who
tortured and slew all intruders into their domains. As
this did not seem sufficient to discourage Jolliet and
Marquette, they added that demons haunted the land
bordering the river and monsters the river itself, and
that, even if they escaped savages, demons, and monsters,
they would perish from the excessive heat of the country
Both Jolliet and Marquette had heard such stories from
Indians before. Pressing on to the south end of Green
Bay, they entered the Fox river and ascended it until
they reached Lake Winnebago. After crossing this lake
they continued westward up the extension of the Fox. They
were now in the land of the Mascoutens and Miamis. The
country teemed with life; birds filled the air with whirr
of wing and with song; as the voyagers paddled ever
westward deer and elk came from their forest lairs to
gaze with wondering eyes at these unfamiliar intruders
on their haunts. The Mascoutens were friendly, and supplied
the travellers with bison flesh and venison, and with
guides to direct them over the watershed to the Wisconsin.
They carried the canoes over a forest trail, and launched
them on this river; and then with exulting hearts swept
forward on the last stage of their journey to the
Mississippi. At length, on the 17th of June, they reached
the great river and landed at the place where now stands
Prairie du Chien. They had the feeling of conquerors,
but of conquerors whose greatest battle has yet to be
fought. Out of the far north came this mysterious river;
but whither did it go? Did these waters sweep onward till
they lost themselves in the Pacific, or did they pour
into some southern bay of the Atlantic? Such were the
questions that agitated the minds of these first of
Frenchmen to gaze on the 'Father of Waters,' [Footnote:
It is thought possible that in 1658-59 Pierre Esprit
Radisson and Medard Chouart des Groseilliers crossed the
Mississippi while hunting furs in the country west of
Lake Superior; but there is an element of doubt as to
this. Save for the Spaniards, Jolliet and Marquette were
the first white men on the Mississippi, so far as known.]
questions that were not to be laid at rest until La Salle,
nine years later, toiled down the river and from its
mouth viewed the wide expanse of the Gulf of Mexico.
After a brief rest the party launched their canoes and
for over a week drifted downward with the current,
anchoring their canoes in mid-stream at night for fear
of an attack by hostile Indians. But during this time
they saw no human beings; the only living things that
caught their eyes as they sped past forest and plain were
the deer browsing along the banks, the birds circling
overhead, and immense herds of buffalo moving like huge
armies over the grassy slopes. At length they reached a
village of friendly Illinois, and here they were feasted
on fish, dog, and buffalo meat, and spent the balmy
midsummer night in the open, sleeping on buffalo robes.
While at this village, Marquette, who had a rare gift of
tongues, addressed the Illinois in Algonquin, and thus
preached the Gospel for the first time to the Indians of
the Mississippi. Here their hosts warned them of the
dangers they were going to--death from savages or demons
awaited them in the south--and presented them with a
calumet as a passport to protect them against the tribes
below.
After leaving this village the explorers came upon a
'hideous monster,' a huge fish, the appearance of which
almost made them credit the stories of the Indians.
According to Marquette: 'His head was like that of a
tiger, his nose was sharp, and somewhat resembled a
wildcat; his beard was long, his ears stood upright, the
colour of his head was grey, and his neck black.' Onward
swept the explorers past the mouth of the Illinois. A
few miles above the present city of Alton they paused to
gaze on some high rocks on which fabulous creatures were
pictured. 'They are,' wrote Marquette in his narrative,
'as large as a calf, with head and horns like a goat;
their eyes red; beard like a tiger's, and a face like a
man's. Their tails are so long that they pass over their
heads and between their forelegs, under the belly, and
ending like a fish's tail. They are painted red, green,
and black.' The Indians of the Mississippi were certainly
not without imagination and possessed some artistic skill.
No doubt it was these pictured rocks that had originated
among the Menominees and Illinois the stories of the
demons with which they had regaled Marquette and Jolliet.
While the voyagers were still discussing the pictured
rocks, their canoes began to toss and heave on rushing
waters, and they found themselves in the midst of plunging
logs and tumbling trees. They were at the mouth of the
Missouri. As they threaded their way past this dangerous
point, Marquette resolved that he would one day ascend
this river that he might 'preach the Gospel to all the
peoples of this New World who have so long grovelled in
the darkness of infidelity.'
Onward still into the unknown! At the mouth of the
Ohio--then called by the Indians the Ouabouskigon [Footnote:
This word, as well as the word Ohio, or O-he-ho, means
'The Beautiful.']--they drew up their canoes to rest
and then advanced a little farther south to an Illinois
village. The inhabitants of this village wore European
clothing and had beads, knives, and hatchets, obtained
no doubt from the Spaniards. The Indians told the explorers
that the mouth of the river was distant only a ten-days'
journey, whereas it was in reality a thousand miles away.
But with increased hope the Frenchmen once more launched
their canoes and went on until they came to the mouth of
the Arkansas. Here they met with the first hostile
demonstration. Indians, with bows bent and war-clubs
raised, threatened destruction to these unknown whites;
but Marquette, calm, courageous, and confident, stood up
in the bow of his canoe and held aloft the calumet the
Illinois had given him. The passport was respected and
the elders of the village, which was close at hand,
invited the voyagers ashore and feasted them with sagamite
and fish. Leaving this village, they pressed southward
twenty odd miles to another Arkansas village. The attitude
of the Indians here alarmed them, and this, with the
apprehension that the mouth of the Mississippi was much
farther away than they had been led to believe, decided
them to return.
Jolliet and Marquette were now satisfied with what they
had achieved. The southward trend of the river proved
conclusively that it could not fall into the Gulf of
California, and, as they were in latitude 33 degrees 41
minutes, the river could not empty into the Atlantic in
Virginia. It must therefore join the sea either on the
coast of Florida or in the Gulf of Mexico. Moreover, to
proceed farther would but add weary miles to the difficult
return journey. But the chief reason for turning back is
best given in Marquette's own words:
We considered that the advantage of our travels would
be altogether lost to our nation if we fell into the
hands of the Spaniards, from whom we could expect no
other treatment but death or slavery; besides, we saw
that we were not prepared to resist the Indians, the
allies of the Europeans, who continually infested the
lower part of the river.
On the 17th of July, just one month after they first
sighted the waters of the Mississippi, the explorers
turned their canoes northward. A little south of the
Illinois river some friendly Indians told them of a
shorter way to Lake Michigan than by the Wisconsin and
Fox river route. These Indians were anxious to have
Marquette remain with them and establish a mission. He
was unable to comply with their request, for in the
miasmal region of the lower Mississippi he had contracted
a severe malarial fever; but he promised to return to
them as soon as his health permitted. The explorers were
now joined by a chief and a band of Indians as guides to
Lake Michigan, and with these they ascended the Illinois
and then the river Des Plaines. From the river Des Plaines
they portaged their canoes to the Chicago river and
descended it to Lake Michigan. They arrived at Green Bay
at the end of September, having travelled in all, since
leaving this spot, over twenty-five hundred miles.
Marquette was too ill to go farther; and he remained at
Green Bay to recruit his strength, while Jolliet hastened
to Quebec to report to Frontenac the results of his
expedition. Unfortunately, the canoe in which Jolliet
travelled was upset in the Lachine rapids and the papers
containing his charts and the account of his journey were
lost; however, he was able to piece out from memory the
story of his Ulysses-like wanderings.
By the autumn of 1674 Marquette thought that he had
completely recovered his health, and, having received
permission from his superior, he set out for the Illinois
country on the 25th of October to establish the mission
of the Immaculate Conception. He was accompanied on this
journey by two assistants--two true heroes--known to
history only as Pierre and Jacques, and a band of
Potawatomis and Illinois. In ten canoes the party paddled
southward from Green Bay, for nearly a month buffeting
the tempestuous autumn seas of Lake Michigan. They ascended
the Chicago river for six miles and encamped. Marquette
could go no farther; he was once more prostrated with
illness, and a severe hemorrhage threatened to carry him
off. But his valiant spirit conquered, and during the
winter he was able to minister to some Illinois, who were
encamped a short distance away and who paid him occasional
visits. By the spring he had so far recovered that he
decided to undertake the journey to the Mississippi, his
heart set on founding a mission among the tribes there.
On the 13th of March he and his two helpers broke camp
and portaged their canoe to the Des Plaines. Near the
junction of this river with the Illinois was the Indian
town of Old Kaskaskia. The Indians of this town gave him
a welcome worthy of a conqueror, such as indeed he really
was. He went among them teaching and preaching; but brain
and body were burning with fever; he felt that he had
not long to live, and if he would die among his own people
he must hasten home. He summoned the Indians to a grand
council. And, in one of God's first temples--a meadow
decked with spring flowers and roofed by the blue vault
of heaven--he preached to a congregation of over three
thousand--chiefs, warriors, women, and children. His
sermon finished, he blessed his hearers, and, leaving
his words to sink into their hearts, bade them farewell.
Pierre and Jacques now made ready the canoe, and the
journey to Michilimackinac began. When they reached Lake
Michigan Marquette was only half conscious. While he lay
on the robes piled in the bottom of the canoe, his faithful
henchmen paddled furiously to reach their destination.
But their efforts were in vain; Marquette saw that his
end was approaching and bade them turn the canoe to land.
And on May 19, 1675, on the bleak shore of Lake Michigan,
this hero of the Cross, the greatest of the missionary
explorers, entered into his rest. He was only thirty-eight;
he had not finished his work; he had not realized his
ambitions; but his memory lives, a force for good, as
that of one who dared and endured and passionately followed
the path of the setting sun.
CHAPTER XI
THE LAST PHASE
The priests laboured on in their mission-fields from Cape
Breton to the Mississippi and north towards Hudson Bay,
wherever there were Indians. In the Iroquois country
alone did they fail to establish themselves securely.
The nearest neighbours of the Iroquois, the English of
New York and New England, stirred by French and Indian
raids on their borders and regarding all Frenchmen as
enemies, did what they could to destroy the influence of
the French priests and keep them out of the country. Lord
Bellomont, governor of New York, even threatened to hang
any priest found in his colony. Yet the Jesuits made
another attempt in 1702; but it did not succeed, and a
few years later the Iroquois mission was abandoned.
Among the Algonquin tribes the old dread of the priests
had vanished and they were everywhere hailed as friends.
They were no longer in danger of assassination, and,
apart from the hardships inevitable to wilderness life,
their lot was not an unpleasant one. Perhaps their worst
enemy was the brandy traffic carried on by the coureurs
de bois, which brought in its wake drunkenness, disease,
licentiousness, and crime. The missionaries fought this
evil, with the wholehearted support of Laval, the great
bishop of Quebec, and of his successors. But for their
opposition it is probable that the Indians in contact
with the French would have been utterly swept away; as
it was, brandy thinned their numbers quite as much as
war. Some of the coureurs de bois, who displayed their
wares and traded for furs at the mission stations, were
almost as obnoxious to the priests as the brandy which
they offered. Among them were many worthy men, like the
great Du Lhut; but the majority were 'white savages,'
whose conduct went far to nullify the teaching and example
of the missionaries.
Thus the missions went on until the British came. For
more than fifty years the conflict between the two nations
for mastery continued intermittently; and finally in 1760
the French struck their flag and departed. The victors
viewed the religious orders with distrust; they regarded
the priests as political agents; and they passed an edict
that such Jesuits and Recollets as were in Canada might
remain and 'die where they are, but they must not add to
their number.' Of the Jesuits only twelve remained, and
the last of these, Father Casot, died in 1800.
In looking back over the work of the missionaries in New
France, it would seem that their visible harvest was a
scant one, since the Indian races for whom they toiled
have disappeared from history and are apparently doomed
to extinction. This, of course, is due to natural causes
over which the priests had no control and which they
would thankfully have had otherwise. It cannot be questioned
that their work operated for the benefit of the natives.
But the priceless contribution of the missionaries lies
in the example which they gave to the world. During the
greater part of two centuries in the wilds they bore
themselves manfully and fought a good fight. In all that
time not one of all the men in that long procession of
missionaries is known to have disgraced himself or to
have played the coward in the face of danger or disaster.
The influence of the priests, however, was not confined
to the Indians. It permeated the whole colony and lives
to the present day. In no country in the world is there
a more peaceable and kindly or moral and devout people
than in the province of Quebec, largely because they have
kept in their primitive simplicity the lessons taught by
the clergy of New France. When the Revolution swept away
religion and morals in Old France, it left untouched the
French of Canada; and the descendants of the peasants of
Anjou, Picardy, and Poitou kept alive in the New World
the beliefs and customs, the simple faith and reverence
for authority, of their ancestors in the Old World.
Throughout the length and breadth of New France the
priests and nuns were the teachers of the people. And
the seminaries, schools, and colleges which they founded
continue to shape the morals and character of the French
Canadians of to-day.
It may be doubted whether the British government acted
wisely after winning Canada in suppressing the religious
orders. At any rate, after the unhappy rebellions of 1837
the government adopted a more generous policy; and the
Jesuits and the Oblates came to Canada in ever-increasing
numbers to take up missionary work anew. Like the priests
of old they went into the wilderness, no difficulty too
great to be overcome, no peril too hazardous to be risked.
In the Mackenzie valley, in the far Yukon, and among the
tumbled hills of British Columbia they planted the Cross,
establishing missions and schools.
But the great age of the Church in Canada was the heroic
age of Lalemant and Brebeuf, of Jogues and Bressani, of
Allouez and Marquette. Their memories are living lights
illuminating the paths of all workers among those who
sit in spiritual darkness. The resolution of these first
missionaries, not to be overcome by hardship, torture,
or threat of death itself, has served in time of trial
and danger to brace missionaries of all churches. Brebeuf
still lives and labours in the wilderness regions of
Canada; Marquette still toils on into the unknown.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
'The Relations' of the Jesuits are, of course, the prime
sources of information. Consult the edition edited by R.
G. Thwaites, 'The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents',
seventy-three volumes (1896-1901). This gives the original
French text with an English translation. See also
Rochemonteix, 'Les Jesuites et la Nouvelle France';
Parkman, 'Pioneers of France', 'The Old Regime in Canada',
'The Jesuits in North America', 'La Salle and the Discovery
of the Great West', 'Frontenac and New France'; Harris,
'Pioneers of the Cross in Canada'; Jones, 'Old Huronia',
the fifth report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province
of Ontario; Marshall, 'Christian Missions'; Campbell,
'Pioneer Priests of North America'.
The following general histories contain many illuminating
pages on the missions: Faillon, 'Histoire de la Colonie
Francaise'; Charlevoix, 'Histoire de la Nouvelle-France';
Boucher, 'Canada in the Seventeenth Century'; Sagard,
'Histoire du Canada'; Kingsford, 'History of Canada';
Shortt and Doughty, 'Canada and its Provinces' (especially
the chapter in the second volume by the distinguished
priest, Rev. Lewis Drummond, S.J.); Winsor, 'Narrative
and Critical History of America.
Reference works with valuable articles on the missions
and the Indians are: 'The Catholic Encyclopaedia'; Hodge,
'Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico'; White,
'Handbook of Indians of Canada', adapted from Hodge.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Jesuit Missions, by Thomas Guthrie Marquis
