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PRESENTED
The University of Toronto
BY
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HISTORY
OF THE
Early Missions io Western Canaia
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By
VEEY KEY. wrE^HARRIS,
Dean of St. CkithcvHiies,
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HUNTER, ROSE AND COMPANY 1893.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year one thou- sand eight hundred and ninety-three, by Hunter, Rose & Co., at the Department of Agriculture.
TO
THE VERY REVEREND AND REVEREND
@:lr« ®rttir<?itc Cl^vgy of ©ntavio.
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE.
This work is an expansion and a development of a sketch prepared some time ago, and published in the "Jubilee Volume," issued on the twenty-fifth anniver- sary of the consecration of His Grace, the Archbishop of Toronto. The critical reader will at once notice that it has been hastily written, and that the varying phases of composition and style betoken frequent interruption and annoying breaks. It has been composed during leisure moments snatched from the busy life of a Parish Priest. Yet it is a beginning and will, I trust, be an incentive to others who have time and talent to lend their aid in gathering material for the Ecclesiastical History of this Province. The sources of information concerning the early history of the Catholic Church in Canada are very copious. The "Jesuit Relations" are an inexhaustible well of information, and, with regard to accuracy, touch- ing the condition and character of the Indians of North America, their authority is invaluable. Francis Parkman says that after the closest examination he is satisfied that the missionaries wrote in perfect good faith, and that these letters hold a high place as authentic and trustworthy documents. Bancroft, Jared Sparks and others bear sim-
VI PREFACE.
ilar testimony. Commencing with Father Biard, 1611, and Lalemant, 1626, the "Jesuit Relations" are continu- ous from 1632 to 1672. The whole series was reprinted at Quebec in 1858, in three volumes, octavo, under the supervision and editorship of Father Martin. Later on, this eminent Priest published in 1861, " Relations In d- dites," which brought the authentic account of the In- dian Missions down to 1679. He supplemented the above by publishing the lives of several of the early missionaries, and the " Relation Abregde " of Bressani. It is well to bear in mind that after the dispersion of the Hurons in 1650, the Jesuit Fathers could scarcely be said to have any fixed Missions in Ontario, save in the neighborhood of Sault Ste. Marie, until after the founda- tion of Detroit, when Father De la Richardie, in about 1728, established a Mission on the Canadian side for the Petun-Hurons. Michillimackinac, the shores of Lake Michigan, the northern coast of Lake Huron and, later on, the territory along the Mississippi were meantime the scenes of their labor. In the collection of material for this volume I have received valuable aid from Father Jones, of St. Mary's College, Montreal ; Father Rouxel, of the Seminary of St. Sulpice ; Mr. J. H. Coyne, St. Thomas ; Mr. James Bain, of the Toronto Library, and John Henderson, M.A., of this city. When I add that the late Gilmary Shea spent ten years in compiling his " History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian
PREFACE. Vll
Tribes in the United States," a work of five hundred pages, the reader will have some idea of the time and labor involved in the preparation of this volume. I have tried all through to be historically accurate, have arranged and put together the material which I found scattered here and there among the old authors, have brushed the dust and mildew from valuable bits of ancient chronicle, and now offer them for the instruction and, I trust, the edification of my readers.
The Deaneky, St, Catharines, Ontario, June 1st, 1893.
autborities Consulted) in tbe preparation ot tbis
Morft.
Indiana of North America Drake\
Histoire de la Colonie Francaise (3 vols. ) Faillon,
Christian Missions. (2 vols. ) Marshall.
Relations des Jesuites. (3 vols.)
Vie de P. Jean De Brebeuf Martin.
" " P. Isaac Jogues Martin.
Relation de la Nouvelle France Bressani.
Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols.) Justin Winsor.
Vie de Monsieur Olier Lajeure.
History of Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the
United States Shea,
*' " Western " ** '« " DeSmet.
Vie de Mile Mance Le Blond.
Voyages de S. Champlain. (3 vols. )
Early Jesuits in North America Kip.
The Early Jesuit Missions in North America Parkman.
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West do.
Chaumonot, si Vie 6crite par luimeme
Histoire de Nouvelle France. (6 vols. ) Charlevoix.
*• de Montreal Dollier de Gasson.
Ahr6g6 de la Mission de Kente . '. do.
Canada in the 17th Century Boucher.
Voyage de M. M. Dollier de Casson et de GalinSe. 1669-70.
Histoire du Canada. (4 vols.) Sagard.
History of Canada. (5 vols. ) Kingsford.
Life of M. Olier Headley Thompson.
BuflFalo and the Senecas Ketchum.
Missions in Western New York Timon.
Annals of Fort Mackinac Kelton.
Documentary History of New York O'Callaghan.
First Establishment of the Faith in New France Le Clercq.
North- West Territory (Report) Hind.
Missionary Labors Verroyst.
Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Shea.
Memoire Perot.
Canadian Archives Douglas Brymner.
History of the United States Bancroft.
EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
CHAPTER I.
THE NATIVE TRIBES,
Their Divisions and Sub-divisions — The Totems — Moral Condition of the Tribes— Their Ferocity and Cruelty — Their Thirst for Blood — Their Religious Conceptions — Their Redeeming Features — Ros- seau's "Ideal Man."
Before entering upon a history of the heroism and self- denial of the priests of the Catholic Church who attempted the reclamation and conversion of the Nomadic tribes of Western Canada, let us rapidly survey the divisions, sub- divisions, and general moral condition of the fierce and crafty race of men who roamed the forests of Canada along the banks of the St. Lawrence and on the margins of the great lakes. Of the eight great nations of savages, divided into four hundred and sixty-five tribes, who occupied the vast prairies and desolation of wilderness lying between the Esquimaux country of Labrador, the Mississippi and the Atlantic, three only claimed the ex-
10 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
elusive privilege of calling the waters and hunting-grounds of this great Dominion their own. These were the Algon- quin, the Huron-Iroquois and the Sioux or Dacotah. These nations having each a generic language, were divided into tribes, which were again sub-divided into clans or families. The Huron-Iroquois nation was com- posed of eleven or twelve separate tribes speaking a common language, but differing in patois or dialect. The Attiwendarons of the Niagara peninsula, the Tinnontates or Tobacco nation of the Blue Ridge, the Erie or Cat nation, the Andastes of the Susquehanna, and several other tribes occupying lands stretching from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, and far into Western New York, were members of the great Huron or Wyandot nation, that in the fifteenth century broke apart from the Iroquois and formed separate and distinct confederacies. The families, tribes, and nations were recognized and distinguished by symbolic signs or emblems called totems. There was the national totem, akin to the English lion; the tribal totem, similar to the heraldic emblem of a Scotch clan, and the family totem, like unto the House of York, or the English Howards. The wolf, bear, beaver, deer, snipe, heron, hawk, turtle or snake, painted on the doors of their wigwams, indicated the family or tribe of the occupants. It is w^orthy of note that the Wild-Oats of Lake Michigan had for their tribal totem an eagle perched on a cross. A remarkable fact, which goes far to prove
THE NATIVE TRIBES. 11
that the American savage was familiar with the disas- trous effects of intermarriage with blood relations was, that no warrior ever took a wife from a family that bore the same totem as his own. Among the Iroquois, no man could marry a woman of his own tribe, for they were all within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and, even to this day, among the remnants settled on government reservations, this prohibition is still enforced. The moral debasement of the tribes was something appalling. A frightful heirloom of entailed and indefeasible accursed- ness, in association with senseless ignorance and brutal customs, was the only inheritance to which they could look forward. All their lives the victims of unrestrained and brutal passions, that opened wide the door to every species of hard-heartedness, and every degree of cruelty, their regeneration would never have come from themselves, and could only be accomplished by men dowered with tireless patience and God-like attributes. The insatiable and loathsome cruelty, the ignorance and hideous superstition, that overshadowed the land and its people, were calculated to awe the stoutest heart that dared to redeem them.
If, now when we move amid the green mounds that mark their graves, or with curious eye inspect their rude trinkets and only treasures — the clay-pipe, the arrow- head and the wampum — the soft sadness of pity steals over us, we must not forget that their inhuman hard-
12 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
heartedness was unparalleled in the history of our fallen humanity.
" They are not men," moaned an unfortunate woman whose child the Iro(|uois had torn from her breast, boiled and devoured in her presence, "they are wolves." It is difficult to conceive a more atrocious refinement of cruelty than that of exposing a living, naked body in a broiling sun, on the margin of some marsh, where the victim perished from famine or an accumulation of torture, in- duced by reptiles and mosquitoes. Unable to move hand, foot or any portion of his body, burning with fever and devoured with thirst, he was left .to die a dreadful, linger- ing death, with water at his feet and buzzards moving and circling around him, in loathsome expectation of the hour when it would be safe for them to feast upon the unhappy victim. Yet, this was not an uncommon method of punishing their enemies. There is a subtle connection between cruelty and lust which no metaphysical enquiry has yet satisfactorily explained, and hence we are not surprised to read that they had no conception of morality even in the abstract. In truth, until the coming among them of the priests of the Catholic Church, they had no word to give expression to the idea of virtue, morals, religion, faith and the like.
The Jesuit Father, Paul Ragueneau, than whom no man was better qualified to know, wrote his Superior in France that " morality was unknown among the tribes,
THE NATIVE TRIBES. 13
and a shocking license of unrestrained intercourse every- where obtained." Among a people who had no regard for chastity, it was not to be expected that any respect would be had for the sanctity of woman's nature. Hence, among them woman was treated with a callous disregard for the weakness of her sex, the memory of which sends a blush to the cheek of our manhood. Affrighted man recoils with horror from the perusal of woman's degra- <lation as penned by the eloquent Le Jeune. The honor and heart of man can never be impeached with meaner or fouler crimes than are there recorded. All the menial offices of the camp, the heavy burdens of the chase, the labors of the cornfield, in a word, all that implied hard work was her allotted portion. Her infirmities excited no commiseration ; and with the crippled, maimed and weak, she was more often a victim of contempt than an object of pity. Is it any wonder then that woman become so utterly shameless, hard-hearted and cruel — that in vindictiveness and fierceness, she surpassed, as Chaumonot tells us, the brutality of man ? The crown- ing infamy of all the inhuman abominations of the American Indian, was his utter contempt and disregard for human life. Savage as he was by inheritance, and brutal as his passions had made him, it was yet to be hoped that the instinct which moves one animal to spare another of its own species, would have lingered amid the wreck and ruin of his fallen nature. Such, however,
14 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
was not the case. The most trivial accident or a thirst for blood, at times led to a war which often ended in the dispei-sion or annihilation of a tribe. Frequently, and for no other end than acquiring renown and scalps, the Indian warrior gathered his braves around him, and after haranguing them on the great deeds of their ancestors, and their own past and prospective exploits, raised the familiar war-whoop and moved out to a mission of blood- shed and pillage. With the cunning of the fox and the ferocity of the tiger, they fell upon their prey in the darkness of night or in the dawning morning, and indis- criminately slaughtered men, women and children " They approached like foxes," writes one of the mission- aries, " attacked like lions, and disappeared like birds." *' I crept around them them like a wolf, said a Chippewa Chief," telling of an attack he made on a Sioux family. " I crawled up to them like a snake ; I fell upon them like lightning ; I cut down two men and scalped them." Their prisoners were treated with unparalleled brutality. Some were mutilated inch by inch until they expired from extremity ot suffering, others were reserved to be tortured by fire, and by a refinement of cruelty surpassing belief, their agonies were prolonged from day to da3\ There was a tradition among the Mohawks that the night after a great battle between the Iroquois and the Eries, the forest was lighted by a thousand fires, at eacli of which an Erie was roasting alive. Others of their cap-
THE NATIVE TRIBES. 15
tives they cut to pieces, boiled and devoured with unspeak- able relish. " 1 saw the Iroquois," writes Father Bressani, " tear out the heart from a Huron captive whom they had killed, and in the presence of the other prisoners roast and devour it." In a word, says the heroic Lalemant, " they eat human flesh with as much appetite and more relish than hunters eat the meat of the deer."* It would appear that they set no value on the attributes of nature which made them superior to the animals around them. Ferocity, strength, activity and endurance alone excited their admiration, and, as a result, they approached, as near as it was possible for human beings, to the con- dition of the wild beasts in which these qualities pre- dominate. To make a hero of the American Indian, as is often done by writers of fiction, is to raise a monument to cruelty on a pedestal of lust. Their religious conceptions were no higher than their moral actions. They believed all things to be animated with good or bad spirits ; and when on the war trail they not unfrequently sacrificed human beings to propitiate the Okis or Manitous tliat influenced the future of the tribes. " On the third day after my arrival among the Iroquois," writes Father
*The American Indian was not, properly speaking, a cannibal. The hideous practice of eating their enemies partook rather of the nature of a superstition than any thirst for human flesh. In partaking of the flesh of his enemy, particularly if he showed superior courage, the Indian warrior believed that he was acquiring the strength, fortitude and courage of his foe.
16 EA.RLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Jogues, " they sacrificed an Algonquin woman in honor of Areskoui, their war-god, inviting the grim demon as if he was present, to come and feast with them on the murdered woman's flesh." They had no idea of God as we understand the word. The sighing of the winds, the melancholy moan of the midnight forest, the clash of thunder, the gleam of lightning, were the voices of the shadow-phantoms that hovered in the air around them. Every animal was animated with a spirit, and diseases, plagues and pestilence were the awful effects of the anger of some Oki or Manitou. In the vile abominations of their lives there were, however, some redeeming features. The members of a tribe were friendly towards each other, they had a tender consideration for and a generosity to- wards one another that was not excelled in civilized so- ciety. They were true to each other in their friendships, held eloquence in high repute, were remarkably hospit- able, and, in times of famine, divided with each other the morsel that chance or the fortune of the hunt cast in their way. They were a courageous people, but their valor was disgraced by its brutality; and no form of vice, however loathsome, or cruelty, however fiendish, to an enemy, met with condemnation, or, indeed, attracted attention. Such, briefly, were the prevailing traits in the character and life of the American savages. Day after day, for many a dreary age, the sun looked down upon their enormous wickedness till, wasted with desola-
THE NATIVE TRIBES. 17
tion, they faded from off the face of the earth, supplying, by their ruin, additional strength to the prophecy of Isaiah that, " The people who will not serve God shall perish." The American Indian approached, as near as it was possible, to Rosseau's " Ideal Man," in a state of nature. He was untainted by civilization, was moved only by natural impulses, and was not yet depraved by meditation, " I'homme qui meditate est un animal deprave," and was a living example of the French infidel's false philosophy. Chateaubriand's assertion, that man, " with- out religion, was the most dangerous animal that walked the earth," found its verification in almost every savage that roamed the American continent.
CHAPTER II.
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS.
The Missionaries — Francis of Assisium — His Con version — His love of the poor — His visit to Pope Innocent the Third — Founding of the Fran- ciscans— Their Preaching — The Franciscans in Canada — Joseph Le Caron — His journey to the Hurons — Le Caron with the Hurons — Champlain — Le Caron among the Tinnontates — Hardships of Mis- sionary life — Sagard and Viel — The RecoUets in the Maritime Pro- vinces— End of the RecoUet Mission.
We have now to ask ourselves what manner of men were they who conceived, and, under accumulated hard- ships, in a measure bore into effect the magnificent resolve of Christianizing these half humanized hordes. The men who were selected bv the Church from her mis- sionary and teaching orders were, many of them, members of noble and honorable families. They had graduated in the best schools of Europe, and some of them — like Galinee, the Sulpician — had a European repu- tation for scholarship ; others had cultivated a literary taste so remarkable for its chasteness and purity as to merit the praises of the ablest scholars and historians of America. They were cultured and refined, animated with an ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, and a courage so heroic as to elicit the admiration of savage
18
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS. 19
warriors who were themselves the embodiment of cour- age and endurance. Three centuries before the waters of the St. Lawrence were disturbed by the bark of Jacques Cartier, a young man, a son of wealthy parents, lay at death's door. Hope was almost abandoned, when gradually a change for the better took place, and the haughty young Francis of Assisium rose from his sick bed, an altered man. Reflections came to him during the weary weeks of his recovery ; reflections that wrought an extraordinary, a supernatural, change in the man. Before his illness he was merry-hearted and careless, was given to fine clothes and the fashionable amusements of his day. But now he held these things in strange contempt, his love of amusement and worldly display went out from him, and there came in to take their place in his soul, love of poverty, commiseration for the poor, and sympathy for all kinds of human suffering. Ringing in his ears, as if with metallic clearness, were the words of the gospel, " Do not possess gold nor silver nor money in your purses." They came to him as messengers from another world, and his heart answered with a pledge of obedience. Then casting from him his purse and golden ornaments, he took oft' his shoes, threw aside his fashion- able raiment, clothed himself in a rough tunic girded with a rope, and entered on a career of self-denial and peniten- tial preaching that has won for him a place among the saints of the Catholic Church. Gnawing at his heart,
20 EAULY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
not merely buzzing in his brain, the words kept smiting him, " Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, neither scrip for your journey, neither two coats, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of his meat." Once before, beggars had changed the face of the world, with no other equipment than faith and God's grace. And why not again ? Francis of Assisium went out into the world with no doubt of his mission, with no fear for the morrow, for did not God provide for the young ravens whom Francis loved and spoke to in ecstacy of joy ? Barely giving himself time to snatch a few hours' sleep, he continued his journey and passed on into the city of Rome and knelt at the feet of that great Pope, Innocent the Third, asking his blessing and recogni- tion. The Pontiff was walking in his garden of the Lateran when Francis entered. Startled by the sudden apparition of the young man, thinned to emaciation, shoeless, half-clad, bare-headed, withal a beggar of gentleness and visible refinement, Innocent asked him his mission. The Pontiffs eye penetrated through the rags of the beggar and saw the saint. The Pope approved of his project, and Francis returned home carrying in his pocket a draught of his afterwards famous " Rule." Gathering unto himself twelve others, all young, all aglow with the same divine fire, he began his extraor- dinary career. Nearly all of knightly rank and gentle blood, they surrendered their claim to everything in the
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS. 21
shape of property, and, following their great leader's example, stripped themselves of all worldly possessions, and literally became beggars for Christ's sake. Bare- footed beggars they were, and as money was the root of all evil, they would not touch even with the tips of their fingers, the accursed thing, " Ye cannot serve God and mammon," Francis said, in Christ's own words. These apostles of poverty, of pity, of devouring love for their fellow creatures, went forth two by two to preach the gospel anew to the poor. Called to live among the people, to subsist upon alms, to bear the hardest toil, their mission was to reconcile the people with faith, to give a living example of Christian patience, devoted sacrifice and self-denial. If ever men preached Christ, these men did. They had no system, no views, they combated no opinions, they took no side. Discussion, controversy, and theological dispute they left to the rhetoricians and the schoolmen. That Christ had died, had risen again and was alive for evermore was an indisputable but awful fact. Francis and his companions in their day were known as Fratres Minores, but future generations, out of love and admiration for this wonderful saint, insist on calling them Franciscans. Their mission was to the poor, to those masses sweltering in foul hovels with never a roof to cover them, huddling in groups, alive with ver- min, covered with ghastly wens ; lepers too shocking for the people to gaze upon, and driven outside the walls to
22 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
die in the lazar houses. To these came Francis with a message of hope and consolation. To these outcasts, wherever found, came those other twelve to whom the saint had communicated love for the poor and sublime self-surrender, " We are come," they said affectionately, * as your friends, nay even as your servants to live among you, to wash your sores and to help you to bear the bur- den of disease and wretchedness. Our Lord sends us to you. We too are beggars, and have not whereon to lay our heads. Christ died for you as well as for us, and there is hope beyond the grave." As they spoke so they lived, and as it was said of Him of old, that He had not whereon to lay His head, neither had those who were now walking in His footsteps. In the presence of these stupendous acts of self-denial and heroic love the cynic was silenced, the proud man hung down his head, and the rich man was recalled to his duty. In 1215, the Franciscans held their first Chapter at the Church of the Portiuncula. Their members began to increase, and from Italy they flowed over into France, Germany, Spain and England. In France a branch of the Franciscans took the name of RecoUets, who devoted themselves to the care of foreign missions. When Champlain returned to France after his first visit to Canada in 1607, he waited upon Bernard du Verger, the Superior of the Recollcis, requesting that missionaries be sent to Canada to bear the message of the gospel to the roving hordes that filled
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS. 23
the forests from Quebec to Lake Huron. In compliance with his wish, and with the authority of the Pope, there sailed with him — 24th April, 1615 — on his return to New France, four members of the Francis- can Order, Joseph Le Caron, John D'olbeau, Denis Jamay and Pacifique Duplessis, a lay brother. Father D'olbeau immediately began his mission to the Montag- nais of the Saugenay region, with whom he passed a win- ter of great suffering and affliction. Never did man endure a ruder or more severe apprenticeship. Unacquainted with their language, which presented almost insurmount- able difficulties of pronunciation and construction, un- seasoned to the hardships of a Canadian winter, and un- trained to the use of the snowshoe, the pious missionary almost succumbed to the horrors of a tribal encampment. Still, he bent to his work with an admirable fortitude, and patiently sustained the burden of his position till he conquered the language and compiled his famous " Dic- tionary of the Montagnais Language." He was a man of eminent piety, virtue and zeal, and has left his name indelibly stamped on the early records of our ecclesias- tical history. On the 1st of July, 1615, in company with a band of Hurons and Algonquins of the Ottawa, Father Joseph Le Caron started on his wondrous journey of seven hundred miles to the shores of the great Lake of the Hurons. Sailing up the St. Lawrence, amid a silence only broken by the splash of the paddle, they entered
24 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
the Ottawa, rounded the islands of Alumette, and, at length, reached the tributary water of the Mattawan. For forty miles or more they continued their journey. Bearing the canoes on their shoulders, they crossed a seven mile portage,* and, through an opening in the for- est, Le Caron, the first of white men, looked out upon the placid waters of Lake Nipissing. Skirting along its picturesque shores, they entered French River, whose placid current bore them to the great Lake of the Hurons, pre- cisely one month before Champlain's canoes shot into its waters. For more than a hundred miles they sailed through the tortuous channels of the Georgian Bay. Around them on every side, as if floating on the waters, arose a thousand islands, thickly wooded, green with emerald moss, and rank with luxuriant vegetation. The great Manitoulin lay directly on their front, they hugged the eastern shore, sailed by Byng Inlet, Point au Barrie and Shawanga Bay, coasted by the picturesque shores of Parry Sound, and, sweeping on past the Seven Miles Narrows, Moose Point and Midland, beached their canoes at the entrance to the Bay of Matchedash, to the west of the Harbor of Penetanguishene. Following through woods and thickets an Indian trail, they passed broad meadows, fields of maize, beds of vegetables and entered the palli- saded Huron town of Otoucha. Here, in what is now the
* Booth's Railway now covers this portage.
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS. 25
northern and western portion of Simcoe County, embrac- ing the peninsula formed by the Nottawasaga and Matchedash Bays, the River Severn and Lake Simcoe were the fishing and hunting grounds of the great nation of the Wyandots or Hurons, comprising a population, according to Champlain, of twenty or thirty thousand souls,* a confederacy of four distinct tribes, afterwards in- creased to five by the addition of the Tinnontates. Perhaps of all the races of red men, the Hurons, " living like brute beasts, without law, without religion, without God," were the least liable to be attracted by, or become attached to, the practices of a Christian life. They were given over completely to sensuality, feasting and plea- sure. " Their every inclination," writes the good mission- ary " is brutal. They are naturally gluttonous, having their farewell feasts, their complimentary feasts,war, peace, death, health and marriage feasts." Father Le Caron, bound by his vow to the life of a beggar, was, however, received hospitably by them. A wigwam was built for his convenience in the town of Caragouha, near Notta- wasaga Bay, where he offered his first mass. He was
* Champlain, no doubt, included the Tinnontates in his estimate. The inference of the census commissioners would lead one to suppose that ten or twelve thousand would be a fair estimate. See Census of Canada 1871, Vol. IV., page 52, for details. But when the Jesuits took the census in 1639, notwithstanding that disease and war had thinned the Huron ranks, there was still a population of twelve thousand, not including the Tinnontates.
B
2b EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
joined one month afterwards by Champlain, mass was again chanted, a Te Deum sung, and the cross, tlie emblem of man's salvation, planted on the shores of Lake Huron. Thus, two hundred and eighty years ago, with solemn mass, with holy blessing and the "Te Deum," the standard of the cross was elevated, the law of the gospel proclaimed, and the work of christianizing the Canadian tribes begun. • For six months this great Franciscan missionary, amid the hardships and perils of his solitary life, continued to study the language of the tribe, and, with a patience and zeal truly heroic, endeavored to make known the great saving truths of Christianity On February 1st, 1616, he visited the Tinnontates or To- bacco Nation, who occupied lands in what are included now within the limits of Collingwood, Nottawasaga and Sunnidale townships, but, being received with fear and suspicion, he was cruelly treated and compelled to return to Caragouha, where he spent the winter instructing the Wyandot tribes and preparing the first dictionary of the Huron language. On the 20th May, 1616, in company with a band of Hurons who were going down to Three Rivers to exchange their furs and peltries, he left for Montreal, and, in the spring of 1623, accompanied by Father Nicholas Viel and Brother Gabriel Sagard (after- wards the historian of the Huron missions), he returned to the tribes, who received him with open arms, built him a chapel at Ossasanee, where he said mass every day and
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS. 27
gave instructions in the faith. This chapel he dedicated to St. Joseph, whom he chose as patron of the country. The mission now took a definite character, and the labors of the Fathers began in earnest. "It would be difficult to tell you," writes Father Le Caron, " the fatigue I suffer, being obliged to have my paddle in hand all day long, and run with all my strength with the Indians. I have more than a hundred times walked in the rivers over the sharp rocks which cut my feet, in the mud, in the woods, where I carried the canoe and my little baggage in order to avoid the rapids and frightful water falls. I say nothing of the painful fast which beset us, having only a little sagamite, which is a kind of pulmentum composed of water and the meal of Indian corn, a small quantity of which is dealt out to us morning and evening ; yet I must avow that amid my pains I felt much consolation. For, alas ! when we see such a great number of infidels, and nothing but a drop of water is needed to make them children of God, one feels an ardor, which I cannot express, to labor for their conversion and to sacrifice for it one's repose and life." " Meat was so rare with us," adds Sagard, "that we often passed six weeks or two whole months without tasting a bit, unless a small piece of dog, bear, or fowl, given to us at banquets." Father Viel, having by heroic patience and perseverance acquired a fair knowledge of the language, began giving the Indians instructions and teaching them the " Our Father," the
28 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
'* Hail Mary," and the " Creed." His success, however, was not encouraging. He sent a letter to Father Le Caron, who had gone to Quebec on business of the mission, that more help was wanted. Le Caron, with characteristic disinterestedness wrote to France, inviting the Jesuit Fathers to come to their assistance. Here, virtually, end the labors of the Recollet or Franciscan Fathers in northern Canada. Their dream of evangeliz- ing the tribes from the ocean to the Mississippi, from the Ohio to the frozen lands of the Esquimaux, ended in disappointment. Still they will live in history as examples of undaunted courage, as men who conquered the incredible difficulties presented by the Algonquin and Huron languages. In spite of the zeal, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice of these heroic and generous men, cir- cumstances did not permit of their mission assuming a permanent form. Father Le Caron never again visited the Hurons. He returned to France — re-visiting Quebec with Champlain in 1626 — and after a short stay sailed afifain for France where, on the 29th of March, 1632, worn out with labor, he died in the odor of sanctity. Father Nicholas Viel, if not a martyr, had a martyr's will. He was on his way to Quebec to procure some necessary articles for the mission of St. Joseph, when, according to the historian Le Clerq, he was hurled by his Indian companion into the last rapid of the River Des Prairies, known to this day as the " Sault Au Recollet,"
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS. 29
Father Viel had already added to Le Caron's dictionary of the Huron language, and left at the mission interest- ing and valuable notes of his labors. Sagard, who re- turned to France, also wrote a dictionary of the Huron language, and a series of narratives that to this day fur- nish a source of ethnological, geographic, and historic data for all writers on early Canadian history. The Recollets or Franciscans established missions at Tadousac and Gasp^ for the Montagnais Indians ; at Miscou, for the Micmacs ; at Three Rivers, and at Georgian Bay for the Hurons. The missions of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Gasp^ were under the care of Father John D'olbeau, with three assistants, one of whom. Father Sebastian, perished of starvation on his way to a mission on the St. John's River. The others, despairing of softening the hardened hearts of the Micmacs and Montagnais, returned to Quebec. One of them, Father William Poullain, was afterwards captured by the Iroquois, who stripped him for the torture, when he was providentially saved from the horrors of mutilation by the arrival of a message from the French with an offer of exchange. In 1628, Fathers Daniel Boursier and Francis Girard sailed with a fleet commanded by De Rouquemont, but the vessels were captured in the St. Lawrence River by Admiral Kirke, and the Recollet Fathers were brought prisoners to Eng- land, without ever having touched the soil of the land
:>0 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
they were coming to evangelize.* " The country," writes the historian Kingsford, " owes the Order (the Francis- cans) a debt of gratitude, which history has only imper- fectly paid ; any mention of their name has been merely perfunctory without acknowledgment or sympathy."
*The historian Le Clercq, who invented the Micmac hieroglyphics, says there was a RecoUet mission established among the Micmacs, of Nova Scotia, in 1614, and that the Fathers had published a short history of their labors among them. It would appear that the Relation is lost, for it is not given by any Canadian or American historian. The last representative of the Recollets on the missions of this country, Father Constantinc, was killed in 1706, in the attack made by the Miamis on the Ottawas at Detroit.
CHAPTER III.
THE JESUITS.
Diifusion of their Order — Ignatius Loyola — His Conversion— His Asso- ciates— Establishes the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits — The Spectre of Jesuitism — Opinions of the Historians — Arrival of the Jesuits in Canada — Jean de Brebeuf — His Mission to the Algonquins — Leaves for the Huron covintry — The Voyage— Arrives in Huronia.
The Franciscan Fathers had scarcely retired from the field of action when the Catholic Church sent another detachment of her soldiers to take up anew the positions vacated by the Recollets. True to the imperishable prin- ciple of their Institute, " for the greater glory of God," the Jesuits had been the fearless champions of the cross in almost every region of the earth. Towards the noon of the sixteenth century all Europe heard, and with amazement, the tale of the heroism of these mortified men who, under the shadow of Vishnu's temple were teaching theology to the Brahmins of India, instructing the Bonzes of Japan, at the base of Shacca's statue, and scattering the seed of the gospel amongst the people of
Cathay.
" India repaired half Europe's loss ; O'er a new hemisphere the Cross
Shone in the azure sky ; And from the isles of fair Japan To the broad Andes, won o'er man A bloodless victory."
31
32 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
The Church is an army led by its Sovereign Pontifi', directed by its thousand bishops, flanked by its hun- dred orders of Religious, among whom stands in the first rank the Jesuits, who, born in an age of struggle are more than all others organized for the battle, and may not inaptly be called the Imperial Guard of the Catholic Church. Ignatius of Loyola, a man as brave in combat as his sword was sharp in action, served in the Spanish army, and in the year 1521 was desperately wounded at the siege of Pampeluna and carried oft' the field. Of a noble family, Ignatius rose from the position of a page of King Ferdinand, to the captaincy of his regiment. While recovering from the efi*ects of his wounds, he began to read the lives of the martyrs, com- mencing with the history of the Passion of our Lord. An extraordinary change was gradually taking place in his great soul, and, when he left his room, Ignatius Loy- ola, bidding good-bye for ever to the army of Spain, entered the militia of Jesus Christ. He commenced th& work of voluntary detachment from all earthly things by distributing his goods to the poor, and entering the Mon- astery of Mount Serrat, in Catalonia, took oflfhis sword, and suspended it from a pillar in the church. He now entered upon a spiritual retreat, made a general confes- sion, and, after receiving Holy Communion, began to write his famous " Exercises," and draw up the plan of his Constitution. We next hear of him as a bare-footed
THE JESUITES. 33
beggar, journeying as a pilgrim to the Holy Land, when, after venerating its sacred places, he returned to Europe, and entered as a student, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, the college of St. Barbara. His extraordinary piety, his great zeal, and his wonderful strength of character, made a strong impression upon many of his companions. Joining to himself Francis Xavier, a Navarrein of a noble family, James Laynez, Antonio Salmeron, Alphonso of Bobadilla, the Portuguese Rodriquez Arzevedo and James Lef^vre, he laid the foundations of the now famous So- ciety of Jesus. On the fifteenth of August, 1534, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, these seven, after having fasted and prayed in common, met* together in the chapel of Montmartre and received Holy Communion in a body. They bound themselves by vow to perpetual poverty, to live chastely, and to be obedient in all spiritual things to the Sovereign Pontiff. As time went on, they associated with themselves other pious and self-sacrificing men, till in the year 1540, Pope Paul the III. at their request, instituted them an Order under the style and title of the Society of Jesus. This was all. The now famous and historic society of Jesuits entered the field for Christ, and for three hundred years has formed the vanguard of the great army of the Catholic Church. Of these were the men who are now about to attempt the conversion and reclamation of the Hurons. It is no compliment to the honesty and intelligence of our age
34 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
that even now, with the imperishable parchment of their heroic deeds unrolled before us, there are to be found those whose partiality is so pronounced, that they can- not think of the Jesuits without associating with them blood, poison and daggers. The repeated and time-worn calumnies of secrecy, unscrupulous agencies, conspiracies and the like, make up the religious and literary rubbish that too often passes for delectable reading at many a rural fireside. The conventional Jesuit is a familiar figure and a terrible one. He is as grotesque as he is unreliable and intangible. But we of the Household of the Faith have known the Jesuits from the day that Ignatius Loyola, in the grotto of Manreza, threw himself heart and soul into the militia of Jesus Christ. We have witnessed their sublime virtue, their undaunted courage, their magnificent sacrifices on behalf of the cross, and we challenge history to show us their peers. " They were the first," writes Spaulding, " to put the forest brambles aside, they were the first to cross the threshold of the wigwams of every native tribe, the first to plant the cross of Christ in the wilderness and shed their blood cheerfully at its base." We have studied their lives from the hour that Francis Xavier asked him- self the portentous question, " What will it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul ? " down to the present day, and our hearts go out in love and reverence towards them. From the halls of their insti-
THE JESUITES. 35
tutes came men whose names are beads of gold worthy to be filed on the Rosary of Fame ; men of saintly lives and of a transcendent greatness that raises them high above the level even of good men, and whose sacrifices for Christ and humanity challenge the admiration of the brave, and stagger faith itself. Of these were the men who, breaking with the fondest ties, forsaking the teem- ing fields and pleasant vineyards of sunny France, faced the storms of northern climates and buried themselves in the revolting companionship of fierce and inhospitable hordes. "Away from the amenities of life," writes Ban- croft, "away from the temptation of v^in glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though by the toils of a long mission, were still kindled with the fervor of Apostolic zeal. The history of their labors is connected with the origin of every celebrated town in the annals of French America. Not a cape was turned, nor a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way." " Maligners may taunt the Jesuits if they will," says the industrious and learned Parkman, " with credulity, super- stition and blind enthusiasm, but slander itself cannot accuse them of hypocrisy or ambition." With those who came to Canada in the sixteenth century, were many who were influenced by motives of avarice and ambition. Among them was the high-spirited cavalier, bound on romantic enterprise ; the fearless sea rover, in
36 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
quest of new laurels in unsailed seas ; the restless adven- turer, wooing the charm of novelty in unexplored lands, and the disgraced courtier, resolved by reckless daring to wipe out the memory of his humiliation. With them sailed the dark-robed soldier of the Catholic Church, brave as the bravest among them, fearless and undaunted in the shadow of the land but yesterday pressed by the boot of civilization. To-day, dispassionately and calndy examining the historical and documentary evidence of the zeal, courage and piety of the great Missionary Orders, it is difficult to know to which of the three, the Franciscans, tbe Sulpicians, or the Jesuits, belongs the palm of excellence. The " Great Jesuit Order," as Lord Macaulay called the Society, bathed the country with the blood of its members ; but the indomitable courage and self-denial of the Franciscans, and the Christian willing- ness with which the Sulpicians fearlessly entered upon the most dangerous missions assigned them, are conclusive evidence that, if circumstances demanded it, they also were prepared to furnish for the faith and the salvation of souls, a bead-roll of martyrs. On the 19th of June, 1625, Fathers Charles Lalemant, Enemond Masse and Jean de Brebeuf, members of the Jesuit Order, in answer to the invitation of the Franciscans, arrived at Quebec. With them came as aft escort Joseph de la Roche Dallion, a Franciscan Priest of a noble family, "as illustrious," wrote Champlain, " for his zeal and energy as for his
THE JESUITES. 37
birth." Their first act on reaching shore was to kneel down and kiss the earth, the scene of their future labors; then they tlianked the Holy Trinity for having chosen them for the work of the mission, saluted the guardian angels of the land and rose to their feet, prepared to spend or be spent in the service of their Master. Father Masse had already passed sometime with the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, and was, in a measure, inured to the hard" ships of Indian life. Father Charles Lalemant remained at Quebec, and in the following year wrote the first letter of the now famous " Relations of the Jesuits." Jean de Brebeuf, the descendant of a noble family, was selected for the Huron Mission. He passed the autumn and winter with a roving band of Montagnais Indians, endur- ing for five months the hardships of their wandering life, and all the penalties of filth, vermin and smoke — the inevitable abominations of a savage camp. During these months he acquired a fair knowledge of their language, and when spring opened it found him prepared to start, July, 1626, in company with Fathers De None who^ with Father Noirot, had just arrived from France, and Joseph de la Roche Dallion, for the shores of the great lake of the Hurons. In company with a band of Indians, who had come down from the Georgian Bay to the French settlements, and were now returning, after bartering to advantage their furs and peltries, the three Piiests bade good-bye to their friends and embarked with their
38 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
swarthy companions, whose canoes were headed for the Huron hunting grounds in nortliern forests. Brebeuf was a man of broad frame and commanding mien, endowed with giant strength and tireless endurance. His stay among the Montagnais taught him that physical superiority invited the respect of the savage, when Christian virtues often provoked his ridicule. Stroke for stroke with the strongest of the Hurons, he dipped his paddle from morning till night, and, to the amazement of his savage companions, showed no sign of fatigue. Thirty-five times in that weary journey of seven hundred miles,* Brebeuf and his associates Vjore their share of the heavy burdens across the portages. Through pestilent swamp and stagnant pool they waded, across the stony beds of shallow streams, over fallen trees and prostrate trunks, they made their devious way ; descending, climb- ing, clambering over sharp and jagged rocks, till their clothes hung around them in shreds, these soldiers of the cross kept pace with the stubborn march of their leggined and moccasined companions. Now and then the com- paratively feeble and aged De None, worn out with the hardships of the journey, weakened under his load. In spite of his indomitable will, his strength would fail him, and his manly but feeble attempts to hold the pace
* Historians and writers on Canada, following Bressani, give nine hundred miles, but that untiring literary burrower. Father Martin S. J. , proves the distance to be seven hundred, in a note to Bressani.
THE JESUITES 39
of his red companions — whose every fibre and muscle were hardened by years of hunting and canoeing — but provoked their laughter and ridicule. The heroic Brebeuf, flying to his assistance, would then relieve him of his burden, and, to the astonishment of the band, continue for hours bearing his double load. The Hurons them- selves were often spent with fatigue, and marvelled at an endurance that distance could not tire nor fatigue conquer. After a weary and trying journey of three weeks, they at last reached the Huron country, and entered upon their erreat work of the conversion and civilization of the tribes.
CHAPTER IV.
THE HURONS.
Their Hunting Grounds — -Tlie Huron League — Their Lodges — Okis and Manitous — Huron Superstitions — Social and Political Organization — Sorcerers — Condition of Women among the Hurous — Huron Warriors — Social Life — Brutality in War — Treatment of Prisoners — Torture of an Irotiuois Prisoner.
The great nation of the Hurons, occupied, as we have already seen, the northern and western portion of Sim- coe county, Ontario, embraced within the peninsula formed by the Matchedash and Notawassaga Bays, the River Severn and Lake Simcoe. The Huron league was composed of the four following nations : the Attigouan- tans, Attigonenons, Arendorons and the Tohontaenrats, and known to the French as the nations of the Bear, the Wolf, the Hawk and the Heron. They derived the modern title of Huron from the French, but their proper name was Owendat or Wyandot. Their towns were not rude collections of bark huts, as popularly sup- posed, but were formed of fairly well constructed build- ings, and were, many of them, especially on the frontier, fortified with rows of cedar pickets and flanking bastions. Unlike the Algonquin hordes, that roamed the forests to
40
THE HURONS. 41
the north of them, they were a sedentary people, cultiva- ting patches of ground, in which they sowed Indian corn, beans, pumpkins, tobacco and Indian hemp, stores of which they laid by for the winter. They developed con- siderable skill in building canoes, curing the skins of animals, which they wore as covering in the winter, and in manufacturing the buck and doe skin into shoes familiarly known as moccasins. Their houses were com- fortably and commodiously built, many of them indeed sixty or eighty feet in length, in which eight or ten families in friendly amity took up their abode. The fires were on the ground on a line drawn through the centre with an opening in the roof, which in the winter served for chimney and window. Here, grizzly warriors, shrivelled squaws, young boys aspiring to become braves, and girls ripening into maturity, noisy children, and dogs that could not bark mingled indiscriminately together. There was no modesty to be shocked, no decency to be insulted, no refinement of feeling to be wounded, for modesty, decency and refinement of feeling were dead centuries before the missionary lifted the cross in the Huron forests. They had no religion, having neither altars, priests, temples or oblations, and whatever idea they had of God was so hazy and obscure that it comes not within the range of definition. They, however, be- lieved in the existence of good and bad spirits, and to appease the one and draw upon themselves the favor of
42 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
the other offered sacrifices on the slightest provocation. Tobacco was thrown into the fire with the hope that its smoke w^ould be pleasing to an OJci, and oil poured upon the water when a storm threatened, with an appeal to the Manitou to have pity on them. There is no evidence to prove that they adored the sun, but they appealed to it to confirm the truth of their statements, and as proof of their innocence when charged with crime. In the absence of religion or any fixed belief, it was but natural that they should surrender themselves to the grossest superstitions. Every act of their lives, their dreams, feasts, games, diseases, their hunting, fishing and travel- ling, were always and inextricably interwoven with forms of superstition. The whole nation was under its malign and baneful influence, and the chain of superstitious error which bound them was almost too strong for Christ- ianity itself to break. To throw into the fire any part of the fishes they had caught, or to cast to the dogs the bones of certain animals they had killed, would expose them, they firmly believed, to bad luck in their future expeditions after game. The social and political organ- ization of the Hurons had about it certain elements of a civilized character. Whatever public authority existed resided in the chiefs, who were generally chosen for their bravery in war, or in recognition of services bestowed upon the tribe. To the war chiefs were intrusted all affairs that made for the protection or extension of the
THE HURONS. 43
nation. The domestic and civil affairs were committed to chiefs selected for that purpose. Every canton had a legislature composed of chiefs and old men, but, when questions affecting the interests of the nation were to be debated, each village commissioned its deputies to attend the general council and speak for them. The authority of a chief rested upon the esteem and affection enter- tained by his people for him, and, losing these, he might at any time be deposed. The mode of criminal procedure was individual and arbitrary rather than judicial. With- out appealing to any court, each man protected his own interests and those of his family. When a man was rob- bed, and afterwards discovered his goods in the possession of another, he liad the right not only to take what belong- ed to him, but all that the robber owned. If, however, a murder was committed, the whole village took up the cause of the murdered man and compelled the murderer to make restitution by the presentation of gifts to the family of the victim. The Hurons held sorcerers or witches in detestation, and when a sorcerer was accused of practising his malign art, any member of the tribe had a right to kill him. Nowhere were the laws of hospitality more honorably and sacredly observed than among the Hurons. The moment a stranger entered a Huron wigwam he was for the time a member of the family, and came and went at his pleasure. He took his place at the table without being invited, and acted
44 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
with the same freedom as themselves. The condition of woman among the Hurons was like unto that of nearly all savage tribes. She was regarded as the in- ferior of man, and upon her devolved not only all house- hold duties, but also the cultivation of the gardens, planting, seeding and hoeing. With her stone hatchet she chopped and brought home the wood for the winter fires, frequently went after the game when her husband killed it, and in fact performed all the menial duties of camp and village life. No warrior ever dreamed of as- sisting her in these occupations. She was the wife, but not the companion of her husband, and was always his servant. Whatever of beauty an Indian maiden possess- ed before she reached the age of seventeen, was soon de- stroyed by hardship and exposure, or the intolerable smoke of the cabin in which she was compelled to pass many a dreary week in winter. A Huron woman at twenty-five began to shrivel up and wither, and when she reached her fiftieth year was in appearance an old hag. The men were generally of good height, of wiry and sinewy frames, well knitted and able to endure great hardships. They were active and agile, fast runners, and able to hold the pace for a long time. They were not, however, equal in strength to the whites, and when the French coureurs de hois became accustomed to the Indian mode of living, they not only excelled him in strength, but indeed very often in swiftness and endur-
THE HURONS. 45
ance. The men devoted themselves to hunting and fish- ing, trading with other nations, making bows and ar- rows, stone tomahawks, canoes, paddles and snow shoes. They had reached such proficiency in the manufacture of these articles that Champlain was surprised when he saw them, and Father Bressani remarked, that intelli- gent Europeans could contrive nothing superior. When about to set out on the war trail they tatooed themselves with charcoal, oiled their bodies with bear's grease or the oil of the sun-flower; and spent the night before their departure in feasting and dancing. They brought no provisions with them, depending for sustenance upon the game they killed on the way. Armed with bow and quivers, the stone axe, and the scalping knife, a Huron warrior was indeed a formidable enemy. In spite of their vanity and frivolity, they were a kindly and humane people, possessing many admirable domes- tic traits, were attached to their children, and as neigh- bors, w^ere very friendly with each other. It was only when they went to war that the demon of brutality and ferociousness took possession of them and called into action all their savage passions. When it became a question of revenging themselves on their enemies, cruelty itself assumed a ferociousness that was frightful in the extreme. In the relations of 1636 it is recorded that an Irocjuois who was taken prisoner in war was subject to a torture surpassing in deviltry anything
46 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
ever conceived by Daute in his Inferno. His punish- ment began the moment he was taken, when one of his hands was crushed and torn with jagged stones, several fingers cut off and gashes made all over his body. When the victim was brought into the village they clothed him as if for a triumphal ceremony. Over his mutilated and bleeding shoulders a beaver robe was throw^n, a collar of wampum placed around his neck, and his forehead en- circled with a crown. Thus apparelled he was led through the village, chanting in the meantime his war-song and defying them to do their worst. He gloried in his Iro- quois origin, lauded his kinsmen as a race of unconquered warriors, and, taunting the Hurons with cowardice and poltroonery, challenged them to wreak their venge^ince on him, and see how bravely an Iroquois could die. This defiance of death at the hands of an enemy was common to both Huron and Iroquois, and was supposed to prepare for him a hospitable welcome among his dead kinsmen, and to reflect honor upon the bravery of his nation. The unfortunate prisoner was accompanied by a shouting and jeering mob, mad with the spirit of vengeance, and filled with the expectation of the pleasure that would be theirs when they saw the Mohawk roasting in the flames. He was then led to the torture cabin and immediately entered on a night of agony. In a straight line, from end to end of the wigwam, fires were burning, and on either side squatted the crowd of expectant Hurons, frenzied with
THE HURONS. 47
cruelty and drunk with blood. When the Iroquois entered, his hands tied behind his back, he glanced de- fiantly around, when every Huron rose to his feet> snatched each a burning brand, and stood as bronze statues, while the Chief harangued them, and appealed to them to acquit themselves as men. The scene of cruel torture begins, the victim is now pushed into the nearest fire, driven thence he is forced to run to the next, and as he passes from fire to fire he is struck and beaten with burning torches, while the whoops and shouts of exul- tation fill the cabin, and, floating out upon the air, re- echo in the woods around. Taken out of the flames, the torches are applied to every part of his body, they gash him with knives, being careful to touch no vital part, while his war-cry and shouts of defiance are smoth- ered in the frightful turmoil of the yelping crowd. His fingers are broken one after another, burning hatchets applied to his feet, his shoulders and his sides. Seven times the unconquerable Iroquois passed through the fires, till at length overcome with exhaustion he fell to the ground. The Hurons hurried to revive him, hoping to prolong his tortures until daylight, for it was a tradition among them that a prisoner ought not to succumb to his wounds until the rising of the sun. A squaw approached and administered a little nourishment, appealing to him with the tenderness of a mother to try and eat some- thing. The chief who condemned him to death ofiered
48 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
him his own pipe to smoke, wiped the clotted blood, the ashes and sweat from his face, and fanned him repeatedly that he might regain some strength. When he was able to stand up, the horrible tragedy began anew, and with refinement of cruelty his torturers covered him with in- sults and opprobium ; " Uncle," said one of them, " you have done well to come and die among the Hurons." " Look at this hatchet," said another, and he applied the burning iron to his quivering flesh, " it is pleasant for you to be caressed by us." The cabin was a living hell ; all night they taxed their ingenuity to add to his sufierings, and amid fiendish yells and jeers covered him with their mockery. Day dawned, the sun rose upon the village and the Iroquois was still living. He was then led out, lifted on to a scaffold and tied to a post, but free to turn at his will. Then followed an awful scene, burning brands were applied to his eyes and ears, his mouth forced open and a flaming torch thrust down his throat. The eyes of the Iroquois are closing forever in death and, as he sinks to the platform they fling themselves upon him, cut ofi" his feet and hands and sever the head from the body. His sufferings were at an end, but the vengeance of his ruthless tormentors was not yet satiated. They cut up the body, boiled the pieces and devoured them, and all that night the entire population passed scaring away his ghost by beating with sticks against the bark sides of their lodges.
CHAPTER V.
DE LA ROCHE DALLION.
The Missionaries — Dallion Leaves for the Neutrals — His Journey — Arrival at the Neutral Villages — Wonder of the Indians — Their Habits of Life — Souharissen — His Authority — Evil Reports — Dal- lion in Danger — -Is Roughly Treated — Report of his Death — De- scription of the Country — Returns to the Huron s.
When they arrived at the mission of St. Joseph, Ihona- tiria,* near Penetanguishene, they found Father Veil's bark chapel still standing. Fathers Brebeuf and De None remained here instructing the inhabitants of this village, while Father Dallion went to open the mission of the Conception. Returning in a few months, the Recollet, bold to temerity, visited the Neutral nation, or Attiwindarons, a fierce and exceedingly superstitious people, on whose hardened hearts he could make no im- pression. They claimed as their territory the lands ly- ing between the Niagara river and Sarnia, and those to the south of a line drawn from Toronto to Goderich. He left a record of his journey to, and sojourn among
*Ihonatiria, according to Martin in his appendix to Bressani's Re- lation-Abr^g6e, was on a point running out into Lake Huron, on the western entrance of what is now called Penetanguishene Bay.
49
50 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
them during the winter of 1626, which is given by Le Clercq, from whose works w^e extract it.
Father Joseph de la Roche Dallion's letter to a friend in Paris :
" Sir,
*• Though far away, it is still permitted to visit our friends by* missives which render the absent present. Our Indians were amazed at it, seeing us often write to our Fathers at a distance, and that by our letters they learn our ideas, and what the (same) Indians had done at our residence. After having made some stay in our Canada convent, and communicated with our Fathers and the (Rever- end) Jesuit Fathers, I was compelled by a religious affection to visit the sedentary nations, whom we call Hurons, and with me the Rev. Fathers Brebeuf and de Noue, Jesuits. Having arrived there with all the hardships that any one may imagine, by reason of the wretched way. Sometimes afterwards I received a letter from our Reverend Father Joseph le Caron, by which he encouraged me to pass on to a nation we call Neutral, of which the interpreter (Bru8l6) told wonders. Encour- aged, then, by so good a Father, and the grand account given me of these people, I started fur their country, setting out from the Hurons with this design October 18th, 1626, with men called (irenole and Lavall^e, Frenchmen by birth. Passing the Petun nation, I made ac- quaintance and friendship with an Indian chief, who is in great credit, who promised to guide me to the Neutral nations, and supply Indians to carry our baggage and what little provision we had ; for to think to live in these countries as mendicants is self-deceit ; these people giv- ing only as far as you oblige them, so that you must often make long stages, and often spend many nights with no shelter but the stars. He fulfilled what he had promised to our satisfaction, and we slept only five nights in the woods, and on the sixth day arrived at the first vil- lage, where we were well received, thanks to our Lord, and then at
DE LA ROCHE DALLION. 51
four other villages, which envied each other in bringing us food, — some venison, others squashes, neinthaony, and the befat they had.
"All were astonished to see me dressed as I was, and to see that I desired nothing of theirs, except that I invited them (by signs) to lift their eyes to heaven, make the sign of the cross, and receive the faith of Jesus Christ. What filled them with wonder was to see me retire at certain hours in the day to pray to God and attend to my spiritual affairs, for they had never seen religious, except towards the Petuneux and Hurons, their neighbors. At last we arrived at the sixth village, where I had been advised to remain. I called a council. Remark by the way, if you please, they call every assembly a council. They hold them as often as it pleases the chiefs. They sit on the ground, in a cabin, or the open field, in profound (very strict) silence, while the chief harangues, and they are inviolable observers of what has once been concluded and resolved.
* ' There I told them, as well as I could, that I came on behalf of the French to contract alliance and friendship with them, and to invite them to come to trade. I also begged them to allow me to remain in their country to (be able to) instruct them in the law of our God, which is the only means of going to Heaven (Paradise). They accepted all my offers, and showed me that they were very agreeable. Being much consoled at this, I made tliem a present of what little I had, as little knives and other trifles, and which they esteemed highly. For in this country nothing is done with the Indians without making them some kind of a present. In return they adopted me, as they say — that is to say, they declared me a citizen and child of the country, and gave me in trust — mark of great affection — to Souharissen, who was my father and host ; for according to age, they are accustomed to call us cousin, brother, son, uncle, or nephew. This man is the chief of tho' greatest credit and authority that has ever been in all these nations ; for he is not only chief of this village, but of all those of his nation, composed of (in number) twenty-eight towns, cities and villages, made like those in the Huron country, and also of several little hamlets of seven or
52 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
eight cabins, built in various parts convenient for fishing, hunting or agriculture. It is unexampled in the other nations to have so absolute a chief. He acquired this honor and power by his courage, and by hav- ing been repeatedly at war with seventeen nations, which are their enemies, and taken heads or brought in prisoners from them all. Those who are so valiant are much esteemed among them, and, although they have only the club, bow and arrow, yet they are, nevertheless^ very adroit and warlike with these arms.
** After all this cordial welcome our Frenchmen returned, and I re- mained, the happiest man in the world, hoping to do something there to advance God's glory, or at least to discover the means (which would be no small thing, and to endeavor to discover the mouth of the river of the Hiroquois (Niagara), in order to bring them to trade). I did my best to learn their manners and way of living. During my stay I visited them in their cabins to know and instruct them. I found them tractable enough, and I often made the little children, who are very bright, naked and dishevelled, make the sign of the (holy) cross. I remarked that in all the country I met no humpback, one-eyed, or deformed persons.*
*' During three months I had every reason in the world to be satis- fied with my people" ; but the Hurons, having discovered that I talked
*Here in Sagard is the following : " I have always seen them constant in their resolution to go with at least four canoes to the trade, if I would guide them, the whole difficulty being that we did not know the way. Yourquet, an Indian hunter known in those countries, who had come there with twenty of his men hunting for beaver, and who took fully five hundred, would never give us any mark to know the mouth of the river. He and several of the Hurons assured us well that it was only ten days' journey to the trading place ; but we were afraid of taking one river for another, and losing our way, or dying of hunger on the land." This was evidently the Niagara river and the route through Lake Ontario. He apparently crossed'the river, as he was on the Iroquois frontier. The omission of the passage by Le Clercq was evidently caused by the allusions to trade.
DE LA ROCHE DALLION. 53
of leading them to trade, spread in all the villages where we passed very bad reports about me ; that I was a great magician ; that I had tainted the air of their country and poisoned many ; that if they did not kill me soon that I would set fire to their villages and kill all their children. In fine, I was, as they said, a great atatanite — that is their word to mean him who performs sorceries, whom they hold in great horror. And now, by the way, that there are a great many sorcerers, who pretend to heal diseases by mummeries and other fancies. In a word, the Hurons told them so much evil of us, to prevent their going to trade ; that the French were unapproachably rude, sad, melancholy people, who live only on snakes and poison ; that we eat thunder, which they imagine to be an unparalleled chimera, relating a thousand strange stories about it ; that we all had a tail like animals ; that the women had only one nipple in the centre of the breast ; that they bare five or six children at a time ; adding a thousand other absurdities to make us hated by them, and prevent their trading with us, so that they might have the trade with these nations themselves exclusively, which is very profitable to them. In fact, these good people, who are very easy to persuade, grew very suspicious of me. As soon as any one fell sick, they came to ask me whether it was not true that I had poisoned him, and that they would surely kill me if I did not cure him. I had great difiiculty in excusing and defending myself. At last ten men of the last village, called Ouaroronon, one day's journey from the Iroquois, their relatives and friends, coming to trade at our village, came to visit me, and invited me to come and see them in their village. I promised to do so without fail when the snow ceased (melted), and to give them all some little presents (trifles), with which they seemed satisfied. Thereupon they left the cabin where I was living, always concealing their evil designs against me. Seeing that it was growing late, they came back after me, and abruptly began a quarrel without provocation. One knocked me down with a blow of his fist ; another took an axe and tried to split my head. God averted his hand ; the blow fell on a bar (post) near me. I also received much other ill-treatment ; but that is
54 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
what we came to seek in Ihis country. Becoming somewhat appeased, they vented their wrath on what little goods were left us ; they took our writing-desk, blanket, breviary, and bag, which contained some knives, needles, awls, and other small objects of the kind. And having thus stripped me, they went off all that night, full of joy at their exploit. On arriving at the village and examining the spoil, touched, perhaps, by repentance coming from the Most High, they sent me back our bre- viary, compass, desk, blanket and bag — empty, however. When they arrived in my village, called Ounontisaston, there were only women there. The men had gone to hunt stags. On their return they declar- ed they were much grieved at the misfortune that had befallen me (after which no more was said about it).
** The report at once spread to the Hurons that I had been killed. On this the good Fathers Brebeuf and de None, who remained theic, sent Grenole to me at once to learn the truth, with orders to bring me back if I was still alive. The letter they wrote me (with the pen of their good will) also invited me to do so. I did not wish to gainsay them, as this was their advice, and that of all the Frenchmen, who feared more misfortune than profit by my death. I accordingly return- ed to the Huron country, where I now am, all admiring the divine ef- fects of Heaven. The country of this Neutral nation is incomparably larger, more beautiful, and better than any other of all these countries. There is an incredible number of stags, great abundance of moose or elk, beaver, wild cats, and black squirrels larger than the French ; a great quantity of wild geese, turkeys, cranes, and other animals, which aie there all winter, which is not long and rigorous as in Canada. No snow had fallen by the 22nd of November, and it never was over two feet deep, and began to melt on the 26th January. On the 8th of March there was none at all in the open places, though there was a little indeed still left in the low grounds (woods). A stay there is quite recreating and convenient ; the rivers furnish much excellent fish ; the earth gives good giain, more than is needed. They have squashes, beans, and other vegetables in abundance, and very good
DE LA ROCHE DALLION. 55
oil, which thej^ call Atouronton (a Touronton), so that I have no hesi- tation in saying that we should settle there rather than elsewhere. Undoubtedly with a longer stay there would be hope of advancing God's glory, which should be more sought after than anything else, and their conversion to the faith is more to be hoped for than that of the Hurons. Their real business is hunting and war. Out of that they are very lazy, and you see them, like beggars in France, when they have their fill, lying on their belly in the sun. Their life, like that of the Hurons, is very impure, and their manners and customs are quite the same. Their language is different, however, yet they understand each other, as the Algonquins and Montagnais do.
** They say two new Fathers have come to us from France, named Father Daniel Boursier and Father Francis de Binville, who had been promised us last year. If this is eo^ I beg of you, in addition to all the trouble you take for me, to let me have by a safe hand a habit that is sent me. It is all I ask (for there is no cloth made here, ours being all worn out. I cannot do without one). The poor religious of St. Francis, having food and raiment, have all their earthly portion. We hope Heaven from God's goodness (by the favor of our good God), and for it most willingly serve in the salvation of these blinded nations ; we risk our lives in order that it may please Him, if He accepts our efforts, to make Christianity to bud forth in these countries. God permits mar- tyrdom to those who deserve it. I regret that I am not in a fit state, and, nevertheless, am not ignorant that to be recognized as a true child of God, we must expose ourselves for our brethren. Let pain and toil come bravely then ; all difficulties and death itself will be agreeable to me, if God's grace is with me, which I beg by the means of the prayers of all our good friends over there, of whom, and of you, sir,
lam,
** The most humble servant in our Lord,
"Joseph De La Roche Dallion."
*' Dated at Tonachin (Toanchain), Huron
Village, this 18th July, 1627."
56 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
If he saw the Falls, he would have been the first white man that ever gazed upon the great cataract. Father Dallion* remained but a short time among the Hurons after his return. Being summoned to Quebec, he left Ossossane in the fall of 1627, and never again returned to the country. Father De Noue, unable to master the Huron language, and suffering from ill-health, left in the spring of 1627 with a Huron flotilla of twenty canoes, and John De Brebeuf was alone in the Huron missions.
* Very little is known of Father Joseph de la Roche Dallion. He is mentioned in the Relation of 1641, p. 74. In Pierre Margry, vol. 1, p. 4, I find the following extract: "One of our Fathers was the first to visit the Neutral nation, a tribe occupying a large extent of country, and hitherto comparatively unknown. One of the Jesuit Fathers (Brebeuf), who was dwelling among the Hurons, having heard that his life was in danger, sent two Frenchmen to bring him back.'' In **Les Voyages de Champlain," Canadian Ed., Book 2nd, chap. 1, 1625, he is first mentioned as having come over from France in the same ship with Sieur de Caen, that he was an exemplary priest, con- nected with the family of the Count Du Lude, and that he abandoned all worldly honors and temporal benefits for things spiritual. He ar- rived at Quebec, June 19th, 1625. He is again mentioned in ** Les Voyages de Champlain " as having accompanied the Jesuit Fathers, De Noue and Brebeuf, to the Huron country. He is referred to again and for the last time by Champlain in 1629. Champlain was at Quebec and short of provisions, in fact the colony was threatened with famine. He says : "I called on Father Joseph de la Roche, a very good re- ligious, to know if I could obtain provisions from the Fathers, if they had any to spare." He replied, " So far as he was concerned, he was ready to give every assistance, that he would at once see Father Joseph Le Caron and speak to him about it. " He left Quebec with two other RecoUets to return to France, Sept. 9th, 1620. In Noiseux "Liste Chronologique," the date of his death is given, July 16th, 1656,
CHAPTER VI.
BREBEUF WITH THE HURONS.
Alone with the Tribes — Reflections — Instructing the Indians — Their Affection for him — Returns to Quebec — Sails with Champlain for France.
There is something singularly touching and pathetic in the spectacle of this wonderful man taking up his solitary position, and fearlessly and alone fighting the battle of Christianity in the midst of the foes them- selves. The descendant of a noble family, from whom the English Arundels claim descent, reared from child- hood to mature years in the refined society of cultivated men and women, John De Brebeuf had leisure in his frightful solitude to call back the memories of the past, and dwell with pardonable complacency on the pros- pects which he had brushed aside as if they were trifles, and the generous friends on whom for ever he had turned his back, that henceforth he might be a " leper among the lepers." Limitless forests and wide expanse of waters stretched around or before him ; his companions, an ignorant and grossly superstitious people ; his food, pounded maize, and his drink, the water from the brook.
The soul of the great priest was equal to the occasion, D 57
58 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and he bent himself with renewed energy to his work. It is doubtful if at any period in his life he enjoyed a more sublime repose. This soldier of the Cross was a man who rose superior to his surroundings, and if ever the temptation to recede one foot found a momentary lodgment in his breast it was banished once for all. When he formed the determination of entering on the Huron missions, there grew- upon him the desire to wel- come sufferings, come they from what source they might. He visited the Hurons in their cabins, associ- ated on friendly terms of familiarity with them, and won their esteem and affection, but could not break the chain of superstition which bound them, nor stagger their indifference, if not their contempt for his teach- ings. In many ways he reached their ideal of a man. He was well-built, capable of enduring great hardships, and fearless in danger or in the discharge of his duty. With a savage courtesy characteristic of their meetings, they gave him a respectful hearing, but no sign of en- couragement or indication of a change. " Echon*," they would say to him, " your customs are not ours ; our people are so different from yours that it is not possible for them to have the same God." The Father was quick
•Father Brebeuf's Indian name. After Father Brebeuf's death, Father Chaumonot fell heir to his title. Father LeMoyne, who dis- covered the salt springs at Onondaga, was known among the Iroquois by the title of Ondersonk.
BREBEUF WITH THE HURONS. 59
to perceive that a well-concealed pride and an attachment to a licentious life, wedded to superstitious practices and national prejudices, operated most powerfully in fixing them in their obstinacy. He knew that until they became dead to themselves there was very little hope of a great change taking place. Time, however, and the grace of God would work wonders. He continued to labor and to hope, visited the sick, and stayed with them until they recovered their health ; the little children loved him, and all entertained a kindly feeling towards him. Thoroughly familiar with the Huron language, he walked through the village ringing a bell and summon- ing young and old to meet him in conference. When the Indians assembled, he explained to them the doc- trines of the Church, exhorted them to repentance for their sins, and pictured the awful sufferings of hell, till their hardened hearts trembled in the contemplation of what might happen after death. " Echon," said a war- rior to him one morning, in the presence of a large assemblage, " you want us to love the Iroquois, to take only one wife and to keep her for all time, that we must not eat the flesh of our enemies ; you ask us to give up our medicine feasts and many other things. I tell you, you are asking something which we cannot do, unless your God will change us from what we are." Brebeuf replied that the grace of God was all-powerful, and would yet give them the strength to do great things.
60 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
One of his first converts was a famous war chief named Ahasistari, who, it would appear, embraced the faith under the influence of a supernatural impulse. " Be- fore you came to this country," he said to the great missionary, " I escaped from many perils when all around me perished, and I often said to myself some powerful spirit protects me, and now I believe you were sent to me for some good end." Ahasistari was instructed and baptized, and as he was a man respected for his honesty and great courage, his example had a beneficial efiect upon the others. About this time Father Brebeuf trans- lated Ledeamas' catechism into the Huron which Champ- lain afterwards incorporated with the history of his travels. Father Brebeuf failed to make much impres- sion on the hardened hearts of the Hurons, but he suc- ceeded admirably in winning their affection and esteem, and when, in 1628, he was summoned to Quebec, his de- parture was regarded as a public calamity by the people with whom he had already passed two years. " Must you then leave us, Echon ?" they said to him. "For the two years that you dwelt with us you have learned our language, and taught us to know the Master of Life. Already you speak our language as well as we do, but we do not yet understand how to adore and pray to your God as you do." The priest was singularly touched by these manifestations of affection, and promised that he would again return to them. A short time after his
BREBEUF WITH THE HURONS. 61
arrival in Quebec, the city surrendered, July 20th, 1629, to the English fleet, commanded by Admiral Kirke,* a French Calvinist, who brought Chaniplain and the Franciscan and Jesuit priests with him to England, from w^hence they sailed for France, arriving there October 29th, 1629.
*I have followed the modern spelling of the name as more familiar to English readers. There were three brothers of the Kirkes. David, the admiral, Louis and Thomas, captains of vessels in the fleet. They were all born at Dieppe, and were of Scotch extraction on the father's side.
CHAPTER VII.
AGAIN WITH THE HI' RONS.
Quebec delivered to the French — The Priestg leave for Huronia— The Voyage — Brebe uf abandoned — Arrives at the Village of the Hurons — Daniel and Davost— Devotion of the Fathers— The Medicine Men — Opposition to the Priests — Their Home Life — Curiosity of the Indians — The Magnet and the Clock.
On the 29fch of March, 1632, by the terms of the treaty entered into between England and France, Canada was ceded to the latter country. Emery de Caen handed to Louis Kirke tfie letters patent of Charles I. of England, commanding Kirke to evacuate the Fort, and on the 13th July, 1632, Caen, accompanied by Fathers Paul Le Jeune and De Noue,* who sailed with him from Honfleur,
* Father De Noue, before entering the Society of Jesus, was a page at the French Court. On the 30th January, 1646, he left Three Rivers to hear the confessions of the French soldiers guarding the Fort at the mouth of the Richelieu, accompanied by two soldiers and an Indian. As the St. Lawrence was frozen solid and covered with snow, they started on snow shoes, and after travelling eighteen miles camped for the night on the shores of Lake St. Peter. Father De Koue awoke about two o'clock in the morning, and as the French soldiers with him,, unaccustomed to snow shoes, were greatly fatigued, he thought, in the generosity of his nature, that he would strike out alone for the Fort and send men to assist them in carrying their baggage. He lost his way and perished from exposure. When his body was found, his hat and snow shoes lay at his side. He was in kneeling posture, his eyes
62
AGAIN WITH THE HURONS. 63
entered upon possession of the city. The following year, May 23rd, Fathers Brebeuf and Masse* arrived with Champlain, and the Fathers began anew to cast hopeful looks to the land of the Hurons. Owing to the oppo- sition of the Algonquins of the Ottawa, who refused passage through their country to the French traders, the missionaries were detained for some time at Quebec, The French finally purchased " right of way " through the Algonquin forests, and on July the 6th, 1633, Fathers Daniel, Davost,f and Brebeuf embarked with a party of Hurons, and, after weeks of incredible hardships, at length reached their destination. To Davost and Daniel the journey furnished a foretaste of the rude ex- perience of their future lives among the tribes. Father
open and looking up to Heaven, and his hands clasped on his breast. His body was frozen solid, and rested against the bank of snow which surrounded a circular excavation he had made. "Thus," adds Park - man, " in an act of kindness and charity died the first martyr of the Canadian Mission."
*Father Edmund Masse, in company with Father Biard, founded, in 1611, the Acadian Mission among the Micmacs. This was his second voyage to Canada. He was twenty years on the missions, and died at Sillery, near Quebec, in 1646, well advanced in years. His grave was discovered in 1869, and over his sanctified remains the people of Quebec erected an imposing monument to his memory.
+ Father Ambrose Davost came to Canada in 1632, with Father Daniel, and was at first appointed to the mission of St. Ann, on the Island of Cape Breton, at the entrance of the Gulf of St Lawrence. We find his name also associated with Quebec and Montreal. Threat- ened with scurvy, he sailed for France in 1643, but died on ship-board and was buried at sea.
64 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Davost was abaodoned among the Ottawas of Allumette after he was robbed of most of his baggage. Daniel was subjected to frequent volleys of brutal jest and obscene joke, which, fortunately for his peace of mind, he did not understand. Brebeuf 's companions, landing twenty miles above the village of Ihonatiria, hid their canoes in a tamarac swamp, and, plunging into the forest, left him solitary and alone in the gloom of approaching night. " After they had left me," he writes, " I fell upon my knees to thank the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph for the favors and blessings accorded me on our long voyage. I saluted the Guardian Angel of this land, and I com- mended myself to our Saviour, feeling sure that he would not now abandon me, since he had preserved me to the pre- sent." Rising from his devotions, he hid his baggage in the woods, found, after some difficulty indications of a trail, and after following its windings for some time, he came upon the ruins of the village of Toanche.* Night was falling, and the solitary priest stood for a moment to gaze upon the few posts that were left of the rude chapel, where he had so often said mass. After some moments of meditation, he took up the trail, which led him to the
*Thi8 word is spelled with many variations. Sagard has it Toan- chen. Father Brebeuf spells it Toanche, Toachim, Teandeoniat. Charlevoix, Otoucha. Father Le Caron opened the mission of St. Nicholas here, and when he dedicated Upper Canada to St. Joseph, he called the entrance to the bay of Penetanguishene, near which the town of Toanche was built, Port St. Joseph.
AGAIN WITH THE HURONS. 65
village of Ihonatiria. When his arrival was made known, his former neophytes and his friends of the village rushed to welcome him. " So you have come again, Echon, my nephew, my brother, my cousin, you are with us once more. For a long time we have expected you ; Echon is come again ; our crops will now flourish, for he will pro- tect them." Brebeuf was kindly entertained by Awan- doay, a man of much importance in the village, with whom he remained some weeks, awaiting nervously the arrival of his priestly companions. At last they came ; JFather Daniel worn out with watching and spent with fatigue; Davost famished and thin to emaciation. Awan- doay received them as his guests, mass was again offered up, a Te Deum chanted, and for the third time the " Mission of the Hurons " was begun, never again to be interrupted till the last of the Hurons had left the Peninsula. The Fathers, scarcely giving themselves time to recover from the fatigue of their journey, began at once the erection of a log building, which served them for house and chapel. Day after day, in the frosts of winter, and in the burning heat of summer, these men of God went from village to village, from hut to hut, censuring vice, correcting abuses, and patiently taming, by the influence of their teaching and example, the savage natures around them. At every opportunity they gathered the children together, and, clothed in sur-
66 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
plice and baretta, for greater solemnity, taught them the " Our Father," the children repeating it after them. In language suited to their understanding, Brebeuf in- structed them in the commandments, and with words of encouragement, accompanied with some trifling presents, dismissed them for the time. Later on he might be seen, encircled by a curious crowd of warriors, Sagamores and squaws, explaining the mysteries of religion, describing heaven and hell, and picturing with all the strength of his vigorous eloquence the horrors of eternal fire and the tortures of the damned, till their hardened hearts quailed in the presence of the verbal picture of their approaching doom. The success which attended the preaching of Brebeuf alarmed the " Medicine Men " of the tribe, and they publicly charged the Fathers with conspiring to blight their crops by suspending for weeks the rain in the heavens. They said the cross which was planted before the residence of the Fathers, was a fetich, or in- strument of witch-craft, and threatened to destroy it. Brebeuf, after petitioning St. Joseph, and asking the prayers of his two companions, met the Medicine Men in a council of Sachems, and succeeded in convincing the chiefs that neither the Fathers nor the cross were respon- sible for the drought. The Fathers arrived in the Huron country in 1634, and in the following year Fathers Pierre Pijart and Francis Le Mercier came, and with this
AGAIN WITH THE HURONS. 67
addition to his numbers, Father Brebeuf was able to ex- tend his field of labors. Nothing could be more apostolic than the life which they led. " All their moments," writes Charlevoix, " were marked by some heroic action, by conversions or by sufferings, which they considered as a real indemnity when their labors had not produced all the fruit which they had hoped for. From the hour of four in the morning, when they rose, till eight, they generally remained within ; this was the time for prayer, and the only part of the day which they had for their private exercises of devotion. At eight each went whithersoever his duty called him ; some visited the sick, others walked into the fields to see those who were cul- tivating the earth, others repaired to the neighboring villages which were destitute of pastors. These excur- sions answered many good purposes, for in the first place no children, or least very few, died without baptism ; even adults, who had refused to receive instruction while in health, applied for it when they were sick. They were not proof against the ingenious and indefatigable charity of their physicians." The missionaries lived with their spiritual children, adopted their mode of life, in so far as it was possible, shared their privations, accompan- ied them in their fishing and hunting expeditions, and became all to all that they might gain their souls for Christ. In the simple Indians many of the articles which
()«S EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
the Fathers brought with them from Quebec excited wonder and delight. There was the compass whose needle was animated by a spirit that was never happy but when looking to the north. They addressed it in endear- ing terms, and puffed tobacco smoke upon it to invoke its good-will in their behalf. The mill for grinding corn they turned unceasingly, patting it the while lovingly on the sides. There was the magnifying glass that to their astonishment, enlarged a bug till it assumed the size of a caribou. The multiplying lense which possessed the mysterious power of changing a single bead into a wampum belt. The magnet that when breathing drew to itself a neighboring needle, and the prison that re- fracted and deflected the light of the sun-God. But the clock which stood on the shelf in the priests' wigwam, was to them an insoluble mystery, and the greatest spirit of them all. In crowds they gathered around it, warriors, chiefs, squaws, children and old men. They listened to its ticking, the beating of its heart, asked what it fed on, and did it ever sleep ; and when it struck, they started in terror, as if its spirit was about to stalk through their midst. The Fathers had finally to establish regulations for the Indians, so dense became the crowd. At twelve they feasted their visitors on sagamite, and at four the doors of their wigwam were closed. When the " Captain," as they began to call the clock, struck twelve, he ordered
AGAIN WITH THE HURONS. 69
the missionaries to " bring out the sagamite," and when it struck four it told the Indians " to get up and go home " — an injunction which they always obeyed. The Fathers availed themselves of these curiosities to attract the Indians, and every day for months instructed the crowds that came from far and near to see the prodigious wonders.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE JESUIT AND THE HURONS.
Father Jogues — His Arrival in the Country — licaves for Huronia — Diffi- culties of the Voyage — Brebeuf's letter — Jogues' arrival in Huronia — The Drought — The Medicine Men and the Red Cross — The Epid- emic— The Priests charged with. Conspiracy — The Chiefs in Coun- cil—Boldness of Brebeuf — The Council Dissolved — Priest and Assas- sin— Doomed to Death — Waiting for the ** Clear Call."
Towards the end of the year 1635 Fathers Daniel and Davost returned to Quebec, bringing with them three boys whom they proposed to place in a Huron school which they intended to found, that some of the young Hurons might be trained up in religion and the arts of life. On the Ottawa river they met Fathers Garnier and Chastelain, who had left Quebec a few days before in company with Amons, a chief of the Hurons, and em- barked for the Northern missions. When the priests reached Three Rivers, Father Jogues, who had shortly before arrived from France, was there to receive them. He was amazed at the poverty and outward wretchedness of the missionaries. " They were," said he, in a letter to his mother, " barefooted and exhausted, their under- clothes worn out, and their cassocks hanging in rags on their emaciated bodies ; yet their faces were expressive
70
THE JESUIT AND THE HURONS. 7l
of content and satisfaction with the life which they led, and excited in me, both by their looks and conversation, a desire to go and share with them the crosses to which the Lord attached such unction." The desire of the illustri- ous Priest, the future msbrtyr of the Mohawks, was soon to be gratified. A party of Huron braves, on their de- parture from Quebec for their forest homes, asked Jogues to accompany them ; and having received permission of Father Le Jeune,* Superior of the Missions of Canada, he got ready for the voyage. It was not without a cer- tain feeling of emotion, that barefooted he took his place in the birch canoe, and with his swarthy companions began the ascent of the great river. Father Jogues, in a sense, was familiar with the difficulties of his perilous voyage, from the instructions and wise counsels address- ed by Brebeuf to the Fathers at Quebec. " Easy as the journey may appiear," writes this model of missionaries, "it will, however, present difficulties of a formidable nature to the heart that is not strengthened by self-denial and mortification. The activity of his Indian companions * will neither shorten the portages, make smooth the rocks, nor banish danger. The voyage will take at least three
*Father Paul Le Jeune arrived at Quebec on the 5th of July, 1632. He was a convert from Calvinism and took an active part in the estab- lishment of the Canadian missions. He was Superior of the Order in this country for fifteen years, and was the author of the " Relations" ap- pearing from 1632 to 1642. It was Father Le Jeune who preached the funeral oration of Champlain. He died at the age of 72 in 1664,
72 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
or four weeks, with companions whom he perhaps never before met ; he will be confined within the limit of a bark canoe, and in a position so painful and inconvenient that he will not be free to change it without exposing the canoe to the danger of being capsized, or injured on the rocks. During the day the sun will scorch him, and at night the mosquitoes will allow him no repose. After ascending six or seven rapids his only meal will be of Indian corn steeped in water, his bed will be the earth, or a jagged or uneven rock. At times the stars will be his blanket, and around him, night and day, perpetual silence." On the eleventh of September, 1636, Jogues arrived in the village of Ihonatiria, where were the mission of St. Joseph and the residence of the Fathers. Needless to say that he was received with open arms. The summer of 1636 was an exceptionally dry one. The drought extended far and near, but seemed to have been felt more keenly in the village in which the Fathers were living and its surroundings. The Indians had recourse without success to their customary expedients to invite the rain. At length a " Medicine Man " famous for his invocations was appealed to, to bring down the showers ; he replied, that he could not, that the thunder-bird was frightened away by the flaming color of the cross planted before the Frenchman's cabin. The chiefs of the village waited upon Brebeuf, and thus addressed him : " My nephew, we will die of famine if the rain does not come,
THE JESUIT AND THE HURONS.
73
74 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
you surely do not wish our death ; take down the cross and hide it in your cabin or sink it in the lake so that the thunder-bird will not be frightened, and after we have gathered our corn, you can put it up again." The priest replied that the Author of life had died upon the cross, and that he would not remove it, adding that the cross and its color had nothing to do with the rain; he yielded so far, however, as to paint the cross white, and the rain still holding off, the Hurons were convinced that the color of the cross had nothing to do with the drought. Father Brebeuf then called the chiefs and people togeth- er, asked them to go down upon their knees and join with him in a prayer to the Author of rain and sunshine. That evening copious showers fell, continuing the whole night, and when morning broke the effect was greater than all the sermons the Fathers had been preaching during their stay among the Hurons. Appearances were now assuming a fair complexion, and, while the Fathers had made comparatively few converts they were per- mitted to baptize the dying children, and to their dis- courses a more patient hearing was given, when there happened an event which proved almost disastrous to them. An epidemic had visited the tribes and swept off large numbers, and the Hurons, who were of an incon- stant and fickle nature, began to charge the Fathers with being the authors of their misfortune. They claimed that in the cabin of the priests was hidden a dead body
THE JESUIT AND THE HURONS. 75
which was the cause of all their misery, and that the great number of children who had been taken off by the epidemic was owing to their sorceries. The missionaries, they said, stabbed a child to death in the woods with awls. Others among them believed that a hideous ser-. pent or some other animal, whose breath spread pestil- ence, was hidden in a barrel in the priests' cabin. They ordered the clock to be stopped, saying that every time it struck it marked the death of a Huron. Even the weather vane on the house of the priests excited their suspicion, for to whatever direction it pointed, it meant death to the sick. A painting in the chapel, represent- ing the suffering of the damned, alarmed them, the flames were the burning fever which devoured theil- dying, and the demons, monsters that held them in the throes of disease until they were dead. If similar accusations were brought against one of their "Medicine Men," a blow of a hatchet would have emphasised the charge, but the fear of offending the French in Quebec, stayed the hand of the assassin. Moreover, the missionaries were to them extraordinary men, and even after death might revenge themselves upon the tribe. However, the excitement continued, and Brebeuf , dreading that these accusations and calumnies would end disastrously to the mission, en- tered on a bold course. He summoned a meeting of the chiefs, declaring that he had an important communica- tion to lay before them. The council met in the open
76 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
air, surrounded by a gaping crowd of women, young girls and children, devoured with curiosity to see what the " Black Robes " were going to do. Brebeuf opened the meeting with a present of tobacco. After the pipes were . lighted he began his address ; in a voice bold and distinct, he unfolded to them the daily life of the missionaries since they came among them, and the reason of their coming. " Have we not left our country, our friends and relations, in order to dwell with you, to instruct you, to teach you to love and serve the Great Spirit, so that you may escape the punishment of the damned, and merit the reward of eternal happiness ?" He recalled to their memories the sacrifices the priests had made in their be- half, their zeal for their welfare and their devotion to their sick during the contagion. He was heard with at- tention, and was gaining their sympathy when suddenly a warrior broke in and invited the chiefs to a feast. A Huron was never yet known to resist an invitation to a meal, and before Brebeuf could finish his discourse they were all gone. The plague continued, and as it threat- ened to become a national calamity, a general council was summoned, to which Brebeuf was invited. He was advised by a friend that things had assumed a very threatening complexion. Twenty-eight towns were re- presented at this council, at which the priests were pub- licly charged with being the authors of their misfortune. No one had the courage to speak in their behalf. Bre-
THE JESUIT AND THE HUKONS. 77
beuf rose, claiming his right to speak as an invited guest, and began to reply to their charges. Above the commotion, the discordant noises and protestations caused by liis hardihood, Brebeuf's voice rose, branding their ac- cusations as calumnies. " You are a liar," said one, " a sorcerer, and you ought to be killed." If you do not be- lieve me," said the man of God with characteristic cool- ness, " send some one to our cabin, search it throughout, and if you think I am deceiving you, take our things and throw them into the lake."
He then explained to them that the pest was a con- tagious disease, and spread itself according to the laws of nature. Then, with a hardihood bordering on temerity, he claimed that God was punishing them for their sins. The meeting lasted until midnight and broke up without taking any action. Upon leaving the tent, an old war- rior shouted out, " If some one would split your head, none of us would regret it." Night was on the land, and already darkness was slowly shrouding tent and cabin when Brebeuf moved out into the open. From the festal lodge came the croaking gutturals of the host boasting his valorous deeds to the applauding " hos ! — bravos " of his gluttonous guests. The priest passed on through a noisy crowd of men and squaws, restless, screeching children and chattering old hags. Knots of Indians, their faces dark with dejection and terror, shot hatred at him from under scowling brows. Whispering groups
"78 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
of Huron maidens gazed after him as a man doomed to death. Brebeuf, buried in serious thought, strode onward when, as he passed a lodge on the outskirts of the village, a moan, as of a man in agony, almost at his very ear, awoke him from his reveries. He stopped to listen, and, as he did so, to his feet there rolled a trunk- less head — as cleanly severed from the body as if by the knife of the guillotine. The priest turned, and was con- fronted by a tall, lanky savage, coolly wiping with his thumb and finger the blood from his hatchet. Believing the savage had taken another for himself, Brebeuf, with characteristic intrepidity, addressed him, "Did you in- tend that blow for me ? " he calmly asked. " No," answer- ed the other, " you may pass on, this man was a miser- able sorcerer and I thought it w^as time for him to leave the country." Brebeuf returned to his priestly compan- ions, doubting the truth of the Huron's speech. The storm, however, had not passed over. An attempt was made to burn the cabin of the missionaries, and a band of young warriors of the Bear tribe, in secret session de- termined to kill them as soon as the elders would leave for the autumn fishing. Towards the end of October, the missionaries received orders to appear in person be- fore another council, which was hastily called. " Come quickly," said the messenger, " you are as good as dead men."
The Fathers believing that their hour had come,
THE JESUIT AND THE HURONS. 79
framed a joint letter, which exists to-day, to bear wit- ness to their wonderful faith, humility, zeal and heroic courage.* A singular custom obtained among the Hur- ons from time immemorial. Every man who thought he was about to die, before leaving this life invited his relatives, his friends, and even his executioners, to his farewell feast, which was known among them as Atrataion. It marked a defiance of death, and was sup- posed to give to the living an example of bravery on the part of the dying man. Brebeuf, believing that their hour had come, deemed it advisable to conform to this custom. He wished to give an example of Christian charity, more powerful than death and stronger than hate, and to convince them that the " Black Robes " were as brave as themselves, since they voluntarily surrend- ered themselves to those who were clamoring for their lives. On occasions of this kind, the host, instead of partaking of food, entered upon, in a loud voice, a recital of the valorous deeds and brave actions in which he figured, the guests meantime devouring his substance and shouting out their applause. Father Brebeuf, dis- daining to allude to the heroism of his life, spoke of God and the hereafter. During his whole discourse not one word of approbation escaped the lips of his savage audience. A mournful silence settled down upon them,
*See appendix.
80 EAULY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and while the priest was continuing they, one by one, vanished. Brebeuf and his brother priests, "doomed to death, yet fated not to die," returned to the mission house at Ossossan^, where they prepared themselves for sacrifice. The next day passed, night came on, and morning broke again, finding them prostrate on their knees, and offering to God the sacrifice of their lives. Hour after hour, they lived in momentary expectation that the " clear call " would surely come, and yet the messenger of death tarried. The Hurons, for some un- accountable reason, laid down the murderous hatchet, and it was never again taken up seriously by the tribe against the missionaries.
CHAPTER IX.
FEAST OF THE DEAD.
The Eclipse — Brebeiif Adopted by the Tribe — Narrow Escapes^Tlie Census — Feast of the Dead — Manner of Private Interment — Com- munal Burial — Gathering of the Tribes — Burial Ceremonies — Last Scene.
On the evening of the 31st December, 1637, the moon shone with unusual splendor, when presently it was seen to apparently fade from the heavens, and darkness set^ tied down on the Huron towns. Suddenly, and as if overcome with awe and fear, the inhabitants of Ossoss- an^ gathered around the priest's wigwam, and summoned Brebeuf to appear. " Echon," said one of the chiefs, " thou hast spoken the truth ; thou art very powerful, and know the future that is hidden from us." It ap- pears that Father Brebeuf announced the lunar phenom- enon some time before, told them of the signs that would accompany it, its commencement, its duration, and its end. Everything happened as he predicted, and the Hurons, stupefied with amazement, believed that the missionaries were in league with supernal powers, and therefore worthy of respect in the eyes of all. At a council which was convened the following day. Father
81
82 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Brebeuf was gazetted a captain of the tribe, a singular and distinguished honor, and permission was given to him and the other Fathers to carry on their work of teaching whenever and wherever they pleased. But even after this promise, while no tribal action was taken against them, there were occasional individual attempts on their lives from which they escaped as if by a miracle. One day at Ossossan^, Father du Peron was flung to the ground by a young warrior who lifted his tomahawk to brain him, when a woman standing by rushed to his rescue and saved his life. The admirable self-possession of Father Ragueneau alone stood between him and death. A pagan Huron, thinking that the little skull which was attached to the cross pendant from his beads, was a dangerous amulet, snatched the crucifix from the breast of the priest. The Father closed with him, determined to save the crucifix from profanation, and the savage, breaking away, glared at him ferociously, and brandished his tomahawk to lay open his skull. Ragueneau stood in his tracks, sternly looked him in the eye, as if daring him to strike, and the Huron, awed by his wondrous self-possession, re- coiled, conquered by the fearlessness of the priest. Another day Father Le Mercier* was speaking to a
*Father Francis Le Mercier arrived in Quebec in 1635, and almost immediately proceeded to the Huron missions. He received the title of Chaumose from the Huron s. He was for six years Superior of the
BUST OF THE PRIEST DE BREBEUF.
84 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
number of savages in a wigwam in the village of St. Louis when suddenly a chief of some importance en- tered, and began to overwhelm him with reproaches and insults. Infuriated by the calmness and silence of the priest, he snatched a burning torch, and hurling it at him, exclaimed, " Some day we will burn you alive." Le Mercier met the torch and the insult without moving from his position, till the Indian, marvelling at his forti- tude, withdrew in silence. There were now nine priests on the Huron missions, viz.. Fathers Brebeuf, Le Mercier, Chastelain, Garnier, Jogues, Ragueneau,* Duperon, Le Moyne and Jerome Lalemant, who acted as Superior. Five were stationed at Ossossan^, and four, having ab their head Father Brebeuf, dwelt at Teanaustayae, who likewise attended to the mission of St. Michael and St.
Cinadian missions, went on a visit to the Onondagas, and wrote an exceedingly interesting relation of his stay among them. On return- ing to France, he was sent to the West Indies, and died a most holy death. Father Le Mercier was the author of many of the " Relations of the Jesuits," and was held in reverential respect and esteem, not only for his exalted virtues, but also for his scholarship and practical common sense.
*Father Paul Ragueneau came to Canada in 1636, and left for the Huron country in the following year, where he remained until I60O, when he returned to Quebec as leader of the miserable remnant of the Hurons, who had taken refuge on Christian Island. For sixteen years after his return he devoted himself to the conversion of the Irw^uois and the wandering Hurons. He returned to France, and died at Paris, 3rd September, 1680, at the age of 75 years. He wrote the Relations of 1649, 1650, 1651 and 1652.
FEAST OF THE DEAD. 85
Ignatius. In the meantime Father Brebeuf completed his dictionary and grammar. In this year, 1638, the Fathers took the census of the Huron country. It was late in the autumn, and the Indians had returned from their hunting and fishing expeditions. Two by two the missionaries travelled from one end of the land to the other, taking note of the number of villages, counting the people and making topographical maps. On return- ing, they compared notes, and the results showed 32 villages, 700 lodges, 2,000 fires, and 12,000 persons, who cultivated the soil, fished in Lake Huron, and hunted in the surrounding woods. The population since Champ- Iain's time, forty years before, had dwindled by continual wars and murderous epidemics to less than one-half.* In this year occurred the decennial " Burial of the Dead," when from all parts of Huronia the tribes and families came together with the bones of their dead for final interment. Father Brebeuf, who was present at this great cantonal burial, has left us a detailed description. " Our Indians," he writes, " in the duties and respect to-
*The map which Father Brebeuf made of the country was unfortun- ately lost, but, in all probability, the one drawn by Father Ducreux in 1660, and inserted in his '* History of Canada," published in 1664, was a duplicate of Father Brebeuf's. It is hard to understand why Charlevoix ignored the existence of Ducreux's map. Belin's chart which Charlevoix inserts in his valuable work, is defective, and leaves out the Huron towns marked on the miniature chart, which is the complement to Ducreux's.
86 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
wards the dead and in the decency they observe in the practices held sacred in the country, are not beliind many of our civilized nations. One would think that the labor they engaged in and the traffic they under- took were done to acquire the means wherewith to pay distinguished honor to their dead. The prodigious quan- tities of furs, hatchets and wampum, and, in fact, the wealth of the country are gathered for years for this great burial ceremonial. I have seen many of them go almost naked, even in winter, while hanging in their tents were valuable furs which they were reserving as presents for their dead." Among the Hurons were two kinds of burials, the one temporary and of a private nature, at which only assisted the members of the family and intimate friends of the deceased ; the other, which took place every ten or twelve years, was communal and final, and was the homage the whole nation paid to those who had died in the meantime. When the funeral was private, the dead Indian was wrapped in furs and en- closed in a bark coffin; then, amid tears and lamen- tations, the body was borne to the burial place. Here already had been prepared an aerial platform supported on four posts, where the body remained until the " feast of the dead." Some families preferred the earth to the scaffold, and brought their dead to the margin of a stream, where they
FEAST OF THE DEAD. 87
Prepared the hollow tomb, and placed him low, His trusty bow and arrow by his side ; For long the journey is that he must go, Without a partner and without a guide.
This national burial was an event of great import- ance to the tribe, at which every member deemed him- self religiously bound to be present. As the time ap- proached for the communal burial, runners were sent out to inform the distant tribes or isolated families, tell- ing them of the days appointed for the " Great Feast." Every family began now to prepare for the memorable event. The dead were removed from the elevated plat- forms, the flesh scraped from the bones, and the remains wrapped in precious furs. At a given signal the mem- bers of the family began their melancholy journey to- wards the appointed burial place ; they moved solemnly and slowly, the women sobbing and shedding sympath- etic tears, the men in silence, and the march regulated with almost military precision. The great grave pre- pared for the occasion was generally an oblong square, eight or nine yards in length and about three in depth. As each family arrived, it reverentially placed the bones of its dead on a raised stage near the grave, and from which the tribal orators at stated intervals were to de- liver the panegyrics. In the meantime men were em- ployed lining the grave with furs reserved for the occasion. Beaver robes, skins of bear and elk, and furs
88 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
of other animals, to the number of five or six hundred, were employed for the purpose. The decorations fin- ished, the families of the tribes, each in order, came forward, and placed by the grave their oflferings for the dead, and articles considered useful for the souls in their wanderings in the other world. Hatchets, arrow-heads, carved pipes, belts of wampum, collars and bracelets fashioned from shell and porcupine quills, and kettles ready to be slung over the fire lay in heaps around. These preparatory ceremonies completed, the bones of the dead were then borne to the immense grave, ten- derl)^ received by famous warriors chosen for the occa- sion, and laid to rest, never again to be disturbed. Over the bones a covering of furs was then spread, the grave filled in, and to prevent it from being disturbed by ani- mals, stones were heaped upon it, and a staked fence of cedar uprights built around. After this the dead were supposed to enter upon their journey to the land of souls far jbeyond the setting sun,
*• To the islands of the Blessed, To the kingdom of Ponemah, To the land of the hereafter,"
and where, according to their deserts, they received their rewards or punishments.
CHAPTER X.
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS.
Residence Sainte Marie — The Tobacco Nation — Jogues and Gamier — Their Journey to the Petuns — The " Black Sorcerers " — On the Margin of Death — Return to the Hurons — Jogues and Raymbault — Their Voyage to Lake Superior — Smallpox among the Hurons — Heroic Devotion of the Priests — Threats of Violence — Council of the Chiefs — Brebeuf's Harangue.
It was at first the intention of the missionaries to estab- lish permanent missions in the principal Huron towns, but when the epidemic decimated the village of Ihona- teria, and compelled its inhabitants to seek another and healthier locality, the Fathers divided themselves be- tween the town of Ossossane, which they called " Con- ception," and that of Teanaustayae, to which they gave the name of " St. Joseph," in memory of their first mission at Ihonateria. The establishment of these two missions, however, did not equal their expectations, nor were they sufficient for the wants of the country. They became satisfied that a permanent and central residence, isolated from the Huron towns, and which would serve as their headquarters for northern Canada, was a necessity. They chose a solitary piece of ground north-east of the Huron peninsula, on the banks of what is now known as F 89
90 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
the River Wye, overlooking the present town of Pene- tanguishene. A chain of buildings, including a large chapel, an extensive residence and a hospital, built on solid stone foundations, rose in the midst of the country of the Attasonchronons, who beheld with astonishment and delight the growth of those wondrous buildings that would never stop till they pierced the clouds. When the series of buildings was completed they dedicated them to the Blessed Virgin, under the title of " Residence Sainte Marie."* The Fathers, who were now eight in number, had already visited every Huron town, and were in most of them hospitably received and invited to return. It cannot be said that their success was com- mensurate with their hopes, but with a sublime confi- dence in God, and a constancy as heroic as it was admir- able, the}'- continued their missionary labors. The wis- dom of their action in establishing this residence now
* The foundations of this building still remain, and though over- grown with weeds and underbush, may yet be distinctly traced. Major Henry H. Gray, of the Government Staff of Civil Engineers, ex- pressed to me his surprise that the Jesuits had succeeded in manufac- turing a cement equal to the best Portland, and the secret of which seems to have been lost. On Christian Island, the foundations of their buildinc; were laid in hydraulic cement, that to this day excites the wonder of engineers and contractors. In quality, this cement is much like the Vicat, a standard article, manufactured and much used in France. The distance weis too great, and the transportation too difficult for the Jesuits to have brought the cement from Europe, con- sequently, the raw material must have been discovered at or near the mission and manufactured on the spot.
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS. 91
became apparent. New missions were opened, converts began to increase, and hope dawned anew for these de- voted men. Among the mountains, at the head of Not- tawassaga Bay, forty-eight hours journey from the Huron towns, dwelt the Tionnontates, known to the French as Petuns or Tobacco nation, from the large quantities of tobacco raised by them for the purposes of trade with neighboring tribes. In the month of Decem- ber, 1639, Fathers Jogues and Garnier, unable to obtain a guide among the Hurons, fearlessly plunged into the forest, and, after three days and nights of incredible hardships, entered at eight o'clock in the evening, the first Tobacco town.
They went forth,
Strengthened to suffer — gifted to subdue
The might of human passion — to pass on
Quietly to the sacrifice of all
The lof oy hopes of manhood, and to turn
The high ambition written on their brow,
From the first dream of power and human fame.
The Indians of this town were told that the pest which had annihilated the town of Ihonateria was broufifht about by the prayers and incantations of the "Black Sorcerers," as the Jesuits were known to them. When the two priests stood on the margin of their village, boldly outlined against the northern sky, terror took possession of them all. They fled to their cabins, scream-
92 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
ing that the demons of " Famine and Pest " were here to blight them. The door of every wigwam was closed against the priests, and nothing but the feeling of fear and awe which they excited saved them from the deadly blow of the tomahawk. From town to town they travel- ed, loaded with curses and maledictions, unable to obtain a hearing, and on every side meeting with scowling brows and murderously furtive looks. The children, as they passed, cried v/ith fear, and from out the cabins came the pleading of the squaws, appealing to the young braves to lay open their heads. The priests bore a charmed life. But finding that the time had not come to establish a permanent mission among the Petuns, they returned to Sainte Marie. " Nowhere," adds Parkman, " is the power of courage, faith and unflinching purposes more strikingly displayed than in the mission of these two priests." Their visit w^as not, however, barren of results. They became familiar with the journey, learned something of the habits of the people, and prepared the way for Father Charles Garnier, who, the following year, took up his abode with the tribe, and established in their midst the mission of the Apostles.
In 1641 a deputation of the Ottawas, representing the great Algonquin nation, came down from the shores of Lake Superior to visit some of their Algonquin country- men, and to be present at their great " Feast of the Dead." This particular Algonquin tribe, now visited by the
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS. 93
Ottawas, dwelt for some time on the margin of the Huron country, with whose people they were on terms of familiarity. Father Charles Raymbault*, who spoke their language fluently, visited them from time to time, and had already made many converts among them. On the I7th September, 1641, accompanied by Father Jogues,
*He died at Quebec, Oct. 22nd, 1642, He was visited on his death- bed by Mangouch, a chief of the Nipissings, who from the day that Father Pijart opened a mission among them on the borders of the lake which bears their name, hospitably entertained the missionaries, but who continued wedded to his Pagan superstitions, doggedly resisting all argument and appeal. Mangouch was at Three Rivers when Father Raymbault was forced to take to his bed. He was strongly attached to the missionary, who had repeatedly tried to convert him. The dying priest opened his arms to receive him, thanked him for all his past kindness, and taking him by the hand said with a trembling voice : " Mangouch, I am dying. You do not think that I would deceive you on my death-bed ; believe me, there is an eternal fire reserved for those who will not believe. " The Nipissing had heard these words often be- fore without being moved, but now, coming from the mouth of the dying priest, they strangely affected him. Day and night they kept ringing in his ears, till at length he yielded, asked for baptism, and ever after- wards remained a fervent christian. Father Raymbault, accompanied by Father Jogues, visited Sault Ste. Marie in 1640, one year after his arrival among the Hurons. He and Father Rene Menard were nearly lost in a storm on the lake when going to the Nipissings, among whom a mission had been opened by Father Claude Pijart early in the year of 1640. He came to Canada in 1637, and unable to stand the hardships of missionary life, returned to Quebec after? a stay of some years in the Huron country. This distinguished priest, even in failing health, enter- tained the lofty hope of bearing the cross to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. He was only 41 years of age at his death. He was the first of the Jesuits who died in the country, and through respect for his memory, the colony decreed that he should be buried in the same tomb with Champlain.
94 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
he returned with the Ottawa flotilla and spent some weeks with the tribe, whose villages were planted at Sault Ste. Marie and in its neighborhood. The two priests were the first Europeans that ever passed through the Sault and stood on the shore of the great Northern Lake.* " Thus did the religious zeal of the French," writes Bancroft, commenting on the faith and daring of the priests, " bear the cross to the bank of the St. Marys and the confines of Lake Superior, and look wistfully to- wards the homes of the Sioux in the valle/ of the Mis- sissippi, five years before the New England Eliot had ad- dressed, the tribe of Indians that dwelt witliin six miles of Boston harbor." The Sachems of the Ottawas invited the Jesuits to dwell among them ; but the time was not yet ripe for the establishment of a fixed mission, and the Fathers returned to St. Marys on the Wye. The con- stancy and courage of the human heart were, perhaps, never put to a severer trial than that which the Fathers experienced when the small-pox broke out among the tribes. Some Hurons, who were returning from Quebec at the beginning of autumn, tarried for awhile with an
*The Franciscan historian, Sagard, who wrote in 1632, says that Etienne Brule, the companion of Champlain, left that explorer at Tonache and started with an associate named Grenolle on a voyage to the Upper Lakes. On his return to Qaebec, bringing with him a large ingot of copper, he claimed to have visited the Sault, and gave an ela- borate description of Lake Superior, but all this information he could have obtained from the Wild Oats of Lake Michigan, who traded with the Algonquins of the North.
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS. 95
Algonquin horde, which a short time before was ravaged by the small-pox. On the return of the Hurons to their own country, one of them fell a victim to the dread disease, and it soon became a fatal legacy that visited every tribe and almost every family. The filthy habits of the Indians, the ofial and garbage of the camp, that lay reeking around every wigwam, invited disease, and as a. result, their bodies ofiered a rich pasturage for the epidemics that periodically fed upon them. Whole vil- lages, while the plague lasted, were more like charnel- houses than homes of living men ; and day after day, for many a dreary month, men, women and children, from whose bones the flesh had rotted, sank under the accumu- lation of their sufferings. The Fathers explained to them the nature of the disease, insisting that, if they wished to save themselves, they must separate the sick from those who were still healthy. The Hurons paid no attention to .their advice. The plague continued to spread from village to village, and threatened the destruction of the nation. The Fathers, seeing their counsels de- spised, flung themselves heart and soul into the infected villages, and gave to the Hurons examples of self-denial and contempt of danger that awakened their surprise and aroused their suspicions. The most elementary precau- tions were neglected by the Indians, and, notwithstand- ing the heroic efforts of the missionaries, great numbers perished. The heroism of the priests in these trying
96 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
ordeals, provoked the astonishment of the Hurons, whose stubborn natures yielded but to miracles of self-denial and contempt of danger. With all the patience and tender- ness of Sisters of Charity, they went from wigwam to wigwam, instructing some, consoling others, baptising those who would receive the sacrament, and to all brinj^- ing consolation and relief. The sufferings they endured and the hardships they encountered, may be learned from the letters filed among the archives of their Order. Even the indomitable Brebeuf, whose chivalric nature rose superior to complaint, wrote to his Superior in France, " Let those who come here come well provided with patience and charity, for they will become rich in trouble^, — but where will the laboring ox go, if he does not draw the plough, how can there be a har- vest?"
The Hurons, in their despair, unable to account for the existence of the disease, or to understand its wide- spread diffusion, began to charge the missionaries with being the authors of their misfortune. " This disease," they said, " first appeared near the stone wigwam. They themselves go everywhere among the sick without catch- it ; surely they bring it with them, and spread it around among us. Our only hope is to kill them." The " Sor- cerers " of the tribe, or " Medicine Men," charged the Fathers with being the cause of their affliction. The chanting of their sacred litanies, and the ceremonies of
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS. 97
the mass were incantations casting a malign spell on the crops and people, paralyzing the arm of the brave in war, and destroying the swiftness of the hunter in the chase. The threats of violence, which at first were only heard in whispers, were now publicly proclaimed, and from threats they proceeded to acts. " They have visited us in bands," writes Father Lalemant, " entered armed into our tents, as if to attack some one. They have already torn down the cross which was on the house. Many of them have lain in wait for us secretly on the road, intending to kill us. They have snatched from us our crucifixes, which we carry when visiting the sick, and some of the Fathers, who endeavored to baptize the dying, have been badly beaten. Still none of us yet have sufiered death." During this time Father Brebeuf, who, with Father Chastelain,* had charge of the mission of St. Joseph, was subjected to pretty rough treatment.
* Father Peter Chastelain arrived in Canada in 1636. He met a Huron flotilla at Three Rivers, and arrived at Huronia in 1637. The Hurons, unable to pronounce the French names, gave to each Father an Indian one. Father Chastelain was known among them as *'Arioo," Father Daniel as *' Anwennen," Charles Garnier they called " War- acha," Francis du Peron, " Anonchiara " ; Jerome Lalemant, *' Achien- dasse"; Jogues, '* Ondessone " ; Paul Ragueneau, " Aondechete,"and Simon Le Moyne, " Wane." — Relation, 1639; p. 53. Father Chaste- lain had charge of the missions of St. Louis and St. Denis. He accom- panied the Hurons in their flight to Christian Island, and descended with them to Quebec, when they fled to that city. The Relations make no further mention of him.
98 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
When he moved through the village, he was stoned and beaten, but this abuse seemed only to increase his zeal. " He neglects," says Father Lalemant, " no opportunity of helping these unfortunate people, both in soul and body. The food which he required for his own nourish- ment he brought to those who were sick, his thanks very often were insults, frequently carried to blows. They say that he is the most powerful and dangerous of the French sorcerers, and that he is the primary cause of the plague which is now destroying them." In proportion to the rough treatment he received, the soul of Brebeuf rose superior to insult and suffering. He knew neither dis- couragement nor hesitation and so long as he felt that he was doing something for the souls of these unhappy people he was consoled in his afflictions I'he dangers of infection from the plague were trivial compared to the peril of the tomahawk. Brebeuf and his companions, in solemn council of the Sachems were condemned to death, and were only saved, as they piously believed, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. Amid all the discomforts and privations of savage life, the Fathers were sustained by a holy enthusiasm that conquered all natural fears. When Brebeuf heard that the sentence of death was passed upon them he strode fearlessly into the council-house, and, to the amazement of the chiefs, demanded to be heard. He was master of
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS. 99
their language ; and, being naturally eloquent, harangued the assembly in words so forcible and persuasive as to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed upon the Fathers. The plague spent itself in a short time, and with it died out the bitterness against the missionaries.
CHAPTER XL
THE NEUTRALS.
Their Country — Wealth of Forest and Stream — Luxuriant Growth of Vine and Timber — Variety of Animal Life — Birds of Varied Plum- age— Neutral Origin — Their Habits of Life— Physical Develop- ment— Tattooing — Vapor Baths— Respect for Parents — Develop- ment of Their Senses — Powers of Endurance — Neutral Women.
At the time that the Jesuit Fathers had established their missions among the Hurons, the desolation of forest stretching from their frontier town to the Niagara river and beyond, was occupied by one of the most powerful tribes of the great Canadian wilderness. The peninsular land stretching between lakes Erie and Ontario, and lying to the south of a line drawn from Toronto to Goderich was at intervals dotted with their villages. No part of the American continent furnished a more healthy or lux- uriant growth of staple timbers. The great American pine, reaching to the height of sixty or seventy feet, yielded large quantities of gum that served the Indian for seaming his canoe, and dressing his wounds and sores. Cedars, firs and spruce grew side by side with the tam- arac and hemlock. All over were to be found magnificent growths of maple, birch and beech. The oak, ash and
100
THE NEUTRALS. 101
elm, with the walnut tree and swamp maple, furnished a safe retreat for a variety of wild animals that have long since disappeared. Aspens of all sorts, on which the beavers fed, basswood that furnished valuable wood for preserving the Indian grain, and a species of hemp, out of which he made his ropes, grew at convenient distances from each village. Chestnuts, mulberry and hazel trees grew side by side with the el^er, hawthorn and plum. Willows and alders drooped over the winding streams. Wild fruit trees of vast variety, gooseberry, currant and other fruit -producing bushes covered the sides of the sloping hills. The raspberry, strawberry and black- berry plants and wild vines, rich in their wealth of grapes, furnished to the Indians in season abundance and variety of savage luxuries. Through this rank and luxuriant growth of timber, vine, bush and plant, there roamed countless numbers of animals of great variety and many species. Here, in their native forest, roamed the elk, buffalo,* caribou and black bear ; deer, wolves, foxes, martins and wild cats filled the woods ; the porcu- pine, groundhog, hares of different species, squirrels of great variety, including the almost extinct flying-squirrel,
*The limits of the wanderings of the buffalo are recorded in a nar- rative of Major Long's expedition, " The buffalo was formerly found throughout the whole territory of the United States, with the excep- tion of that part which lies east of the Hudson River, and of Lake Champlain, and of narrow strips of coast on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico." See also Relation, 1641.
102 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
were everywhere. Every stream gave hospitable shelter to the beaver, the otter and the muskrat, while weasels, moles and field mice burrowed almost under every tree. Snakes of various kinds, lizards of different hues, frogs innumerable, added to the life and variety of this won- drous land. Their lakes, ponds and rivers were alive with swans, brant geese, wild geese, cranes, ducks, teal, divers of innumerable kinds, ernes, bitterns, herons, white pelicans, trumpeter swans. Birds of varied plum- age, the eagle, the wild turkey and difierent kinds of partridge filled the woods. Enormous flocks of wild pigeons, starlings, thrushes, robins and ortolans darkened the heavens ; swallows, martins, jays and magpies, owls of different species, humming birds innumerable, and myriads of plover and snipe added variety and life to a land already rich in everything that could tempt the covetousness of man. The streams, rivers and lakes furnished a vast variety of fishes, on which the cormorant and gull feasted, with the indigenous savage. Such was the land, and such the opulence of animal and vegetable life that lay in the possession and ownership of the great Neutral tribe. To their Indian countrymen at a distance, the members of this tribe were known as the Attiwan- darons, but were called by the French, Neutrals. They were of the parent stock of the Huron-Iroquois, speaking with dialectic variations, the same language, and wedded to many of the same customs. In the almost continual
THE NEUTRALS. 103
and always relentless wars between the Iroquois and the Hurons, the Attiwandarons took no part. They held aloof, claiming to be friends of both parties, unwilling to give assistance to one, fearing to give offence to the other. When by accident or otherwise, members of the contending factions met in the villages of the Neu- trals, they were held to keep the peace, and any viola- tion thereof was looked upon as a gross breach of hospi- tality. They numbered in the neighborhood of twenty or thirty thousand souls, and when in 1630, before their league with the Petuns, the Hurons could only call into action two thousand men, Sagard tells us the Neutrals could muster six thousand braves. As late as 1640, not- withstanding that for three years they suffered severely from war, famine and sickness, they were able to send into the field four thousand fighting men. They were a sedentary people, living in villages, which were con- structed with considerable skill. Their cabins, which were built from ash or elm bark and covered with cedar, were high and roomy. The men cut down the trees and cleared the land for sowing, while the women did the seeding, weeding, reaping and harvesting. Like the Tionnontates of the Huron league, the Neutrals were famous for the large amount and superior quality of tobacco which they raised for home consumption, and for trade with other nations. They were, physically, the finest class of Indians on the American continent
104 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
tall, straight and well built, remarkable for their endur- ance and activity, and, as a body, so free from any de- formity that Dallion states, during his stay among them of over three months, he did not notice a single lame, hunchbacked or deformed person. They were inveterate gamesters, and so possessed were they with the passion for gambling, that it was not uncommon for parties of fifty or sixty to continue at the games for days and nights, unbroken by food or rest, till the challenged or challenging party had lost everything in their possession, and returned home, frequently in the midst of winter, with not even a shred to cover their nakedness. In sum- mer the men wore only moccasins, they tattooed their bodies with powdered charcoal ; many of their chiefs and leading warriors underwent the trying ordeal of tattooing with fixed pigments from head to foot ; snakes, worms, animals, monstrosities of every conceivable nature orna- mented, or disfigured their persons. In winter they clothed themselves in skins of beasts, but, winter or sum- mer, they wore no covering on their heads They dressed their hair each according to his own peculiar whim, but they never attempted to curl it, and held in contempt the man who, even by the accident of nature, had curled hair. The women always wore their hair drooping full upon the back, and men and women frequently smeared their heads and bodies with oil. They were a ferocious people, given over to every form of licentious-
THE NEUTRALS. 105
ness, but, while polygamy was not condemned among them, it was not customary to have more than one wife. Yet in the gratification of their brutal passions and de- sires they were shameless. Ferocious and valorous, they were continually at war with the Mascoutins, or Nation of Fire, whom they eventually destroyed as a people.* With the Iroquois, their ferocity extended to the burn- ing and mutilation of female prisoners, a practice which, to the honor of the Hurons, was unknown among them. They were inveterate smokers, and when they were told by the French that smoking was almost unknown among the men of their country, they expressed extraordinary surprise. Each warrior carried a small bag around his neck, which was known as the " medicine bag," and con- tained one or two objects or charms, which he treated with religious reverence. When suffering from colds or kindred ailments they had recourse to the vapor bath. Six or seven at a time would shut themselves up back to back, in a wigwam, having already built a fire and placed vessels of water at a convenient distance, large stones were then heated in the fire, water poured
*In the Relation of 1643 we read : *' Last summer two thousand warriors of the Neutral nation attacked a town of the Nation of Fire, well fortified and defended by nine hundred warriors. They took it after a siege of ten days, killed many on the spot and captured a great number of prisoners, men women and children. After burning seventy of the best warriors, they put out the eyes of the old men, cut away their lips, and left them to drag out a miserable existence."
G
106 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
on them, and the steam arising therefrom produced a copious perspiration. Their principal food was meat and Indian corn, out of which they made a palatable dish called sagamite. Bread, wine, salt, vegetables and spices were unknown. They were a gluttonous people, who, when not on the war-trail or hunting, were continually feasting. A feast was given on the slightest excuse, and one of these, of a superstitious nature, required that every man should eat all that was put before him, and it was frequently a very large amount. As a result, the digestive organs of many of them were seriously and permanently impaired. It is a singular fact that among them, as among most of the tribes of North America, par- ents were held in great respect by their children. Bres- sani states, that on one occasion a young man so far for- got himself as to lift his hand to his parent. A number of young men rushed forward to punish him, when the father stopped them, crying out, "Don't touch him, have you not felt the earth tremble with horror at his crime ? " They were excessively fond of dancing, which partook more of the nature of rythmic stamping than sprightli- ness. In their war and scalp dances their fiendish pas- sions found expression in violent gesture, loud shouting, triumphant song and barbarous feasting, which were prolonged for many days. Their senses reached a de- velopment of acuteness and sharpness truly wonderful. They could see objects and perceive the smoke of an
THE NEUTRALS. 107
enemy's camp where there was nothing to be observed by a white man. Their touch was peculiarly sensitive, and their organs of smell developed to a perfection, second only to that of animals. Such was their intuitive know- ledge of localities and places that it might be said they possessed a sixth sense, for if a Neutral was five hundred miles away from his home, surrounded by a dense wild- erness of forest, lake and stream, he would make straight for his village through the pathless wood. Their power of endurance almost surpasses belief, and they frequently bore fire, heat or cold without complaint. It was not unusual for a Neutral to abstain from food for twelve or fourteen days to propitiate some oki or spirit, and such w^as their contempt for suffering that even a woman would be despised who complained of pain. Eloquence was held in high repute, and their orators had developed powers of memory and expression that excited at times the astonishment of the French. Woman, alas ! held the same position of inferiority among them as among all the tribes of the American continent. As a girl, she was a harlot, and when married became a drudge. She mould- ed the earthen pots, spun twine from hemp, wove the rush mats and made fishing-nets. She extracted the oil from fish and the sunflower, embroidered moccasins with quills of hedgehog, tilled the fields and bore the burdens of the chase. Divorce was a matter of caprice or agree- ment, and it was not unusual for a Neutral woman to have five or six husbands in succession.
CHAPTER XII. The neutrals (continued.)
Their Theogoiiy — Sacrifices — Sorcerers — Laws of Hospitality — Social Qualities — Love for their Dead — Organizing a War Party — On the War Path — Return of the Braves — Mourning for their Dead — The Neutrals at War with the Nation of Fire — Prisoners — The Tor- ture Fire — At War with the Iroquois — Destruction of the Neutrals.
The Neutrals had no conception of God as a Supreme Being. Their Theogony was a mixture of Manicheism and Pantheism. All things they believed to be animated, not only with life, but also with an immortal and sen- tient soul. A vague idea obtained among them that there were good and bad spirits governed by their great chiefs, and hence their oiFerings of propitiation were nearly always directed to the spirits of Evil, sensibly concluding that the good Manitous would never injure them. The great act of worship among the Neutrals, as among the tribes east and west of them, was a species of sacrifice, which generally partook of the nature of pro- pitiation. Each individual offered to his tutelary divin- ity his own sacrifice, which very often consisted of a gift of tobacco and tobacco-smoke. When, however^ the tribe sacrificed as a body, a dog was chosen as the
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THE NEUTRALS. 109
victim, and on occasions four or five were slaughtered at a time. Their supreme act of religion, however, took place when some great calamity threatened them — this was the sacrifice of the " white dog," which was killed in the presence of the assembled warriors and chiefs, and after being offered to the great Manitou, was devoured by the leading braves. Sorcerers they held in abomina tion, and sometimes on mere suspicion, one of their num- ber, who was charged with the crime of sorcery, was kill- ed or burned at the stake. The horror in which they held these supposed magicians was born of the supposi- tion that they were in league with evil spirits, and through their agency brought suffering and misfortune to the tribe. When the Jesuit missionaries, Brebeuf and Chaumonot, visited them in 1640, they wonld have been hospitably received if the Neutrals had not heard from Pagan Hurons that they were powerful sorcerers whose incantations would destroy their crops, poison their streams and bring disaster upon them all. Then their kindness turned to intense and implacable hatred, and nothing but the fear of provoking a war with the French, saved the Fathers from death. As it was, the four months that the Jesuits spent among them were months of dreadful suffering, and wherever they went they were met with insulting speech and scowling brows. But for this ineradicable suspicion, there is every reason to believe that missions would have been successfully established
110 EAKLY MISSIONS IN AVESTERN CANADA.
with the nation, and that a harvest of converts would have been the reward of the priests' labors. The virtue of hospitality was held in high repute among the Neu- trals, who cheerfully entertained members of other tribes with which they were not at war ; the ordinary traveller was welcomed as a relative, and the best food and place in the wigwam given to him. Towards each other they were exceedingly charitable, and when any family was found to be in want, one of their leading men would pass through the village soliciting for the destitute food and help, which were invariably given according to each one's ability. In fact, towards each other they were com- passionate and pitiful, and the aftection among relatives was admirable even to a christian. This spirit of gener- ous cordiality and tenderness to one another in affliction and suflfering was common to all American Indians, and attracted the attention of the Jesuits as well as of other travellers from civilized lands. " I have found," says Humboldt, the great German, " that, even in those coun- tries where the most brutal passions characterize the na- tives in battle, among themselves there is often a tender consideration for, and a generosity towards, each other not excelled, if at all equalled in the higher society of the more civilized world." When the weather was fine and provisions plentiful, they were joyous and full of frolic and fun, fond of telling stories, laughing immoder- ately at any trifling joke or absurdity, and seemed to
THE NEUTRALS. Ill
thoroughly enjoy existence ; but in sickness they were much depressed, becme melaancholy and morose, and sought consolation and help from the monotonous drum- ming of the conjurer or Medicine Man. The devotion to their dead was striking in its pathetic tenderness. When a full grown member of a family died, the women gave themselves up to mourning and lamentation, and while the father and brother of the deceased passed through the village mournfully singing the requiem of the dead, the neighbors placed the corpse in a sitting position, sur- rounding it with weapons of war and articles which he most loved when in life. The body was retained in the wigwam for weeks and often months, till at length the odor of putrefaction made it impossible for the living to longer keep company with the dead. It was then placed upon a raised scaffold or consigned to the earth to await the great communal burial, " the feast of the dead," which took place, as among the Hurons, every ten or twelve years. One predominant and ruling pas- sion was common to the great Neutral nation, as indeed it was to all the tribes of North America. The Neutral was an inveterate gambler, shamelessly licentious, and intensely fond of hunting, but when he once took to the war-trail, all other emotions and feelings became ab- sorbed in the devouring craving for blood. Only at rare intervals did the Neutrals, as a body, engage in war, but frequently, and for no other end than to gratify
112 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
his longing for tlie. excitement of battle, a chief would gather around him the young men of his village, and after feasting them sumptuously, announce that he was about to enter upon the war trail, and invite his friends to join him. Those who felt disposed to link their fortunes with his, left their places and gathered around him. Then they separated, collected their weapons and provisions for the journey, and held themselves in readi- ness for departure on the appointed day. The night before entering upon the war trail, they spent in feast- ing and carousing, and concluded with a scalp dance, in which they brandished their tomahawks and dealt murderous blows at the heads of their imaginary foes. The scalp dance was a most weird and frightful spec- tacle. Their fiendish passions expressed themselves in looks of intense hatred, in threatening gesture, loud and violent vociferation, in whoops and yells and barbarous feasting. For the time being they seemed to be possess- ed of a diabolic spirit, murderous in its outward and frequent expression of gesture and emotion, till at length, nature, unable to bear the awful strain, the exulting war- rior retired from the dance overcome with exhaustion. Once having passed the boundary of their own lands, each man became a human fox, in which every element of caution and cunning assumed a conspicuous place. Scouts were deployed, frequent consultations held among the leading braves, and, marching in file, each warrior
THE NEUTRALS. 113
treaded so securely in the footsteps of another as to leave the impression that only one man had passed by the way. When a Neutral entered on the war- trail he never allowed his mind to be occupied with the hope of booty or ex- pectation of spoils, but only of the dead relatives he might avenge and the punishment he would inflict upon his foes. He dreamed of the scalps he was about to take, the prisoners he would capture, and the notches he would carve on his death stick. When the enemy's quarters were reached, a sudden onslaught was made, frequently before the dawn of day ; ere the foe was aroused to his danger the tomahawk and scalping knife were already doing their deadly work. When the conquering braves re- traced their path, dragging with them the prisoners re- served for the torture, runners were sent in advance to announce to their friends the victory, the number of prisoners taken and the hour they might be expected to arrive. Entering the village with reeking scalp-locks,* plunder and prisoners, they were greeted on all sides with shouts of approbation, made hideous with shrieks from the old hags, and the wild cries of the children. If, on the other hand, they suffered defeat, the flying remnant that escaped from the enemy entered in detached num- bers and were saluted by the old women, men and chil- dren with howls and lamentations. The baffled hand-
* See note in appendix on scalping.
114 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
f ul that returned skulked to their lonley wigwams, while all through the long night mothers, sisters and maidens were heard giving expression to their sorrow in moans and plaintive cries of woe. Women and children gave away to grief ; the women shrieked and moaned through the night, tearing out their hair and covering their heads with ashes. The men blackened their faces, stuck knives, needles and thorns into their flesh, but gave no other outward signs of grief. They sat for hours in melan- choly silence, but whatever may have been their feelings or emotions, they never found expression in tears, for the Neutral like the Huron " was a Stoic of the woods, a man without a tear." In 1638, the whole tribe declared war on the Mascoutins. Two thousand warriors took the war-path, and, after a siege of four months, stormed the fortified towns of the enemy and indiscriminately slaughtered the old, the disabled and the infants, and returned to their own country dragging with them a great number of prisoners. The woeful fate which await- ed them was only too familiar from the treatment they themselves had measured out to their Neutral captives in other days. They were portioned out among the Neutral cantons, and everywhere exposed to insults, jibes and mocking laughter. Indian custom demanded that before being subjected to torture by fire, the prisoner should run the gauntlet. An avenue extending two or
I
THE NEUTRALS. 116
three hundred yards, lined on either side with yelping fiends, squaws, warriors and young boys, constituted the race-course, over which the doomed man was forced to run. As he passed on his way, he was struck with stones and sticks, buffeted and pounded till it frequently hap- pened that from sheer exhaustion he fainted in the race. He was then turned over to the women and children who, like famishing dogs, bit off* his fingers, tore the flesh from his hands and inflicted every indignity and suffering upon him, short of death itself. The next day, exposed stark -naked, on a raised platform, they renewed the torture. The nails were torn from whatever fingers were left upon his hands, burning brands applied to his legs and arms, taking care, however, to touch no vital organ. After gratifying the fiendish appetites of the women and children, the warriors took him in charge and to a tent prepared for the purpose, the prisoner was drag- ged. While they were lighting the fire to roast him alive, he intoned his death-song, proclaimed the valor of his ancestors and appealed to their spirits to witness how bravely he could die. And now the death torture began in earnest. A slow fire was built around him, and amid the fiendish yells and shouts of triumph of the Neutral braves, the odor of burning flesh filled the wigwam. For hours this horrifying scene continued, till the prisoner sank to death from sheer weakness, or, if he bore his
116 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
suftering with great fortitude, from a blow of the toma- hawk. They were continually at war with the tribes to the west of them, and particularly with the " Nation of Fire," which they eventually destroyed. The friendly re- ception and hospitality extended to a fugitive band of Hurons after the ruin and dispersion of that unhappy people, excited the wrath of the Iroquois, who for some time were impatiently waiting for a pretext to declare war. In 1650, the Iroquois sent twelve hundred warriors into the Neutral territory. They captured two of their fron- tier towns, one of which contained a population of six- teen hundred souls, took a great number of prisoners and slaughtered the old people and children. The Neutrals retaliated, killing two hundred Mohawks and Senecas. The Iroquois,- when they learned of the death of their war- riors, threw fifteen hundred men into the enemy's country, stormed one of the chief towns, having a popu- lation of two thousand souls, and made it a slaughter house. They returned with troops of captives reserved for the torture or adoption.* This battle led to the ruin of the Neutral nation. The other towns took fright and scattered in all directions. They abandoned their cornfields and villages in the wildest terror, dispersed
* Father Fremin in his Relation of 1669, says that he found a number of the Neutrals among the Senecas, and adds that many of them had become Christians.
THE NEUTRALS. 117
themselves in the forests, crossed lakes and rivers in search of food, and thousands perished from starvation and ex- posure. Some of them found their way to Montreal and became Christians.*
* Registre des Baptemes de la Paroisse de ville Marie, 1650, 1651.
CHAPTER XIII
MISSION TO THE NEUTRALS.
Brebeuf and Chaumonot — Their Journey to the Neutral Country — Brebeuf 's vision — Arrive at Kandoucho — Their reception — Taken for Sorcerers — Instruments of Witchcraft — Assembly of the Chiefs — Brebeuf speaks — Condemned to Death — Dream of Brebeuf — Sus- pension of the Sentence.
On the 2nd November, 1640, John de Brebeuf and Joseph Chaumonot left the village of Teanaustaye to announce the gospel of salvation to the great Neutral tribe. The village from which they took their departure was situ- ated- in the present township of Medonte. When the Fathers became sufficiently numerous to spare one or two from their number. Fathers Daniel and Chabanel, were told off for this town, and opened the mission of St. Joseph. From this bourg, doomed to destruction in a few years at the hands of the Iroquois, the two Priests, after offering the Holy Sacrifice, fearlessly set out on their journey to a people who had never, but once in their lives, met a Priest of the Catholic Church. They were accompanied by two devoted French servants, who, in order to conciliate the savages, were commissioned to begin a temporary commerce with them. They had also
118
MISSION TO THE NEUTRALS. 119
engaged two interpreters to act as guides, but these abandoned them on the eve of their departure. Without, however, allowing themselves to be troubled, the Priests fell upon their knees and commended themselves to God in their abandonment. Then rising with a renewed resolution, they continued their journey till, meeting with a young hunter, they prevailed upon him to accompany them. The task they had undertaken was one fraught with serious difficulties ; the path lay through a country frightful i^ the desolation of its solitude. Winding through the primeval forest, it crossed streams through which they waded knee deep, fallen and up- rooted trees lay everywhere around them, and when night, with its eternal silence, closed in, they sought a few hours' rest under the shadow of some friendly pine. Their only provisions were a few cakes baked from In- dian corn, and often, indeed, no other food but the nuts they gathered on their journey. Toiling incessantly, living as it were without nourishment, carrying their portable altar on their backs, and their lives in their hands, they prepared for death, whether it came to them from the tomahawk or the brand of the torture fire, but were consoled with the hope that their mission would meet with at least a moiety of success. When morning broke, after their customary prayers, they began anew their journey, and, fortified with a burning zeal for the salvation of souls, continued on their way, thanking God
120 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
for the privilege vouchsafed to them in being selected for this perilous mission. They felt they were protected by Heaven, and that God rewarded them by singular favors. One afternoon, worn with fatigue, Father Bre- beuf beheld in a dream a host of heavenly spirits, who seemed to beckon him on, and invite him to advance with confidence. In gratitude for this vision, he dedicated the country to the Holy Angels, and resolved, when he reached a Neutral settlement, to open there a mission, and call it the Mission of All Saints. After a journey of live days, remarkable for excessive fatigue and spiritual consolations, the travellers, on the 7th of November, en- tered Kandoucho, the first village of the Neutral nation, four days' march from the Niagara River.* The Fathers were detained here sometime awaiting the return of a prominent chief, without whose authority they could not proceed further on their mission. Their reception in this town augured badly for the success of their under- taking. To their surprise, they learned that an evil reputation had already preceded them, and grave suspi-
*The missionaries, on their way to Queenston, from which place they crossed to visit the four or five Neutral towns on the other side of the Niagara River, would have passed through the counties of Simcoe, DuflFerin, Peel, Halton, Wentworth and Lincoln. Their path lay, so far as I can make out from researches, through the towns of Beeton, Orange ville, Georgetown, the north-western end of the city of Hamil- ton and the city of St. Catharines. Thirty-six villages of the Neutrals were in Canadian territory, and the last of the four or five towns on the American side was where the city of Lockport now stands.
MISSION TO THE NEUTRALS. 121
cions of their character were entertained. Brebeuf, whose Indian name of Echon was so favorably known to the Hurons, was looked upon as a dangerous enemy and a sorcerer, whose incantations were dreadful in their effects. They charged him with coming among them to effect their ruin, and told him that neither he nor his companion was welcome. It appears that some of the pagan Hurons, hearing that Brebeuf and Chaumonot were about to start for the Neutral country, disappeared in the forest, and arrived some days before the mission- aries. They brought with them a gift of nine toma- hawks, and everywhere circulated the report that the " blackrobes," by their incantations, would destroy the people. The Neutrals, who, like all the Algic tribes, held sorcerers in horror and detestation, endeavored to pre- vail on them to leave the country. " What is the mean- ing of these strange costumes ? " they said among them- selves ; " and this strange life they lead ? Do they not conceal some dangerous purpose ? Can we not see for ourselves that they have with them their instruments of magic, these things which they carry about with them, these breviaries, these crucifixes, and these beads, what are they ? And this strange writing which they put on paper, that tells them things without speaking. Why do they go so often upon their knees ? Are not these the postures of sorcerers ? " A thousand nameless fears took possession of them, they shunned the men of
122 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
God, as they would poisonous reptiles, and trembled with fear if one of the missionaries put his foot inside their cabin ; " the very sight of them," they said, " brought disease upon their children, and wherever they went a plague was sure to follow." If one of the missionaries entered a lodge, the law of hospitality, which was held to be sacred and inviolable among the Neutrals, alone saved him from rough treatment, but terror took the place of security, and while he remained the occupants were in a continual state of trepidation. No one dared to touch a single object belonging to them ; even the presents which they offered were received with suspicion and looked upon as things of evil omen. Their very footsteps were avoided, the paths on which they walked were infected, and the streams from which they drank were poisoned, the spectres of fear and consternation were floating in the very air. In presence of this universal terror the chiefs called a council to know what should be done with these strang- ers. Criers, chosen for the purpose, proclaimed from the tops of the wigwams the call to assemble. Brebeuf, familiar with these assemblies and the mode of procedure boldly strode into the council room. Strong in the con- viction of the holiness of his cause, and relying on the help of God, he determined to expose the object of his mission and, if possible, win freedom to preach the gospel. When he entered, he saw around him, crouching in mel- ancholy silence, a motley crowd of bronzed warriors.
MISSION TO THE NEUTRALS. 123
young boys and old men whose oiled bodies exhaled a pungent odor with which his nostrils were long familiar, His first act, according to custom, was to distribute mor- sels of tobacco, for the Neutrals always deliberated with lighted pipes. Then he threw down, as a present, a collar of wampum as an evidence of the sincerity of his good-will towards them. " We will accept no present from you," shouted out one of the orators, " you must leave the country." " Do you not know," said another, " the danger you are running ; every man, woman and child is demanding your death, we know the curse you have brought upon the Hurons, and we are determined that you shall not treat us as you have treated them." The great priest attempted to continue, but the frequent interruptions and the threatening language of the crowd, drowned his voice. After useless efforts, and seeing that nothing was to be gained by further attempts, he ceased speaking and returned to the wigwam of the family from whom he had craved hospitality. The two priests now resigned themselves to death which, from all appearances awaited them. After making preparation for their ap- proaching doom, they returned to snatch a few hours re- pose for the ordeal they had invited. Brebeuf beheld, in a dream, a hideous spectre, bearing on his countenance the impress of deadly hatred and ferocity. In his hand, he held three javelins with which he threatened him. Then drawing back his arm he cast them one after the
124 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
other at the missionaries, but before they reached their human targets, they fell harmlessly at his feet as if some invisible hand had caught them in mid air. The dream seemed to have filled him with consolation * and he con- tinued to sleep as if he had nothing to fear. After Brebeuf had retired from the council, the chiefs and lead- ing warriors remained in session. Three times the Fath- ers were doomed to death and three times they reconsid- ed their decision. At length one or two of the elders ar- gued on grounds of policy, that it would be detrimental to the interests of the nation to put these strangers to death. They contended that as they were domiciled among the Hurons it might provoke them to retaliation, but above all they argued that the French of Quebec being their kinsmen would surely demand satisfaction. These reasons prevailed with the council, and the uplifted tomahawk was laid once more upon the ground. Among those pres- ent at the council was the man in whose cabin Brebeuf and Chaumonot were resting, and as soon as he heard the final decision of the warriors, he immediately returned to the missionaries. To his unutterable surprise he found them buried in deep sleep, and how they could continue to slumber with the knowledge that at any moment they might be dragged forth to torture surprised his under- standing. He awoke them at once and informed them
* Relations 1649, p 20.
MISSION TO THE NEUTRALS. 125
of the result of the meeting. Brebeuf, recalling his dream, threw himself with Chaumonot on his knees and gave thanks to God for his Fatherly protection. Their lives were saved, but they owed their preservation more to fear than to any good feeling on the part of the Neutrals. If they were preserved from the murderous blows of the hatchet, they were not protected against calumny and suspicion. Even those who had pleaded for their lives were among the first to send abroad seriously damaging reports, not so much indeed to excite hatred against them as to make their stay with the tribe so intolerable that they would in disgust leave the country. But they knew not the men they were dealing with. These priests had wrenched themselves from the strong ties that bound them to home and friends. Long ago they bade good-bye to the refinements of civilized society. Long ago they buried for ever all hopes of worldly pleas- ure and ambition, and when they enlisted in the army of Jesus Christ, they flung themselves into the battle with the enthusiasm of men who realized they were fighting for a great cause.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS.
Perishing with Cold — In a Neutral Wigwam — The Jesuits Threatened — Friendly Advances — Curiosity of the Neutrals — Life in a Neu- tral Lodge — More Trials and Sufferings — Woeful Plight of the Mis- sionaries— Insults meekly Borne — Every door closed Against them — Sublime Resignation of the Priests.
At Ongaiara, a town on the eastern banks of the Niag- ara River, they were charged with forming a league witli the Iroquois to effect the ruin of the people. They were loaded with insult and, short of serious bodily injury, met with the roughest of treatment. At another village they were almost frozen to death. It was in the month of February, on an intensely cold night, that after a weary tramp of nine hours through the snow, they craved in vain for hospitality. Every door was closed against them, till at length, fearing they would perish from exposure, they took up their position at the door of a wigwam awaiting a favorable opportunity to slip in. After some delay a savage stepped out and the missionaries at once entered, knowing that the Indian code of hospitality compelled the dwellers therein to allow them to remain. Other visitors would at once be greeted with the familiar
126
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 127
'' Shay !" — " welcome !" mats spread for them by the fire baked squashes and roasted corn or a dish of sagamite placed before them, but the Fathers were stared at in gloomy silence from under scowling brows. Terror at once took possession of the inmates, but yet they attempt- ed no violence to the priests. The report of their pres- ence in the cabin spread throughout the village, and soon the lodge was surrounded by men, women and children. They began to discuss among themselves what measures they should take to get rid of these unwelcome intruders. While they were under the bark covering of a cabin, their persons were held to be inviolable. The elders of the village entered and loaded the strangers with reproach- es and threatenings. The young braves, impatient and restless, craved for permission to split their heads. " I am tired," said one of them, " eating the dark flesh of our enemies, and I want to taste the white flesh of the Frenchmen." Another snatched his bow and quiver and took aim at the heart of Chaumonot. As if remember- ing that he was about to violate a Neutral law, he drop- ped his arm and turned on his heel, ashamed of his ac- tion. Brebeuf strode to the door of the tent, and holding up his hand exclaimed : " We have not come here for any other purpose than to do you a friendly service. We wish to teach you to worship the Master of Life, so that you may be happy in this world and in the other." His fearlessness and address conquered, and those who a few
128 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
moments before were filled with fury and indignation, began to wonder at his audacity. They entered into a friendly conversation with the missionaries, and, with the capriciousness of children, asked to see and touch their clothes, and the articles they carried about them. One took off the shoes of Brebeuf and fitted them on himself, another examined Father Chaumonot's hat, and putting it on, masqueraded through the crowd. In one of Father Chaumonot's letters, he tells us that nothing appeared so mysterious to them as the written charac- ters on their papers. " F^her Brebeuf," he says, " at my request, left the wigwam and retired to a distance where lie could not hear us. One of the Indians present then dictated to me in a subdued voice the following senten- ces : — " I went hunting the other day and came across a deer; I took an arrow and fixed it in my bow ; I bent the bow, fired, and at the first shot brought down my prey ; then I placed him on my shoul- ders. I brought him home to my tent and made a feast for my friends." Father Brebeuf was then called in, looked at the paper and, naturally enough, read out word for word what had been dictated to me. At this extraordinary feat the savages burst into exclamations of surprise. They took up the paper, and, after turning it every way, said among themselves, " Where, then, is the figure that represents the hunter ? Where is the deer that he shot, or where are the pictures to show the
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 129
cabin and the fire for the feast ? We see nothing at all of them, and yet this oki has told it all to Echon." With the fickleness of children, the cries which a few moments before were those of death, became now those of admiration, and in the presence of familiarity, fear disappeared. The Fathers were now four months in the country, but as they were not permitted to sow the seed of truth they made no converts, and, what was to them more painful, they could see no hopes for the future. When the priests spoke to them of secular things they listened with rapt attention, but the moment they began to speak of the hereafter, of God and his dealings with men, they showed visible signs of displeasure. The months they passed with the tribe constituted a linger- ing painful martyrdom, in which they were continually called upon to exercise the virtues of patience and mor- tification. It was, indeed, a humiliating and penitential season, especially when they were subjected to the horrors of living under an Indian roof. A Neutral wigwam was constructed of bark, fastened to poles equi-distant apart, with an opening in the roof to allow the smoke to escape, and the door made of bark or the skins of animals sewed together. The suffocating smoke compelled one to take up a crouching or lying posture, a position which was the ordinary and familiar one of the Indians. When the fire went down the cold became intense ; at other times the heat was frightful, and, when the wind was
130 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA
unfavorable, the great quantity of smoke, added to the intense heat, made it a miniature hell. At other times, in severe storms, the cold winds entered through a thous- and openings, and if some one of the inmates failed dur- ing the night to keep up the fire there was danger of freezing to death. Often Father Brebeuf lay awake at night resting on his back, and through the opening in the tent gazed on the moon and stars as if he were lying on the snow -covered plain, and
While gazing on the sky above, May half forget the dreams of home That nightly with his slumber come ; The tranquil skies of sunny France, The peasant's harvest song and dance.
Much, however, as they suffered from the extremes of heat and cold, they complained that the torture from smoke was almost intolerable. At times they were com- pelled to lie upon the ground, face downwards, in order to breathe ; and even the savage inmates, who for years had been familiarized with life in a smoky tent and in a measure inured to it, were compelled to have recourse to the same expedient. " I have sometimes for hours re- mained in this position," writes one of them, " especially when the cold was so intense that I dare not remain outside, and it seemed to me that my throat, my nostrils and my eyes were during this time in a continual state of inflammation. At times I thought I would go blind,
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 131
my eyes were burning in my head and I could see around me only dimly and in a confused manner. When the Indians rose up to cross the tent they seemed to me like trees walking." When they made an effort to say their office, the letters were written in blood, became blurred and dimmed ; and they were obliged to close their books, unable to continue the pious exercises. The dogs, which were their inseparable companions, added to the horrors of their position. Half famished, they were continually running in and out searching for something to eat, and failing in their efforts, made night hideous with their bowlings. The food which they were compelled to eat was badly cooked, and served up in wooden plates so filthy that frequently the stomachs of the missionaries revolted. Often they were obliged to go for days with- out eating, a misfortune they shared in common with those around them. Their drink was frequently melted snow, and for napkins they used their moccasins or wiped their hands on the dogs around them, following the ex- ample of their savage companions. They slept in their clothes, and, when they took off their soutane or stock- ings, it was only to remove the vermin that were insep- arably associated with every member of the wigwam. The cries of the children, the howling of the dogs, the insufferable stench that was a part of their filthy sur- roundings and their equally filthy companions, made th^ir lives one long unbroken agony. At one village
132 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
they were compelled to pass six days in a wigwam with a family whose child was suffering from ulcerating sores, from which there exhaled an odor so abominable as to render life itself almost unbearable. The whole family, with the priests, ladled their food out of a common pot, that to all appearances had not been washed for months. Wherever they rested they were made a target for the laughter, the ridicule, the buffoonery and contempt of their companions which they bore with sublime patience. These attacks they endured in silence, deeming it pru- dent to abstain from remonstrance, fearing to give ad- ditional irritation to their ruthless tormenters. "If," said Father Chaumonot on his return, " we reaped no other fruit from our visit to the Neutrals, we have brought back a fertile repertoire of most opprobrious epithets." When sometimes they essayed to enter into conversation, they were insultingly told to keep their mouths closed. "Ye have beards on ye like rabbits," they were told. " Ye are not men at all, — ye are more like bears or like dogs, — your heads are made like cit- rons,— ye are deformed, — ye are cowards and afraid to go to war." This raillery would be kept up for hours, amid the mocking laughter of the barbarous inmates. There was no vile epithet of the Neutral language that was not applied to them, and the ridicule visited on their devoted persons flowed in continuous streams. They abstained, however, from inflicting any serious injury,
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 133
and the good sense of the Fathers accepted their in- sults and ridicule with the hope that their spirit of re- signation and patience would be pleasing to God. The sublime constancy of the priests during these trying or- deals surpasses belief, and the heroism with which they sustained and patiently accepted their intense mental and bodily sufferings excites our admiration. The con- sciousness that they were working in the service of God and the salvation of souls sustained them in the long night of their persecution. It would be hard to put to a trial greater constancy of the human heart than that which they bore with during these weary months of wretchedness and misery.
The Fathers visited eighteen towns, but were every- where received, as were Jogues and Garnier among the Petuns, with a storm of execration and malediction. Along the winding paths through the forest that inter- laced and crossed, and crossed again, they went from town to town suffering from cold and hunger and bear- ing a charmed life. At least some one town will receive them and listen to their pleadings. So they thought and toiled on. But the " black sorcerers," with their in- struments of necromancy, their crucifixes, crosses and rosary, the complete outfit, to call down withering^ blight, plagues and diseases, were held in terror and detesta- tion. Every door was closed, and closed fast against
134 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
them, for if once admitted, would not a curse fall upon the family ?
The heroism of these saintly men surpasses belief. With a devotion and resignation that to this day excite our astonishment, they meekly bore the insults and taunts of men, women and children. Refused food and drink, they lived on roots or a morsel that some pitying hand in mercy flung them. In one village only, that of Kioeta, which they christened St. Michaels, did they meet with a reception that bore the appearance of a half-hearted welcome.
Nowhere have we read of more sublime abnegation than that which was practised by these missionary Fathers when among the Neutrals. Half famished with cold and hunger, covered with hourly opprobrium and subjected to indignities humiliating to their refined natures, they continued their work and pursued their way with a sublime constancy that tills us with wonder and astonishment. " You come among us," said a chief one day, " for no good purpose ; you ' black robes ' are sorcerers, and in our country sorcerers are put to death, and I do not know what Manitou protects you, for we would wish to murder you, but fear your spirits would destroy us." Brebeuf in vain tried to convince him that they came only for the good of the tribe, and the chief answered by spitting in his face. The priest consoled
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 135
himself, thanking God that he was deemed worthy to suffer the same indignity to which his Divine Master was subjected by the Jews. He was a man naturally brave and instinctively quick to resent an insult, but he had so long trained himself in the practice of christian virtues that nothing seemed to disturb the unalterable peace of his great soul. By weary months of hope de- ferred, their zeal was sorely tried. They fasted, prayed, preached and toiled with no apparent success or impres- sion made on the human ramparts of error and super- stition.. They walked in the shadow of perpetual danger. The tomahawk gleamed above their heads, the arrow was set to the bow, the murderous hand was drawn to strike, but undismayed by threats, undaunted by the assassin's look, heedless of scowling glance or insulting speech, they passed on, satisfied that God at least was pleased with their labors. These were men whose preach- ing and self-denying lives among a more civilized people would have won respect if not success. When men with a divine fervor proclaim a truth or even have a truth, instinctively the soul of man will bow in reverence, but those to whom they were now preaching hoarsely grum- bled out their dissatisfaction in grating gutturals. Four months before, they left their brethren with empty pitchers to fight the battle of the Lord like Gideon's hosts, and whose desires, as far as the things of this world
136 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
went, were summed up in the single petition : " Give us this day our daily bread." Even at this day the mem- ory of their heroism sends a thrill of noble emotion to the heart of humanity, and the Divine tremor does not soon subside among the pure, the generous and the lofty souls that are not all of the earth, earthly.
«
CHAPTER XV.
THE JESUITS AND NEUTRALS (CONTINUED).
Failing Hopes — The Priests lose Heart — Begin the Homeward Journey — Sufferings on the Way — Brebeuf 's Famous Vision^ — The Floating Cross — Visions of other Days — On the March to St. William — A Friend at Last — Kindness of a Neutral Woman — Enteriug again on the Homeward Trail — The Via Dolorosa — Accident to Brebeuf — Home again — Christian Hurons among the Neutrals — Night Falls on the Day of Grace.
The love for perishing souls that bore them on through the long night of weary suffering, failed to move the hardened hearts of the Neutrals, arid at last, with droop- ing spirits, but with faith undaunted, the missionaries began to lose hope. Whatever might be the mysterious designs of Providence with regard to this lascivious and superstitious people, their hour of salvation had not yet struck, so, despairing of overcoming their inveterate pre- judices, the Fathers resolved to bid them good-bye and retrace the path to the Huron villages. Their co'mplete self-abnegation, the generous enthusiasm with which they fearlessly flung themselves into the fight, and the devour- ing zeal which filled them for the glory of God, merited a happier termination to their mission. Nowhere in the history of religion do we read of greater sacrifices for the salvation of souls than we witness in this mission, I 137
138 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and nowhere liave we heard of a pagan people who so firmly closed their eyes to the light of truth, or so effect- ually hardened their hearts against the softening influ- ence of God's redeeming grace. When Brebeuf and Chaumonot left Huronia four months ago, Indian sum- mer was tinting birch and maple with variegated shades of wondrous beauty. The air was filled with dreamy languor and the pleasant odor of smoking pine. Their path was then encumbered with logs, rotting trees, tangled with roots and underbrush, damp with perpetual shade and redolent of decayed leaves and mouldering wood. The wilderness spread before them in savage slumber. River, lake and stream were yet in maiden beauty, as they flowed from the hand of God centuries before. Above them was a cloudless sky, and with them gener- ous hopes and love for human souls. And now these hopes were blighted. They had not even stirred the dry bones. The dust of sin and corruption lay unswept upon the country, though the Breath of the Divine Spirit had blown upon it. These devoted men saw no return for their inonths of labor; — not even one solitary heart changed, not even a solitary resolution tending to a change. Pity, tenderness, sympathy failed them, and with hearts bowed down they sank to their knees, " Oh gentle Jesus, where art Thou. Hast Thou no love for Thy lost sheep. Thou crucified Saviour of men ? " All nature was in sympathy'' with them. Winter was still
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 139
upon the land, and stream and pond, rivulet and marsh were frozen hard, and snow lay resting on plain and hillside. In the second week of February, 1641, they sorrowfully began their homeward journey. The snow was falling when they left the village Onguiara, crossed the Niagara River near Queenston, ascended its banks and disappeared in the shrouding forest. The path, which led through an unbroken wilderness lay buried in snow. The cold pierced them through and through. The cords on Father Chaumonot's snow-shoe broke, and his stiffened fingers could scarcely tie the knot. Innumerable flakes of snow were falling from innumerable branches. Their only food was a pittance of Indian corn mixed with melted snow, their only guide, a compass. Worn and spent with hardships, these saintly men, carrying in sacks their portable altar, were returning to announce to their priestly companions on the Wye, the dismal news of their melancholy failure and defeat. There was not a hungry wolf that passed them but looked back and half forgave them being human. There was not a tree but looked down upon them jv^ith pity and commiseration. Night was closing in when, spent with fatigue, they saw smoke ris- ing at a distance. Soon they reached a clearing and des- cried before them a cluster of bark lodges. Here these Christian soldiers of the cross bivouacked for the night.*
*The village of Ganata, where Brebeuf and Chaumonot spent the night, was close to the present village of Grimsby and may indeed have occupied the same site.
140 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Early that evening while Chaunionot, worn with trav- elling and overcome with sleep, threw himself to rest on a bed that was not made up since the creation of the world, Father Brebeuf , to escape for a time the acrid and pungent smoke that filled the cabin, went out to commune with God alone in prayer. Early as it was, there was no one moving around, for the night was bitterly cold, and every door was closed. As the priest passed through the bourg, flickering ribands of light gleamed across his path, — from out the lodges came loud laughter and sounds of boisterous merriment, for neighbors were telling to each other rude jokes and spicy stories. Brebeuf moved to- wards the margin of the woods, when presently he stopped as if transfixed. Far away to the south-east, high in air and boldly outlined, a huge cross floated ; Suspended in mid heaven. " Was it stationary ? " No, it moved towards him from the land of the Iroquois. The saintly face lighted with unwonted splendor, for he saw in the vision the presage of the martyr's crown. Tree and hillside, lodge and village, faded away, and, while the cross was still slowly approaching, the soul of the great priest went out in ecstacy, in loving adoration to his Lord and his God. It was but another manifestation of God's love for him. Years ago, embowered in beatific vision, he beheld, on sloping hillside, the Angels of Heaven, choirs of Holy Virgins, and the Mother of Jesus gazing gracious approbation upon him. Again the cruci-
rriE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 141
tied Saviour, His head crowned with thorns, and His Blessed Mother, with heart transpierced, were before him, and made him understand that, following in the footsteps of his Divine Master, he also should enter on the thorny path that led to martyrdom. Once before, when op- pressed with gloomy forebodings, Christ folded him in His loving embrace, chose him as a vessel of election to bear unto the Gentiles the message of salvation, and strengthened him for the things he was to suffer in His name. Overcome with emotion, he exclaims, " Who will separate me from the love of my Lord ? Shall tribula- tion, nakedness, peril, distress, or famine, or the sword ? " Emparadised in ecstatic vision, he again cries out with enthusiastic loyalty, " Sentio me vehementer iiwpelli ad oiioriendum pro Ghristo ; " — " I feel within me a mighty impulse to die for Christ," and, flinging himself upon his knees as a victim for the sacrifice or a holocaust for sin, he registered his wondrous " vow " to meet martyrdom, when it came to him, with the joy and resignation be- fitting a disciple of his Lord.* When he returned to himself, the cross had faded away, innumerable stars were brightly shining, the cold was wrapping him in icy mantle, and he retraced his footsteps to the smoky cabin. He flung himself beside his weary brother and laid him down to welcome rest. When morning broke, they be-
*Relation, 1618, page 18 ; see appendix.
142 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
gan anew their toilsome journey, holding friendly con- verse. " Was the cross large V asked Father Chaumonot. " Large," spoke back the other, " yes, large enough to crucify us all." I wonder if the indomitable spirit of this heroic priest quailed in the presence of this porten- tous and prophetic sign, or did he welcome the apparition as foretelling the near approach of his hopes and prayers for the martyr's crown. Late that afternoon they reached the town of Teatonguiaton. They visited this town, which they christened St. William, when outward bound, and here happened one of the most consoling in- cidents of their rough experience in the country. They rested here all night, and when morning dawned they were snow-bound, and compelled for a time to abandon their journey. The squaw, into whose cabin they were led as if by the hand of God, seemed to have been in- spired from heaven to treat them with a tenderness and kindness in striking contrast to the injuries and insults they had everywhere received. The season of Lent was upon them with its rigorous abstinence, and the woman, noticing that they did not touch the meat placed before them, prepared dishes of Indian corn and fish. The Fathers, profiting by their forced delay, endeavored to perfect themselves in the dialect of the Neutrals.* Their hostess lent her services to the work. She dictated to
*Father Brebeuf collected the material for his Neutral dictionary while staying in this village.
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 143
them the words of the language, and syllable by syllable, explained their different meanings and applications. She instructed her children to regard them with great respect. The Fathers treated these little ones with a friendliness that won their hearts, and they in turn reciprocated with kindly services. The squaw was ridi- culed and subjected to annoying persecution by her Indian companions, but, during the twenty-five days that the missionaries passed under her hospitable roof, there was no change in her bearing towards them. " Sad to relate," writes Father Chaumonot, " this good woman, so devoted in her attentions and so tender in her sympathies, opened not her heart to the grace of God, and we had not the consolation of baptizing her before leaving." Bidding good-bye to this good woman and her children, they again took up the homeward trail. Two weeks of March had already passed away, but the cold was still intense, while lake and pond were frozen solid, and the snow hard enough to support the weary travellers. That night it grew still colder, and they began to suffer in- tensely. " It was so cold," writes Father Chaumonot, " that the trees around us split with the frost, and the ice in places opened with a great noise ; but in spite of cold, weariness, and repeated falls, the marks of which are still left on my knees, we marched along courageously and joyously." Father Brebeuf , however, met with an accident which was very serious in its effects. When
144 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
crossing a wind-swept pond, whose ice was like polished glass, he slipped and fell so violently that he lost con- sciousness. When he regained his senses and was assisted to his feet by Father Chaumonot, he complained of great pain, and on examination it was found he had broken his shoulder-blade. Under the circumstances, they could do nothing but proceed on their journey, which was for Father Brebeuf , by reason of his intense sufferings, a veritable via dolorosa. When climbing a hill he was frequently obliged to rest himself against a tree ; and when going down he was assisted by Father Chaumonot, who feared the consequences of another fall. About this time the Fathers met a Huron guide, who was sent from St. Mary's to escort them home. The guide and Father Chaumonot, in pity for Brebeuf 's suf- ferings and unable to relieve him, tried to persuade him to rest for a time until they would make a sleigh, on which they proposed to draw their wounded companion. The heroic Brebeuf, whose energy of character and intrepid courage sustained him in every trial, courteously declined the offer, and after a short rest, the two priests and the guide faced again towards the Huron country. On the 19th of March, 1641, the feast of St. Joseph, Patron of the land, Fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot, after an absence of almost five months, reached the familiar village of St. Mary's of the Hurons. Priests, neophytes, and Huron warriors, gathered around and
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 145
greeted them as men who had returned from their graves. They entered the village early in the morning, and after the customary salutations were over, offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and received Holy Com- munion, " to us," adds Chaumonot, " the greatest conso- lation and the most powerful support in our apostolic labors." So ended the mission to the Neutrals. The failure of Fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot did not, how- ever, put an end to the hope that some day they would return and meet with a more favorable reception. It was no part of the creed of the Fathers to despair of con- verting a people who opened hospitable graves for the martyred bodies of the Jesuits, much less of those who only treated them with contempt and ridicule. " The fewness of our number," writes Father Lalemant,"* scarcely sufficient for the towns around us, prevents us from going to the Neutral nation where three years ago we sowed the seed of the gospel. Some Christian Hurons, however, have taken our place and are doing the work of apostles with perhaps as much success as if we our- selves were there." A year or so after the return of Chaumonot and Brebeuf, Stephen Totiri, a Christian Huron from the village of St. Joseph, accompanied by his brother, visited the frontier towns of the Neutrals and began to explain to the people the doctrines and myste-
* Relation, 1644, page 97»
146 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
ries of the faith. They were favorably received, and ex- cited such interest and curiosity that visitors came at all hours of the night and day to interview them. The brothers carried their beads suspended from their necks, and the Neutrals, who were as curious as children, asked them to explain what these things were, and if the cruci- fixes attached to the beads were not okis. " They are a sign," replied Stephen, " that we acknowledge for Mas- ter Him who created heaven and earth. Though invisi- ble, He fills the whole world with His presence, governs all things, as the soul fills and governs our bodies, even though we do not see it." Another Huron convert, Barnabe Otsinnonannhont, made a long sojourn in the Neutral country. He was a man of considerable author- ity among the Hurons and manifested great zeal in teach- ing the mysteries of religion to the Neutrals. The efiect of his good example was greater even than his dis- courses. He declined to take any part in ceremonies which his conscience told him were wrong, and virtu- ously spurned advances tolerated by the customs of the country but opposed to the law of morality. The Neu- trals, who were very much attached to dreams, which they believe to be emanations from some protecting Manitow, could not understand why Barnabe condemned belief in them as unworthy of men and even beneath the contempt of women. When the Neutrals complained that the Christian religion was an insupportable yoke
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS. 147
and toot from them the pleasures that alone made exist- tence tolerable, he answered, " Not so, for if I knew a road leading to Paradise, though broken with frightful precipices, I would enter upon it cheerfully, knowing that I was on the road to Heaven. At whatever price we purchase eternal happiness, we have made a good bargain." In the spring of 1645, a band of a hundred Neutrals visited the Hurons. They beheld with wonder and surprise the Christian churches that were built in the Huron villages. They invited the Fathers to return with them, assuring them that, if they came again, they would receive a hospitable welcome. " God grant," adds Father Lalemant, " that it may be so." But the day of grace for the Neutrals had gone for ever, and not from the north, but from the south a message was borne to them, and its burden was, " The Iroquois are digging the grave of the great Neutral nation, and the war-cry of the Senecas will be the requiem for your dead."
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ALGONQUINS.
Algonquin Tribes — Extent of Territory Claimed by Them — No Military Unity — Their Theogony— Schoolcraft's Opinion — ** Kitchi-Mani- tou" and " Mitchi Manitou" — Algonquin Sacrifices — The Medicine Men — Offerings to the Manitous —Dreams — The Nipissings — Their Hunting Grounds — A Nation of Sorcerers — Sagard — Father Pijart and the Nipissings.
The great Algonquin nation, at the time of which we write, included one hundred and four scattered tribes whose hunting grounds stretched from the St. Lawrence along the Ottawa, sweeping northerly past the Huron country till they touched the land of the Sioux and the great North- West. All the New England tribes, those of the Delaware region, the Abenaquis of Maine, the Creeks of the Great Slave Lake, the Ottawas and Pottawatamies of Michigan, bore the Algonquin totem. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Virginia, Pennsylvania and all New England were occupied by tribes speaking the Algonquin language. Even into Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana, detached hordes roamed. This great nation must have numbered, when Cartier arrived at Montreal, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand souls. As a nation they did hot at any time reach an
148
THE ALGONQUINS. 149
approach to civilization bordering on the Huron Iroquois. The extent of territory over which they roamed, the multitudinous tribes claiming Algonquin descent, the in- cessant wars and feuds in which they were engaged among themselves, weakened their fighting strength and, when the Mohawks and Senecas atttacked them on the East, and the Sioux on the West, they were generally worsted. The cohesiveness which bound together the tribes of the Wyandots, and those of the Iroquois, was the secret of their strength, when compared numerically with the Algonquins. The Iroquois parliament represent- ing the five nations, met at Onondaga, and the Huron Council assembled at Ossossane, but we find no place or town in which the Algonquins converged in cases of dan- ger to the whole nation ;* hence, while they surpassed in numbers the Iroquois and Hurons combined, they were unequal to either in the field. It would appear from the testimony of early travellers that many of the tribes of the Algonquins entertained some notions of a Creating Spirit. " They believed," says Schoolcraft, " in the exist- ence of a Supreme Being who created the earth and the heavens, men and animals, and filled space with subor- dinate spirits to whom he gave part of his power." Char-
* General Cass (His. Lee, p. 14) says that the Council-fire of the Algonquin Confederacy had, from times remote, been in the custody of the Chipewas, and the seat of its power was on the South-western shore of Lake Superior. He does uot support his opinion by any authority.
150 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
levoix and Loskiel are of the same opinion. This ^reat spirit they denominated Kitchi-Manitou. Inferior in power to this great and good Being, was an evil spirit called Mitchi-Manitou, who came into existence after Kitchi-Manitou. The symbol of the good spirit was the Sun and that of the evil spirit the Serpent. To both these spirits the Algonquin offered a species of sacrifice, to propitiate the one, and appease the other.* Like all the other tribes of North America, the religion of the Algon- quins was a tissue of absurdities. They had no doctrine or distinct priesthood, and that which seemed to be a doctrine, was so buried in their traditional superstitions, that it could scarcely be said to have had a breathing exist- ence. With them superstition, the child of error and ignor- ance, was continually fostered by the awful natural phen- omena around them. The " Medicine Man " was the near- est approach to a priest known to the Algonquins. In sickness, in trials and trouble, they resorted to him as densely ignorant and stupid people do to fortune-tellers in our own country to-day. In fact, with this class of people professing to be Christian, the fortune-teller or
* This belief has been beautifully expressed by McGee in his charm- ing poem, Jacques Cartier.
" He told them of the Algonquin braves — the heroes of the wild, Of how the Indian mother in the forest rocks her child ; Of how, poor souls, they fancy in every living thing, A spirit, good or evil, that claims their worshipping."
THE ALGONQUINS. 151
clairvoyant stands in about the same relation that the Medicine Man did to the . superstitious Algonquin. To the Algonquins the earth, the air, storm and tempest and animals of all kinds were animated with spirits which they called Manitous, In fact all existing things had a Manitou which they invoked when starting on the war or hunting trail. Sacrifices were offered in their honor to solicit their good offices in behalf of themselves or friends. When they sacrificed to the Sun, the act of worship was accompanied with a feast at which every- thing was consumed. Thanks were returned for the light the Sun vouchsafed them and, for the sake of the feast which was offered in his honor, a continuance of his good offices was solicited for the future. Tobacco was then thrown into the fire, and the shouts and clamour of the tribe mingled with the rising incense. When on the lakes a storm threatened them, they threw a dog in- to the waters, appealing to the storm to be still, in grati- tude for their offering. In dangerous places in the rivers and bays, offerings were cast on the rocks, or hung upon the trees, to propitiate the divinity that presided over the locality. The snow and ice they believed to be ani- mated with spirits that moved them to disappear in the spring and return in the winter. They thought that crows and hawks and other birds, as well as certain animals, could talk and understand each other. Cur- iously enough, believing that fishes were animated with
152 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
souls, they held that when a fish was killed or died, the spirit passed into another fish, and for this reason an Algonquin was never known to throw the remains of a fish he had eaten into the fire, believing if he did so, that particular kind would never again enter his net. Their tribal sacrifices nearly always ended in feasts of debauchery and impure dances. Concubinage and polygamy obtained everywhere among them ; men and women separating at will, taking other partners unto themselves. Their girls were shameless wantons. Even their very dreams they supposed to^ be influenced by a spirit, and often they spent seven or eight days in un- broken fast in order to invite a vision of a herd of moose or a band of flying Iroquois regarding them as omens of good luck. Disease with an Algonquin was supposed to be the result of his failure to perform some specific duty, or the introduction of some tantalizing iuip of evil im- port who entered into his body or to that part of his system most affected; Hence, if a man had a headache or a severe pain in any part of his body, he complained that he was possessed of a Maniiou and w^ould have no rest until he was banished. The " medicine man " of the tribe was then sent for, who applied his mouth to the afflicted part^ and after a series of incantations and weird actions declared that he had banished the spirit and nothing remained for him now but to give a feast. In truth the superstitions which formed the religion of the
THE ALGONQUINS. 153
Algonquin entered into almost every act of his life, con- fronted him in every journey or duty he was undertak- ing, until all his actions became a tissue of absurdities. To the Algonquin nation belonged the Nipissings among whom the Jesuits were soon to open a mission with the hope that in the course of time they would be able to send evangelists to all the other Algic tribes. The territory claimed by this particular tribe lay on both sides of the lake which bears their name, and included the present townships of Patterson, Hardy, McConkey, Lount, the present Indian Reserve on the northern shore of Lake Nipissing, extending on both sides of the Cana- dian Pacific Railway as far as the banks of the Spanish River. The Hurons and the French stigmatized them as a nation of sorcerers, not that they w'ere all such, but because as a people they boasted themselves on consult- ing the spirits in their necessity. " When," writes Sagard, " they wished to communicate and learn anything from the spirits, their ordinary custom was to build a wigwam for the occasion, and there invoke the devil and receive his oracles, which were indeed oftener announcements of falsehood than truth. Indeed, there are those among them who say they have seen their demons, spoken to them and had intercourse with them. These sorcerers claim to have the power of bringing on those whom they hate certain diseases which can only be cured by sorcer- ers stronger than themselves, or by extraordinary re-
154 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
medies. I have found, however, among them good- natured people, courteous in their conversation and of a nature capable of developing much good if they were only instructed in the law of God. Their dress and the manner of wearing their hair is similar to that of the other Algonquins."*
Father Pijart says that when in the winter of 1641 he opened a mission among the Petuns there were two towns occupied by the Nipissings in which the Algonquin language was spoken exclusively, and in which the men were entirely naked ; he adds that they changed their villages almost every season. In the spring a band of them would betake themselves to streams where there was good fishing, another party would start for Lake Superior and spend the time trafficking with the people on the shores. As early as 1640, Fathers Claude Pijart and Claude Raymbault left Three Rivers to open a mis- sion among the Nipissings, remaining fifteen days with them, during which time they were most hospitably and kindly entertained. Their principal chief, Ikasoumir, went through the village crying out: "Let every one come to pray and honor God after the manner of the French." No obstacle was placed in the way of the Fathers either in instructing or baptizing the sick. This
*While with the Nipissings Sagard lost his manuscripts containing an account of his travels since he left Dieppe.
THE ALGONQUINS. 155
was the beginning of the mission of the Holy Ghost among the the Nipissings, of which we will treat in the following chapter. Father Pijart visited other towns in the Nipissing country, in one of which there were five hundred souls gathered together from the different tribes, to whom he announced the gospel. Writing of the Nip- issings he says. " These people are of a friendly nature, not at all proud ; they are good managers, the women are very industrious and the children, when of an age to do so, occupy their time in fishing. The youths show a great desire to be instructed and are very fond of sing- ing." Father Ragueneau says that he' and Father Men- ard in 1648 celebrated the Feast of the Assumption with this tribe, and that in their bark chapel prayers were chanted in Latin, Algonquin and Huron.
CHAPTER XVII.
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS.
The Nipissings — The Bedouins of the Forest — Mission of the Holy Ghost — Feast of the Dead — Dance of the Nipissings — Pijart and Garreau — With the Roving Horde — Heroism of the Priests — Dis- persion of the Nipissings — Father Claude Allouez — His Story.
In 1642, Fathers Claude Pijart and Charles Raymbault opened a missicm on the northern shore of Lake Nipis- sing, about where the village of Beaucage, in the Indian reserve, now stands. The year before, Father Pijart left Three Rivers early in the spring, and passed some months instructing and ministering to the Indians there. It could only have been a " flying church," for the Nip- issings were a roving horde, having no towns, permanent villages, or, indeed, any fixed abode, but throwing to- gether their temporary cabins, sometimes in the northern forests of Algoma, again amid the lonely lakes of the Muskoka region and Parry Sound, or in the desolation of wilderness that stretched from their own shore to Tamagamingue Lake. Sometimes buried in the dense forest, again squatting on the islands of the lakes around them, they were continually on the move, and except in the winter, when they drew near to the Huron frontier,
156
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS. 157
were scarcely ever four months in the same place. " If there are dangers to us in this wandering life, more, indeed, on the water than on the land ; if we suffer hard- ships following these poor savages, if fatigues are associ- ated with our journeys. Heaven, nevertheless, grants us many consolations." * The success of the Fathers, how- ever, was not commensurate with their labors. They were confronted with almost insurmountable difficulties ; the same gross stupidity, the same licentiousness, the same dirt and filth, only in a more revolting form, which they found among the Hurons, were everywhere around them. They lamented their want of success, and the only attempt at an excuse or explanation for apparent failure found in the whole " Jesuit Relations," appears in this letter of Father Pijart : " To make a Christian out of a savage is not the work of a single day ; the seed which the husbandman scatters on the soil requires time to germinate." The missionaries had first to become acquainted with the tribe, to acquire some knowledge of the language, which was an Algonquin patois, to fami- liarize themselves with their habits and manner of life, before they could make any progress. The next obstacle which lay across their path was the intense prejudice which this " nation of sorcerers " entertained against the faith. With an admirable simplicity, as gentle as it was
*Father Pijart's letter to Father Jerome Lalemant.
158 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
child-like, these self-den^ang men congratulated them- selves on being permitted to baptize a few sickly children. These infants, fortunately, recovered their health, and the Nipissings began to think that the " black-robes " were not only medicine-men of great power, but also men who were disposed to advance the interest of the tribe. The bitterness of opposition gradually died out, but the Nip- issings, who were often on the verge of famine, were too busy finding sustenance for their bodies to pay much attention to their souls, and it is doubtful if they ever would become Christians while they continued their rovings. In this year, when autumn was just opening, the Algonquins celebrated their " Feast of the Dead," gathering the bones of their friends and relatives from their respective burial-places and conveying them to a common centre on the shores of Parry Sound. On a given day early in September, the confederated tribes, responding to invitations sent out sometime before, met together. The Algonquins of Lake Superior were the first to arrive with a flotilla of forty canoes. As they approached the shore they threw into the water oft'erings to the tutelary oJcis and manitous of the locality. Each tribe, when it reached the place of meeting, spread out on the ground its presents for the dead. Robes of beaver, skins of deer, bear and wild cat, hatchets, kettles and belts of wampum, and articles which were considered valuable, covered the ground. Each chief
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS. 159
made a special present, offering for acceptance that which was considered suitable. Pijart and Raymbault, who came down with the Nipissings, presented their gifts as offerings to the living, at the same time express- ing the hope that they would embrace the faith, in order to be happy hereafter in heaven. This wish on the part of the Fathers excited considerable surprise, for it was opposed t(. the immemorial custom which de- manded expressions of sorrow for the dead and words of consolation for the living. When the ceremony of pres- entation was over, forty warriors chosen for the purpose strode into the open, and, to the music of voice and drum, began the " dance for the dead ; " each man facing his neighbor with uplifted tomahawk, as if to strike, held himself in readiness for the mimic battle. A Sauteur breaks away from the ranks as if pursued by an enemy. After a short run, he turns swiftly around to give battle to the foe ; then, shouting out his war-cry, he rushes for- ward and buries his hatchet in the head of his imaginary enemy, and returns victorious to his friends. When he re-enters the ranks, a war party armed with bows and quivers moves swiftly out, as if to meet the Iroquois. Their gestures, movements, and gyrations were those of men intensely excited. As the combat deepened, detached bands of warriors rushed to the assistance of their friends. The air is rent with war-cries; men struggle hand to hand, writhing, twisting, contorting, until the
160 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
scene takes on the appearance of an actual battle. The Iroquois defeated, the Algonquins return with imitations of reeking scalp-locks, and are greeted on every side with exultant shouts of approbation. After a momentary pause, the tribal musicians appear, and the second part of the dance begins. Commencing with eight persons, every few minutes two or three more joined, till all the warriors took part. This was followed by the dance of the squaws, a dance remarkable for its rythmic move- ment and grace of action. The ballet over, they pro- ceeded to the election of their chiefs, whose names were proclaimed by a herald, chosen for the purpose. The elected chiefs strdde forward, clothed in rich robes, and offered valuable presents of beaver and bear skins. The ceremony of the " Resurrection of Names " now took place. It consisted in conferring the names of the dis- tinguished dead on those whose valorous deeds entitled them to the honor, and was done to keep alive the mem- ory of their great men. While this ceremony was going on, the women were occupied in decorating a large wig- wam, built for this special occasion. Its walls were lined with most valuable furs ; for flooring it had pre- cious skins of beaver and bear, and within were heaped the rich presents which each tribe had brought to the trysting-place. The women now carried in the bones of the dead, which were coffined in cedar boxes, elaborately lined with robes and decorated with strings of wampum.
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS. 161
Around each coffin the female relatives gathered and sang their mournful requiems. When the women had finished their lamentations, a dozen men entered, and the squaws began anew their mourning chants, till the tent was filled again with plaintive cries of woe. Night was already far advanced ; the melancholy dirge rose at times to a shriek and again fell in dying cadences, when presently those outside caught up the lingering strains which were carried from tribe to tribe till the forest was filled with a chorus of lamentations. This requiem of the dead continued the whole night, and when morning broke the squaws distributed gifts of corn, ornamented moccasins and other articles manufactured for the feast, addressing themselves the while to the souls of their dead, whom they believed were present to participate in the ceremony. They waived palm branches over the dry bones that their rest might be peaceful. Then from some neighboring hill there rushed down a band of braves, brandishing their weapons and piercingf the air with their frightful war-cries, leaping, shouting, yelping as if in actual battle, until they reached the tent, which they stormed, the women fleeing in apparent terror. The warriors now took possession of the lodge and celebrated their victory in prolonged dances, till each tribe had taken part in the ceremony. When the dance was fin- ished, the Algonquins of the north slaughtered a number of dogs and bears, which they brought with them in
162 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
their canoes, and the feast of death was entered upon. After they had breakfasted they brought together the bones of their dead, and, in a large pit, lined with pre- cious robes, laid them to rest. They then filled in the huge grave, covered it with stones, built a picket fence around it, and the " Feast of the Dead " was over. The priests were silent spectators at this ceremony, mingled affectionately with the visitors from the north, and ap- parently made a favorable impression upon them. The Algonquins of Lake Superior invited the Fathers to open a niission in their country, stating that the Potta- watamies, who were driven by the Iroquois from their own forests, were now dwelling with them. The priests s tated that they were on their way to the Hurons, but t hat in all probability the following year some of them would visit the northern tribes. In 1645, Fathers Pi- Jart and Garreau* wintered with the Nipissings and
* Father Leonard Garreau, altnoat immediately after his arrival in the country, 1644, proceeded to the mission of the Hurons. After the dispersion of the Hurons, he retired with a remnant to "Christian Island," from which place he made frec^uent excursions to the northern shore of the great lake to minister to the scattered families that lied to these parts. After he returned to Quebec with the fugitive Hurons, he remained there for some time ministering to these unhappy people. Father de Quen, in his Relation of 1656, says that a party of Hurons who had taken refuge with the Ottawas, came to Quebec and invited Father Garreau to return with them. He accepted the invitation, and in company with Father Dreuilletes and a party of French hunters, left with the Indian flotilla. When they arrived at Three Rivers the hunters lost heart and returned to Quebec. The priests continued on,
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS. 163
suffered intensely from cold and privation. They left St. Mary's in the last days of November, and were five days on their journey, continually exposed to storms, snow and very severe weather. They built for them- selves a small lod^e, in which they said mass every day. Father Garreau fell ill and was very near dying. Father Pijart was very seriously wounded by a sorcerer, and would undoubtedly have been killed but for the intervention of one of the tribe. "Truly," he writes, " we can only abandon ourselves into the hands of Pro- vidence, for although many among them have a kindly feeling for us, still any man may kill us, satisfied he has nothing to fear from the tribe." When spring opened, the Nipissings dispersed, and the Fathers returned to Huronia.
There are few pages in our early history more touch- ing and romantic than those which record the labors and sufferings of these mortified men. By insults meekly borne, by trials innumerable and by saintly patience, they began to win gradually these Bedouins of the for- est. Through months of weary exile, through nightly vigil, they sowed in tears before they reaped in joy. In
and as they reached the mouth of the Ottawa, the flotilla was attacked by the Iroquois, and Father Garreau's backbone was broken by a bul- let. As the French were at peace with the Iroquois nation at the time, Father Garreau was brought by them to Montreal, and presents offered to appease the anger of the Governor. Father Garreau lived in great agony for three days, and died on the second of September, 1656.
164 EA.RLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
winter, perishing witli cold and halt* starved, they crouch- ed in the smoky lodges, and by the blazing fires instructed those half -humanized hordes in the rudiments of Chris- tianity. Again, in the burning heat of summer, in the drenching storms of spring and autumn, living on acorns and rock tripe, they followed their savage companions on their fishing excursions, roamed with them through the northern forests of Nipissing, or, while the horde camped for a time amid the desolate rocks of Muskoka,
Rocks hoary with age,
While yet the Greek
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock
The glittering Parthenon,
expounded the mysteries of the Faith, in language divine in its sincerity and earnestness. Hunger and cold and disease they fought and conquered with a burning zeal that sustained and cheered their wasted and sinking frames. If the flesh trembled, the unconquerable spirit never faltered. Disappointment and discouragement too, were theirs, for often, when perishing souls whom they came to rescue listened for months with apparent interest and seemed to promise some return for the sacrifices made on their behalf, the Fathers beheld but the dry husks of hypocrisy. Still they sowed on, and the harvest they reaped was not altogether one of barren regrets. The missionaries, worn and spent with labor, returned
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS. 165
to Huronia for a short rest. Father Pijart* fell seriously ill, and Menardf taking his place, accompanied Father Garreau on his way back to the Nipissings. On their ar- rival they opened the mission of St. Michael and made many converts who retained their religion until death. There is every reason to believe that if it were not for the dispersion and partial extinction of the tribe, the Nipissings, if once permanently settled, would have been won eventually to the faith, for the Jesuits, once
*Father Pijart arrived in the Huron country, 1635. In May, 1637, he established the mission of the Immaculate Conception at Ossossane. He returned to France broken in health, after passing fifteen years on the Canadian missions. His eldest brother Claude stepped into the breach made vacant by his departure. He left for the Huron Missions in 1640 and labored for some years among the Nipissings and Petun- Hurons. He accompanied the Huron remnant to Quebec where he died at the age of 63 in 1683.
tFather Rene Menard reached Quebec on June 4th, 1640. The fol- lowing year he ascended to the Huron country. Until 1649 he labored among the Hurons, the Nipissings and other Algonquin tribes. De- scending with Father Ragueneau, after the destruction of the Hurons, he wrought for sometime among the Indians in the French settlements. In July, 1656, he left for the Iroquois missions, but, after three years of almost fruitless labor, returned in 1660 to Three Rivers. We next hear of him among the Algonquins of Lake Superior, where, on August 15th, 1661, he was lost on his way to an inland tribe. His remains were never discovered, nor was he ever afterwards heard of. Father Menard was the first Priest that said Mass in what is now the state of Wisconsin, August 15th, 1661. It seemed that he had a pre- sentiment of his death, for a short time before it occurred he wrote to one of the Fathers : "In three or four months in your Masses remem- ber me as among your dead." Years afterwards his Breviary was found among the Sioux who treasured it as a potent amulet.
166 EAKLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
they entered upon the conversion of a tribe, never retreated. If disease or the tomahawk felled the con- secrated soldier into the ^rave, another, sorrowing for his companion, pressed forward, cross in hand, pre- pared to close with the spirits of superstition and dark- ness, and, if needs be, share in his brother's fate. " No- thing," wrote one of them years afterwards, when de- scribing the martyrdom of his two companions, — " No- thing has happened to them for which they were not prepared when they gave themselves to the conversion of the Indians." In the grandeur of his Faith, in the magnificence of his djnng love for his Lord and Master, each one felt that sooner or later in his own blood he would be " baptized for the dead," for those who in the gloomy forests were sleeping the sleep of death. Each one rejoiced that he was appointed unto death. " Ibo et non redibo, — I will go but will not come back," were the prophetic words of Jogues* when, already scarred and mutilated by the knives of the Iroquois, he returned to the Mohawks, bearing once again the mes- sage of salvation. Truly they were all Baptists crying in the wilderness as in the days of old, and praying that even their wandering flocks would some day " see the salvation of God."
In 1650 the Nipissings were attacked and defeated by
*Kip's Jesuit Missions, page 67.
MISSION TO THE NIPISSINGS. 167
the Iroquois. The flying remnant left the country and settled on the shores of Lake Nepigon, where they remained for twenty years unvisited by a priest. On the 16th of May, 1667, Father Allouez * took his depart- ure from Chequamegon Bay, with three Ottawa com- panions, and, after a perilous voyage of twelve hours in a bark canoe, reached the northern banks of Lake Superior. They coasted along the shore of this great lake and entered the mouth of the Nepigon River, where they rested for two days. Here they met twenty or thirty Nipissing hunters, to whom he preached the gos- pel, and who still retained a kindly regard for the black robes, whom they had known on the shores of their own lake twenty years before. "I must here relate," writes Father Allouez, "a remarkable story told to me by these Nipissings. Two women, a mother and her daughter, who were instructed by Father Pijart, have
*Father Claude Allouez came to Quebec ia 1657, and after labor- ing for some time at Three Rivers and Montreal, embarked for the North-western regions in August, 1665, in company with more than four hundred Indians of different tribes, who were returning to their forest homes after bartering their furs and peltries. For twenty-five years this wonderful priest travelled from tribe to tribe through the great states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, enduring the hor- rors of cold and hunger, bearing the message of the gospel to those who were seated in the shadow of death, and expiring in 1690, amid the lamentations and regrets of his pagan and christian children of the for- est. He met LaSalle in Illinois in the year 16791 An extended notice of the life of this extraordinary priest will be found vx the *' History of the discovery of the Mississippi," page 67.
168 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
always had recourse to God and continually receiv- ed help from Him. They were captured by the Iro- quois and luckily escaped death by fire and torture. Shortly afterwards they again fell into the hands of their enemies, and prepared themselves by prayer for the frightful ordeal which awaited them. One day, being left alone with a solitary guard, his companions having gone on a hunting expedition, the daughter remarked to the mother, * There is now a chance for us to escape.' She was dressing a beaver skin, according to command, and asked the Iroquois for a knife. Im- ploring the help of Heaven, she rushed upon him and buried the knife in his bosom, her mother at the same time braining him with a stick of wood. Then hastily gathering what provisions they could, they fled into the woods, and after a weary journey of some days, reached their village." Father Allouez arrived in safety, and remained with them some months. The " Relations " make no further mention of the Nipissings, and it is probable that, weakened by disease and war, they lost their tribal identity and were absorbed by the other Al- gonquin nations.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS.
St. Mary's-on-the-Wye — Father Jogues — Before the Altar of the Bless- ed Sacrament — On the way to Quebec— The Return — Capture of the Huron Flotilla — Jogues a Prisoner — His Indifference to Danger — Couture — His Heroic Devotion— On to the Mohawk Villages — Atrocious Torture — The Fishing Party — At a Mohawk Village — Plight of an Algonquin Woman — Excruciating Sufferings of Jogues — Suspended in the Air — Death of Ren6 Goupil — Jogues' Attach- ment to his Friend — Searching for the Dead — Ransomed by the Dutch — In France again — Jogues and the Superior General — Jogues Sails for Canada— Sent as Ambassador to the Mohawks — Returns to Quebec — Leaves to open the Mohawk Mission — His Prophetic Utterance — Tortured again — In a Mohawk Lodge — Re- flections — Death of the great Priest.
About the middle of June, 1642, the Residence of the Fathers at St. Mary's-on-the-Wye, its outcourt and sur- rounding buildings, slept in dreamy, peaceful slumber. The donnes, or lay brothers, were busily engaged attend- ing to their various duties. Some were working in the garden, some at the anvil, and more at the plane and saw, all contributing their share to the prosperity and respecta- bility of the group of buildings forming a hospital, chapel, fort and residence. Some of the Fathers were visiting the Hurons in their wigwams, others were occu- pied writing letters to friends at Quebec and in France, |H K 169
170 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
for the Huron flotilla for Thvee Rivers was to leave e&rly the following morning. Kneeling solitary and alone in the chapel was a priest apparently in the prime of life, whose oval face and classical mould of features indicated a modest, refined and meditative nature. The few years he had spent on the Huron missions were full of hard- ships not devoid of romance. A year ago, accompanied by another, he made a hazardous journey to the Petun- Hurons, and barely escaped with his life. After a breath- ing spell passed at St. Mary's, he started on his return from the Petuns to visit the Algonquin tribes on the shores of Lake Superior, and having preached the gospel to the Sauters who dwelt on the margin of the great lake, returned to St. Mary's, subject to the orders of his - Superior. He was now prostrate in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, and in the intensity of his zeal and piety put forth this strange request : " Lord grant me to drink deeply of Thy chalice." This prayer he re- peated with great fervor, when suddenly he heard a voice speaking to his heart : " Son, thy prayer is heard, thou shalt have what thou hast asked, take courage and be strong." Father Jogues, for it was he, with a face radiant with happiness left the chapel satisfied that his prayer was answered. A few days afterwards, Father Jerome Lalemant, acting-Superior of the Huron mis- sions, remarked that it would be necessary for one of them to go to Quebec to procure supplies for the mis-
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS, 171
sion. The journey was bristling with danger, for the Iroquois were on the war-path and infested the Ottawa forests. Father Jogues volunteered for the voyage, and, accompanied by Ren^ Goupil and Guillaume Couture do lines of the mission, and a number of Hurons, left in a few days and arrived safely at Quebec. Having com- pleted his purchases in that city, the party started on the return journey. They sailed up the St. Lawrence, and, hugging the shore, reached the western end of Lake St. Peter, when suddenly the dreaded war-whoop of the Iroquois mingled with the reports of guns broke the silence. Canoes filled with warriors pushed out from the rushes and made for the Huron flotilla. Many of the Hurons, paralyzed with fear, leaped ashore and dis- appeared in the forest. Some of the Christian Hurons and the two Frenchmen showed fight, but, unable to cope with the superior number of the Iroquois, were killed or captured.
Father Jogues, who sat in one of the leading canoes, sprang into the bulrushes and might have escaped, but when he saw Goupil and some of the Hurons prisoners, he left his hiding-place and, to the astonishment of the enemy, gave himself up. At the sound of the first shot he recognized the danger, but, so calm and self-possessed w^as he, that even under the fire of the Iroquois, he bap- tized the pilot of the canoe, who was as yet a catechumen. This man was Bernard Atieronhonk, and, ever after-
172 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
wards remained a true Christian. " I thank God," he said on his return from the Iroquois country, " that I entered the Church by such a way. In the moment of the greatest danger Ondesonk (Father Jogues' Indian name) forgot himself to think only of me. Instead of seeking his own safety, he baptized me ; he loved me more than himself. Death here below had no terrors for him, he feared only for his soul."* Couture might also have escaped, he already had disappeared in the forest, but, when he thought of Father Jogues and his companion Goupil, his emotions overcame him, and, retracing his steps, boldly took up his position beside the priest. As he did so,^ one of the Iroquois lifted his gun to shoot him, but Couture, anticipating his intention, shot him dead. At once four or five rushed upon him, tore off his clothing, gnawed the fingers from his hands and were stripping the flesh from his arms, when Jogues, breaking away from his guards, rushed forward and threw his arms lovingly around Couture's neck. The Iroquois jerked him off, beat him to unconsciousness, and with the fury of famished dogs lacerated his fingers with their teeth. They tore out his nails, crushed the bones of the two forefingers and, turning upon Goupil, treated him with equal ferocity. At last they started, dragging with them the priest, the two Frenchmen and about
♦Martin's liife of Father Jogues, p. 73.
I
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 173
twenty Huron captives. They were in haste to reach their own country. Their captives lay bound at the bot- tom of their canoes, subject to the mocker/ of the vic- torious Iroquois, who, at times, amused themselves by tearing open the wounds that already were beginning to close. They sailed up the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain, crossed Lake George on their way to the Mohawk towns. At the end of Lake Champlain they met an L'oquois war party, wdio compelled the prisoners to run the gauntlet. Father Jogues, who was last in line, fell from exhaustion, and, as he regained his feet, they applied fire to his body and mangled him atro- ciously.* " They showered so many blows on us," he writes, " that I fell to the ground under their number and cruelty. I thought that I must surely die under this frightful torture. Either from weakness or from cowardice, I could not rise. God alone, for whose love and glory it is sweet and glorious thus to suffer, knows how long and how savagely they beat me. A cruel compassion prompted them to stop, so that they might take me into their country alive. They carried me to
*The Mohawks had three towns. The town they were now approach- ing was known as Osserwenon, and, on the site of this town, the Cath- olics of the State of New York are building a magnificent Memorial Church to commemorate 1 he death and heroism of Father Jogues, the first apostle of the Iroquois, and known as the " Martyr of the Mo- hawk." So far as it was possible, the foundations of the Church were laid almost on the very spot where Father Jogues was killed. Auries- ville is the name of the town that now occupies the site of Osserwenon.
174 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
their platform half-dead and streaming with blood. When they perceived that I was regaining consciousness, they made me come down and overwhelmed me with in- sults and imprecations, again showering blows on my head and back and all over my body. They burned one of my fingers and crushed another with their teeth, those that had already been crushed, were violently twisted, so that even after they healed, they remained horribly deformed. The fate of my companions was no better."
At last they reached the first of the Mohawk towns. The prisoners suffered frightfully on the way. At the portages they were loaded down with heavy burdens, and at niorht were bound to stakes and abandoned to in- numerable swarms of mosquitoes that left them no sleep. As they were about entering the village, they were met by a howling, shrieking mob, that, armed with clubs and thorny sticks, ranged themselves in two lines between which tlie captives were compelled to run. As Father Jogues was passing through this "narrow road to Heaven," as he himself called it, he was felled to the ground from the blow of an iron ball, but he rose again and staggered on with the rest. They were now all placed on a raised platform and mercilessly tormented. Jogues, as the chief man among the French captives, fared the worse. His two remaining finger nails were gnawed off by an infuriated old man. Another, a white-
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 175
bearded sorcerer, seizing hold of a Christian Algonquin woman, a prisoner among them, ordered her to cut off the left thumb of the missionary. Three times this wretched woman advanced to obey him and three times she recoiled with horror ; at the fourth attempt, almost beside herself with mental agony, she sawed rather than cut off the priest's thumb at the root. Father Jogues stooped down and with his mutilated hand picked up the amputated member, and holding it aloft asked God to forgive him " For the want of love and reverence of which he had been guilty in touching His Sacred Body." A Huron exile whispered into his ear to drop his hand, for if the Mohawks noticed him they would force him to eat the bloody thumb. Jogues did so, and threw it far from him. That night he passed extended on the ground, bound hand and foot to four stakes. To satisfy the curiosity of all the members of the tribe, the prison- ers were led from village to village, everywhere sur- rounded by the same horrors and saluted with the same yells, screeches and tempests of blows. " They suspend- ed me by my arms," writes Father Jogues, " with ropes made of bark, from two posts raised in the centre of the cabin. I expected to be burned, for such is the torture usually given to victims condemned to the stake." He remained hanging by the wrists for some twenty min- utes, suffering intensely until he was on the point of swooning, when a visiting Indian, an accidental witness
176 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
of the torture, approached and with one stroke of his knife cut the cords and released him.*
Couture, who seems to have been a man of wondrous fortitude and iron mould, excited, by his endurance and bravery, the admiration of the Mohawks. He was brutally tortured, but was at length liberated and adopt- ed into one of their families. Goupil, after enduring in- tense sufferings, was walking one day with Father Jogues when, struck on the head with a hatchet, he fell at the feet of the priest with a prayer on his lips. Jogues dropped upon his knees and gave the still breath- ing man conditional absolution. Goupil's body was dragged through the town and, amid the hootings and insulting epithets of the people, flung outside of the village, as carrion for dogs to feed upon. The priest passed two days and nights in prayer and mourning, fearing to venture out of his cabin lest he himself would meet with the same fate. At length, reckless of life, he
* About a year afterwards. Father Jogues, being still a prisoner with the Mohawks, accompanied his master on a fishing excursion. They were then about two hundred miles from Tionnontonguen, the village where the priest was so atrociously tortured, when, on entering a cabin, Father Jogues saw before him a man in the throes of dissolu- tion. Jogues approached him. " Do you not know me, Onde- sonk ? " gasped the dying man, and, before the priest had time to answer, added. " Do you not remember him who a year ago cut the ropes when you were almost dead ? I am he." Jogues gratefully embraced his deliverer and, with his consent, baptized him and received him into the church.
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 177
went in search of his friend's body. An old Indian met him on the way and advised him to go back. " Those young warriors whom you see at the end of the path are watching for you and will surely kill you." But Jogues went on and the old Indian hurriedly sent a man after him to save him. At last he discovered the body, and its pitiable condition moved him to tears. He drag- ged it into a neighboring stream, and, to save it from further mutilation, covered it with stones, intending to return the next day and bury it. His description of what happened is intensely moving: — "I went to the spot where I had laid the remains, I climbed the hill, by the foot of which the torrent runs; I descended it ; I went through the wood on the other side ; my search was useless. In spite of the depth of the water, which came up to my waist — for it had rained all night — and in spite of the cold — it was the first of October — I sounded with my feet and my staff to see whether the current had not carried the corpse farther along. I asked every Indian I saw whether he knew what had become of it ; they told me that it had been carried down by "the current to the river near by, which was untrue. Oh, what sighs I uttered, what tears I shed to mingle with the waters of the torrent, while I chanted to Thee, O my God, the psalms of Holy Church in the Office of the Dead." The truth was that two young braves, who had seen Father Jogues sink the body, returned that night, removed it
178 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and drag^cil it into the woods. " After the thaws," he writes, " I went to the spot pointed out to me, and gathered some hones partly gnawed, left there by the dogs, wolves and crows, and especially a skull fractured in several places. I reverently kissed the hallowed rel- ics, and hid them in the earth, that I may one day, if such be God's will, enrich them with a Christian and holy burial."
After Goupil's death, Jogues' life wasn't worth an hour's purchase. He went around on errands for his master, expecting death, and if it was Gods will, would have welcomed it as a boon. Time and again as he pass- ed through the village he was told that he had not long to live, but life had lost all attractions for him ; he pass- ed in and out defying as it were, by his courageous bear- ing, the threats of his enemies, and each night, to his own astonishment, he found himself still among the living. About the end of July he went with a fishing party and camped with" them about twenty miles below Fort Orange ; some of this party went up to Rensselaer- swyck to trade with the Dutch, and took Jogues with them. Here he was advised to make his escape, but, be- lieving that there yet remained for him some good to be done in the country, he hesitated. Sometime before. Couture had advised him to escape, saying that he would follow him, but that so long as Father Jogues would re- main in the country he (Couture) would stay to share
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 179
his fate. Jogues spent the night in prayer and medita- tion, and at last resolved on flight, believing that it would be more pleasing to God. He remained concealed for six weeks, during which time he experienced great kindness from the Calvinist clergyman, Megapolensis, the Director General of the Dutch settlement, and a number of others. At length he was placed in a small vessel which carried him down the Hudson. Here he was transferred to a ship sailing for Falmouth, from which place he sailed in a French vessel, and landed a short distance to the north of Brest. Knocking at the door of a cottage, he asked the way to the nearest church. The man and his wife invited him to share their meal, which he cheerfully did, being sadly in need of nourishment. After supper, he went to the church and made a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.* On the evening of January 5th, 1644, he knocked at the door of the College of Rennes and asked for the Father Superior. The porter, deceived by his gaunt and haggard appear- ance, his coarse and ragged clothing, took him for a beg- gar. The Superior, being told that there was a poor
* Parkman says : he reached the church in time for the evening Mass and received Communion. It is hard to understand how a writ- er of Parkman's reputation for accuracy and research should make this egregious blunder, especially when a short note to any Catholic priest or a question put to his Catholic gardener would have brought the answer, that evening Mass and evening Communion are never cele- brated in the Catholic Church.
180 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
man in the hallway, who said he was from Canada and w^anted to see him, immediately left the chapel and went to the hall. " The brother porter," said the Super- ior, " tells me that you are from Canada." Jogues re- plied that he was. The Superior then asked him several questions about the Fathers on the missions, and at last asked him if he knew Father Jogues. " I know him very well," replied the other, " I am he." The Su- perior was astounded; he at once recognized him and embraced him warmly. When he saw his mutilated hands, his attenuated appearance and outward wretch- edness, he could scarcely restrain his tears. It was with much difficulty that they prevailed upon him to tell of his sufferings.
His humility would not allow him to enter into details, till at length he was ordered by his Superior to reduce to writing the history of his captivity. A priest with any deformity of body is prevented by Canon law from saying Mass, but when Pope Urban the Eighth heard of his con- dition he granted him a dispensation, remarking, thiat it was only right that one who has shed his blood for Jesus Christ should be permitted to offer up the Holy Sacrifice. When spring opened. Father Jogues sailed again for Can- ada, and after a lengthy stay at Quebec and Montreal, was selected as Ambassador to the Mohawks, to confirm a treaty already entered into between themselves and the French. He was also commissioned by his ecclesias-
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 181
tical superior to open a mission with that tribe. He left Three Rivers in the month of May in company with four Mohawk guides, two Algonquins, and a French engineer named Bourdon, and after passing over the usual water- way reached in safety the Mohawk town. Here he met the Mohawks in council and delivered to them the gifts, wampum belts, and messages of the Governor of Canada. Having fulfilled his commission, he returned to report the result of his embassy and arrived at Quebec on June 27th, 1646.
His political errand over, it now became a question as to the advisability of returning to open the mission. After a serious discussion of the subject, he received or- ders to hold himself in readiness for departure. He set mt on the 24th of August, accompanied by some Hu- ms and a Frenchman named Lalande, a donne of the [mission. Father Jogues felt a presentment that he fwould never return, and before leaving he wrote to a [brother priest, " Ibo et non redibo, — I shall go and [shall not return." When passing the Richelieu they met [some Algonquins who told them that the feelings of the tMohawks towards the French had changed, and that they lad better return. The frightened Hurons refused to go ly further, but Father Jogues and Lalande pushed on md reached safely the end of their journey. The Al- jonquins were right. The Mohawks had indeed changed Kn their feelings to Jogues as well as to the French.
182 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
They charged Jogues with being a sorcerer, who was responsible for the sickness now in the town, and the innumerable swarm of caterpillars that were devouring their corn. Of the three clans into which the Mohawks were divided, the Tortoise and the Wolf were in favor of sending Jogues out of the country, but the Bear clan howled for war against the French, and demanded the death of Jogues. Opinion ran high, till at length the Bear chiefs bore dow^n all opposition, and singing their war-songs prepared for an expedition against the French. They seized Jogues and Lalande, tore the clothes from them and drove them with sticks throuofh the town. The women and children beat them mercilessly with clubs and switches. A furious savage rushed upon Father Jogues, and tearing the flesh from his shoulders and arms began to devour it, saying, " Let us see whether this white flesh is the flesh of a Manitou" "No," answered the victim with unflinching firmness, " I am a man like yourself, but I do not fear death. I have come to make peace and to teach you the way to Heaven, and ye treat me like a wild beast." — " You shall die to-morrow," they cried out, " we will cut ofi* your heads, place them on the palisades, so that your brothers when we take them prisoners, may see ye when they come."
On the afternoon of the eighteenth of October, the chiefs of the Bear clan were summoned to a council. The session was secret. The deputies of the Wolf and Tor-
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 183
toise clans had petitioned for the life of Jogues, and the Bear chiefs were now discussing what final measures would be taken in regard to the prisoner. Meanwhile in a neighboring cabin, Father Jogues, seated on a rough bench, was buried in thought; for clothing, he wore a tattered shirt and pants torn and gashed with Iroquois knives and stained all over with clotted blood. Through the crevices of the wretched lodge the October winds entered, and pierced him through and through, till his emaciated body trembled w^ith cold. The lodge was grimy and lined with soot ; from the poles that, like the perches of a hen-coop, stretched from side to side of the cabin, hung ears of corn, cured furs, and wampum ornaments To one side, on a bear skin, sat a grizzled old warrior leisurely smoking and sharpening a tomahawk for his son, who on the morrow was to set out on the war-path against the French. A wrinkled and gray-haired squaw was boiling the extract of the mulberry with which she dried the hedgehog quills to ornament the mocassins for the Dutch trade.
The old couple from time to time entered into snatches of broken conversation, while the priest at the other end of the wigwam was occupied with his own reflections He was pitiable to look upon. His wasted frame had borne all that the human body could endure, and live ; but a fever, intense and unquenchable, a zeal confusing, in its sublimity, to common minds, and a love for human
184 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
souls almost divine in its devouring ardor, were taber- nacled in that shivering body, that a few short years before was full of energy and fair to look upon. His head rested on his chest and his face seemed radiant with happiness. I wonder if his memory carried him back to his native land — to France, where he heard in her sacred temples, as afar off, the music of the solemn mass, bringing back to his mind the glory of column, arch and dome ! Did he revisit, in fancy, the halls of his beloved college in Rennes, enter the peaceful and familiar chapel and kneel again before the marble taber- nacle where, shrined in gold and silver, our blessed Lord in other days inundated his soul with ardent love for God and his neighbor ? The air in the tent grows colder, a -thrill shakes his frame, but, unconscious of the chill, he dreams on. He recalls his priestly companions on the Wye, their gracious kindness to him, their sympathy and tenderness for one another, and the spirit of bro- therly love that bound them each to each, till they clove to each other as did David to Jonathan in the days of old. He could hear them speaking to him, telling of the glory of God, the endless happiness of the blessed, and the rewards "that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," which God stored up for those who love Him. And then there came back to him the memory of that hour, when prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament, his soul went out to his Lord and his God in an ecstasy of love, and
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWKS. 185
he cried aloud, " Lord, grant me to drink deeply of Thy chalice ! " Then, he felt that his prayer was heard, but now, he knows that he is answered. Presently he is conscious of someone standing near him, and as he lifts his eyes a Mohawk beckons him to follow, telling him that he is invited to a feast. He accompanied the mes- senger, and as he passed by the lodges the eyes of the people followed him as a man they should never look upon again. At length they stood before the festal tent. His companion drew aside the bark curtain that served for a door, and held it, beckoning for the priest to enter. He did so and advanced a few paces, when he fell upon his knees, bathed in blood, from a blow of a tomahawk. Thus he died in the noon of his life.
" Not quietly into the silent grave stealing, But torn, like the blasted oak, sudden away. "
Morning dawned at last upon his long and pitiless
night of suffering, and as he sank to his death, like
another Stephen, he saw " the glory of God, the heavens
open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of
His eternal Father." The next morning Lalande was
lied, the bodies of both flung into the Mohawk River,
md their heads exposed on the palisades of the town.
'hen the news reached the Fathers on the Wye they
^ere overcome w4th emotion. " We have regarded his
leath," says Father Jerome Lalemant, " as the death of a
L
i86 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
martyr. Although we were separated from one another when we learned it, several Fathers without any prev- ious consultation, found that they could not bring them- selves to offer a Requiem Mass for him, but they pre- sented the Adorable Sacrifice in thanksgiving for the benefits which God had bestowed upon him. We may regard him as a martyr before God."*
* Father Isaac Jogues was born at Orleans, France, on the 10th of January, 1607. He was of a family eminently respectable, whose des- cendants are to this day distinguished for their probity and religious zeal. He wrote a description of New Netherland, which was publish- ed by the New York Historical Society, and an interesting memoir of Ren6 Goupil. His letters were collected by Father Martin, S.J., and published in this country. His life was also written by the same dis- tinguished priest.
CHAPTER XIX.
AN ITALIAN PRIEST.
Father Joseph Bressani — His arrival at Quebec— Leaves for Huronia — Taken by the Iroquois — Letter of a Poor Cripple — On the Upper Hudson — A Children's Plaything — A Taste of Fire— The Fingerless Hand — Atrocious Torture — An Old Woman's Ward— Humanity of the Dutch — In Huronia again — On the way to Quebec — Pleading for Assistance — Reinforcements for the Mission — On the Ottawa — The Night Attack — The Meeting — In Italy again — Father Bres- sani's Death.
Towards the middle of the year 1642, a young priest, Father Joseph Bressani, arrived at the city of Quebec in fulfilment of a pledge that he had made to dedicate him- self to the Indian missions. He was of Italian parentage, born in Rome in 1612, and although he did not close his career on the scene of his apostolic labor and sufferings, yet his magnificent heroism and his splendid fortitude under Iroquois torture have won him an honorable posi- tion in the ranks of the early French Jesuits. He passed two years laboring among the French at Quebec and the Algonquins of Three Rivers, during which time he de- voted himself to the study of the Huron and Algonquin languages. On the 27th of April, 1644, he was requested by his Superior to undertake a perilous mission to the
187
188 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Huron country. For two years all communication be- tween Huronia, where were fourteen Jesuit Fathers, and the French settlements along the St. Lawrence, w^as com- pletely cut off. The Fathers among the Hurons were known to be short of supplies, in fact, in destitute cir- cumstances, and, perilous as the undertaking promised to be, the Superior of the Order at Quebec resolved upon an effort to relieve them. For two years, since the death of Father Jogues, the Mohawk and Iroquois ambushed I oth sides of the Ottawa river, and indiscriminately attacked French, Algonquin and Huron. The young Italian priest, Joseph Bressani, conscious of the perils of the voyage, generously stepped to the front and offered to attempt the journey to Huronia. This young priest had success- fully and successively filled the Chairs of Philosophy and Mathematics in one of the leading colleges of Europe. He was essentially a scholar, like many others of his priestly companions in New France, but animated with zeal for the conversion of souls, had turned his back on the pleasures of literature and science to face the horrors of missionary life in the forests of Canada. Charged with letters for the Fathers on the shores of Lake Huron, and such articles as were deemed necessary for the mis- sion, he started with a lay brother and six Christian Hurons, who had spent a year in the Huron Seminary, near Quebec. The morning of his departure the priest offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Ma s for the happy
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. 189
termination of his undertaking, the other seven received Holy Communion from his hands, for they were all fully awake to the perilous nature of the voyage. When they left Three Rivers late in April, spring was gradually opening, but floating ice was encountered on the St. Lawrence. As they sailed up the river, the trees on either side were just budding into renewed life. Flocks of wild geese and ducks returning from the south were winging their way to the inland lakes and marshes. As a covey of canvas-backs flew over the canoe, a young Indian foolishly fired his gun, and the report startled the ears of a Mohawk war-party. Reconnoitering from their place of concealment, they beheld the canoe with its occupants and immediately attacked them, killing one and capturing the rest. They were borne in triumph to the Mohawk towns, undergoing on the way the same torture, rough treatment and abuse that Father Jogues and his party underwent two years before. On the fifteenth of July following. Father Bressani wrote from the land of his imprisonment to the General of the Je- suits; "Here is the letter of a poor cripple who was well enough known to you once when in better health. There is no help for it being hard to recognize. The
I letter is poorly written, for, besides other drawbacks, the writer has not two whole fingers on his right hand. He is using powder from an arquebuse for ink, a carving
190 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
often been soaked with water, and his fingers, still bleed- ing, do their share in soiling it. It is written you from the land of the Iroquois, where he i» a prisoner. Should you care for a brief account of what Divine Providence has ordained for him these latter days, here it is." He follows this introduction with an humble history of their sufferings from the day of their capture till his final re- lease. After scalping the dead Huron, the Iroquois cut off his hands and feet, and brought these with them as food upon the road. They ascended the River Riche- lieu, and, landing at'Chambly, continued their journey through the pathless forest. When they reached the Upper Hudson, a large fishing party met them, and the torture of the prisoners began. They split Father Bres- sani's hand with a knife, mercilessly beat him with sticks until he was covered with blood, and dragged him to the torture scaffold, where they saluted him with shouts of mockery and derision. After torturing him for two hours, he was given over to the children, who, ordering him to sing and dance for their amusement, pricked him with sharp sticks, and pulled out his hair and beard. They delayed here for some days, and several times he was burnt with live coals and red hot stones. He was forced to walk on hot cinders, and some of his finger nails were torn out. "One evening," he writes, "our cap- tors burned our finger-nails, another evening a big toe, next evening another toe, and nearly six others at dif-
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. 191
ferent times. They applied heated irons to my hands eighteen times, and made me sing the while."
" This sport lasted until an hour after midnight, and then they left me, sometimes in an open place, where the rain fell heavily on me, with no covering or mattress, save a small skin which covered but part of my body, and often with nothing at all. To make me a bandage they had already torn to pieces my shred of a soutane, and kept the rest themselves. In this way; and worse, they treated me a whole month. I would never have believed that any one could have lived through such wretchedness."
One evening they sent him to the river to wash a beaver he had previously skinned at their command. It had been dead for some time and was already far ad- vanced in putrefaction. Misunderstanding their instruc- tions, he threw it into the river. They fished it out, cut off two of his fingers, and compelled him to eat of the putrefied meat. That evening the children again tormented him. " Come, sing," said one. " Hold your tongue," said another, and when he obeyed the one, the other would strike him. " We will burn you to death ; we will then eat you ! " "I will eat one of your hands, and I will eat one of your feet." They forced him to take fire in his hand and hold it there until the palm was burned. In the evening they assembled in a
192 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
large cabin, and tearing off the rag of the soutane that still clung to him, thrust spears and arrows into his flesh, forced him to walk on hot ashes and burning coals, and compelled him to sing during his appalling suffer- ings. " Of my ten fingers, I have now," he exclaimed, "but one good one." He was unable to feed himself, and some, from refinement of cruelty, put food in his mouth, mockingly telling him that they wished to fatten him before putting him to death. " For seven days they tortured me in ways which beggar description, and which you would not read of without blushing. They poured hot meeil over me, and then brought the dogs, who often bit me when eating it. How those nights, the shortest of the year, seemed to me the longest ! My God, what must Purgatory be, if Thou wilt give us the grace to go there ? This thought sweetened my pains. Under this treatment I became so repulsive to all that they used to drive me oflf as so much carrion, and they would lend me no sort of covering. They came near me only to torment me. With diflSculty I could find any one to pour into my mouth our only food, a little flour, or Indian corn, cooked in water. I was all covered with sores and matter, and I had no one to bandage me, nor any means of doing it myself. This is why worms were generating in my wounds ; I drew out more than four from one finger in one day. I have said to rotten-
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. 193
ness, ' Thou art my father ' ; to worms, ' My mother and sister.' I am become unto myself a burden." At length, they left the encampment and reached the Mohawk town. To follow the revolting details he here endured would be but an idle repetition of his miseries. They suspended him, head downwards from a beam resting on two uprights, and after he had remained in this posi- tion until he was almost dead, they took him down and placed him on his back, putting food for their dogs on his naked body.
The dogs, famished with hunger, devoured the food, and as his wounds were still open they began to feed upon his flesh. At last he was dragged into a lodge and told to remain there until his fate was decided. The council met, and after a prolonged discussion, concluded to spare his life. He was then given with due ceremony to an old squaw, and was adopted by her to fill the place of a dead relative. He presented such a hideous appearance, and in his mangled condition was so re- pulsive, that the savages themselves were astounded and wondered that he did not die. The old woman, finding that he was useless, sent her son to the Dutch at Fort Orange, now Albany, to say that they would sell him for a consideration. With the same humanity which they had shown in the case of Jogues, they redeemed him with a generous ransom. They clothed him anew, tenderly cared for him until his health was sufficiently
194 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
recovered, and with a letter from the Dutch Governor,* sent him to France on an outward bound vessel. He arrived safely on the 15th of November; but maimed and disfigured as he was, yet restored in health, he re- embarked the following spring to begin anew his mis- sionary labors, and, if need be, to face once more the knives and fire-brands of the Iroquois. In the autumn of 1645 he arrived in the Huron country, and was re- ceived by his brother priests as one who by God's per- mission came back to them from the grave.
By the Hurons, pagan and Christian, he was looked upon as a hero, who had borne his sufferings with the courage and fortitude of a brave. He had not yet ac- quired their language, but his mutilated hands pleaded with them more eloquently than words. " He may at once," said Father Ragueneau, the Superior of the mis-
*The following is the Governor's letter, taken from Ducreux's ** His- toria Canadensis " : —
"We, William Kieft, Governor-General of New Belgium. To all into whose hands this letter may fall. Greeting : Francis Joseph Bressani of the Society of Jesus, held in captivity for some time by the Iroquois savages, commonly called Mohawks, frightfully tortured by them and on the eve of being burned to death, was fortunately, after con- siderable trouble, purchased by us and given his freedom. Now, that with our consent he goes to Holland, to re-enter France, Christian charity demands that all those to whom he will address himself shall receive him with kindness. Therefore we request all Governors, Command- ers, their captains and lieutenants, to treat him generously on his arrival and departure, and we pledge them similar service in like cases. Given at the Fort of New Amsterdam, in New Belgium, the twentieth of September, this year of Salvation, 1644.
I
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. 195
sion, " enter upon his labors with fruit. His poor hands, his disjointed fingers, his body all scarred, have made him from the hour he came here a better preacher than any of us, and have served more than all our instruc- tions to make known the truths of our faith." This heroic and saintly missionary continued for three years laboring on the Huron mission, travelling from town to town, exhorting, encouraging, and entreating the perish- ing souls to save themselves. In 1648, he was chosen to accompany a Huron flotilla, which was preparing to go down to Three Rivers, to re-open at all hazards, ne- gotiations with the French at Quebec. The treaty of peace between the Iroquois and the French, which a short time before had been ratified, only lasted for a very short time. The Iroquois were again on the war trail, and held the water-courses that led to the French colony.
But the resources of the Hurons were exhausted; their robes, skins, and peltries were rotting on their hands, and they were in sore need of axes, kettles, guns and am- munition, so they resolved at all hazards to force a pas- sage if necessary, through the enemy's ranks. They se- lected for the expedition they were now sending out, two hundred and fifty warriors, including a hundred and twenty Christians and two Frenchmen, under the com- mand of the most experienced Huron chiefs. On the seventeenth of July, 1648, as they were approaching
196 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Three Rivers, the flotilla was attacked by the enemy, but the Hurons who were thoroughly disciplined beat them off, killed a considerable number and took many prisoners. Father Bressaniwas commissioned when leav- ing Huronia to plead with the Superior of the Jesuits of Quebec on behalf of the requirements of the Huron mis- sion. He begged for more priests, and in response to his appeal, Fathers Gabriel Lalemant, James Bonin, Adrian Grelon, and Adrian Daran, were selected to return with him. There was not one among them, but realized the dangers which confronted him on this distant mission. Their courage rose in proportion to the difficulties and sacrifices which the voyage and the country offered. " We may be taken prisoners," said one of them, " we may be massacred or burned, what of it ! Death on the bed is not always the happiest." On the sixth of August, 1648, the Huron flotilla of sixty canoes left Tlp-ee Riv- ers on the homeward voyage, where it arrived safely to the great joy of priests and people.
After the destruction of the Huron villages, the Fath- ers with a large number of their converts took refuge on Christian Island. Here, threatened with famine. Father Bressani again volunteered to undertake the haz- ardous journey to Quebec to solicit assistance for the perishing Hurons. He left the island in the month of September, 1649, arriving safely at his destination five weeks afterwards. He pleaded eloquently but in vain
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. 197
with D'Ailleboust, the Governor-General. He represent- ed to him that unless reinforcements were sent to assist the Hurons they and the priests with them were in dan- ger of death at the hands of the Iroquois. But the French colony was at this time in a wretched plight and required all its strength to protect itself. Ye Father Bressani continued to plead, and at length suc- ceeded in obtaining a reinforcement of thirty soldiers, with whom on the fifteenth of June he left Three Rivers on his return voyage. They were joined by a detach- ment of Hurons who had wintered at Quebec. On their way up the Ottawa, they experienced a foretaste of what they might expect from the Iroquois. Late one dark night they camped on the bank of the river, and before wrapping themselves in their blankets, set guards to arouse them if there should be any sign of the enemy. Further up the river ten or twelve Iroquois warriors had constructed a sort of a block-house of felled trees where they passed the winter and were now patiently waiting to waylay any Huron or French party that sailed up or down the Ottawa. A scout whom they had sent out, re- turned and reported the landing of Bressani's party. Biding their time, the Iroquois approached; with the si- lence and stealth of snakes they glided into the Huron camp, for the guards had fallen asleep, and each selecting his victim, prepared to strike. Before doing so, they uttered their dread war-whoop, and as the sleeping men
198 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
arose, struck seven of them with the swiftness of light ning. The French and Hurons were on their feet in an instant and grappled with the Iroquois before they had time to escape. A desperate hand-to-hand conflict now ensued, but the enemy was outnumbered ten to one, and six of them were killed and two made prisoners. The other two fought their way through the crowd, and, ut- tering again their shrill war-whoop, bounded into the for- est and escaped in the darkness. As Bressani's party continued up the river they met with another serious alarm. The scouts who were sent in advance hastily re- turned saying they had seen fresh foot-prints in the for- est. They moved up cautiously, and at length descried, at a bend in the river, a number of canoes approaching them. Both parties backed water, and stood on guard. They remained thus for a short time, when one of Bres- sani's Hurons told him that he saw Father Ragueneau in one of the canoes. This was the unfortunate remnant that with their priests were driven by famine from Christian Island, and were now, under the leadership of their spiritual guides, on their way to Quebec. Father Bressani with his soldiers had come too late, and after fraternizing with and embracing his priestly companions, turned his canoes and sailedVith them down the Ottawa. Father Bressani's health now began to fail him, and on the first of November, 1650, he was compelled to sail for Italy. Here he gradually grew stronger, and as he did
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. J 99
SO, he renewed in the Italian villages his missionary duties. He died at Florence on the ninth of September, « 1672, after having completed his now famous History of the Huron missions.*
* The *'^r6ve Relation" of Father Francis Joseph Bressani is per- haps the best account of the Huron missions that exists. He publish- ed this Relation in 1653, at Macerata, Italy, sometime after his return from Canada. In 1852, this history, now out of print, was edited and published in Montreal by the celebrated Father Martin, who has ren- dered invacluable service to our country by his researches and writings. . Among the archives ot St. Mary's College, Montreal, there is a bundle of precious documents collected by Father Martin from which Cana- dian and American historians have freely drawn, and which some day t is to be hoped, will be edited and given to the public.
CHAPTER XX.
MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMANT.
Flourishing Condition of the Missions — Marvellous Changes — Praying for their Enemies — The Iroquois — Storming of a Frontier Village — Death of Father Daniel— Slaughter at the Mission of St. Joseph — Mohawks and Senecas— Capture of St. Ignatius — Brebeuf and Lalemant Taken — Martyrdom of Brebeuf and Lalemant — Heroism of the Priests.
In the year 1648, the Jesuits beheld with increasing hope the approaching realizations of their great labors. Flourishing missions were established and chapels built in what are now the townships of Sunnidale, Tiny, Me- donte, Tay, Matchedash and North Orillia. Scattered through these townships were the missions of St. Joseph, St. Michael, St. Louis, St. Denis, St. Charles, St. Igna- tius, St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, and several others. On the Great Manitoulin, Father Poncet opened a mission with the Ottawas. Among the Algonquins of Lake Nipissing, and those that dwelt on the western coast of Lake Huron, were erected the missions of the Holy Ghost, St. Peter and St. Michael. Even among the Tobacco Nation, where a few years before Father Jogues and Garnier were almost murdered, two missions, St. John and St. Matthew, were permanently establislied. These missions
200
MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMANT. 201
were attended by eighteen Fathers,* who, looking for- ward to the arrival of others from France and Quebec, began now to cast wistful eyes towards the Dacotah of the Mississippi, the Sioux of the plains and the Algon- quins of the north. The Puants and the Nation of Fire, dwelling along the shores of Lake Michigan, had already asked to have missionaries sent amongst them. In one year were baptized eighteen hundred souls, and though the Fathers attending outlying stations were subjected to frightful hardships, they were consoled in their suffer- ings by the prospects of ultimate success. There were scarcely any families among the Hurons that had not one member acknowledging the true God. f Now that
**' There are now," writes Bressani, in his Relation, page 36, '* eigh- teen missionaries serving eleven missions." Here are their names : Paul Ragueneau, Francis Le Mercier, Peter Chastellain, John de Bre- beuf, Claude Pijart, Antoine Daniel, Simon Le Moyne, Charles Gamier, Renat Menard, Francis du Peron, Natal Chabanel, Leonard Garreau, Joseph Poncet, Joan M. Chaumonot, Francis Bressani, Gabriel Lale- maut, Jacques Morin, Adrian Daran, Adrian Grelon. Bancroft is in error when he states that there were forty missionaries with the Hurons, and Marshall still more so, when quoting from Walters, in his '* Christian Missions," volume I., he places the number at sixty. Father Martin, S.J., in his appendix to Brelsani's History, gives the names of all the priests who served on the Huron missions, from the Franciscan, Joseph Le Caron, who opened the first mission to the Hurons in 1615, to Adrian Grelon, S.J., who was the last of the priests to arrive in Huronia, August 6th, 1648.
f '* Whereas, at the date of our arrival, we found not a single soul
possessing a knowledge of the true God ; at the present day, in
spite of persecution, want, famine, war and pestilence, there is not a
single family which does not count some Christians, even where all the
M
202 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
we are familiar witli the implacable hatred and viiulic- tiveness of feeling which the Huron Nation entertained for the Iroquois, we can measure the wondrous effect of the teaching of the Fathers on these rude and savage natures.
Their grossness and lasciviousness of manners, their superstitious rites, were yielding day by day to the de- votion and preaching of the missionaries. The converts were in their lives examples of the influence of Chris- tian teaching on savage and licentious hearts. So great were the numbers attending mass every morning that the French who passed through the Huron country ex- pressed surprise, and declared that the paths leading to the chapels
Where prayers were made and masses were said, Some for the living and some for the dead,
were more worn than those leading to the council -house. As an instance of how completely these savage na- tures were changed, that which took place in the large chapel of St. Mary's, on Good Friday, 1645, is remark- able. When the customary devotions were ended, the whole congregation, composed of men, women and chil- dren, repeated with Father Lalemant, the following prayer : " Pardon, O Lord, those who pursue us (the
members have not yet jjrof essed the faith . Such has been the work of twenty years," — Bressani's Relation Abreyee,.
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MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMANT. 203
Iroquois) with undying hatred, who murder us without pity. Open their eyes to the truth, grant that they may know and love Thee, that they may be friends to Thee and to us, so that we may all together acknowledge our- selves Your children."* All history may be challenged to produce any more signal triumph of grace over nature than that which we witness in this prayer of the Hurons for their deadly and relentles enemy. In another place we read of a Huron convert inviting his brethren to join him in a prayer, begging of God that, in pity for the souls of men, He would move them all, Iroquois and Huron, to embrace the faith of Jesus Christ.
This marvellous change was brought about by years of patient waiting, years fraught with innumerable deeds of heroic self-sacrifice and heroic self-abnegation on the part of the priests. In the early years, so full of disappointments, they labored on, hoping that the day of conversion for their tawny flocks would surely break. And they could afford to wait, for theirs was the ancient faith with a history rich in the records of generous deeds, and glorified with the consoling memories of hosts of
*Jerome Lalemant, from the Huron country this 15th of May, 1645. Father Jerome Lalemant was twice Superior-General in Canada. He is the author of several of the Relations. Marie de 1' Incarnation writing to her brother said that Father Jerome was the most holy man she had ever known. He died at Quebec in 1673, at the age of 80.
204 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
martyi^s and confessors. They themselves were men all aglow with a Divine enthusiasm begotten of ecstatic thought, men, to whose souls the spirit of tlie Innnortal was ever whispering, and on whose ears there lingered the music of the mighty past. They were all men of Divine fervor, with the gift of utterance, with the power to drive home truth to the intellect, and to soften the hardened heart to pity and to tenderness. Their matchless skill, their ability, their unaffected piety, their perfect knowledge of the language, their patience and meekness, all these w^rought upon the hearts around them, and natures animalized and degraded, they bore into the realms of manliness and holiness. Multitudes of de- based savages were reclaimed from the bondage of Pagan superstition, lifted to the dignity of men, and very often carried to the elevation of saints. Their success was due less to their preaching, eloquent and earnest as it was, than to the example of their self-denying and holy lives. Before such lives, grovelling superstition retired, and inveterate prejudice yielded. Savage opposition to these men of alien race, these " Black -sorcerers," went down before habitual manifestations of charity and mir- acles of Divine love, till the worn and faded cassock, the crucifix and rosary, from objects of hatred and sus- picion, became symbols of deathless friendship and af- fection. The bark chapel was a haven of rest to which
I
MARTrRDOM OF RREBElTP AKD LALEMaNT. ^05
weary and sin-biirdend souls fled for sokice and repose, and where
From the rustic altar the crucifix Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it.
Every daj^ added to the number of their converts, and, if it were not for the events we are about to relate, the whole Huron nation would in a few years have been enrolled under the banner of the cross.
For a long time a deadly feud existed between the Iro- quois and the Hurons, and had, at the period of which w^e write, reached the proportions of a war of extermina- tion. In 1647, the terrible Iroquois, who dwelt in cen- tral New York, and for a considerable distance along the north and south shores of the St. Lawrence, had almost annihilated the Algonquins of the Ottawa, and sent scout- ing parties as far as the outlying Huron villages. They were the most warlike and ruthless amono: the American Indians. In the spring of 1648, emboldened by repeated successes, a large war-party crossed the St. Lawrence, and urged by implacable hate of their hereditary foes, the Hurons, burst upon the frontier village of St. Joseph, near where now is the prosperous town of Barrie, and indiscriminately slaughtered men, women and children. For weeks before the massacre, they infested the forest, lying in ambush, here and there, till a favorable oppor- tunity presented itself, when they sprang like tigers on
206 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
their prey, rending the forest with demoniac yells of triumphant victory. Father Daniel * was in charge of tliis mission, and, when the Iroquois carried the town, he had just finished Mass. The mission chapel was crowded, and as the dread war-whoops broke upon the doomed people they became paralyzed with fear and terror. Two days before the attack, the fighting men had gone on a hunting expedition, and only old men, women and children were there to meet the enemy. Father Daniel tried to rally them to the defence, but his efforts were in vain. He then called to them to fly for their lives, adding that he himself would remain to con- sole the dying. He returned to the chapel, followed by a crowd of women and children. Turning again to them, he exclaimed, " My children, fly and retain your faith until death." Among them was a large number the Father was instructing for baptism. Dipping his hand- kerchief in water, he baptized them by aspersion col- lectively, and to those who had already received the sacrament he gave a general absolution. The village is
• * Father Daniel arrived in Huronia in 1033, one year after Father Brebcnf had returned to the country. When he was shot down the Iro- quois rushed upon him and washed their hands and faces in his blood, lauding him as a brave man who did not fear death. The heroism of his end inspired many of the Pagan Hurons to become Christians He was a man remarkable for his humility, zeal for the salvation of souls, and a gentle nature wedded to a brave heart. He was the first of the priests in Northern Canada to receive the martyr's crown, and is known as the *' proto-martyr " of the Hurons.
MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMANT. 207
now burning ; the Iroquois approach the chapel ; the priest turns to the people, saying, " We will die here and shall meet again in Heaven ; " and then, striding to the door, he serenely confronts the enemy. The Mo- hawks are struck with astonishment, and, for a moment, remain rooted with surprise that one alone should have tlie hardihood to meet them. At length they opened fire upon him with bullet and arrow ; but, though pierced and rent with wounds, he continued to exhort his cate- chumens till death in mercy ended his sufferings. " He died murmuring the name of Jesus, surrendering his soul to God, like the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his flock."* Chapel, priest and congregation were con- sumed together. The wilderness is their grave; their ashes, floating upon the air, drop sanctified fertility on the land ; and, while no man knows their resting-place, their monument is so large that, though its foundations are on the earth, its apex touches the great white throne of the Eternal — Si nionumentum requiris, circumspice. So died the first martyr of the Huron mission in the forty-eighth year of his age, after spending eighteen years on the Northern missions. Twice after death he appeared to the Fathers assembled in council, radiant in the sweetest form of celestial glory. The mission of St. Joseph became a charred ruin,
■' Letter of Father Ragueneau, 1648.
208 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
And where the house of prayer arose,
And the holy hymn at daylight's close,
And the aged priest stood up to bless
The children of the wilderness,
There is naught save ashes, sodden and dank.
The Iroquois slaughtered the children, the helpless and the aged, and retired, dragging with them seven hundred prisoners, many of whom afterwards perished by fire, torture, or the tomahawk. The warning ought to have been sufficient for the other Huron towns to prepare for the impending conflict. The winter passed away without further disturbance, and the Fathers continued to liope that all danger was at an end.
On the morning of the 16th of March, 1649, Father Ragueneau, who had charge of the mission of St. Mary's, was on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament, after having offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when a Huron runner, breathless and bleeding from a bullet wound, entered the village and announced to the terrified people that the Iroquois had captured the fortified town of St. Louis, slaughtered the men, women, and children, and might at any hour attack St. Mary's. " Where arc Fathers Lalemant and Brebeuf ? " asked the priest, who, hearing the commotion, left the chapel and strode into the crowed of bewildered Hurons. " They are dead," spoke back the runner. " Dead ! " Father Ragueneau fell back aghast with horror, and returned to the altar of the
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MARTYRDOM OF RREBEUF AND LALEMANT. 209
Blessed Sacrament. The courier was mistaken ; the two priests were not dead, but their end was not far off. One thousand Iroquois, chiefly Senecas and Mohawks — the tigers of the forest, and the boldest and fiercest warriors of North America — had, late in the autumn, taken the war-path, wintered amid the forests of Nipissing, and early in March captured the Huron town of St Ignatius, tomahawked, scalped, and butchered its inhabitants. Then, smearing their faces with the blood of their victims to give additional horror to their savage ap- pearance, they moved out on the run for the neighboring village of St. Louis, through a forest whose silence was at intervals broken by the echoes of their pitiless war- whoops. Despite the desperate valor of the Hurons, who fought like demons, the Iroquois carried the fort, set fire to the town, and flung in among the burning cabins the wounded and dying, whose shrieks of agony were drowned in the whoops and yells of the conquering foe. The Iroquois retraced their path to St. Ignatius, dragging with them a number of prisoners, among them the lion-hearted Brebeuf and his delicate and gentle com- panion, Lalemant. Three times while the enemy were storming St. Louis, the Huron warriors urged the priests to fly, as the road was still open to St. Marys. " We can- not," answered the stalwart Brebeuf, " where should the priest be found but with his people ? " Amid a pelting rain of bullets and arrows they continued giving Absolu-
210 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
tion and Baptism to souls that were fast leaving bodies, mutilated and torn by the deadly missiles of the Senecas. When the Irocjuois entered the town, Brebeuf rose from the side of a wounded brave and confronted them with a face whose calmness was in strange contrast to his stormy surroundings. Lalemant, frail of constitution and deli- cate from childhood, was unequal to a similar display ol' fortitude ; his slender body trembled in the presence of the tomahawk raised to brain him ; his weakness was but for a moment, when, summoning his faith to his assistance, he looked his enemy in the face and bowed his head for the blow. He was reserved for a more cruel and horrible fate. Four hours after the capture of St. Louis, while the ashes from its ruins were still floating over the virgin forest, John de Brebeuf was stripped of his clothes, led to a stake, to which he was bound, and his torture began. The courage of Brebeuf was of that indomitable character that rises superior to fear. He foresaw the appalling sufferings that awaited him, but when the Iroquois closed in on him, they looked in vain for any sign of cowardice or symptom of weakness. They tore the flesh in strips from his body and devoured it in his presence, plucked out his finger nails and scorched him with burning brands. " You do not scream, Echon," they said to him, " Why do you -not moan :' We will make you." Heating red hot a collar of hat- chets, they flung it over his head till the flesh on his
I
MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMAN I'. 211
broad shoulders shrivelled to the consistency of charred leather. The odor of burning flesh made them demons. They glared upon him like tigers ; and, when the uncon- querable priest raised his voice in withering denunciation of their wickedness, they tore away his lips and cut out his tongue. Still they wrung from him no cry of pain. With torn lips and mutilated tongue, he endeavored to warn thetn of God's awful punishments. They replied with shouts of derision, obscenity and filthy songs, cut off his fingers, joint by joint, and scorched liim with brands from head to foot ; but the iron frame and uncon- querably resolute nature of the indomitable priest did not quail, and even they, stolid and brutal as they were, mar- velled at a courage that gave no sign of weakness. They poured boiling water on his head, and, in mockery of the Sacrament of Baptism, cried out : " We baptise you, Echon, that you may be happy in Heaven — for you black gowns tell us that no one can be saved without Baptism." Despairing of overcoming his wondrous for- titude, they tore the scalp from his head, laid open his side, and, scooping up liis blood in their hands, drank it with the hope that they might partake of some part of his marvellous courage. A chief then advanced, and, burying his hunting-knife in the priest's breast, tore out the palpitating lieart, and, holding it aloft that all miglit see it, began to devour it with unspeakable relish. The lustre of the eye is dimmed, the power of utterance is
212 EARLY MISSIONS IK WESTERN CANADA.
gone forever, his countenance is marred and pitiable to look upon, and, like his Divine Master, when the storm of His crucifixion swept over Him, " There is no beauty in his face nor comeliness." Thus died John de Brebeuf ,* priest of the Catholic Church, and one of the grandest men that ever trod the American Continent. From that memorable day, when, kneeling on the rock at Stadacona, he dedicated his life to the conversion of the tribes, he never wavered in his high resolve. For twenty-four years of laborious and unceasing sacrifice, amid perils as fearful as ever tried the heart of man, he walked the
* Father Brebeuf was born at Bayeux, in Normandy, France, on the 25th of March, 1593. He is the author of two Relations ; one o^ which, principally a treatise on the Huron language, was republished jn the transactions of the American Antiquarian Society. His letter on the manners and customs of the Hurons is a complete summary of the domestic, civil and national life of the great tribe. Doctors Gil- mary Shea and Francis Parkman, who are usually so accurate, are in error when they state that the remains of the great priest were per- manently interred at the Seminary of St. Marys on the Wye. They were brought to Quebec, the bones having previously been kiln-dried and sacredly wrapped in plush. The skull of the martyred priest is preserved in a silver reliquary, in the Hotel Dieu at Quebec, and may be seen by anyone desirous of venerating the sacred relic. In St. Mar- tin's Church (Ritualist), Brighton, England, there is a figured window to the memory of Father Brebeuf. He is robed in priestly vestments with an aureole above his head, and a miniature map of the Huron country at his feet. I regret that time did not permit me to await the return of *the Rector who was absent, and learn from him the history of the window. Mr. Douglas Brymnor, Canadian Archivist, in his report for 1884, inserts an original account of the martyrdom. To Mr. Brymner belongs the credit of discovering and giving this document to the public. The reader is referred to the appendix.
214 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
furrow to the martyr's stake, nor cast one halting, linger- ing look behind. His zeal, his courage, his fidelity to duty in the presence of the greatest dangers, his forti- tude under hunger, weariness and excessive fatigue, his angelic piety and his prodigious heroism under the ex- cruciating ordeal of Indian torture, preach an eloquent sermon, and its burden is : " All ye that seek the King- dom of God, behold the paths that lead ye to it." Bre- beuf's companion. Father Lalemant,* was tortured with atrocious cruelty. His body was swathed in birch bark, smeared with pitch, and the torch put to it. In this state he was led out while they were rending the body of Brebeuf, and, when he beheld the unutterable con- dition of the heroic priest, whom he loved with the love of a brother, his agitation overcame him, and, throwing himself at the feet of the dying martyr,- he exclaimed :
*Father Gabriel Lalemant arrived on the Huron missions, 20th Sept. , 1646, he was the nephew of Fathers Charles and Jerome Lalemant. Before coming to Canada he was Professor of Metax>liysics in France, where he acquired considerable distinction. Bressani says of him that he was of a gentle disposition, was of a noble family and distinguished for his great piety, In a remarkable document, which was found in his handwriting after his death, we read that he abandoned himself entirely to God's providence, expressing a wish to undergo any priva- tions for His sake and the hope that God would find him worthy to choose him for martyrdom, if in any way his death could add to the glory of his Master. Father Charles Lilemanb, who was the first Superior of the Jesuits at Quebec, was Champlain's confessor. He crossed the ocean eight times. He died in France in 1674, at the age of 87. He was twice shipwrecked, and was nominated to the Episco- pate which he declined in obedience to the rule of his Order.
MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMANT. 215
" My God ! we're made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men." He was tlien dragged away and, for seven- teen hours, from sunset to sunrise, was tortured with a refinement of cruelty that fills us with affright and be- wilderment. By a slow process, he was literally roasted alive ; from head to foot there was no part of his body that was not burned, even to his eyes, in which were placed live coals.
CHAPTER XXI.
DESTliUCTION OF THE HUllONS.
Alarm at St. Mary's — Flight of the Iroquois — Burning of St. Mary's on- the -Wye — Leave for Christian Island — Alarming News — Storm- ing of a Petun Town — Martyrdom of Father Gamier — His Heroic Death — Death of Father Chabanel — Fathers Grelon and Garreau — On Christian Island — The Famine — Plight of the Hurons — De- votion of Huron Converts — Abandonment of Christian Island — Priests and Hurons on their way to Quebec — Jesuits with the Northern Tribes — Death of Father Menard — Claude AUouez and the Algonquins.
The destruction of St. Ignatius and St. Louis appalled the Hurons. They were paralyzed with fear, and, des- pairing of ever recovering from the disastrous effects of the terrible onslaught made upon them, and unable to cope with the all-conquering Iroquois, they resolved to abandon their country. All was over with them, and having determined on flight they at once prepared to carry the resolution into effect. They disappeared in bands of fifteen and twenty families, fleeing, many of them to the Northern forests and the islands of Lake Huron. Some sought refuge with the Neutrals ; others found an asylum among the Algonquins and the Petuns, while many of them asked and received hospitality from
216
DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS. 217
the Andastes and Eries. At St. Mary's on the Wye, six miles from the mission of St. Ignatius, all was commo- tion and excitement. Iroquois scouts were seen prowl- ing near the walls of the mission-fort, and the Fathers, with the Hurons who had taken refuge with them, were in momentary expectation of attack. The Hurons with a handful of Frenchmen stood on guard, while in the chapel were gathered the women, offering prayers and vows un- ceasing. In the meantime the Iroquois, seized with an unaccountable panic fled tlie country after a series of atrocious and damning acts. Binding hand and foot those of their prisoners who were too weak to accompany them, and whom they had not time to torture, they set fire to the town. They lingered for a time to listen to and enjoy the appalling shrieks of human agony that escaped from the mothers and children who were roast- ing in the flames. While the town was burning, the Mo- hawks and Senecas disappeared in the woods, dragging with them to their homes in Western New York the 1 prisoners reserved for the torture. The Fathers resolved to make a desperate effort to gather together their scat- tered flocks, and for this purpose prepared to remove to the island of Manitoulin. Yielding, however, to the ear- nest solicitations of many of the Huron converts, they changed their destination and selected an island on Lake Huron to which they gave the name of Isle St. Joseph, known to-day as Christian Island. They put the torch
218 EARLY MISSIONS IN WKSTERN CANADA.
to their mission buildincfs, and in a few liours all that remained of the liistoric pile were the stone foundations. It~was not without feelings of intense sorrow that the Fathers bade farewell to scenes and surroundings sancti- fied by years of heroic labor.* Every stone in the build- ings of St. Mary's, every tree that cast a shadow on the ground which was the theatre of years of labor was en- deared to them. The memory of what they had suffered in the past, the hardships they endured and the glorious hope that lightened the long night of sorrow and afflic- tion, crowded irresistibly upon them, and their regrets found expression in a plaintive dirge. " Must we now quit forever," laments one of them, " the scenes of our labors, the buildings which, though poor, were works of art to the eyes of the poor Indians, and the cultivated fields which promised to us all a rich harvest ? Must we abandon a land which is for us a second home with its hopes and recollections, a land which was the cradle of Christianity, and where the servants of Jesus Christ had built their chapel and found an aylum." On the 14th of June, 1649, the Fathers with thirty or forty families arrived on Christian Island. They selected a favorable spot on the southern promontory and outlined a military
* ** It was not without tears," writes Father Ragueneau, " that we left the country of our hearts and hopes, which, already red witli the blood of our brethren, promised us a like happiness, and opened for us the gates of heaven." — Relation, 1650, page 26.
L
DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS. 219
fort, strengthened with flanking bastions. The stone walls, which were twelve feet high, they loop-holed and deeply trenched. The Huron village which grew up around the fort was protected with redoubts which served to cover and shield it from sudden attack. When the village and fort were completed, and the Fathers were congratulating themselves on being able to repel an}^ at- tack from the watchful and ruthless Iroquois, news was brouglit that at any hour they might look for the foe. An escaped prisoner arrived at the island on the evening of October 30th, and reported that a numerous war-party of Senecas and Mohawks had re-entered the country and were undecided whether they would attack the Hurons on Christian Island or the Petuns. Messengers were at once despatched to the Petuns, informing them of their impending danger. The frontier village of Etharita summoning its fighting strength, calmly awaited the at- tack. Days passed, and no foe appearing, the Petun warriors left the village in search of the enemy. Two days after their departure, the Iroquois storm broke upon the town. Father Garnier had charge of this mission, known as that of St. John the Evangelist, and when the Iroquois burst in upon them, he hastened to baptize the Neophytes and absolve the converts. Then he ruslied to the church and addressed the cowering women, wlio in fear and trepidation had gathered there. " We are about to die, my children ; those of you who can escape do so
220 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA,
and hold fast the faith until death." Then he left the church, and was seen to fall to the ground pierced with a bullet. He rose to his knees, and looking to the right and left, saw at a distance an old man writhing in the agonies of death. The priest rose to his feet and fell again ; he then dragged himself on his hands and knees, fell on his side, recovered himself and crawled on. He had almost reached the dying man, when an Iroquois rushed upon him, dealt him two blows of a hatchet, and all was over. His companion. Father Chabanel, had left the town two days before, recalled by his Superior, Father Ragueneau, who deemed it madness to expose to death more than one priest in the face of threatening danger. He was joined on his return by eight or nine Christian Hurons. On his way he stopped at Ekaren- niondi, where the mission of St. Matthew was opened some time before. Proceeding on their journey, night fell, and they bivouacked in the snow. Father Chabanel could not sleep, and about midnight he heard in the dis- tance mingled outcries, voices and songs. The Iroquois war-party were returning with their prisoners. Chalia- nel called to his companions, who sprang to their feet, listened for a moment, and at once took to flight. The priest tried to follow, but was unable to keep up with his companions, and was never again seen. The Hurons, who safely arrived at the island of St. Joseph, reported that Father Chabanel had left them and had taken an-
222 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
other route to reach the iskuul. For a long time the priests were in doubt whether Chabanel was dead or alive ; they supposed that he had lost his way and per- ished from cold and hunger. Sometime afterwards, an apostate Huron, named Louis Honareenhax, acknow- ledged that he had killed the priest and flung his body into the river. When asked his reason for doing so, he replied " From the day that I and my family became Christians, we have met with all kinds of misfortune." Father Ragueneau adds that this man, his wife Gene- vieve, and their numerous family, perished miseiably at the hands of the Iroquois. Father Chabanel, it seems, had a presentiment of his death, for before leaving St. Mary 's-on-the- Wye, he wrote to his brother that he an- ticipated death at the hands of the L-oquois. He was of a nature naturally timid, and when he first entered upon the Huron missions, he conceived a horror for his posi- tion. His refined nature revolted at the filth and inde- cency of the Indians, and he was at times tempted to ask for a change. In this frame of mind, he entered the chapel and registered a solemn vow * to remain perpetu-
*The following is Father Chabanel's vow. It is taken from the appendix to '* Les J^suites-Martyrs du Canada." *' My Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the admirable disposition of Thy Paternal Providence, hast willed that I should be a coadjutor with the holy apostles in this vineyard of the Hurons, though I acknowledge myself most unworthy, impelled by the desire of conforming with the will of the Holy Ghost, i» advancing the conversion to the faith of these savages of the Huron
DEATH OF THE PRIEST P. CHABANEL.
{From a 17th Century painting.)
224 EAKLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
ally attached to the mission of the Hurons. Henceforth he was wholly indifferent to danger and his surround- ings. He ever afterwards believed that the change which was wrought in him was the effect of God's re- deeming kindness. After the destruction of Etharita and the slaughter of its inhabitants the Iroquois attack- ed the town of St. Matthew. Fathers Grelon and Gar- reau had charge of this mission, but fortunately were recalled to St. Joseph sometime before the attack. When the priests first visited this town, they were branded as sorcerers in league with the enemy. A council was call- ed, and they were condemned to death. When they left their cabin, they fearlessly passed through a furious crowd, who, yelling and screeching, brandished over their heads knives and hatchets, and threatened them with death. The priests showed no signs of fear, and to the amazement of the people passed on and entered the council-house. For some reason their lives were spared and they themselves ever afterwards attributed their salvation to the Providence of God. They succeeded in making many converts, and Father Garreau expressed
country, I, Noel Chabanel, in the presence of the Most Holy Sacrament of Thy Body and of Thy Most Precious Blood, which is God's taber- nacle among men, vow to remain perpetually in this mission of the Hu- rons, understanding all things according to the interpretation of my Superiors, and of the disposal they wish to make of me. Therefore, I beseech Thee to accept me as the perpetual servant of this mission, and to make me worthy of a ministry so sublime. Amen. The 20th day of June, 1647."
DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS. 225
his sorrow that they were not in the town when it was attacked, that they might share the fate of their Petun converts. Meanwhile the population on Christian Island began to increase rapidly. Their provisions became ex- hausted, and unable to cultivate the land through fear of the enemy, they lived principally on roots and acorns, and when winter came famine was its companion. The severity of the winter added to the horrors of hunger, and the island, which had already furnished graves for a considerable number, threatened to become a charnel- house. The fathers had collected three or four hundred bushels of acorns, which they now served out to their famishing flocks. The famine, however, continued, and the desolation was appalling. Out of every wigwam, cabin and lodge the unfortunate Hurons came creeping on their hands and knees, for they were too weak to walk. They looked like anatomies of death ; their voices were those of ghosts speaking from the grave. They fed on the carrion remains of dogs and foxes, and in the aw- ful extremity of their cravings, opened the graves, took out the freshly-buried bodies, and devoured them with the hunger of dogs.
Hungry was the air around them, Hungry was the sky above them, And the hungry stars in heaven, Like the eyes of wolves glared at them !
A pathetic and intensely touching episode is recorded
226 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
by one of the iiiisvsionarics. An Indian mothur, reduced by starvation almost to a skeleton, lay in a corner of her wigwam, with her infant child making an expiring efibrt to draw nourishment from breasts long since dried up ; turning to a crucifix, a few moments before her death, and pressing to her bosom the child which had just died, she exclaimed, " O Lord God, Thou art the Master of our lives, bless, we beseech Thee, our dying Christians. I would have been lost, and my children with me, if You had not consoled me in my aliliction, and tried me with suttering. We have received baptism, and I firmly be- lieve that we will rise again together." Most touching scenes, with acts of heroism and Christian resignation worthy of the brightest days of Christianity, were wit- nessed ; while their families, their country, their very nation, were perishing before their eyes, the Hu- rons appealed to God to have pity on them in their desolation. The chapel was too small to hold the crowds that gathered for prayer, and ten or twelve times each morning and as often every evening it was filled and emptied. The priests themselves were worn to attenuation, but went from cabin to cabin instruct- ing and cheering the perishing creatures. At length, broken-hearted and discouraged, the Hurons left the island early in the spring, led by their priests, and began their perilous journey to Quebec. The charred X'emains of the martyred priests, Brebeuf and Lalemant,
DESTRUCTION OF THE HUllONS, 227
which had been sacredly preserved, were now placed in two small boxes, and borne with them on tlieir way to Quebec. The bodies of the other martyred priests were given a grave in the wilderness, and the Huron nation became their mourners. No monument of granite or marble is there to challenge the attention of passing man and tell him that here lie the ashes of heroes and of saints. Around them rise in stately grandeur the swaying pines, whose youth the martyrs saw ; the waters of the broad Huron still lave the fertile shores, the scene of their mighty deeds ; and the same sun that three hundred years ago shone upon their heroism, to- day warms the green turf that shrouds their sanctified remains.
On their way to French River, they skirted along the coast of their own familiar country, now a land of hor- ror and desolation. Lake Nipissing, on whose shores there dwelt a few years before, a once numerous and pow- erful tribe, was stillness itself. From the fringe of the Georgian Bay to the mouth of the Ottawa the land was a vast graveyard, over which there brooded the silence of death. On their way down the Ottawa, they met Father Bressani, returning with a party of French and Hurons, with supplies for the mission of St. Joseph. On learninsj that the island was a desert, and no living soul left upon it. Father Bressani retraced his route, and in a few weeks the whole company reached Quebec,
228 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
July 28th, 1650. They settled in a place some thirteen miles from the city, now called Lorrette, where still dwell all that remains of that mighty race of hunters and fighters once known as the Huron nation. They and their tawny converts are gone forever, but on the altar of a church built near their cherished St. Marys on- the- Wye is still celebrated the same unchangeable sacrifice that the martyred priests ofiered to the ador- able God centuries ago. A broad-shouldered, fair-com- plexioned people now listen to the same immortal truths that Brebeuf and his companions preached to the dark- haired Hurons in the forests of Ihonatiria ; and, while these unalterable truths are wedded to the soul of man, the memory of the dead priests will live in the hearts of the brave and true. " It may be asked," writes Ban- croft, "if these massacres quenched enthusiasm. I answer that the Jesuits never receded one foot ; but, as in a brave army new troops press forward to fill the places of the fallen, they were never wanting in heroism and enterprise on behalf of the cross."*
The scattered bands of Hurons were accompanied by their priests. Father Grelon, whose soutane hung in rags around him, clothed himself in the skins of animals, and northward by the shores of Lake Huron, amid the islets and rocks of its desolate coast, searched for the remnants
♦Bancroft, VoL III., page 141. Ed. 1S46.
DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS. 229
of his scattered flock.* Another plunged into the forest with a company of famishing proselytes ; and, amid their miserable rovings through thicket and mountain, endur- ed for months the horrors of cold and hunger. Father Simon Le Moyne, years afterwards, visits the Onondagas, and is the first white man to ascend the St. Lawrence River.f P^re Chaumonot and Claude Dablon follow him a year after ; and, to the fierce Iroquois who, a few years before, had perpetrated such atrocious cruelties on the Hurons, preached the saving truths of Christianity.
* We followed the fugitives from one rocky island to another, and for three hundred miles through the forest, to console them, and keep alive in their hearts the faith that for them was newly born. — Bressani, page 291.
t Father Le Moyne left Quebec for the Huron country in Decem- ber, 1638. He began a mission with Father Daniel among the Huron tribe of Arendahronons and had also charge with Father Charles Gar- nier of the mission of St. Joseph. In 1654, he went on an embassy to the Iroquois, where, after miraculously escaping death, at the hands of a maddened Mohawk, he returned to Montreal. Five times before his death, which occurred on November 24th, 1665, in the 61st year of his age, he journeyed to the Iroquois. Among the Hurons he received the name of Ondessonk, and by this title was always addressed, even when among the Mohawks. He was the founder of the Iroquois mis- sions which were opened some time before by the martyred Jogues. For nearly thirty years, this distinguished priest labored on the Huron and Iroquois missions, and was justly held in high repute by French and Indians. When the Iroquois heard of his death, they sent valu- able presents to console his friends and wipe away their tears. The companion of Jogues, Brebeuf, Daniel, and Garnier at Huronia, he takes high rank in the small army of the soldiers of the Cross, who fought the battle of the Lord, in the forests of Canada and Central New York.
230 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Rene Menard, in 1650, takes up a permanent abode with the Cayugas ; and Chaumonot, the following year, fear- lessly enters the dens of the lions — the villages of the Senecas. In 1656, Fathers Gabriel Druillettes and Leon- ard Garreau — the one already having carried the cross through the forests of Maine, and the other, eiorhteen years before, a missionary with the Tobacco nation, arc captured by the Mohawks when about to leave on a mis- sion to the great Sioux nation.* Thus, before the expir- ation of the year 1656, the Jesuit priests, taking their lives in their hands, began the conversion of these war- hawks of the wilderness — the five nations of the Iro- quois.
In 1660, the aged Menard, after weeks of great hard- ship and suffering, visited the southern shore of Lake Superior ; and having begun a mission among the scat-
* Father Gabriel Druilleties, surnamed the patriarch by the Abenaquis, arrived in this country in 1643. He went on a mission to the Abenatjuis of Maine and dwelt with them for two years. Return- ing in 1651, he was sent with a deputation to the Governor of New England, soliciting assistance against the Irotjuois. In 16")6, he left with Father Leonard Garreau, to enter upon a mission to the Sioux ; the flotilla was attacked by the Iroquois and the party compelled to return. In 1661 , he and Father Dablon opened the mission of St. Fran- cis Xavior among the Crees of the North-west. In this year the two priests started on an overland journey to the Hudson's Bay, but owing to unforseen difficulties were obliged to return. In 1666, he was with Marquette, and continued laboring among the Algonquin tribes until 1679, when, returning to Quebec he died in that city on the 8th of April, 1681, at the age of 88, forty-five years of which were passed on the mission.
DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS. 231
tered Hurons found in that region, plunged into the for- est to visit an inland tribe, and is never again heard of. The lion-hearted Claude Allouez steps into the breach made by his death, and, for thirty years this confessor of the faith becomes the companion of roving Algonquins. He gave the name Ste. Marie to the waters dividing Lakes Superior and Huron, where he established the first permanent mission on the spot consecrated twenty- five years before by the visit of the martyr Jogues and the saintly Raymbault. This extraordinary priest estab- lished missions during his long sojourn in the upper country among more than twenty different nations, in- cluding Miamis, Mississagues, Saulteurs, Menomonics, Illinois, Chippewas, Sacs, Winnibagoes, Foxes, Pottawat- tamies of Lake Michigan, Kickapoos, and among the scat- tered Hurons and Ottawas. In 1668, Fathers Dablon,* Nicolas, and Marquette, soon to enter upon the explora- tion of the Mississippi, are with the tribes that occupy the vast regions extending from Green Ba}^ to the head of Lake Superior, " mingling happiness with suffering
* Father Dablon arrived in Quebec in 1655, and towards the end of the same year started on a mission to the Onondagas. In 1608, in company with Father Marquette, he had charge of the mission of the Holy Ghost on the shores of Lake Superior. He established the first permanent mission, SaultSte Mario. The two Relations of 1671 and 1672, so full of interesting and valuable details of the Northern and Western regions of Wisconsin and Ontario, were written by Father Dablon.
232 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and winning enduring glory by their fearless persever- ance."
Truly there were giants in those days ; and it is impos- sible not to admire the sublime influence of the Catholic Church on the hearts of men — an influence which then, as now, inspired her priests to turn aside from the allure- ments of civilized society, and, untrammelled with wives or families, devote themselves unreservedly to the eleva- tion of the savage races that were buried in the darkness of the Valley of Death.
CHAPTER XXII.
FLIGHT OF THE HURON S,
On Manitoulin Island — Capture of a Foraging Party — Stephen Anna- otaha — Strategy and Dissimulation — The Iroquois Deputies — Slaugh- ter of the Senecas — Flight of the Iroquois — Pleading for Adoption — Received by the Senecas — Fidelity of Huron Converts — Chaumonot Among the Iroquois — Example of Earnest Piety — The Eries and the Hurons — War Between the Eries and the Iroquois — Storming of the Erie Towns — Slaughter and Destruction of the Eries.
The Urst band of the Huron fugitives fled to the Nor- thern islands of Lake Huron, but chiefly to Manitoulin, where a mission had been opened eight months be- fore. It was almost a barren solitude, and the fugitives cherished iJie hope that the Iroquois would never molest them in their island home. But the Mohawks and Sen- ecas were human bloodhounds, and, once on the scent of an enemy they followed him to the death. A remark- able incident in this war of extermination happened while the Hurons were on the island ; the Iroquois, who had discovered the retreat of the Hurons, deeming them-
t selves too few in number to attack them successfully, built a fort on a neighboring headland and awaited a favorable opportunity to take the Hurons by surprise. A short time after their fort was built, they captured a o 233
234 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
foraging party, and with them Stephen Annaotaha, a fervent Christian and a man of considerable repute among his own people. When surprised by the Iro- quois, he determined to sell his life dearly and die as a brave should die, with his weapons in his hands and his face to the foe. To his amazement, the Iroquois told him that they were about to leave the island, to aban- don their feud with the Hurons, and that they were on their way to offer them peace and a home among them- selves in their own country. " Let us," said they, " be- come one people, so that each may inherit the glory of the other." The Huron, who was a past master in strat- egy, suspected a sinister motive in their hypocritical language, and seeing he was unequal in strength to his enemies, determined to fight them with their own wea- pons. He pretended to accept their proposition with de- light, threw down his arms, and went with them to their fort. They displayed to his astonished gaze the presents which they intended for his countrymen, and asked him to open negotiations with them. " It would ill become me," replied Stephen, " to take upon myself the glory of bringing about a truce. Among my people there are a number of elders, whose duty it is to admin- ister the affairs of the tribe ; send your ambassadors with the gifts, and I will remain here as a hostage ; what- ever the elders will decide upon, the tribe will agree to." His answer was so apparently straightforward and direct
FLKiHT OF THE HURONS. 235
that the Iroquois believed he was sincere. " In any case," they said, " it will be better for you to accompany our ambassadors to explain matters to your people ; your companions can remain here until your return." Stephen undertook to escort the three Iroquois deputies. When they reached the Huron town, his shouts of joy and ex- ultation attracted the attention of the warriors. "Hea- ven at last," he cried out, "is favorable to us: in the midst of death we have found life. The Iroquois are no long- er our enemies, they have become our friends, our rel- atives and our benefactors. The graves which they opened for us they have closed again. They offer to us not only their friendship but a permanent home among themselves ; henceforth we will be as one nation, num- erous, industrious and brave." His language, so full of assurance and confidence, deadened all suspicion on the part of the Iroquois. But the Huron chiefs, trained in the bitter school of experience, seemed confused, and sought an opportunity for an explanation in private. A mo- ment's conversation set them right, and, co':^cealing with characteristic cunning their true sentiments, shouted with joy, exciting the women and children to enthusiasm and delight. The Iroquois deputies, deceived by the ap- parent sincerity of the public rejoicing, believed their end to be already accomplished. Tliey fraternized free- ly with the Hurons and partook of a feast prepared for their special benefit. In the meantime, Stephen quietly
236 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
prepared with the Huron chiefs his plan of action. Having no confidence in the sincerity of their enemies, who, time and again, had proved themselves perfidious, and cruel, they determined to beat the Iroquois at their own game. The chiefs, to give assurance to the am- bassadors, proclaimed throughout the village that in three days the people must be ready to leave and ac- company their frierids and allies, the Iroquois. "With them," they said, " we will find security, repose and plen- ty." These words were as music to the ears of the depu- ties, and to their great delight they beheld the people, men, women, and children, already preparing for the journey. Stephen, full of confidence, returned with the delegates, who announced the success of their mission. The Iroquois were beside themselves with joy. The prey they had been hunting was almost in their grasp, and they loaded Stephen with presents to testify their appreciation of the work he had done. Acting upon his instructions, they sent thirty of their warriors with Stephen, that they might see for themselves the preparations the Hurons were making for the journey, and encourage by their presence the activity and good-will of their future com- panions. While the Mohawks were scattered through the village, totally unsuspicious of danger, the Hurons at a given signal rushed upon them and slaughtered them. Three only escaped ; they owed their safety to Stephen, who spared them in return foi* kindness they had done
FLIGHT OF THE HURONS. 287
him in other days. It appears that these three spared his life, when the Iroquois destroyed the villages of St. Ignatius and St. Louis. One of the Seneca warriors ex- claimed, when dying, " We only got what we deserved, and you did to us what we would have done to you." When the Iroquois, who were at the fort, heard of the massacre they fled in terror. The Hurons remained for some months on the island, but, fearing that the enemy would return to avenge the death of their warriors, they left the island and made their way to Quebec. Another party of the Hurons, in their extremity, resorted to a desperate and hazardous expedient.
The hatred cherished by the Iroquois for the Hurons, though originally of one stock, would appear to have Ijeen diabolic in its intensity, and when an Iroquois en- tered upon the trail of a Wyandot he followed it with ruthless pertinacity. Both nations entertained for each other a spirit of vindictive enmity, growing in intensit}^ from generation to generation. The twelve hundred warriors who broke in upon the villages of the Hurons intended the complete destruction and annihilation of the Huron nation. It is then w^ith a feeling akin to amazement that we read of one flying remnant of the Hurons appealing to the generosity of their foe, not only for their lives but for their future protection. This broken and disheartened remnant occupied the villages
238 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
of St. Michael and St. John the Baptist, and were minis- tered to by Fathers Bressani and du Perron.
Tliey sent a deputation to the Senecas, one of the five Iroquois nations, acknowledging that they were no long- er able to continue the war, sued for peace, and asked for a home in the Iro(|Uois country. The Senecas agreed to receive them, set apart a large piece of ground for their special use, where they built for themselves the village of Gandougarae.* As many of this fugitive band were Cliristians, they called their village the Mission of St. Michael, in honor of the town they had abandoned in Huronia. Strange to relate, these Christians, with the Neophytes whom the priests were preparing for Bap- tism, when the Huron towns were sacked, continued to practise all the pious exercises taught them by the Fathers. It is recorded of them that frequently in their interviews and conversations with their Iroquois neighbors, they en- deavored to convince them of the benefits of tho Faith. When Father Chaumonot visited them in 1656, he express- ed his surprise and delight at finding them firm in the faith. " I could not," he writes, '' keep back the tears which filled my eyes, when I saw these poor exiles practising their re- ligion in the midst of a pagan people." When Father Frem- in called at this village in 1668, he met an old man, Francis
* When Father Lemoyne visited them in 1654, he found the mar- tyr Brebeuf 8 New Testament and Garnier's breviary in their hands.
FLIGHT OF THE ffURONS. 239
Tahoronhiogo, who twenty-five years before was baptized by Father Le Moyne in the Huron mission of St. John the Baptist. This venerable patriarch kept his own fam- ily safely in the paths of religion, and converted many of the pagan Indians around him. For twenty years he had never spoken to a priest, but persisted in holding family prayers and begging of God to send him a priest that he might receive the sacraments before dying. At length his prayer was heard. When he learned that Father Fremin was in the villacfe he raised his hands to heaven. " At last," he exclaimed, " God has listened to me, I will now die contented." A touching example is given in the Relations, proving the influence of the vir- tuous lives of the Hurons on their pagan conquerors. A Christian girl married an Iroquois and her first care was to inspire him with respect and esteem for her religion. Under the softening influence of her association, he ac- knowledged himself vanquished, and expressed a desire for baptism. The young wife continued to hope and pray that a " black-robe " would soon visit them. One day while fishing with her husband, who had been for some time in delicate health, a considerable distance away from the village, a priest happened to pass the place. When the Iroquois saw the " Black gown " ap- proaching, he threw himself upon his knees and asked to be baptized. " For two years," said he, " I have asked of God to grant me this grace before dying." The priest
240 EAtU.Y MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
baptized him and in a few da3^s he expired. The Hwr-on wife then related to the missionary the history of his case. " I had made up my mind," she said, " to visit a priest who I heard was at a place one hundred and fifty miles from here, and to ask him to come and baptize my husband, whom I had already instructed as well as I could, and now God has sent you to me."
Another wretched party of the Huron s fled into the forest, and continued their long and weary journey over land and lake and river till they reached the Eries, who were dwelling on the southern shore of the lake which bears their name. The Eries were of Huron extraction, spoke th^ same language, were settled in pallisaded vil- lages, and, when occasion required, could send two thous- and warriors into the field. They received the flying Hurons as brothers, and made them by adoption members of the tribe. When the Iroquois learned of the presence of the Hurons (though they had already entered into a treaty of peace with the Eries) they sought an occasion to provoke a war. An Erie deputation which was sent among the Senecas with large presents to confirm the treaty of peace, was ruthlessly slaughtered on some triv- ial provocation. The Eries retaliated, and a war of re- prisals was entered upon. A famous Seneca chief was captured by the Eries, and against the advice of the elders of the tribe, was tortured to death. When they were kindling the fire he warned them that in burning him
I
FLIGHT OF THE HrRONS. 241
they were burning the wliole Erie nation, since his Iro- quois kinsmen would undoubtedly revenge his death. His words were prophetic, for when his countrymen heard of his death the whole nation took up his cause. The Erie warriors were perhaps the best bowmen then existing on the American continent, they used poisoned arrows, wielded the tomahawk and scalping-knife with terrible effect, and as they were as quick as wild -cats in their movements, tlie Iroquois entered upon the Avar with grave doubts as to its results. The nation made a vow to the God of the Frenchmen that if successful in their undertaking, they would ever afterwards worship Him. The promise and the success which followed was of considerable assistance to the missionary Fathers when the}^ came to evangelize the Iroquois. When they reached the fortified towns of the Eries, they stormed them one after another, and the butchery that followed was frightful.
The barriers which they builded from the soil
To keep the foe at bay — till o'er the walls
The wild beleaguers broke, and, one by one,
The strongholds of the plain were forced and heaped
With corpses.
The Eries were literally wiped out, and with them the Hurons who had taken refuge in their villages. The great lake on whose shores they dwelt perpetuates their
242 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
name, history records their existence, but as a people they have disappeared from off the face of the earth.*
* The Eries who dwelt to the south and east of Lake Erie were called by the early French the Nation of the Cat, from the large num- ber of wild-cats or lynxes that filled their forests. The Iroquois called the Neutrals the "Cats," for the same reason. No mission was ever opened among this tribe. It is not probable that they were ever visit- ed by a white man, unless Etienne Brule, Champlain's interpreter, went among them in 1615. According to Father De Quen in his Relation, 1650, the Erie war and the ruin of the nation resulted from the ven- geance of a woman, who, contrary to the wishes of the Erie Chiefs, in- sisted upon the burning of an Onondaga warrior, taken in war, to atone for the murder of her brother, who was sent on an embassy the previous year to the Onondagas and killed while in their town.
CHAPTER XXIII.
FLIGHT OF THE TINNONTATES.
The Tobacco Nation — ^The Missions — Departure of the Tribe— Pursued by the Iroquois — Appeal to the Andastes — Driven Back by the Daco- tah — Attack the Sioux — Their Retreat — Devoured by Famine — Ren^^ Menard — His Visit to the Tribe — Marquette and the Tinnon- tates — The Tribe at Detroit — Their Extinction.
South of the Nottawasaga Bay, and about two days' journey west of the Huron towns, were situated nine or ten villages of the Tinnontates or Tobacco nation, know'n to the French as Petuns.* They numbered about ten thousand souls, when they joined the Huron Confeder- acy in 1640.f They shai-ed to a large extent in the ruin and dispersion of that unhappy people. Among them the martyred priests Garnier and Chabanel had charge of the mission of St. John, while Fathers Garreau and Grelon looked after the mission of St. Matthias. Their
* Mr. David Boyle, the Canadian Arch geologist, in an interesting paper on this tribe, published 1889, would lead us to infer, from the remains of their villages and burial mounds, that they were not only a numerous people, but, in point of intelligence, superior to the other tribes of North America.
t In 1616, Champlain and Father Le Caron visited them, but nei- ther Champlain, Sagard, or Le Clercq mentions their distance from the Huron towns. Their language seems to have been identical with the Hurons, not even differing in dialect.
243
244 EARLY MTSSTONS TK WESTERN CANADA.
piety, zeal, and self-denial were softening the flinty hearts of the Petuns ; and when the Iroquois began their w^ar of extermination, the light of conversion was already breaking above the horizon. When driven from their country, the remnant of this great clan held together and retained its tribal organization. There is not in modern history, and taking no account of numbers, perhaps none in all history, an event less generally known, or more striking to the imagination, than the flight of this tribe across the boundless plains, and through the forests of North America. In the intense sufierings of the men, women, and children, there is much that appeals to the sympathy and pity of humanity. The gloomy venge- ance of the ruthless enemy that hung upon the rear of the fugitive band, was, like the solitary Miltonic hand, pursuing through desert spaces a rebellious host and over- taking those who believed themselves already within the security of darkness. The reverses sustained by the tribe, the untravelled forests through which it opened a path, the foe ever doggedly hanging to its skirts, and the hardships that became a part of its very existence, in- vest its exodus with melancholy interest. The Anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the subsequent retreat of the ten thousand to the shores of the Black Sea ; the Parth- ian expeditions of the Romans, especially those of Cras- sus and Julian, and the retreat of the French soldiers from Moscow, whilst more disastrous in loss of life, were
FLIGHT OF THE TINNOWTATES. 245
not more pitiful in the sufferings endured. In 1652, ac- cording to Dablon and Perrot, they fled to Michilmack- inac. We next hear of them on the shores of Noquette Bay, which they abandoned in 1655, crossing over to the other side of Lake Michigan, and now the history of their wanderings becomes intensely pathetic. The dar- ing and ferocious Iroquois drove them thence, and with the pertinacity of bloodhounds hung upon their trail, forcing them to seek refuge with the Puants of Green Bay. From here they were driven to the number of five hundred, and continued their wanderings until they reached the country of the Illinois. No hospitable greet- ing awaited them : and, worn out and discouraged, they addressed a most pathetic appeal to the Andastes, plead- ing for shelter among them. " We come from the land of souls where all is sorrow, dismay, and desolation. Our fields are covered with blood, our wigwams are filled, but with the dead, and we ourselves have only life enough to beg our friends to take pity on a people drawing near their end." Such was the burden of their melancholy appeal, but the Andastes, fearing to provoke the anger of the Iroquois, turned a deaf ear to their petition, and the unhappy people began anew their wearisome journey, this time towards the plains of the Mississippi. They descended the Wisconsin, and, sailing up the Mississippi to the river of the lowas rested for awhile. The Daco- tah met them and drove them back. They next faced
246 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
towards Lake Superior. In 1659, Chouart and Pierre d'Esprit met them in the marsh lands near the sources of the Chippewa, Wisconsin, where they were eking out a miserable existence. In 1660, joining the Ottawas, they made war on the Sioux. After a series of bloody engagements, the allied forces were defeated and immed- iately began their retreat towards the Black River. In this retreat, as they formed the rear guard of the flying tribe, they suffered intensely. Famine added itself to the horrors of their surroundings. The pursuing foe al- lowed them no rest ; and through the trackless wilder- ness, across stagnant ponds, reeking marshes, and broad rivers, they dragged their famishing bodies, till at length, devoured by hunger, they began to feed upon their own dead. At last they reached the shores of the Black River, and pushing onward, settled in the Wisconsin wilderness. On the 15th of October, in the same year, Father Rend Menard, bidding good-bye to Chouart and Pierre d'Esprit, left Keweenaw Bay to visit this tribe in their soggy home, and was never again heard of. His cassock and breviary were afterwards found among the Sioux, and it is thought that he was either killed or died from exposure.* We next hear of them at Chequamegon
* Perrot the explorer says, that Menard followed the Tinnontates when they fled to the Mississippi ; if that be so, Father Menard was the first white man that ever saw the great river ; twelve years before Marquette and Joliet sailed down its waters. But the "Relation" of 1663 proves Perrot's statement incorrect.
FLIGHT OF THE TINNONTATES. 247
Bay, where Father Allouez visited them in 1667, and left on record the following " Relation ; " " The Tinnon- tates of to-day are the same people who were formerly called the Hurons of the Tobacco Tribe. They were obliged, like the other tribes, to leave their country to flee from tlie Iroquois, and to withdraw towards the end of the large lake, where distance and lack of game served as protection against their enemies. Formerly they formed a part of the flourishing Church of the Hurons, and they had the aged Father Garnier for their Pastor, who so courageously gave his life for his dear flock ; hence they cherish a particular veneration for his mem- ory-
Since their expulsion from their own country, they have not been trained in the exercises of the Christian religion ; hence they are Christians rather by condition (having been Baptized in their native country) than by profession. They glory in that beautiful name ; but the intercourse they have had with pagans for a long time has almost effaced from their minds every vestige of religion, and caused them to resume many of their anci- ent customs. They have their villages pretty near our place of abode, which makes it possible for me to attend to tliis mission with greater assiduity than the others farther away. I have, therefore, endeavored to restore this mission to its former state, by preaching the Word of God, and by the administration of the Sacraments. The
248 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
very first winter I passed with them, I conferred Bap- tism on one hundred children, and subsequently on others during the first two years that I attended them. The adults approached the Sacrament of Penance, assisted at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, said prayers both in public and private — in a word, they practised their re- ligion as if they had been very well instructed. It was not difficult for me to re-establish piety in their hearts, and re-awaken the good sentiments they used to have for the faith. Of the children Baptized, God only designed to take two, that fiew away to Heaven after their bap- tism. As to the adults, there are three for whose salva- tion it seems God sent me here. The first was an old man an Ousaki (Sac) by birth, formerly an eminent man amongst those of his tribe, and who had always been esteemed by the Hurons, by whom he had been taken captive in war. A few days after my arrival in this country, I learned that he was sick about four leagues distant. I went to him, instructed and Baptized him, and three hours afterwards he died, leaving me all pos- sible indications that God had bestowed mercy on him. If my voyage from Quebec • had no other fruit than the salvation of this poor old man, I would consider all my steps but too well recompensed, since the Son of God shed even the last drop of His blood for him. The sec- ond person, of whom I have to speak, is a woman very far advanced in age. She was detained, about two
FLIGHT OF TEE TINNONTATES. 249
leagues from our dwelling-place, by a dangerous sick- ness, caused by a bag of powder accidentally taking fire in her wigwam. Father Garnier had promised her Baptism more than fifteen years ago, which he was ready to con- fer w4ien he was killed by the Iroquois. This good Father did not forget his promise. Like a good Shep- herd, he procured by his intercession that I should be here before she died. I went to see her the day of All Saints (Nov. 1st) and, having refreshed her memory on all our mysteries, I found that the seeds of the Word of God, sowed in her soul so many years ago, had produced fruit, which only waited the waters of Baptism to come to maturity. Having well prepared her, I conferred this Sacrament upon her, and that very night she resigned her soul to her Creator. The third person is a young girl, fourteen years of age, who diligently attended all the catechetical instructions I gave, and joined in the prayers which I had them say, of which she had learned a good many by heart. She fell sick. Her mother, who was not a Christian, called the sorcerers, and had them perform all the follies of their infamous trade. I heard about it, went to seek the girl and made her a pro- posal of Baptism. She was overjoyed to receive it ; after which, child though she was, she opposed all the juggleries they tried to perform around her, saying by her baptism she had renounced all these superstitions ;
and in this generous combat she died, praying to God P
^50 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
until she breathed her last sigh." Their stay here was but temporary. Persuaded by the Ottawas to join them in an expedition against the Sioux, a party to the num- ber of a hundred attacked the enemy, and retreating to the narrow necks of land into which the country is cut up were all taken actually in nets. To prevent their escape, the Sioux stretched nets with bells at- tached across each isthmus, and when the Hurons, in the dark, attempted to steal away they were all taken but one, called by the French " Le Froid." The Hurons now returned to Mackinaw, where Marquette opened among them the mission of St. Ignatius. In 1672 Marquette wrote Dablon that the Petuns or Hurons called Tinnon^ates, who composed the mission of St. Ignatius, began lasl year to build a fort enclosing all their cabins. They left here and retired to the main land, constructing a village from which Marquette* and
* Father P. Marquette, the discoverer of the Mississippi, died March 18, 1675, on the banks of Lake Michigan, and, on the 8th of June, 1677, his remains were transferred to Point St. Ignace, Michigan, and re- interred. The precise place of his burial lay undiscovered for two hun- dred years, till on May 4th, 1877, Father Edward Jacker, of Eagle Harbor, Michigan, discovered it after a long and patient search. Fath- er Marquette entered with Joliet upon his great voyage of discovery at the request of Talon, the Intendant of New France, who, when on the point of quitting Canada, wished to signalize the last period of his stay in the country by having the banner of France borne to the Mis- sissippi. The bones of Father Marquette are now sacredly preserved, in the Marquette College at Milwaukee. The reader is referred to the appendix for information touching his death.
FLIGHT OF THE TINNONTATES. 251
Joliet set out on their exploration of the Mississippi. This was the same village to which the remains of Mar- quette were so strangiy brought, as described by Dablon in his Relation, 1679.
When they left Mackinaw, Father Stephen DeCarheil had charge of them at Detroit. The Recollet Father Constantine, wlio was killed in an attack made by the Ottawas on the Miamis, was their pastor. Tliey removed to Sandusky, where Father De la Richard established a mission among them. A large number of the Tinnon- tates of Detroit made peace with Sir Wm. Johnson, at Niagara, in July, 1764, those of Sandusky holding aloof. From this year until their gradual absorption by other tribes, or dispersion, they are known in American records as Dinnondadies and Wyandots. All that exist of them to-day — a mere handful — are settled in the Kansas res- ervation, and in a few more years the last of them will have disappeared. During the long and weary years of the rovings of the Tinnontates, the Fathers of the Soci- ety of Jesus had, when possible, faithfully attended to their spiritual wants. Fathers Dablon, Menard, Allouez, Marquette, Pierson, Marest, Nouvel, Enjalran, DeCarheil, and many others, were with them from time to time, and kept alive the faith in their midst. So exemplary were the lives of these priests, and such the devotion to their Indian flocks, impelling them to follow the tribes in their wanderings, that Sir William Johnson, writ-
252 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA
ing to the Lords of Trade, complained that Protestant missionaries were failures, and might never look for suc- cess in converting the Indians till they could practise sufficient self-denial to do as the priests were doing.*
*Note, Col. History, Vol. XII., page 580. The Swedish traveller, Kalm was, it would appear, of the same opinion when he wrote : ** The English do not pay so much attention to a work of so much conse- quence as the French do, and do not send such able men to instruct the Indians as they ought to do." Pinkerton, Vol. XIII., page 588, quoted by Marshal.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE.
From the Old France to the New — Safe with Friends— Chaumonot — At Loietto— Northward Bound — Life with the Tribes— A *' Close Call" — At the Mission of St. Francis Xavier — Flight of theXavier- ites — Following His Flock— Peace at Last — The Onondaga Depu- ties— Father Le Moyne — The Deputies and the Priest— On the Way to the Iroquois — The Fishing Village — Le Moyne with the Onondagas — Speech of Le Moyne — Harangue of the Onondaga Ora- tor— Propositions — Discovery of the Onondaga Salt Wells — Return of Le Moyne. .
On the 4th of May, 1639, a vessel sailed out of Dieppe, France, freighted with a valuable cargo for the colon- ists of Quebec. The vessel and its voyage are historical. It carried, as an old chronicle tells us, " a House of Hos- pital Nuns, an Ursuline Con-vent, and a college of Jes- uits." Madame de la Peltrie, and Mother Mary of the Incarnation, represented the Ursulines. Sister Mary Guenet came to establish the Hospital, and the priests Chaumonot and Poncet were on their way to join the Jesuit missionaries laboring for the conversion of the tribes. After a long and stormy voyage of three months, they arrived happily in Quebec on tlie first of August. De Montmagny, Governor-General of Canada, with his
staff and a large concourse of people, received them on
253
254 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
their landing, and from the wharf proceeded to the cliurch where prayers and a hymn of thanksgiving were offered for their safe arrival. Father Chaumonot, scarcely giv- ing himself time to recover from the fatigue of his long voyage, started with a band of six Hurons for the great hunting-grounds of the Northern tribes. On the 10th of September, he reached the Huron missions, and, after a hospitable greeting from Father Jerome Lalemant, im- mediately entered upon the field of his labors. Joseph Marie Chaumonot was but twenty-seven years of age when he arrived among the Hurons. He was boi»n in Chatillon, France, where he acquired the rudiments of the Latin language from his uncle, a priest in that parish. At an early age he made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Loretto, where, in the enthusiasm of his devotion, he dedicated himself to the Canadian missions, promising, that if he ever should reach the scene of his labors, he would build a chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin, a vow, which, as we shall presently see, he faithfully ful- filled. Among the heroic band of saintly men who threw themselves into the great work of Christianizing and civilizing the Canadian tribes, he was conspicuous for the enthusiasm of his zeal and the intensity of his piety. His memory was phenominal, and, after a short stay among the tribes, he acquired not only a complete knowledge of their languages, but also of every idiom and peculiarity belonging to their forms of speech. Indeed, so great was
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE. 255
his acquaintance with the different idioms of the tribal tongues, that the Indians themselves at times were as- tonished at the rapidity and smoothness with which their unlabial language flowed from his lips. In his child-like simplicity he gave no credit to himself, either for this wonderful talent or its development, but always contend- ed that he was indebted to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph for whatever knowledge of languages and their separate dialects he possessed. He began his labors among the Indians at a critical mo- ment. The Huron warriors who had taken the war trail a short time before, were defeated in several engagements. Famine already threatened the tribe, and now, to add to the horrors of their situation, the small-pox broke out among them. They attributed their misfortunes to the sorcery and witchcraft of the priests, and, had it not been for the eloquent pleading of Brebeuf, the Ajax of the mission, the priests would, in all probability, have filled their graves before the expiration of the month. After a time, the smallpox spent itself, and life began again to assume its daily routine. Chaumonot was now becoming familiar with the hardships and labors of missionary life. •' Our dwellings," he writes, " like those of the In- dians, are of bark, with no partitions except for the chapel. For want of table and furniture we eat on the ground, and drink out of bark cups. Our kitchen and dining room furniture consists _of a great wooden dish
256 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
full of sagamite, which I can compare to nothing but the paste used for wall paper. Our bed is bark, with a thin blanket ; sheets, we have none, even in sickness, but the greatest inconvenience is the smoke, which, for want of a chimney, fills the whole cabin. Our manner of announc- ing the Word of God to the Indians is, not to go up into a pulpit and preach in a public place ; we must visit each house separately, and, by the fire, explain the mysteries of our holy Faith to those who choose to listen." Father Chaumonot was by nature peculiarly sensitive to ridicule, and when he entered a cabin and began to explain to the inmates the doctrines of the Faith, he was freciuently re- ceived with ribald laughter and mocking jest. It requir- ed a superhuman effort on his part to bear patiently this ridicule, and he was continually making heroic acts of self-denial that God would give him the grace to over- come his natural dislike to these visits. " So great a re- pugnance had I to making these visits," he tells us, " that every time I entered a cabin, I seemed to be going to the torture, so much did I shrink from the railleries to which I was subjected." On the 2nd of November, 1640, Fathers Chaumonot and Brebeuf, as we have seen in another place, set out for the Neutral country, and passed the winter with that tribe. Soon after his return, Chau- monot joined Father Daniel at the frontier mission of St. Michael. On one occasion the two priests entered the cabin of a dying woman with the hope that they would
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE. 257
be able to prevail upon her to receive the sacrament of Baptism. A relative of the squaw who happened to be in the lodge at the time charged them with using incan- tations and sorcery to destroy his cousin. Chaumonot endeavored to explain the purport of their visit. The man angrily refused to listen to him, and with scowling brows left the cabin, threatening as he went, to split their heads. When the priests passed through the door to visit another cabin, the infuriated Huron rushed upon Father Chaumonot, and before Daniel could fly to his assistance, felled him to the ground with a large stone. " I almost lost my senses," he tells us, " and the assassin seized his tomahawk to finish me, when Father Daniel wrested it from his grasp. I was taken to our host's cabin, where another Indian became my physician. See- ing the large tumor I had on my head, he took a sharp stone and made an incision, pressing out at the same time all the extravasated blood ; he then bathed the top of my head with a decoction of pounded roots and cold water. Some of this infusion he took into his mouth and squirted into the incision. I soon recovered from my wound. God was satisfied with my wish for martyr- dom, or it may be I was deemed unworthy of the glory of a martyr's death." For eight years, amid hardships and perils as severe as ever tried the heart of man, he labored unceasingly among the Huron and Algonquin tribes on the northern shore of the great lake. When
I
258 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
the Jroquois dealt the Huron nation its death blow, Chau- nionot was in charge of the mission of St. Francis Xav- ier, and when the news was brought to the town by a runner, that the enemy in full force was approaching, the people were seized with panic, and fled to the Petuns, followed by their priest, who records in mournful accents their departure and journey.
" At the time of this greatest defeat of the Huron na- tion," he writes, " I had charge of a town almost entirely Christian. The Iroquois, having attacked the villages about ten miles off, gave our warriors a chance to rush out and meet them ; but the enemy were in greater force than we supposed, and our braves were defeated. Two days after their defeat, news came that all our war- riors were killed or taken. It was midnight when we heard the intelligence, and at once every cabin resounded with wailing, sobs, and piteous cries. You could hear nothing but wives bewailing their husbands, mothers mourning for their sons, and relatives lamenting the death or captivity of those nearest to them. And now, an old man, fearing that the Iroquois might attack the defenceless town, began running here and there, crying, 'fly,' 'fly,' 'let us escape, they are coming to take us prisoners.' At this cry I ran out and hastened from cabin to cabin to baptize those preparing for the sac- rament, confess the adults, and arm all with prayer. As I made my round, I saw that they were all abandon-
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE. 259
in^ the place to seek refuge among a nation thirty-three miles distant.
'* I followed them with the hope of giving them spirit- ual aid, and, as I did not think of taking any provisions, I made the whole journey without eating or drinking. While travelling with the others I thought only of ad- ministering consolation to them, instructing some, con- fessing others, baptizing those who had not yet received that sacrament. As it was still winter, I was forced to administer Baptism with snow water melted in my hands." He was present when the bones of the martyr- ed priests Brebeuf and Lalemant were sacredly wrapped in silk, awaiting the time when they could be brought to Quebec. When the scattered Hurons took refuge on Charity Island, he was with them, and describes in path- etic and intensely mournful language the awful suffer- ings of the fugitives that memorable winter. Though worn to emaciation himself, and famished with hunger, he cheered their drooping spirits when, broken-hearted and discouraged, they left the island early in spring and began their perilous journey to Quebec, preferring to face the scalping-knife and tomahawk of the Iroquois rather than the horrors of blighting famine.
After the priests and Indians reached that city, Father Chaumonot was appointed to attend to the spiritual wants of the broken-hearted remnant. He entered upon his new mission with characteristic zeal. His congre-
260 EAKLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
gation was all Christian, and his life now promised a future of security and well-merited repose. Scarcely had he tasted the fruits of the calm and peaceful life that promised to open into a permanency for him among his Huron converts, when an event occurred that threat- ened to disturb the calm serenity of his holy rest.
The Iroquois of New York State, those war-hawks of the wilderness, dispatched deputies of the Onondaga tribe to the French, asking that an ambassador be sent among them, and inviting the priests to take up their abode in the Iroquois country. This invitation was as startling as it was unexpected, for the hands of the Iro- quois were still reeking with the blood of the consecrated victims that they had sacrificed a short time before. It was not so very long ago since they slaughtered the priests on the Huron missions, took captives Bressani and Poncet and dragged them through their villages, the meanwhile subjecting them to atrocious torture, so long continued that Father Bressani marvelled the human frame could bear so much and live. They had ruthlessly murdered Father Jogues and his companion, Rene Goupil^ and now they were knocking at the gates of Quebec, suing for peace, and, as an earnest of their good faith, offering to throw open their villages to the preaching of the " Black Gowns." " Our young braves, Onnontio,"*
*Onnoiitio, great mountain, the name given to the Governor of Can- ada by the Iroquois.
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE. 261
spoke the leader of the party, " will never again fight tlie Frencli, but as they are high-spirited and warlike, they will go to the country of the Erie. I hear the earth there trembling and quaking, but here all is calm." The Frencli at Quebec, knowing the treacherous and perfidious nature of the Iroquois, held their thoughts in hesitation, till at length the aged Father Le Moyne broke the suspense by stepping forward and fearlessly ofiering to go back with the Onondagas. It was on the second of July, 1654, that all Quebec bade him God- speed, and gazed upon him as a man doomed to deatli when, barefooted and hatless,* he took his place in one of the canoes of the Iroquois flotilla. The Onondaga chief dipped his paddle, threw his strength upon it and glided into deep water, and the others foUow^ed. The aged and venerable priest, when some distance from the shore, intoned the Vexilla Regis Prodeunt; the French at the water's edge took it up, and to the strains of the historic hymn the flotilla, homeward bound, disappeared in the vanishing distance. Le Moyne, before his friends lost sight of him, was seen to rise to his feet, wave a parting farewell to his companions on the land, till they saw him no more, and thus he went
* The Indians always insisted, owing to the light structure of their canoes, upon the French removing their boots before embarking, and as the broad-brimmed hat of the Jesuit was an annoyance to the Indian next to him, the Fathers always when on the voyage removed their hats, replacing them with a tight-fitting cap.
262 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
And became as one Knowing no kindred but a perishing world, No love but of the sin-endangered soul, No hope but of the winning back to life Of the dead nations, and no passing thought Save of the errand wherewith he was sent,
As to a martyrdom.
The Iroquois flotilla continued up the stream, passed Three Rivers and Montreal, portaged the rapids, and sailing on entered the Thousand Islands, where the startled moose gazed in herds upon them. They coasted along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, passing Sac- kett's Harbor, and at last reached the mouth of the Oswego. Here, at a fishing village, he met a number of Hurons who had known him in their own country be- fore their nation had been destroyed. They embraced him as children would a long-absent father, and vied with each other for the honor of carrying his baggage. " Here," writes Father Le Moyne, " I had the consolation to hear many confessions, and among them that of Hos- tagehtak, our ancient host of the Petun nation. His sentiments and devotion drew tears to my eyes. He is the fruit of the labors of Father Charles Garnier, that holy missionary, whose death had been so precious be- fore God." As they sailed up the river they landed at an occasional village, in one of w^hich was a young man of some repute in the country, who invited him to a feast because he bore his father's name, Ondessonk. In
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE. 263
this village he baptized a number of sickly children; and, in a discourse of considerable length, explained to the people the mysteries of religion. " They took me," he writes, " for a great medicine-man, though I had no other remedy for the sick but a pinch of sugar."
At length they reached the town of Onondaga, which Le Moyne, an adopted Huron, entered in accordance with Indian custom. A mile before he reached the town he began a harangue in which he called out, as they walked along, the names of the Onondaga sachems and chiefs, recounted their heroic deeds, and dwelt upon the glories of each. On the tenth of August, deputies from the neighboring towns arrived, and a solemn reception was prepared for the priest. This took place in a large wigwam set aside for his use. At this reception he was received with all pomp, and when he delivered the gifts of Onnontio, the Governor, exhorting them to peace and, above all, to accept the faith, of which he was the en- voy, his words were received with applause. His pres- ents were accepted, and the Onondaga sachems offered in return belts of wampum,* and invited the French to
* Wampum was a sort of beads of several colors, perforated and formed into belts, collars, and strings for records. It served for many- purposes ; for money, for ornamentation and as historical records of the tribe. Wrought into belts of various devices, each having its par- ticular meaning and significance, wampum preserved the substance of treaties, and a belt was delivered to ratify every specific article of negotiation.
264 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
come and dwell among them. They met again the next day, when Le Moyne opened the proceedings with pub- lic prayer, kneeling the while, and invoking the great Master of heaven and earth to pour out his blessings upon them. " I prayed," said he, " the guardian angels of the whole country to touch the hearts of those who heard me when my words would strike their ears." Walking from end to end of the wigwam, according to the custom of their orators, he enumerated them by na- tions, tribes and families ; called out the name of each particular individual of any note, and at stated intervals, emphasized his address by the presentation of valuable gifts. He was encouraged in his harangue by frequent applause. After Le Moyne had finished his speech, the delegates from the different tribes retired, and consulted together for two hours. A messenger was then des- patched for the priest, who, when he entered, was as- signed the place of honor. An Onondaga orator then arose and, to the surprise of Le Moyne, repeated almost word for word the discourse he had delivered a short time before. The orator asked him if he had correctly reported his language. Le Moyne said he had ; and after they heard his reply, they welcomed him again, and began singing, after which the Onondaga spokesman opened his harangue. He began by thanking Onnontio for his goodwill towards them, and to show their grati- tude he placed two large belts of wampum at the feet
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE. 265
of the priest ; he again thanked him on behalf of the Mohawks for having spared the lives of five of that tribe, presenting again two more belts. Once more, speaking for the Senecas, he thanked the French for having drawn five of their tribe out of the fire, and when he presented two more belts of wampum, the whole assembly shouted out its approval. He then addressed himself particularly to Le Moyne, " Listen, Ondessonk," he said : " five entire nations speak to you through me ; my breast contains the sentiment of the Iroquois nation, and my tongue tells what my breast contains. Thou will tell Onnontio these four things : first, we are willing to acknowledge Him of whom thou hast spoken, Who is the master of our lives, and Whom we do not yet know ; second, our council tree is this day planted at Onondaga, which will be our place of meeting ; third, we ask you to select a place upon the banks of our great lake and settle among us ; place yourself in the heart of this great country, be unto us a father, and we will be your children ; fourth, we are now engaged in new wars ; we ask Onnontio to encourage us, and we will have no other thought towards the French than one of peace." He then presented additional gifts, adding, " I have done." Father Le Moyne, his duties as an ambassador now over, began his labors as a priest. Among the Iroquois were a thousand captive Hurons, most of whom were Christians. He heard their confessions, baptized their 9
266 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
children, and revived their faith. He received from the hands of the Iroquois the New Testament of Father Brebeuf, and a book of devotion of Father Charles Gar- nier, whom they martyred four years before. As he was walking one day on the shores of the Onondaga Lake, he discovered in a half dried basin a well of salt water, which the Indians told him had a devil in it which made it unfit to drink. The priest took a dish of the water, condensed it, and brought the salt with him on his return to Quebec* Father Le Moyne now bade good-bye to the Hurons and Iroquois, and sailing down the Oswego and St. Lawrence rivers, reached Quebec on the 11th of September, and reported the result of his embassy.
* When it was told in New Amsterdam, now New York, that Le Moyne had discovered salt water at Onondaga, the Dutch laughed at the report and pronounced it a "Jesuit lie." — New York Histor- ical Document, Volume Fifth, page 185.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAUMONOT.
Le Moyne and the Huron Chief — Appeal to the Neophyte — Chaumonot and Dablon leave for Onondaga — At a Fishing Village — The Am- bassadors— Their Reception— Chaumonot's Eloquence — Arrive at Onondaga — The Iroquois League — Their Form of Government — Solemnity of their Assemblies — Torture of an Erie — Chaumonot's Great Speech — Reply of the Onondaga Chif f — First Catholic Church in New York — Devotion of the Exiles — Threatening Clouds — Charge of the Onondagas — French Colonists leave for the Iroquois Country — The Missionaries — In the Council House of the Ononda- gas — Chaumonot's Address — Instruc'ing the Huron Exiles— Con- spiracy of the Iroquois — Chaumonot's Reflections — Slaughter of the Huron Exiles — In the French Fort — Strategy of the French — The Flight — Safe at Home — The Last of the Huron Ve! erans — His Death and Burial.
Among those whom Father Le Moyne baptized at Onon- daga, was a man called John Baptist, a Huron chief, who was now adopted by the Iroquois. In Huronia, Baptist was a man of considerable repute, who knew the Fathers well, entertained kindly feelings towards them, but dog- gedly refused to embrace the faith. Fully one thousand Hurons were dwelling in the Iroquois country. Many of them had been adopted into the tribe to replace the Iroquois warriors killed in battle, and thus maintain the fighting strength of the League. Others were held in
267
268 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
captivity, while those who sought the protection of the Senecas, were settled in their own village and looked upon as their wards. When Father Le Moyne visited these Hurons, the memories of other days passed before them as spirits of their mighty dead. Adversity had tamed their proud hearts, and the recollections of the awful past broke, in a measure, the fierceness of their nature, so that when the priest again was with them, many among them asked for baptism. Foremost among these applicants for the sacrament was John Baptist, who, with an Iroquois war party, was about to set out against the enemy. The cautious missionary, fearing that he was not sufficiently instructed, endeavored to per- suade him to defer the reception of the sacrament till he would return from Quebec. . " Ah, Ondessonk, I believe, why not receive me to-day ? Art thou master of death, that thou canst say to it stay back ? Canst thou make dull the arrows of the enemy ? Must I at every step in battle be tormented with the fear of hell ? Unless thou baptize me, I will be a coward in the presence of the foe. Baptize me, for I will obey thee, and give thee my word to live and die a Christian." Thus he spoke. Such an appeal was irresistible, and Le Moyne, instructing him in the necessary truths, baptized him, giving him the name of John Baptist. The next day the priest set out to meet the French at Quebec, and John Baptist to meet the foe in deadly conflict. This was the man. Who, return-
CHAUMONOT. 269
ing from a victorious campaign, was selected by the Iro- quois to head an embass}^ sent to invite the priests and the French to dwell among them. Baptist seemed to have no doubt about the sincerity of the Iroquois'' invita-, tion, but Father Chaumonot shook his head, saying, that it was hard to trust an Iroquois. However, it was a question of saving souls, and when did a Jesuit ever re- coil from the dangers of an expedition that promised the possibility of salvation for even one solitary perish- ing creature ? Fathers Chaumonot and Claude Dablon volunteered for the mission, and on the 19th of Septem- ber embarked with the Ambassadors, and, after a voy- age of ten days, arrived at the mouth of the Otibataugu^, known to-day as the Oswego River. They delayed for a short time at the fishing village where Father Le Moyne was so hospitably entertained. Father Chau- monot was at once recognized by the Hurons dwelling in this village, and was received with cries of joy and glad- ness. They knew him in other and happier days, and, while the men gazed upon him as upon a long^lost brother, the women gave expression to their feelings and emotions in tears of joy not unmingled with sorrow. They fell upon his neck, they clasped his knees and em- braced him, pleading with him to visit their cabins, and, if possible, prolong his stay in the village. " Echon," said one of them, speaking for the rest, "you were always our friend, and when we saw j^ou we thought our beloved dead had
270 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
come to us from their graves." As Chaumonot and Da- blon entered the Iroquois country in quality of Ambas- sadors, messengers came from Onondaga asking them to remain where they were, till the tribal orators and war- chiefs of the nation could assemble at Onondaga to give them a public reception. While detained here the priests collected the Christian Hurons for instruction, prayed with them morning and evening, and spent hours in the confessional, re-habilitating souls that one would think were already purified in the waters of tribulation. A mournful group stood on the outward fringe of the con- gregation. Those who composed this band were pagans, who, in the days of their prosperity, scorned to bend the knee to the God of the " Black robes," but now came bowed down under the weight of their misfortunes to listen to the instructions and " make the prayer." In a few days, runners arrived from Onondaga announcing that the chiefs awaited them. Three miles from the town of Gonaterezon, the tribal orator of the Senecas stopped them and delivered an oration. After he had concluded, he escorted the priests on their way. When about a mile from the town they were met by a delegation, and Chau- monot, removing his hat, began an Iroquois harangue, the whole crowd moving slowly to the Onondaga village. Chaumonot, who was a veteran of the Huron campaign, spoke the Iroquois with a fluency and ease that amazed them. His gesticulation, after the Indian fashion, was
CHAUMONOT. 271
perfect ; his intonation and inflection were modelled on those of their best orators, and as he proceeded he was repeatedly applauded with encouraging " hos, hos, — hear, hear." As the priests passed through the village they were objects of intense curiosity to the gaping crowd, who, from the roofs of their wigwams, gazed with mingled awe and curiosity on the black-robed delegates. With much pomp they were conducted to a large cabin, where a sumptuous feast was prepared in their honor, and, while they are being entertained, let us for a time dwell upon the great Iroquois nation. The Iroquois League made up of five tribes forming the Hodenosaunee confederacy was, without question, a most unique form of govern- ment ; one that had stood the test of time, and which, among the survivors of the nation obtains to this day. These five tribes were known as the Senecas, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Mohawks.
Each tribe had its allotted number of orators and chiefs, known as sachems; altogether they formed a parliament of about fifty men, and in the general con- gress of the tribes their legislative and judicial authority was supreme. When the general council assembled, the business before it was conducted with great order and according to fixed rules. " Their councils," says Clinton, " were conducted with great decorum, ceremony and solemn deliberation. In the characteristics of profound policy, they surpassed an assembly of Feudal Barons."
272 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Father Henepin, who, with La Salle, the explorer, and his companion Tonti, was present at one of these meet- ings, said that the Senators of Venice did not appear with a graver countenance nor speak with more majesty than the Iroquois sachems, when assembled in council. Bancroft, Golden, Schoolcraft, and Morgan are all of the opinion that the government of the Iroquois League foreshadowed the American Republic. The parliamentary sachems were never called into the field in time of war. Each tribe had a legislature of its own, to which was in- trusted the framing of laws for those under its jurisdic- tion. Any one tribe of the League was free to take the war-path without the consent of the others, and it was only when the nation at large was threatened that the general congress was empowered to settle upon the plan of campaign. Onondaga was the seat of government for the whole nation, and here, in what might be called the National Library, the wampum records of law, treaties, councils, and of their history, were kept. To the custody of the Onondagas was committed the care of the Great Gouncil Fire. The Senecas, who occupied the ex- treme western point of their territory, had charge of the " First Fire," and to the MohaWks, who dwelt on the eastern limit, was instructed the guardianship of the " Fifth Fire," which burned in the long cabin. The long eabin was an imaginary wigwam having two outlets, one at the east and the other at the west, and these out-
CHAUMONOT. 273
lets were the " Fires," under the protectorship of the Mohawks and Senecas. These two tribes were held to protect the western and eastern entrances of the. myth- ical wigwam, which covered the whole nation. The Iroquois numbered twenty-five thousand souls, and when occasion demanded, could throw into the field three thousand of the fiercest and bravest warriors of North America. And, now, let us return to Chaumonot and his companion. When the feast was over, the priests were conducted to the lodge reserved for them, and a depu- tation was already waiting to present belts of wam- pum. Father Chaumonot replied on behalf of Onnontio, the Governor-General, and Achiendasd, the Superior of missions.* On the eleventh of November, the mission- aries were shown, on the banks of the Onondaga, a beau- tiful and convenient site upon which they were asked to build their chapel. On the twelfth of November, they were present at the torture of a young Erie, whom they had in vain endeavored to purchase in order to save him from the fire. Chaumonot says he was only ten years old, and that for the two hours in which he was being burned alive, with all the tortures that savage ingenuity could devise, he never uttered a cry, or allowed a groan of complaint to escape him. The 15th of November was appointed for another meeting at which matters of
* This was Father Francis Le Mercier, and was the name the Iro- quois and Hurons gave to the Jesuit Superior at Quebec.
274 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
importance, which were not before discussed, were to be brought up. Chaumonot and Dablon, after an hour spent in prayer, entered the council house, and when the tribal orators had spoken, Chaumonot arose to reply. Eloquent as he was, he surpassed himself, and the enrap- tured Dablon, carried away by his eloquence, said that he thought that the voice of his brother priest could be heard throughout the whole nation. The tribal orators gazed upon him with surprise. Walking from end to end of the tent, gesticulating freely, he emphasised his eloquent utterances with the presentation of accept- able gifts. He declared that Onondaga had never wit- nessed a council of such importance. That upon the re- sult of this council depended the salvation of the nation, and now that they had accepted the good-wishes of Onn- ontio, he was about to deliver to them a message from the the Master of life and death. He then unfolded the doctrines of Christianity, and ended a matchless address by appealing to them to accept the faith. The air re- sounded with the chants of the chiefs, and when they had ended their chorus of congratulations, one of them exclaimed : "I speak to thee, brother, from the heart, I sing from the heart, my words are true, welcome brother, thy coming brings light to our dark places, and thy voice carries happiness to our hearts. Farewell war, fare- well the hatchet ! " He then embraced the missionary on behalf of the whole nation. The priests were now told
CHAUMONOT. 275
that they were free to preach throughout the country. The following day they began the erection of their chapel, a rough bark building, but it was the first Catholic church that was ever raised in the State of New York. Every cabin was now open to them, and as Father Dablon had already established a choir of Indian maid- ens, the chapel became too small to hold the crowds that came from far and near. The Huron exiles assem- bled twice a day for prayer and instruction, till the paths leading to the chapel were so deeply worn that a deputation of Cayugas, when they passed the place and saw the beaten tracks, and the people passing and re- passing, paused and asked what it all meant.
Well might the traveller start to see The tall, dark forms, that take their way From the birch canoe, on the river shore. And the forest paths, to that chapel door ; And marvel to mark the naked knees. And the dusky foreheads bending there.
Clouds, however, were forming on the horizon. Huron apostates began to circulate dangerous calumnies. They said that the Fathers were sorcerers, and that the child- ren, whom they were baptizing, would be under the evil influence of a Manitou. About this time, also, a rumor was spread throughout the Iroquois cantons, that the Onondagas, who had gone to Quebec, were thrown into prison, and were, by this time, perhaps, killed. After a
276 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
secret meeting, which was held at Onondaga, the priests were denounced as liars, and as men guilty of treachery. Chaumonot failing to convince them that their accusa- tions were false, resorted to a characteristically bold ex- pedient. "You say," he exclaimed, "that your deputies are retained in prison, and, for all you know, are now dead. Select from among you four or five of your num- ber, and my companion will go with them to the French. I will remain here, and if this charge which you bring against us be true, I, with my life, will pay the penalty." Chaumonot's offer was accepted, and a few days after- wards a canoe, bearing Dablon and five warriors, sailed from the mouth of the Oswego for Quebec, which they reached on the thirtieth of March.
When the Onondaga deputation discovered that their friends had been kindly treated by the French, and never saw even the inside of a prison, they acknowledged that they had been listening to lies, and again invited the French to come and settle among them. The invita- tion was accepted, and a number of French colonists un- der the command of a military captain, made prepara- tions for the voyage. They were accompanied by Fathers James Fremin, Francis Le Mercier, Ren^ Menard and Claude Dablon, who sailed back with the Onondaga deputation. While the Onondagas delayed at Quebec, Father Le Moyne left with a party of Mohawks to open a mission in their villages. They reached the Iroquois
CHAUMONOT, 277
country in safety and began at once a settlement. Cab- ins were thrown up, a fort built, and thus, on the 19th day of July, priests and colonists took up their abode among the Iroquois. Soon after a great council was called, and to it came Chaumonot, bearing valuable pre- sents for the tribe. The meeting assembled in the great council house of the Onondagas. Five nations were re- presented by their respective councillors and orators, and when the preliminary business of the council was over, Chaumonot, holding in his hand a belt of wam- pum, strode forward to address them. His reputation as an orator had already preceded him, and, since the death of Brebeuf, he was recognized by Hurons and Iroquois as the most famous of the " black gowns." " We do not come here," he said, " to trade with you ; not for traffic do we appear in your country ; your beaver skins could never repay us for the dangers and hard- ships we have suffered ; these things you can keep for the Dutch, we do not want them. For the faith alone have we left our land ; for the faith we have crossed the ocean ; for the faith we have left the great ships of the French to take passage in your frail canoes ; it is for the faith I hold in my hand this belt of wampum, and open my lips to call upon you to keep unbroken the promise you gave to us at Quebec. There you sol- emnly pledged yourselves to give ear to the Word of the Great God; they are in my mouth, — listen." Th^n,
278 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
with wondrous fluency and eloquence, he enumerated the great truths of Christianity — dwelt upon man's re- sponsibility to God, the attributes of the human soul, and its imperishable nature. He called upon them, by their hope of happiness and fear of eternal torture, to accept the truth and embrace the faith. They were loud in their demonstrations of delight, embraced Chaumonot, and promised to give ear to his words. " If, after this," writes Father Fremin, " they murder us, it will, indeed, be surprising." His discourse produced a profound sen- sation, and many of the Onondagas applied for baptism. Henceforth the missionaries performed all their duties as freely as if they were at home with the colonists at Que- bec. Scattered among the Iroquois villages were large numbers of Huron captives, who, since the destruction of their own country, had no opportunity of practising their religion. Many of these Hurons, when they were a free and independent people, refused to accept the faith, but entertained a kindly feeling for the Fathers, and admired them for their wondrous heroism and self-denial. The crucible of affliction through which they had passed, and their position of inferority among the Iroquois, tamed their proud natures. Their stubborn hearts yielded to the affectionate appeals of the priests, and they now came asking to be baptized. " The Hurons of the upper country," writes Chaumonot, " who had refused instruc- tion, by reason of their aversion to the faith, are now
CHAUMONOT. 279
bending to the yoke of the gospel, for affliction tends very much to a right understanding, Large numbers of them have already been baptized, and with our Iroquois converts, we have, since we came here, already received four hundred and fifty into the Church, and this, notwith- standing the difficulties we encounter by reason of the continual wars in which these tribes are engaged. If we can sustain priests in this country, the whole nation will be brought over to the faith."
In a few months Fathers Ragueneau and Du Peion joined the mission, and to all outward appearances the day of conversion was dawning upon the Iroquois tribes. Scattered through the Iroquois cantons there were now seven priests, viz.. Fathers Ragueneau, Le Moyne, Le Mercier, Fremin, Du Peron, Dablon and Chaumonot, and, if it w^ere not for the intrigues of the Dutch, at New Amsterdam, and the duplicity of some of the lead- ing chiefs, the whole nation would have been won to the faith. But under all this seeming appearance of prosperity and glorious hope, a deep-laid conspiracy was being hatched. On the 3rd day of August, 1657, the Huron captives, who had been brought to the country under protestations of kindness and sworn assurances of brotherhood, were ruthlessly slaughtered. Yet their outward bearing towards the priests and French settlers was kind, almost to affection, but Chaumonot, who knew the Iroquois character well, began to distrust them.
280 EARLY MISSIONS IN WKSTKKN CANADA.
Their former perfidy and cruelty, and tlieir savage fero- city in Huronia, were still fresh in his memory. He re- membered, also, when they were the scourge of the infant Church, when they tortured, wasted and devoured the catechumens, buried whole towns in their own ashes, and destroyed the tribes whom the Fathers had won to the faith. Did they not leave Huronia a wilderness of deso lation, where the bones of its slaughtered dead lay yet unburied ? Were not the scattered Nipissings and Ot- tawas yet so paralyzed with fear, that even the imprint of an Iroquois' moccasin was, to them, a symbol of death ? He remarked to Dablon that they were in the dens of the tigers, and that at any moment the beasts might spring upon them and rend them asunder. Sometime after the slaughter of the Hurons, it was whispered to Chaumonot that, in a secret council held among the Iro- quois, the massacre of the French was settled on, and would take place in a few weeks. This was alarming news, and messengers were at once dispatched to the priests in the outlying missions and to the French dwell- ers in the country, notifying them of the decision of the council, and warning them to gather as soon as possible at the fort which the French had erected a short time before. The Onondagas, not suspecting that their con- spiracy was known to the French, viewed with consider- able surprise and no little suspicion this gathering of the whites. An Iroquois band of iifty to sixty warriors
CHAUMONOT. 281
threw up their wigwams around the French fort, where the French colonists and Fathers were assembled. When asked their reason for so doing, they replied they came to enjoy the society of the French, Their real object was to await a favorable opportunity to slaughter them all. The French appeared to accept their explanation in good faith, and succeeded in convincing the Iroquois that they were entirely ignorant of their designs. In the meantime, silently and rapidly, skilful hands were con- structing two boats large enough to carry fourteen or fifteen people. They also succeeded in concealing nine (janoes. Everything had to be done very cautiously, for, if the Iroquois had the slightest suspicion that they har- bored a thought of escape, they would attack them at once. At last the hour for which the French waited came. From time immemorial a superstition prevailed among the Neutral, Huron and Iroquois nations, as in- explicable in its origin as it was gross in its character This was a feast, known to the French as Festin a man- ger tout, in which it was necessary that the invited guests should consume everything placed before them, however large the quantity, unless, which was rarely done, an in- dividual was allowed to retire from the festal cabin by permission of him who gave the feast. The obligation of attending, when called to the banquet, w^as considered binding under grave consequences. A young Frenchman sent invitations to the Indian warriors, stating that it
282 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
was revealed to him in a dream that he would surely die unless a feast of this nature was given to appease the okis, who threatened his destruction. The feast came off on the evening of the twentieth of March ; the early part of the evening was spent in various amusements, till it was announced that the feast was ready for the guests. Each man's bowl was filled to the brim, and the work began. After gorging themselves to repletion, they begged of the young Frenchman to allow them to depart. He claimed that the okis were not yet satisfied, and that he would surely perish unless they continued to eat. They began anew, and after a sus- tained effort and superhuman exertions, finally left off, contending that they could not positively eat any more. Those among the French that were any sort of musicians now began to dance and play, while the Indians sat around with bulging eyes and overloaded stomachs, watching the performance. Under the combined influ- ence of music and undigested food, they one by one dropped off to sleep, while one of the Frenchmen continued to play soft airs to lull them to a deeper repose. When the French were satisfied that they were hopelessly buried in sleep, they embarked in their boats, and when morning dawned, were already entering Lake Ontario. " Thus," adds Gilmary Shea, " ended, after a brief ex- istence, the mission of St. Mary's of Ganentaa, in the Onondaga country, with its dependent missions among
CHAUMONOT. 283
the Oneidas, Cayu^as and Senecas. It had been founded and conducted witli great toil and at great expense ; it was now crushed, but its effect was not lost ; many had been biought to the faith and more convinced of the truth and beauty of Christianity, who, for motives of policy, still held back." What the feelings of the Iroquois were when they recovered from their stupor, were known but to themselves. Their surprise was unbounded, and adepts though they were at strategy, they had to ac- knowledge they had met their masters. Many among them believed that the " black robes " and their flock could have only escaped through the aid of spirits — walked on the water, or took wings and flew through the air. On the third of April, Chaumonot and his com- panions reached Montreal, and on the twenty-third of the same month landed at the city of Quebec.
In 1663, Father Chaumonot returned to Montreal and established there the Society of the Holy Family, an association that, even at the present day, exerts a saving influence in the family, sanctifying homes, encouraging domestic purity, and fostering filial devotion. In the following year he was appointed Chaplain to the garrison at Fort Richelieu, built at the mouth of the River Sorel. His simplicity of manner, unostentatious piety, and manly integrity, won for him not only the love of the private soldiers, but the esteem and respect of the officers. Soon we find him at Quebec in the midst of his
284 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Hurons, never again to leave them until he is borne to his final resting-place. Here at New Lorette, he built a church, modelled after the famous holy house of Loretto, Italy, and here among the remnant of the Hurons, this servant of God spent almost a quarter of a century in the practices of piety and self-denial. He rose very early in the morning, spent hours in prayer and contem- plation, passed the day in going from house to house doing good. When night came on it found him in his chapel offering up prayers to God, with his tawny con verts, and dismissing them for the evening with his bene- diction and a prayer for their welfare. In 1689, he was fifty years a priest, and on that day Montcalm, the Gov- ernor of Canada, in the presence of a large congregation in the Cathedral of Quebec, received Holy Communion from the hands of this heroic priest. He died in Novem- ber, 1692, calmly as a child, after passing fifty-three years in the priesthood. His funeral was attended by every prominent man from Fort Frontenac to Tadousac, and the unanimity of opinion which proclaimed him a saint was unbroken by a single dissentient voice.
Father Chaumonot was the last of the Huron veter- ans. Garnier, Chabanel, Daniel, Jogues, Bressani, Bre- beuf, Lalemant, all were dead, — and a grander galaxy of saints and martyrs the world has not produced. The study of the lives of these wondrous men is, in itself, a sublime sermon, carrying to man a nobler conception of
CHAUMONOT. 285
his own dignity and of the possibilities of his nature We may fittingly close this chapter, beseeching these great souls, now in heaven, to ask Almighty God to grant us the grace to imitate their virtues, if not their heroism.
CHAPTER XXVL
THE SULPICIANS.
Jean Jacques Olier — Invited to become a Bishop — Consults St. Viocent de Paul — Declines the honor — At the Church of St. Germain-des- Pr«Ss — The mysterious Voice— At the Chateau of Meudon— A strange Meeting — The Mass and Communion — Olier's Appearance — His intense Piety — La Dauversiere — A Command and Vision— The Consultation — I'he Result — Arrival of the Sulpicians — Influence of the Order — Formation of Priestly Character — Mission of the Bay of Quints— Bishop Laval — Fenelon and Trouv^ — Among the Cay- ugas — Fenelon and Laval — At the mouth of the Humber — The Sul- picians Recalled — Recollets re-enter the Field — End of the Quinte Missions — Father Picquet — His Famous ** Reduction" — His Ex- traordinary Success — Voyage of Picquet — Picquet Leaves for France — End of his famous Mission.
Early in the year of 1636, a young priest left the coun- try parish where he had spent a laborious week in mis- sionary duty, and set out on his way to the city of Paris. He was only twenty-eight years old, but his fervent piety, his intense religious zeal, and his learning and ability, had already introduced him to the notice of a venerable prelate, who, for eight months, pleaded with him to become his coadjutor, with the right of succession. This young ecclesiastic was now on his way to consult his friends, St. Vincent de Paul and Father de Condron, general of the Oratorians, as to what answer he should return to the Bishop. After having submitted his case
286
THE SULPICIANS. 287
for their consideration, he entered the neighboring church of St. Germain-des-Prds, to commune with God in prayer and ask His help in this crisis of his life. It was the second of February, the Feast of the Puri- fication ; and while on his knees pouring out his soul in fervent prayer, his frame suddenly trembled with emotion. The habitually calm and peaceful expression of his face passed away, and there came a look of in- tense seriousness and wonder. Then he heard a voice speaking to his heart, " You must become a light to enlighten the Gentiles." Mass was being celebrated, and , as if to emphasize the message, at that moment the choir took up the Simeonian prophecy, and the church was filled with the anthem, " a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people." The young priest arose to his feet, and, as he passed out into the world and on through the busy streets of the large city, the absorbing voice gave him no peace. St. Vincent de Paul and Father Condron advised him not to accept the Episcopate, and, as he retired from their presence, it dawned upon him that the supernatural voice spoke a command to bear the message of salvation to the savages roaming the wilderness of New France. Then he left the city, and the following morning entering the neigh- boring Chateau of Meudon to say his daily mass in the chapel of that old building, he saw a man approach- ing him. The two gazed upon each other for a moment.
288 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and the next, impelled by they knew not what uncon- trollable impulse, warmly shook hands and embraced each other, as long separated brothers. They had never met before — never, in all probability, heard of each other before, yet they were now in each other's arms, the one calling the other by his name, with every demon- stration of tender affection. " Monsieur," exclaimed the priest, " I know your project, and I am now going to say mass to commend your design to God," and he went at once to the chapel, vested, and began mass. This young man was John James Olier, afterwards founder of the Sulpician Order, a providential, a saintly man, whose memory the priests of the Catholic Church for evermore will hold in reverence and benediction, and to whom the Catholics of Europe and America owe a debt of deep and lasting gratitude. It will take him a full half hour to say his mass, which w411 give us ample time to learn something about him.
As he stands at the foot of the altar and begins the " Introibo ad altare Dei," we notice that he is of middle height, with features cleanly chiselled, yet bearing traces of prolonged fasts, nightly vigils, and severe penances. His eyes are luminously bright, with a fire and vivacity, tempered with engaging sv/eetness. He speaks with a clear resonant voice, and utters every syllable with a inoticeable distinctness. His brow is broad and ample ndicating serious thought and much of it. His face is,
THE SULPICIANS. 289
not at all handsome, but the outlines are regular, and on his pleasing and attractive countenance there reposes an air of grace, dignity and modesty. His whole appear- ance is that of a refined, intellectual and well-bred man. John Olier was the son of wealthy parents who had out- lined for him a brilliant career in the world ; but, to their regret and disappointment, he entered the priest- hood, and gave himself up to the poor of the city and country parishes. From his childhood, he seemed des- tined to sanctity and greatness. His spirit of prayer, of self-mortification, of complete abandonment to God's holy will, raised him to the plane of holiness, and he be- came all to all, that he might gain all for Christ. " A holy priest," say the annals of the Congregation, " whose memory is in benediction among all good men : a pastor who was animated with a zeal equal to his virtue, to maintain the honor and worship of God in all the churches which Providence had placed under his control."
The other, whom he had so strangely met in the hall of the chateau, assisted at his mass, and, when the com- munion-bell rang, he left his place and knelt before the priest. After he received Holy Communion, he returned to the body of the chapel, and, buried in his thanksgiving, became dead to his surroundings. This man was Jerome le Royer de la Dauversiere, receiver of taxes under the King, who had come from his home at La Fleche, in An- jou, to Pari>s on governmental and other business. He
290 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
was a layman, intensely pious, conscientious, and of an honesty and uprightness beyond suspicion. He was married, and was the father of eight children.
One day while at his devotions, he and his wife, Jeanne de Beauge, consecrated themselves and their children to the Holy Family ; that is, they placed them- selves in a special manner under the protection of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pledging themselves to do what they could to make these sacred names honored and respected among men. After he had registered this resolution, Dauversiere heard an inward voice, ordering him to be- come the founder of a new order of hospital nuns, and to establish on the island of Montreal, in Canada, a hos- pital, to bo attended by these sisters. Furthermore, it was told to him that his devotion to the Holy Family would become a special feature of the religious life of this colony. He rose from his knees, greatly perplexed, for while at his devotions there passed before him in panoramic view, the island, the rivers, the surrounding land and forests, and as it was a wilderness it first had to be colonized before anything could be done. More- over, he was a man absorbed in business, having a wife and family depending upon him. Though he had no doubt of the supernatural nature of the command, yet when he consulted his confessor, the Jesuit Father Chau- veau, his recital was received with incredulity, and his project branded as chimerical. Still Dauversiere pon-
THE SULPICIANS. 291
dered the revelation, and the more thought he gave to it the more was he convinced that it came from God. He therefore set out for Paris, to supplement the means at his own disposal and to solicit assistance in carrying out the task assigned him. From Paris he went to Meudon, and, moved by an unaccountable impulse, entered the chateau, where the extraordinary interview between himself and Olier took place. Impelled by inspiration, they knew each other at once even to the depths of their hearts ; saluted one the other by name, as we read of St. Paul the hermit and St. Anthony, of St. Dominic and St. Francis, and ran to embrace each other like two friends, although they had never met before.* After mass these two men walked together in the grounds about the chateau, discussing for three hours the par- ticulars of their messages and the plans they would adopt. They were thoroughly in harmony one with the other, and the result of their long conference was to found at Montreal three religious communities ; one of priests, for the conversion of the savages and direction of the colonists ; one to be composed of a number of sisters, whose duty it would be to care for the sick, the old and the infirm ; and the third, a community of nuns to teach the children. When they were separating, Olier, who was of a wealthy family, handed five hundred dollars to the other, remarking that he wished to assume
*La Colonie Francaise I., page 390.
292 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
half of the responsibility of the work. They parted* Dauversiere to carry out his part of the contract, and Olier to found the great Seminary of St. Sulpice, in Paris, and gather around him ordained auxiliaries for the foreign missions.
Joining to themselves four others, among whom was the wealthy Baron de Fancamp, they formed the nucleus of an association known as the " Society of Notre Dame, of Montreal," and between them they subscribed seventy five thousand dollars. The next move was to get pos- session of the island, which belonged to M. de Lauzon, former president of the great company of the Hundred Associates, and which was ceded to him on condition that he would establish there a colony. Lauzon at first declined to part with his seignory, but when Father Lalemant, who was then in Paris, added his entreaties to those of M. Olier, he finally yielded, and for a consider- ation deeded the island to the Society. A confirmation of the grant was obtained from the king, and the Soci- ety was now empowered to appoint a Governor and es- tablish courts.
Their title assured, they now began to mature their plans for the settlement of the island. In the selection of the colonists they were very careful, choosing only those of good morals and acknowledged respectability. They invited Paul de Chomedey, Lord of Maisonneuve, a man of undisputed courage, who had served in the
THE SULPICIANS. 293
army in Holland, and whose character for probity and honor was untainted, to take charge of the expedition. Maisonneuve, contrary to the wishes of his parents, em- braced the enterprise To the objections of his father he replied, " Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall possess life everlasting." Forty families were now got together, under the leadership of Maisonneuve, with instructions to hold themselves in readiness to em- bark for New France on short notice. While these pre- parations were going on, a young woman called one day upon Father Olier. This was Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, a lady well-educated, of a good family, and unimpeachable piety and virtue. In her interview with the distinguished priest she claimed to have received a a Divine intimation that her future life was indissolubly associated with the colony to be settled at Montreal. Father Olier, after searching enquiry, approved of her design, and gave her letters of introduction to Maison- neuve and his companions. All was now ready, the ships set sail, and after a stormy voyage, arrived at Que- bec, August 24th, 1641.
Olier, Dauversi^re, and Fancamp remained in France to do what they could to procure assistance for the in- fant colony. At home the Society, to the number of about forty-five, met in the Church of Notre Dame,
294 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
Paris, and with solemn ceremony consecrated the island of Montreal to the Holy Family. Henceforth it was to be known as Ville Marie de Montreal, under the special protection of our blessed Lord, St. Joseph, and the mother of Jesus. Maisonneuve and his party wintered at Quebec, and the following May, 1642, re-embarked, and, sailing up the St. Lawrence, safely reached their destination, and took possession of the island in the name of the Associates of Montreal. Thus was laid the foundation of the largq^t city in the Dominion of Cana- da., In the meantime Father Olier had established the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, and was now educat- ing young ecclesiastics for the foreign mission. At his request the Jesuit Fathers at Quebec consented to attend to the spiritual wants of the colonists till such time as he would be able to send them priests from St. Sulpice. " On the 17th of May, 1657, a vessel sailed from the harbor of Saint-Nazaire, carrying to the shores of Can- ada, Gabriel de Queylus,* Gabriel Souart,f Dominic Galinier, and M. d' Allet, a deacon soon to be raised to the priesthood, and, on the 29th of July, cast anchor before
* Gabriel de Queylus, according to the historian Father Le Clercq, was a priest distinguished for his piety, learning and great zeal. He was the descendant of an aristocratic family of Rouergue. Though from his childhood he was in receipt of a large annuity, he spent it in charity. He was appointed vicar -general when leaving France to assume the Superiorship of the Sulpicians at Montreal, and was nominated for the see of Quebec, which he declined.
t Gabriel Souart was nephew of Father Le Caron, the first mission- ary to the Hurons.
THE SULPICIANS. 295
the now prosperous and historic city of Quebec. After a most courteous and friendly reception from the Jesuit Fathers, by whom they were hospitably entertained, they proceeded on their way, and safely arrived at Ville Marie, their journey's end. For fifteen years, the Jesuit Fathers ministered to the spiritual wants of this frontier village, among whose names we find those of our old friends Fathers Poncet, Du Pdron, Druillette, Le Jeune, Le Moyne, and Pijart. On the 12th of August, 1657, Father Pijart, after his morning mass, surrendered the care of the parish to M. de Queylus, who appointed Gabriel Souart to succeed Father Pijart, as pastor of the parish of Ville Marie, and thus, after fifteen years of honorable and faithful service, the Jesuit Fathers retired and the Fathers of the Foreign Mission, now known as the Sulpicians, entered upon their labors. These four, just mentioned, were the pioneers of the Sulpician order, which in Canada and the United States has exerted such a beneficent and enormous influence in the formation of the character of the priesthood of America. ^' The light to enlighten the Gentiles," that was ringing in the ears and buzzing in the brain of the great and saintly Olier, was in the Providence of God, destined to illuminate the minds and hearts of millions. Not, indeed, as thought the mortified man, the red hordes that swarmed in the forests of Canada, and were already doomed to annihila- tion, but the sons of Japeth, that were now entering up-
296 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA
on the possession of the promised land, and who were to increase till they would outnumber the stars in the Heavens. From the halls of the Sulpician seminaries, in Baltimore and Montreal, there have stepped into the world priests, fashioned, moulded, and formed, by the Sulpician Fathers, who, by their lives and preaching, have excited the curiosity, and then the admiration of the gentile. In the populous cities, in the scattered vil- lages, and the remote districts of this great continent, priests of the Catholic church, trained by the Sulpicians, have saved the faith where it was in danger of perish- ing, and brought into the Church thousands who were born outside of it. Eleven years after the landing of de Queylus and his party, Ren^ Brdhant de Galinee and Francis Lascaris d' Ursd, Dollier de Casson, Michel Bar- tholemy, and M. Trouve arrived. In 1665, a truce was patched up between the French and Iroquois, permitting the Jesuit Fathers to re-open the missions established some years before by Chaumonot, Dablon, and others. Three years^after the Fathers had renewed their mis- sions with the confederated tribes, a large number of Cayngas, with many adopted Hurons, left Western New York, crossed Lake Ontario, and settled on the shores of the Bay of Quintd*
* Compelled by fear of their enemies, some of our Indians have left this place and settled on the northern shores of Lake Ontario. They are of the Cayuga tribe or rather a new people. — Rel. LeMercier, 1668, p. 20.
THE SULPICIANS. 297
Early in the autumn of 1668, this tribe sent a depu- tation to Montreal, asking that priests be sent to them, as the Fathers with the Iroquois were too few in num- bers to attend to their spiritual wants. Bishop Laval had already relaxed his rule which confined the Indian missions under his jurisdiction solely to the Jesuit Fathers; and, in 1667, we learn that two Sulpician priests were already for some time laboring among the Ottawa's and other Algonquin hordes The Bishop now invited the Sulpicians of Montreal to assume charge of the Quints missions, and, in obedience to his wish Fathers Fenelon * and Trouve left Lachine for the Bay of Quin- ts, arriving there the 28th day of October, having been twenty-six days on the voyage. They were received with hospitable welcome, began their labors without de- lay, and were filled with hopes of encouragement for the future. That a spirit of affectionate cordiality between the Jesuits and Sulpicians existed even at this early day is evident from what we read in the Relation of Father Le Mercier, written in 1668: "Two fervent mis- sionaries of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Fathiers Fenelon
* Father Fenelon was brother of the great Archbishop of Cambraie, and was the son of a noble family. He devoted himself to the early missions much against the will of his relatives, who, by their influence and the prestige of his family, anticipated a mitre for him. He was scholarly and accomplished, of a friendly and generous nature, which assured him the friendship of all those with whom he came into as- sociation.
S
298 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
and Trouv^, were dispatched this year to the family of the Iroquois called Oiogouens, who for some time had been camping on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. These people required pastors to confirm in them the spirit of Faith, which for two years we fanned and kept alive."
The priests met with comparatively little success in the conversion of the adult population. They were consoled, however, in being permitted to baptize the daughter of the chief, the children, and many of the grown people on their death-beds. The Cayugas at this period occupied four villages. Keint-he and Canagora were situated thirty miles north of Lake Ontario, some distance north of the Bay of Quints.* The villages of Tiot-natton and Canohenda were five miles southward of these, necessitating the priests to be continually moving amid incredible hardships and fatigues. In 1669 Father Fenelon, worn out with labor, but still full of zeal, went to Quebec, making his first call upon Bishop Laval, that he might pay the tribute of respect and rev-
* Mr. Kingsford, the historian, is of the opinion that the missions of Qaint6 were situated somewhere in the Townships of Fredericksburg and Marysburg ; but Wentworth Greenhalgh says, in his Report, that in 1677 he visited all the Cayuga villages on the north shore of Lake Frontenac (Ontario). He places the first two, thirty miles north of the Lake, and the others five miles southward of these. These In- dians were continually changing from place to place, for in addition to the towns just mentioned, there were six others, stretching from the Bay of Quints to Burlington Bay.
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TflE SULPICIANS. 299
erence due to the great prelate and his exalted office ; after a most affectionate and fraternal greeting, his lord- ship questioned him concerning his apostolic labors, in- timating that he wished to preserve the details of his work among the Episcopal archives. " My Lord," replied the saintly priest, " the greatest kindness you can show us is to say nothing at all about our work." He was ac- companied on his return to the Bay of Quints by Father Lascaris d' Urs^,* who, in preparation for the life of a missionary, wished to learn the Iroquois language and become familiar with the habits and methods of life essen- tial for one who was to devote himself to the Christian- izing of the savages. As soon as Father Fenelon arrived at Quinte a deputation of the Cayugas, representing the Indians of Gandaseteiagon,f waited upon him, asking that he would open a mission at their town. Leaving Fathers d' Urs^ and Trouve at Quinte, he accompanied the
* Lascaris d'Urs*^ was the son of the Marquis d' Urs6, and on his father's side was a descendant of a noble family. His mother was de- scended from one of the most ancient and illustrious families of Greece, one member of which sat upon the Imperial throne. He was also re- lated to the Brehants, a princely house whose motto was, "The pledge of a Brehant is better than gold." The great Colbeit was his uncle. The Bay d'Urs6 above Montreal is named after him.
t This village was at the mouth of the Humber which empties into Lake Ontario about a mile west of the City of Toronto. Dollier de Casson, in his sketch of the Quints missions says that Father d'Urs6 spent the winter of 1670 at this place. He also mentions that the vil- lage was peopled with Senecas, but Father Fremin in his Relation of 1668, distinctly states that the Indians who crossed over to the south- , em shore of Lake Ontario were a mixture of Cayugas and Hurons.
300 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
deputation and passed the winter ministering to the spir- itual wants of the people at this place.* Fathers d'Cic^ and Mariot now joined the mission, and flying churches were opened all along the northern shore of Lake Ontario and beyond, even to the Grand River. Dollier de Casson passed on to the Ottawas at Lake Nipissing, and Michel Barthelemy followed a wandering detachment into the forests around Rice Lake. But the restless nature of the tribes was continually compelling them to change their quarters. After years of indescribable labor and fatigue, joined to an apostolic zeal, they had made com- paratively few converts. It is true they baptized a great number of children and many dying adults, and in doing so they considered themselves well rewarded for all their labors. They found, however, that it was impossible to follow and minister to the detached bands and parties, that were continually roving from place to place. They consulted together and resolved to construct central mis- sion buildings similar to those built by the Jesuits years before at St. Mary 's-on-the- Wye, and, if possible, to settle the Cayugas permanently in their neighborhood. A large quantity of material for this purpose was ordered from Montreal and was already on its way, when they all received instructions to return to Montreal.
Here they were informed that the Recollet Fathers had come Vjack to Canada, and, at the request of the king>
* Abr6g6 De la Mission De Rente, p. 214.
THE SULPICIANS. 301
Louis XIV., were appointed to the Canadian missions. Fathers Louis Henepin, Luke Buisset, and Francis Was- son, now entered upon the Quinte missions and labored for some time with the heroism of martyrs, but appar- ently reaped only a harvest of tares. Most of the Cay- ugas returned to the southern shore of the lake, a hand- ful that remained, scattered themselves among the inland lakes, and in 1687, all traces of the missionaries, and, it may be said of the Cayugas of the Quints district, disap- peared from the pages of history. Many years after- wards Father Francis Picquet, a Sulpician priest, built his famous " Reduction " at Ogdensburgh, from which place he hoped to be able to send missionaries to the Iro- quois lying to the south, and to the Mississagues settled around the shores of Rice and Mud lakes. This extraor- dinary priest in four years succeeded in settling in his neighborhood over three thousand Indians, and opened missions at La Presentation, La Galette, Suegatzi, L'Tsle au Galope, and L'Isle Picquet in the River St. Lawrence. Such was his great success that the Bishop of Quebec made an official visit in 1749 to the central mission ac- companied by his retinue, and spent ten days examining into the details and working of the large establishment. In the month of June, 1751, Father Picquet made a voy- age around Lake Ontario, and instructed whatever In- dians still lingered in the Bay of Quints district. He then crossed to Niagara, and in the chapel of the fort
302 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
preached to the Senecas, and, returning home by the south shore of the lake, reached La Presentation, where he was received with affectionate tenderness by Algon- quins and Iroquois. When Quebec was captured by the English in 1759, Father Picquet had already converted large numbers of the Pagan Indians, but the unsettled state of the country precluded, for a time, the hope of continued success. He was compelled to abandon his mission, and on the eighth of May, 1760, he left Ogdens- burgh for New Orleans, from which place he sailed for France.*
* The Indians now on the Quints reservation around Heseronto and Adolphustown are chiefly Mohawks, and were settled here by the English government after the war of 1812. They brought with them, when they mov^d from Schoaharie Creek, the silver Communion Ser- vice of five pieces, which were presented to them in 1712, by Queen Anne, when she built a chapel for " her children, the Mohawks." They number about one thousand souls. Father Jogues was killed in their village about a mile or so east of the mouth of Schoaharie Creek, The present village of Auriesville occupies the site of the old Mohawk town. " The praying Indians," principally Senecas, settled at Caugh- nawaga and St, Regis on the St. Lawrence, are the descendants of tho converts of Father Chaumonot and other Jesuit missionaries. They number nearly three thousand. The Six Nations on the Grand River are descendants chiefly of Mohawks and Tuscaroras, who were driven out of North Carolina in 1712, and joined the Iroquois league the same year. They number three thousand four hundred. The other Indians in Quebec and Ontario are principally of Algonquin des- cent. The Indian population of this Province, according to the Dom- inion Report for 1892, number, all told, seventeen thousand eight hun- dred. In the Province of Ontario there are 9.077 of these Indians Protestant, and 6,474 Catholics. In the' Province of Quebec there are 437 Protestants in a total population of 13,600.— i^'ee Cen-ms Report, 1890.
CHAPTER XXVIL
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND G ALINE K.
On the Shores of the Nipissing — The Illinois Slave — Preparing for the Voyage — La Salle — The Expedition Sails — With the Senecas — Their Reception — Father Fremin — Perils of their Stay — Sickness of Dollier — At the Mouth of the Niagara— Coasting the Southern Shore — On Burlington Beach — Joliet — La Salle Returns — At the M(iUth of the Grand River — The Long Winter — ^The Inscription — First Ascent of the Detroit River — On Lake Huron — At Sault Ste. Marie Dablon and Marquette — Homeward Bound- Safe in Mon- treal.
" In the winter of 1668, Fathers Dollier de Casson and Michel Barthelmy joined the Fathers already at Quints, Missions were now opened at Ganeraske near the pres- ent town of Port Hope, at Gandaseteiagon, a little west of Toronto, at the mouth of the Humber3* and in a few
* This town is laid down on many maps, particularly in the manu- script one sent by Duchesneau to France. When La Salle started on his exploring expedition with Father Henepin in 1678, they ran for shelter into the Humber. This was on the twenty- sixth of November, and when they left on the fifth of December, they were forced to cut the vessel out of the ice with axes. When La Salle sailed on his second expedition in 1680, his route lay along the northern shore of Lake On- tario, up the Humber to Lake Simcoe, and thence by the Severn River to Georgian Bay. After the destruction of the Hurons, the Iroquois closed the Ottawa, and the Indians and traders then descended by the Humber.
303
304 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
other scattered villages. De Casson, after a short stay at Quints, left for Lake Nipissing, and passed tlie winter with a roving horde of Ottawas, who had come together after their dispersion by the Iroquois, and settled for a time on the shores of the lake. During his stay with this tribe, he shared the wigwam of Nitavikyk, in whose service was a young slave captured by the Iroquois dur- ing their war with the Illinois. This young man was sent down to Montreal by his master for ammunition, and while there on the advice of de Casson, he visited Father de Queylus, the Superior of the Sulpicians, and from the graphic description the Indian gave him of his own country, the populous tribes that dwelt there, their kindly dispositions, and generous qualities, de Queylus resolved to make an effort to open a mission among them. He now sent for de Casson, who, with Galin^e,* gener- ously volunteered to enter upon the great undertaking. They next consulted Bishop Laval at Quebec, who high- ly approved of the work they were about to enter upon, and in a letter written by his own hand, authorized them to proceed to the distant tribes, at the same time wish- . ing them every success. In this letter, dated the fifteenth
* Ren^ Galin^e attained eminence in the studios of mathematics and astronomy. He wrote the sketch of the voyage of himself and de Casson. One of his contemporaries says of him, " that he was a man of very amiable character, notwithstanding his great theological know- ledge, and his aristocratic lineage." He had a singular talent for me- chanical arts.
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALINEE 305
day of May, 1669, the illustrious Bishop pays a high compliment to the Jesuit Fathers, when he requests the two Sulpicians to conform as much as possible to their practice in dealing with the tribes, and when convenient, consult them in their difficulties. He then dismissed them with his blessing. By a singular coincidence, the great explorer La Salle, who was now on his seigniory at Montreal, was preparing to start on an expedition of discovery to the same regions fixed upon by the Fathers. In the autumn of 1668, a deputation of the Seneca tribe visited Montreal, and incidentally spoke to La Salle of a great river which entered into the sea. They called this river the Ohio, and stated that a journey to its mouth would occupy eight or nine months. They evidently meant the Mississippi, into which the Ohio empties itself.* La Salle, fired with enthusiasm, now began to make preparations for his voyage to this distant river, and when de Courcelles, the Governor, heard of the contem- plated mission of the Sulpicians, he asked them to unite with La Salle and form one party. Father de Queylus who was intimately acquainted with La Salle, had his own misgivings touching the probabilities of continued harmony for the expedition. He believed La Salle to be
* De Casson says that the Iroquois always called the river which was known to the Algonquins as the Mississippi, the Ohio ; and the Abb6 Faillon, in his admirable history, tells us that the two words re- ferred to the one river; Ohio in Iroquois means beautiful river, and Mississippi in Algonquin is the grand or great river.
306 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
of a changeable nature, of fearless courage and determin- ation, but possessed at times of a disposition moody and irritable. He therefore advised his brother priest and Galin^e * to make tracings of their route, so that they could find their way back in the event of any misunder- standing between La Salle and themselves. The party, consisting of twenty-four men in all, set out in seven canoes on the seventh of July, 1669. The time, apart from the season of the year, could hardly be said to be auspicious, for it was only a few weeks before that a Seneca chief was foully murdered by some soldiers stationed at Montreal, and, as if to add to the seriousness of this murder, two members of the Oneida tribe were robbed of their furs and killed by three Frenchmen, who escaped into the northern forests. The soldiers were tried at Montreal, con- demned to death, and in the presence of a number of the Iroquois, were shot, the Indians accepting their death as a satisfactory atonement for their own loss. Accompanying the expedition were the Senecas, who told La Salle of the existence of the Ohio. They sailed by the Thousand Islands, "Skirted the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and, after thirty-five days on the water, reached the mouth of a small river, but a
* At this time Galin^e was not a priest, he had advanced as far as the deaconate, and had not yet reached the canonical age for the priest- hood. He was ordained on his return to Montreal.
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALILEE. 307
short distance from a neighboring Seneca village. On the invitation of the Senecas, Galin^e and La Salle bringing with them eight of their men, started on the morning of the twelfth of August, and arrived at Son- nontonan, the principal Seneca town, before the setting of the sun. They expected to be able to purchase one or two slaves of the Illinois tribe, held captive by the Iroquois, to accompany them as guides on their way to the Mississippi. They were greeted on their arrival at the Seneca village with demonstrations of friendship, and were harangued by an old chief, on behalf of the tribe, in language the warmth of which surprised the Frenchmen. Neither La Salle nor Galin^e knew the language of the people sufficiently to make themselves understood. The Jesuit Fathers had, some years before, opened missions among the Iroquois, and in this village Father Fr^min had already built his chapel and made many converts. When La Salle's party arrived, they found, to their great chagrin and disappointment, that Fr^min had gone to Onondaga. They learned, however, that a French lay -brother, who was the companion of the Father, was in the neighborhood and might easily be found. This man, on his return, explained to the Sen- ecas the object of La Salle's visit. They were detained here a month, awaiting the fulfilment of a promise made to them, that they would be furnished with a slave to conduct them to the Ohio. During their stay in the
308 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
village, a war party returned, dragging with them a young prisoner, and, for the first time in liis life, Galin^e beheld a spectacle that filled him with horror. The prisoner was tied to a stake and tortured for six hours, and when he was dead the body was cut up and de- . voured. Galin^e pleaded in vain for his life, oftered to buy him at any price, but the Senecas laughed at his humanity and generosity. La Salle noticed that the Iroquois were beginning to change towards himself and his party. The murder of the Seneca Chief at Mon- treal was thrown into his face, and the relatives of the dead man threatened to kill the Frenchmen in reprisal. These threats were accompanied with insulting epithets, till at length matters became so serious that Galinde and La Salle recommended their men to hold themselves in readiness for an attack, and, as a measure of precaution, sentinels were appointed for night duty. To add to the seriousness of their position, the Seneca warriors fre- quently got drunk on whiskey purchased from the Dutch, and, under the influence of the liquor, were sub- ject to frightful outbursts of passion. Father Dollier, unaccustomed to the hardships and privations of life among the Senecas, became seriously ill. Galin^e did what he could for him under the circumstances, regret- ting he wasn't a priest, so that he might administer the sacraments to him, if there should be danger of death. " I am satisfied," replied Father Dollier, " to abide the
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALINEE. 309
will of God, and, if necessary, to be deprived of all help for body and soul, if, in His providence, He so^ wills it. If it be more pleasing to Him, I would rather die in the forest than in the midst of my friends in the Seminary of Ville Marie."* Fortunately, Father Dollier recovered, and the party, despairing of obtaining a guide, enlisted the assistance of an Iroquois, whose village was at the head of Burlington Bay, and who promised to show them a way to the Ohio. They left the Senecas, and in a few days arrived at the mouth of the Niagara River. " A short distance from here," writes Galin^e, " there is one of the most beautiful cataracts or fall of water that exists in the world. Even from where we are now, we can hear the noise of the falls, though they are twenty miles away." They coasted along the south- ern shore of the lake, and at length reached the foot of Burlington Bay. Here they landed, unpacked their bag- gage and started to visit the inland town of Ouinaoua- toua, some eight or ten miles away. They remained there a few days, and leaving the village on the 22nd of September, 1669, arrived on the 24th at the town of Tenaoutoua.f Here they met the explorer, Joliet, who
*Voyage de M. M. Dollier et de Galin^e.
tMr. Kingsford, in his History, Vol I., page 3^5, is of the opinion that Tenaoutoua cannot be located. He writes, '* Evidently this vil- lage must have been east of the height which trends northward from Hamilton, in order for it to be distant twenty-five miles from the Grand River. It cannot be identified, and it is idle to speculate on its
310 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
was returning to Montreal, after failing to locate a copper mine on Lake Superior, which he went in quest of in obedience to the order of Courcelles, the Governor. The meeting was of a very friendly nature. Joliet, in his youth, had studied for the priesthood, but, seduced by the fascinations of a forest life, he changed his mind, and became an indefatigable explorer and venturous fur trader. He drew for Galin^e a' tracing of those places in the Upper Lakes which he had visited, telling him, at the same time, that the Pottawattamies of the upper re- gion were a friendly people, and that if they visited them they would receive a hospitable welcome. La Salle now declared that the state of his health would not permit him to continue the journey, and, fearing that a winter's voyage would result disastrously, resolved to return to Montreal. On the 13th of September, 1669, Father Dol- lier offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at which the greater part of the expedition received Holy Com- munion. La Salle now endeavored to persuade Dollier and Galin(5e, with their party, to return with him, but
locality." Mr. James H. Coyne, of St. Thomas, who has devoted much time and research to the study of early Canadian history, writes me, "All the old maps I have seen show the portage in a nearly straight line, beginning at the head of Burlington Bay, and apparently running to a bend in the Grand River, corresponding, perhaps, with that at Cainsville." The reader is referred to a copy of Galinee's famous map, inserted in this work, and also to the map of the Bay of Quints mis- sions, drawn, in all probability, by a military engineer, from tracings left by Father Trouv6.
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALINEE. 311
they declined to do so. La Salle, accompanied by his own men, returned to Montreal, Dollier and his party left the village, sailed down the Grand River, and, reach- ing Lake Erie, found it too rough to embark.
They now encamped on the site occupied by the pre- sent village of Port Maitland, but at the end of fifteen days deemed it prudent to change their quarters. They retired about a mile and a half into the woods, and here, on the margin of a small stream, threw up a large hut, which they loop-holed, as a precautionary measure against attacks. One end of this building was reserved for a chapel, where Father Dollier celebrated Mass three times a week, and was consoled with the reflection that he was the first priest who ev^er oflered up the Holy Sacrifice on the shores of Lake Erie. He tells us that the members of his party regularly assisted at Mass, often went to confession and Holy Communion. On Sundays and festivals. High Mass was chanted and a sermon de- livered. Every night and morning they had prayers in common, and sometimes during the day joined in pious exercises. Fortunately for them, the winter was com- paratively mild. " If our winter was as severe," they write, " as it was at Montreal, especially in the month of February, 1670*, we would all have perished with the
* The winter of 1670 was the most severe ever experienced in Canada In the letters of Marie de 1' Incarnation, we read that ia the month of June ice still was found on the pond of the convent garden, and that their trees and berry bushes were killed with the cold.
312 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
cold. Our axes were almost useless, so that if the wood, which we collected for our fires, was frozen as hard as it ordinarily is at Montreal, we would not be able to split it." They remained here five months and eleven days, and before their departure planted on Passion Sunday a huge cross, and, after the example of Jacques Cartier, took possession of the country in the name of Louis the Fourteenth, whose arms they attached to the religious emblem. They also fastened to it the following inscrip- tion : " We, the undersigned, certify to having affixed on the shores of Lake Erie, the arms of the King of France, with this inscription: — 'In the year of Grace, 1669, Clement the IX., occupying the chair of St. Peter, and Louis the XIV., King of France, M. de Courcelles, being Governor of New France, and M. Talon, Intendant for the Kingr ; there arrived in this place two missionaries of the Seminary of Montreal, accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, who were the first of all Europeans to winter on this coast, which they have taken possession of, as of a land unoccupied, in the name of their King, by the affixing of his arms which they have attached to the foot of this cross. As a guarantee of good faith, we
have put our names to this certificate.
" ' FRANgiS DOLLIER, .» '* * Pretre du diocese de Nantes, en Bretagne. " * DE GALINEE, '* ' Diacre du diocese de Rennes, en Bretagne.*
*Faillon, Vol. Ist, page 301.
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALINEE. 313
The next day, the Feast of the Annunciation, they re- sumed their voyage, and after a stormy time landed on Pele^ Island, worn out with exhaustion.* As they were greatly fatigued, they left their canoes at the edge of the water, and retired to rest. A storm swept the lake dur- ing the night, and carried off some of their canoes. Fortunately, one of the party awoke and aroused the others. When they had saved what they could, they found that the canoe containing their sounding lead, trinkets for the Indians, and their portable chapel, was lost. This was, for them, a serious disaster, for without the gifts they were carrying, they could do nothing among the tribes ; moreover, Father de Casson could no longer say Mass, so they determined to go back to Mont- real and from there begin anew their journey. As the route by the Ottawa seemed to them as short as any other, they came to the conclusion to pass on to Sault Ste. Marie, where they hoped to join some of the Algon- quin flotillas, that from time to time went down to Mont- real. They sailed away, made the first recorded ascent of the Detroit River, and entering Lake St. Clair,f passed up the river and floated out on to Lake Huron. They paddled on till they reached the Georgian Bay, sailed
* The place of their landing is marked on Galin^e's map, and was probably on or near Point Pele6.
tin Sanson's map, this lake is called *'le Lac des eaux Salves," or Salt Water Lake.
S14 EARLY MISSIONS IN WESTERN CANADA.
between the Great Maiiitoulin and the northern shore, and, on the 25th day of May, reached Ste. Marie, where they were hospitably welcomed by the Jesuit priests, Fathers Dablon and Marquette. * For the first time in a month and a half, Father de Casson said Mass, and from his hands Galinde received Holy Communion. To their surprise they found here a chapel, a house and a quadrangular fort, loop-holed and picketed ; quite an ex- tensive farm was under cultivation, and already sown in com, wheat, peas and other crops. They were now nine hundred miles from Montreal, and as their intentions were to continue their mission to the Mississippi tribes, they resolved to return home immediately. Engaging a guide, they took an affectionate farewell of Fathers Dablon and Marquette, and left on the homeward voyage, May 28th. They entered French River, crossed the Nipissing into the Matawan, and sailing down the Ottawa, reached Montreal on the eighteenth of June, having made the journey in twenty-two days, up to that time the short-
* Francis Parkman, in his graphic description of this voyage, in *' La Salle and the discovery of the Great West, "page 20, most ungraciously charges the Sulpicians with "ignoring or slighting the labors of the rival missionaries." because they held their way northward without landing on the shores of the Georgian Bay, where the Jesuits, thirty years before, had established their missions. At this time the place was a desert, and for twenty years no priest or Huron visited the coun- try. It is the frequency of these illiberal and ungenerous insinuations, scattered all through Mr. Parkman's writings, that make his works so objectionable to the Catholic reader.
VOYAGE OF DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALINEE. 315
est on record. Soon after their arrival, Galin^e drew his famous map of the upper lakes and the first that was ever traced. Father de Casson also wrote the history of the voyage, but unfortunately no copy is extant. This famous voyage of Father de Casson and Galinee, though barren of conversions, stimulated to an extraor- dinary degree enthusiasm for discovery, and in the fol- lowing year Talon sent out expeditions to the Hudson Bay, the Southern Sea, 'and into the Algonquin country of the north. When we add that many of the French and English exploring expeditions dated from this voy- age, we are not claiming too much for the efiects pro- duced by the heroism and writings of these Sulpician priests.
APPENDIX
We append for the convenience of our readers a list of the discoveries of the early missionaries :
Father Joseph Le Caron, in 1615, discovered Lake Nipissing, and was the first European that stood on the shores of Lake Huron. In 1636, Father John Dolbeau left with a roving band of Montagnais and met the Es- quimaux. In the same year Father Joseph Le Caron built the first church in Canada at Tadousac. In 1640, Fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot discovered Lake Erie. In 1641, Fathers Jogues and Raymbault discovered Lake Superior. Father Jogues, on the 10th of August, 1642, was the first white man that ever saw Lake George. In 1646, Father Du Quen discovered Lake St. John, and passed two months on its north-western shore preaching to a Montagnais band known as the " Tribe of the Por- cupine." Father Le Moyne, in' 1649, discovered the salt wells at Onondaga. In 1658, Father Poncet was the first white man that sailed down the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario. In 1654, on August 16th, Father Le Moyne discovered the salt wells at Salina, and in the same year he was the first white man to ascend
317
318 APPENDIX.
the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. In 1660, the Jesuits traced on a map the highway of waters from Lake Erie to Lake Superior, showing Lake Superior. In 1661, Father Dablon penetrated ninety miles north of Lake St. John, preceding Chouart and Pierre D'Esprit eighteen years. In 1665, Father Allouez confirmed the report of the existence of copper on the islands of Lake Superior, and in 1667 discovered Lake Nepigon. Father de Casson and Galinde made the first recorded ascent of the Detroit River. In this year, Galin^e drew the first map of the country from Montreal to Detroit, including Lake Ontario and the south shore of Lake Erie. In
1671, Father Charles Albanel was the first man that ever made the overland journey by the Sauguenay to Hudson's Bay. He left Quebec on August 6th, 1671, reached Lake St. John and wintered there. On June 25th,
1672, he discovered Lake Nemiskan, and on July 5th, from the mouth of the Rupert River, looked out upon the Waters of Hudson Bay. In 1671, the Jesuits drew the first map of the upper lakes, and gave to the world the first authentic information of the Wisconsin and Minnesota regions. On June 17th, 1673, Father Mar- quette, in company with Louis Joliet, discovered the Mississippi. Father Louis Henepin was the first Euro- pean that saw the Niagara Falls. In the same year, 1678, he discovered the Falls of St. Anthony. Father Joseph Lafitau, in 1716, discovered the plant, ginseng.
APPENDIX. 319
(Trcmidatiort,.) LETTER OF JOHN de BREBEUF,
AND THE
JESUIT FATHEES IN THE HURON COUNTRY,
TO FATHER PAUL LE JEUNE, SUPERIOR OF THE ORDER AT QUEBEC.
** We are, perhaps, on the point of shedding our blood and sacri ficing our lives in the service of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It seems that in His goodness He wishes to accept the sacrifice from me in expiation of my great and innumerable sins, and to crown from this hour my past services and the great and glorious deeds of all our Fathers who are here. What makes me think that this will not take place is on account of my innumerable sins, which render me altogether unworthy of so wonderful a favor, and, moreover, I do not believe that God will permit His laborers to be killed, since, by His grace, there are here some good souls who ardently accept the seed of the gospel, notwithstanding the slanders and persecutions of those around us. But, also, I fear that Divine justice, seeing the obstinacy with which these savages adhere to their follies, will not permit them to murder us who, with all our hearts, wish to secure for them the life of their souls. Be that as it may, I will say that all our Fathers await the result with great peace and calmness of mind. Thus with all sincerity, I can say to your Reverence, that not one among us has any fear of death. Nevertheless, we all feel keenly for these unfortunate saV'iges, who have deliberately closed against themselves the door of grace and instruction. No matter how they may deal with us, we will try, with God's grace, to accept our sufferings patiently for His sake. It is, indeed, a singular favor to be permitted to suflFer anything or endure pain for love of Him. We now, indeed, ap- preciate the honor He has conferred upon us, in choosing us for
320 APPENDIX.
His disciples. When, from among hundreds of others, He selected us to come to this country and bear with Him His cross, He con- ferred a great blessing upon us. May His holy will in all things be done. If it be His will that we should die, the hour of our death will be a blessed one for us. But, if He should preserve us to labor in His service, we are satisfied, since we know that it is His will. If you should hear that God has crowned our labors, or rather our desires with martyrdom, return thanks to Him, for it is for Him we wish to live and die, for from Him comes all grace. I have given instructions what to do in case any of us should survive. I have advised our Fathers and our assistants to return home if they believe it to be for the best. I have ordered that the things which belong to the altar be left in the care of Peter, our first con- vert, and that particular care be taken to preserve the dictionary and whatever writings remain on the Huron Language. As for me, if God will grant me the grace to enter heaven, I will pray to Him for those poor Hurons, and will not forget your Reverence. Finally, we beg of you and of the other Fathers to remember us in your prayers, and, particularly, when ofiering the holy sacrifice, so that, in life and death, God will have mercy upon us. ** We remain, in time and in eternity,
** Your very humble and affectionate servants in J. C,
'* Jean de Brebeuf,
* * Francis Joseph Le Mercier,
"Pierre Chastelain,
*' Charles Garnier,
"Paul Raguenbau.
** From the Residence de Conception, at Ossossane, this 28th day of October, 1637.
' ' Fathers Peter Pijart and Isaac Jogues, who are now at the Mission of St. Joseph, feel as we do in this matter."
APPENDIX. 321
THE VOW
OF
FATHER JOHN de BREBEUF.
Made in 1639, when in the Huron Country.
" My Lord Jesus Christ, what return shall I make Thee for all Thou hast done for me 1 I will take Thy chalice and call upon Thy name. In the presence of Your Eternal Father and the Holy Ghost, in the presence of Your Most Holy Mother and of Saint Joseph, before the Angels, the Apostles and the Martyrs, and in the presence of my Saintly Spiritual Fathers, Ignatius and Francis Xavier, I record a solemn vow : 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 Thy 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, Oh Lord, to so 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."
John db Brebeuf.
(Trmtslation from Martinis " Vie de P. Brebeuf.")
322 APPENDIX.
SCALPING.
The cruel practice of scalping was in use among the Scythians and other semi-civilized people of Asia and Europe. In Rawlinson's Herodotus (B. IV., ch. 64), Scythian scalping is thus described : — '■ In order to strip the skull of its covering, he makes a cut around the head about the ears, and, laying hold of the scalp, shakes the skull out. Then, with the rib of an ox, he scrapes the scalp clean of flesh, and softening it by rubbing between the hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scythian is proud of these scalps, and hangs them from his bridle-rein ; the greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves cloaks, like the capes of our peasants, by sewing a quantity of these scalps together." It would be very difficult to trace it back to its source among the tribes of North America. In all probability, scalping originated when small parties left their own country to attack the enemy at home ; the sur- viving warriors brought back with them the scalp-locks of those whom they had killed, to certify to the truth of their statements. The custom was not universal, for, according to Father Lalemant, in his Relation of 1626, p. 3, the Algonquins of the lower St. Lawrence cut off the heads of their enemies. In Father Peter Biard's Rela- tion (bound up with the Canadian edition) there is no mention made of scalping, though he dwelt for almost two years among the Mic- macs and Etchemins. In the English version (p. 287) of Lescarbot, I tind that among the Maritime tribes the custom of scalping did not obtain, but that of beheading did, and on page 293, he remarks that they, on returning from war, gave the heads of the enemy to the chiefs, but, that before doing so, they removed the scalps, tan- ned them, and hung them as trophies in their lodges. The Indian warrior treasured his scalp-locks as valuable trophies, and even to- day, the Indians of the Plains and the North-west prize the scalps they have taken as great treasures. After describing his battle with the Iroquois, Champlain (Edition 1613, p. 233) tells of the scalping of prisoners by the Hurons, but he says (p. 286) the Algon- quins cut off the heads of the slain, which they carried back on
APPENDIX. 323
poles attached to the bows of their canoes. But, in another battle, in which only the Algonquins took part against the enemy, the heads of the foe were cut off and then the scalps removed. This was the practice of the Scythians. The Iroquois and Hurons, as we read in the letter of Father Jogues. scalped their prisoners while yet alive. Gookin also states that the Mohawks often scalped their enemies before they were dead. Father Le Jeune, in his Re- lation, 16 2, p. 5, says he was present when the Montagnais tortur- ed three Iroquois prisoners, and while they were yet living the Montagnais tore the scalps from their heads and then covered the exposed skulls with hot ashes.. In a note to Herodotus, Rawlinson refers to the use in Athenseu and Euripedes of the word Aposcythizo^ in the sense of "I Scalp." Gookin (Mass. Hist. Col., Vol. I . page 16.') speaks of the Mohawks scalping Massachusetts Indians, and says it was a custom unknown to the New England Tribe. When the Mohawks martyred Father Jogues and Lalande, they did not scalp them, but cut off their heads and fastened them on the pickets of the town. Roger Williams, in his " Key into the Language of America, "published in 1643, says that the Narragansetts always cut off the heads of their enemies,
" Tamcr^itasse?! — to cut off or behead— which ihey are most skilful to do in fight ; for, whenever they wound and their arrows stick fast in the bodies of their enemies, they follow their arrows and, falling upon the person wounded and jerking his head a little aside they, in a twinkling of an eye fetch off his head, though with but a sorry knife " (R. I. Hist , Call., Vol. I., pp. 59-152). In Father de la Roche d'Allion's letter, it will be noticed that he speaks of the Neutrals cutting off heads. It would, therefore, seem that in his time (162 <), the Neutral-Hurons had not adopted the habit of scalping.'
324 . APPENDIX.
TRANSLATION
OF
REGNAUT'S LETTER
OIVING THE HISTORY OF THE MARTYRDOM OF
FATHERS BREBEUF AND LALEMANT.
Veritable account of the martyrdom and most happy death of Father Jean de Brebeuf and of Father Gabriel Lalemant, in New France, in the Country of the Hurons, by the Iroquois, enemies of the Faith.
" Father Jean de Brebeuf and Father Gabriel Lalemant had set out from our cabin to go to a small bourg, called St. Ignace, distant from our cabin about a short quarter of a league, to instruct the savages and the new Christians of that bourg. It was on the 16th day of March, in the morning, that we perceived a great fire at the place to which these two good Fathers had gone. This fire made us very uneasy. We did not know whether it was enemies, or if the tire had taken in some of the huts of the village. The Rev. Father Paul Ragueneau, our Superior, immediately resolved to send some one to learn what might be the cause. But no sooner had we formed the design of going there to see, than we perceived several savages on the road coming straight towards us. We all thought it was the Iroquois who were coming to attack us, but having considered them more closely, we perceived that it was Hurons, who were flying from the fight, and who had escaped from the combat. These poor savages caused a great pity in us. They were all covered with wounds. One had his head fractured, another his arm broken ; another had an arrow in his eye ; another had his hand cut off by a blow from an axe. In fine, the day was passed
APPENDIX. - 325
receiving into our huts all these poor wounded people, and in look- ing with compassion towards the fire and the place where were these two good Fathers. We saw the fire and the barbarians, but we could not see anything of the two Fathers. Here is what these savages told us of the taking of the Bourg St. Ignace, and of Fathers Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant : — The Iroquois came to the number of twelve hundred men ; took our village ; took Father de Brebeuf and his companion ; set fire to all the huts. They pro- ceeded to discharge their rage on these two Fathers, for they took them both and stripped them entirely naked, and fastened each to a post. They tied both of their hands together. They tore the nails from their fingers. They beat them with a shower of blows from cudgels, on the shoulders, the loins, the legs, and the face, there being no part of their body which did not endure this torment They told us further : Although Father Brebeuf was overwhelmed under the weight of these blows, he did not cease continually to speak of God, and to encourage all the new Christians who were captives like himself, to sufier well, that they might die well, in order to go in company with him to Paradise. Whilst the good Father was thus encouraging these good people, a wretched Huron renegade, who had remained a captive with the Iroquois, and whom Father Brebeuf had formerly instructed and baptized, hearing him speak of Paradise and Holy Baptism, was irritated and said to him " Echon," that is Father Brebeuf 's name in Huron, " Thou sayst that Baptism and the sufierings of this life lead straight to Paradise. Thou will go soon, for I am going to baptize thee and make thee suffer well, in order to go the sooner to thy Paradise. " The barbarian having said that, took a kettle full of boiling water, which he poured over his body three different times, in derision of the Holy Baptism. And each time that he baptized him in this manner, he said to him in bitter sarcasm, "Go to Heaven, for thou art well baptized." After that they made him suffer several other torments. The first was to make axes red hot and apply them to the loins and under the arm-pits. They made a collar of these red hot axes and put it on the neck of the good Father. This is the fashion in which I have seen the collar made for other prisoners : They make six axes red hot, take a large withe of green
326 APPENDIX.
wood, pass the six axes through the large end of the withe, take the two ends together, and then put it over the neck of the sufferer. I have seen no torment which more moved me to compassion than that. For you see a man bound naked to a post, who, having this collar on his neck, cannot tell what posture to take.
*' l^or, if he lean forward, those above his shoulders weigh the more on him ; if he lean back, those on his breast make him suffer the same torment ; if he keep erect, without leaning to one side or the other, the burning axes, applied equally on both sides, give him a double torture. After that, they put on him a belt full of pitch and resin and set fire to it, Which roasted his whole body- All these torments. Father Brebeuf endured like a rock, in- sensible to fire and flames, which astonished all the blood-thirsty wretches who tormented him. His zeal was so great that he preached continually to these infidels to try *o convert them. His executioners were enraged against him for constantly speaking to them of God and of their conversion. To prevent him speaking more, they cut off both his upper and lower lips. After that, they set themselves to strip the flesh from his legs, thighs and arms, to the very bone, and put it to roast before his eyes, in order to eat it. "Whilst they tormented him in this manner, these wretches derided him, saying, "Thou seest well that we treat thee as a friend, since we shall be the cause of thy eternal happiness ; thank us, then, for these good offices we render thee, for the more thou shalt suffer, the more will thy God reward thee." These villains, seeing that the good Father began to grow weak, made him sit down on the ground, and one of them, taking a knife, cut off the skin covering his skull. Another one of these barbarians, seeing that the good Father would soon die, made an opening on the upper part of his chest, and tore out his heart, which he roasted and ate. Others came to drink his blood, still warm, which they drank with both hands, saying that Father Brebeuf had been very courageous to endure so much pain as they had given Mm, and that, in drink- ing his blood, they would become courageous like him. This is what we learned of the martyrdom and most happy death of Father Jean de Brebeuf, by several Christian savages worthy of belief, who had been constantly present from the time the good Father was taken till his death.
APPENDIX. 327
"These good Christians were prisoners to the Iroquois, who were taking them into their country to be put to death. But our God was gracious enough to enable them to escape by the way, and they came to us to recount all that I have taken down in writing. Father Brebeuf was taken on the 16th day of March, in the morn- ing, with Father Lalemant in the year 1649. Father Brebeuf died the same day of his capture about four o'clock in the after- noon. These barbarians threw the remains of his body into the fire, but the fat which still remained in his body extinguished the fire, and he was not consumed. I do not doubt that all that which I have just related is true, and I would seal it with my blood, for I have seen the same treatment given to the Iroquois prisoners whom the Huron savages had taken in war, with the exception of the boiling water, which I have not seen poured on anyone. I am about to describe truly what I saw of the martyrdom and most happy death of Father Jean de Brebeuf and of Father Gabriel Lalemant. On the next morning, when we had assurance of the departure of the enemy, we went to the spot to seek for the remains of their bodies, to the place where their lives had been taken. We found them both but a little apart from one another. They were brought to our hut and laid, uncovered, upon the bark of trees, where I examined them at leisure, for more than tw o hours time, to see if what the savages told us of their martyrdom and death were true. I examined first the body of Father de Brebeuf, which was pitiful to see, as well as that of Father 1 alemant. The body of Father de Brebeuf had his legs, thighs and arms stripped of flesh to the very bone. I saw and touched a large num- ber (quantite) of great blisters which he had on several places on his body, from the boiling water which these babrarians had pour- ed over him in mockery of holy baptism. I saw and touched the wound from a belt of bark, full of pitch and resin, which roasted his whole ^ody. I saw and touched the marks of burns from the collar of axes placed on his shoulders and stomach. I saw and touched his two lips, which they had cut off because he C' >nstantly spoke of God whilst they made him suffer. I saw and touched all parts of his body, which had received more than two hundred blows from a stick. I saw and touched the top of his scalped
328 APPENDIX.
(escorchee) head. I saw and touched the opening which these bar- barians had made to tear out his heart. In fine, I touched and saw all the wounds of his body, such as the savages had told and as- sured us of. We buried these precious relics on Sunday, the 21st March, 1649, with much consolation. I had the happiness of carrying them to the grave and inhuming them with those of Father Gabriel Lalemant. When we left the country of the Hurons, we lifted both bodies from the ground and set them to boil in strong lye. All the bones were well scraped, and the care of having them dried was given to me. I put them every day into a little oven made of clay, which we had, after having heated it slightly, and when in a state to be packed they were enveloped separately in silk stuff. Then they were put into two small chests, and we brought them to Que- bec, where they are held in great veneration. It is not a doctor of the Sorbonne who has composed this, as you may easily see. It is a remnant from the Iroquois, and a person who has lived more than thought, who is and ever shall be, sir,
Your humble and very obedient servant, Christopher Regnaut, Coadjutor Brother with the Jesuits of Caen, 1678, Companion of Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant above mentioned.
APPENDIX. 32^
TRANSLATION
— OF—
FATHER DABLON'S RELATION,
Recording the death of Father Marquette.
When the Illinois had taken leave of the Father, he continued his voyage, and soon after reached the Illinois Lake (Lake Michigan), on which he had nearly a hundred leagues to make by an unknown route, for he wished to take the eastern side of the lake, having gone thither by the western. His strength, however, failed so much that his men despaired of being able to bring him alive to their journey's end ; for, in fact, he became so weak and exhausted that he could no longer help himself, nor even stir, and had to be handled and carried like a child. He nevertheless maintained in this state an admirable equanimity, joy and gentleness, consoling his beloved companions, and exhorting them to suffer courageously all the hardships of the way, assuring them, moreover, that our Lord would not forsake them when he would be gone. During the voyage, he began preparing more particularly for death, passing his time in communing with our Lord, His Holy Mother, his angel guardian, and the saints. He was often heard to pronounce these words, *' I believe that my Redeemer liveth," or, *' Mary, Mother of Grace, Mother of God, remember me." Besides a spiritual chapter read for him every day, he, towards the close, asked them to read him a meditation on the preparation for death from a book which he always carried with him ; he recited the office of the bre- viary every day ; and, although he was so low that both sight and strength had greatly failed, he did not omit this duty till the last day of his life, when his companions induced him to cease, as it was shortening his days. A week before his death he took the precaution to bless some holy water, to serve him during illness, in his agony, and at his burial, at the same time instructing his Qom- panions how to use it. The eve of his death, which was on a Fri- U
330 APPENDIX.
day, he told them, all radiant with joy, that it would take place on the morrow. During the whole day he conversed with them about the manner of his burial, the way in which he should be laid out, the place to be selected for his interment ; he told them how to arrange his hands, feet and face, and directed them to raise a cross over his grave. He even went so far as to ask them, only three hours before he expired, to take his chapel-bell as soon as he would be dead, and ring it while they carried his body to the grave. Of all this he conversed so calmly and collectedly, one would have thought that he spoke of the death and burial of another, and not of his own. Thus did he speak to them as they sailed on till, pass- ing the mouth of a river, he saw a mound on its bank, he thought suitable for his grave, he told them it was the place of his last re- pose. They wished, however, to pass on, as the weather permitted it, and the day was not far advanced ; but God raised a contrary wind, which obliged them to return and enter the river"*^ pointed out by Father Marquette. They then carried him ashore, kindled a little fire, and raised a wretched bark cabin for him, where they laid him as comfortably as they could ; but they were so overcome by sadness that, as they afterwards said, they did not know what they were doing. The Father being thus stretched on the shore, like St. Francis Xavier, as he had always so ardently desired, and left alone amid those forests — for his companions were engaged in unloading — he had leisure to repeat all the acts with which he had employed himself during the preceding days. When his compan- ions afterwards came up, quite dejected, he consoled them and gave them hopes that God would take care of them after his death, in those new and unknown countries. He gave them his last instructions, thanking them for all the charity they had shown him during the voyage, begged their pardon for the trouble he had given them, and directed them to ask pardon, in his name, of all our Fathers and Brothers in the Ottawa country, and then dis- posed them to receive the sacrament of penance, which he admin- istered to them for the last time. He also gave them a paper on
^^Charlevoix says that this river in his time was a small stream known as Marquette creek.
APPENDIX. 331
which he had written all his faults since his last confession, to be given to his Superior to induce him to pray more fervently for him . In fine, he promised not to forget them in heaven, and, as he was very kind-hearted and knew them to be worn out with the toil of the preceding days, he bade them go and take a little rest, assuring them that his hour was not so near, but that he would wake them when it was time, as, in fact, he did two or three hours after, call- ing them when about to enter his agony. When they came near, he embraced them for the last time, while they melted into tears at his feet. He then asked for the holy water and his reliquary, and, taking off his crucifix, which he wore around his neck, he Dlaced it in the hands of one, asking him to hold it constantly raised before his eyes. Then, feeling that he had but little time to live, he made a last effort, clasped his hands, and, with his eyes fixed sweetly on his crucifix, he pronounced aloud his profession of faith, and thanked the Divine Majesty for the singular grace He bestowed upon him in allowing him to die in the Society of Jesus ; to die in it as a missionary of Jesus Christ, and, above all, to die in it, as he had always asked, in a wretched cabin amid the forests, deprived of all human aid. Then he became silent, con- versing inwardly with God ; yet, from time to time, words escaped him, " Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus — My soul hath relied on his word," or " Mater Dei, memento mei — Mother of God, re- member me," which were the last words he uttered before entering on his agony, which was very calm and gentle. He had prayed his companions to remind him, when they saw him about to expire, to pronounce frequently the names of Jesus and Mary. When he could not do it himself, they did it for him ; and when they thought him about to die, one cried aloud, " Jesu, Maria," which he several times repeated distinctly, and then, as if at those sacred names something had appeared to him, he suddenly raised his eyes above his crucifix, fixing them apparently on some object which he seemed to regard with pleasure, and thus, with a countenance all radiant with smiles, he expired without a struggle, as gently as if he had sunk into a quiet sleep (May 18, ] 675).
INDEX.
CHAPTER I.
THE NATIVE TRIBES. PAGE-
Their Divisions and Sub-divisions — The Totems — Moral Condition of the Tribes — Their Ferocity and Cruelty — Their Thirst for Blood — Their Religious^Coas^itions — Their Redeeming Features — RousseauT^ Ideal Man. " 9
CHAPTER II.
THE FRANCISCANS OR RECOLLETS,
The Missionaries — Francis of Assium — His Conversion — His Love for the Poor— His Visit to Pope Innocent the Third — Founding of the Franciscans — Their Preaching — The Franciscans in Canada —Joseph Le Caron — His Journey to the Hurons — Le Caron with the Hurons — Champlain — Le Caron Among the Tinnontates — Hardships of Missionary Life — Sagard and Viel — The RecoUets in the Maritime Provinces — End of the RecoUet Mission. - - 18
CHAPTER III.
THE JESUITS.
Diffusion of Their Order — Ignatius Loyola — His Conversion — His Associates — Establishes the Society of Jesus Known as the Jes- uits— The Spectre of Jesuitism — Opinions of Historians — Arrival of the Jesuits in Canada — Jean de Brebeuf — His Mission to the Algonquins — Leaves for the Huron Country — The Voyage — Arrives in Huronia. 31
CHAPTER IV.
THE HURONS.
Their Hunting Grounds — The Huron League — Their Lodges — Okis and Manitous — Huron Superstitions — Social and Political Organ- ization—Sorcerers— Condition of Woman Among the Hurons — Huron Warriors— Social Life — Brutality in War — Treatment of Prisoners — Torture of Iroquois Prisoner. 40
333
834 INDEX.
CHAPTER V.
DE LA ROCHE DALLION. PAGE
The Missionaries — Dallion Leaves for the Neutrals — His Journey — Arrival at the Neutral Villages — Wonder of the Indians — Their Habits of Life — Souharissen — His Authority — Evil Reports — Dallion in Danger — Is Roughly Treated — Report of His Death — Description of the Country — Return to the Hurons. - - -49
CHAPTER VL
BREBEUF WITH THE HURONS.
Alone with the Tribe — Reflections — Instructing the Indian — Their Affection for Him — Returns to Quebec — Sails with Champlain for France. 57
CHAPTER VIL
AGAIN WITH THE HURONS.
Quebec Delivered to the French — The Priests Leave for Huronia — The Voyage — Brebeuf Abandoned — Arrives at the Village of the Hurons — Daniel and Davost — Devotion of the Fathers — The Medicine Men — Opposition to the Priests — Their Home Life — Curiosit/of the Indians — The Magnet and the Clock. - - 62
CHAPTER VIIL
THE JESUITS AND THE HURONS.
Father Jogues — His Arrival in the Country — Leaves for Huronia — Difficulties of the Voyage— Brebeuf s Letter — Jogues' Arrival in Huronia — The Drought — The Medicine Men and the Red Cross — The Epidemic — The Priests Charged with Conspiracy — The Chiefs in Council — Boldness of Brebeuf — The Council Dis- solved— Priest and Assassin — Doomed to Death — Waiting For the "Clear Call." 70
CHAPTER IX.
FEAST OF THE DEAD.
The Eclipse — Brebeuf Adopted by the Tribe — Narrow Escapes — The Census — Feast of the Dead — Manner of Private Interment — Communal Burial— Gathering of the Tribes — Burial Ceremon- ies— Last Scene. 81
INDEX. 335
CHAPTER X.
HEROISM OF THE PRIESTS. PAGE
Residence Sainte Marie — The Tobacco Nation — Jogues and Gar- nier — Their Journey to the Petuns — The * ' Black Sorcerers " — On the Margin of Death — Return to the Hurons — Jogues and Raymbault — Their Voyage to Lake Superior — Smallpox Among the Hurons — Heroic Devotion of the Priests — Threats of Vio- lence—Council of the Chiefs — Brebeuf's Harangue. - - - 89
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEUTRALS.
Their Country — Wealth of Forest and Stream — Luxuriant Growth of Vine and Timber — Variety of Animal Life — Birds of Varied Plumage — Neutral Origin — Their Habits of Life — Physical De- velopment— Tattooing — Vapor Baths — Respect for Parents — De- velopment of Their Senses — Powers of Endurance — Neutral Women. 100
CHAPTER XII.
NEUTRALS CONTINUED.
Their Theogony— Sacrifices — Sorcerers— Laws of Hospitality — Soc- ial Qualities — Love for their Dead — Organizing a War Party — On the War Path — Return of the Braves — Mourning for Their Dead — The Neutrals at War with the Nation of Fire — Prisoners — The Torture Fire — At War with the Iroquois — Destruction of the Neutrals. - - - 108
CHAPTER XIIL
MISSION TO THE NEUTRALS.
Brebeuf and Chaumonot — Their Journey to the Neutral Country — Brebeuf's Vision — Arrive at Kandoucho — Their Reception — Taken for Sorcerers — Instruments of Witchcraft— Assembly of the Chiefs — Brebeuf Speaks — Condemned to Death — Dream of Brebeuf — Suspension of the Sentence. 118
CHAPTER XIV.
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS.
Perishing with Cold— In a Neutral Wigwam— The Jesuits Threat- ened—Friendly Advances— Curiosity of the Neutrals— Life in a Neutral Lodge— More Trials and Suflferings- Woeful Plight of the Missionaries — Insults Meekly Borne— Every Door Closed Against Them— Sublime Resignation of the Priests. - - 126
336 IMDEX.
CHAPTER XV.
THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS — CONTINUED. PAGE
Failing Hopes — The Priests Lose Heart — Begin the Homeward Journey — Sufferings on the Way — Brebeuf's Famous Vision — The Floating Cross — Visions of Other Days — On the March to St. William — A Friend at Last — Kindness of a Neutral Woman — Entering Again on the Homeward Trail — The Via Dolorosa — Accident to Brebeuf — Home Again — Christian Hurons Among the Neutrals — Night Falls on the Day of Grace. - - - 137
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ALOONQUINS.
Algonquin Tribes — Extent of Territory Claimed by Them — No Military Unity — Their Theogony — Schoolcraft's Opinion — "Kit- chi-Manitou " and " Mitchi-Manitou " — Algonquin Sacrifices — The "Medicine Men" — Offerings to the Manitous — Dreams — The Nipissings — Their Hunting Grounds — A Nation of Sorcerers — Sagard — Father Pijart and the Nipissings. .... 148
CHAPTER XVII.
THE NIPISSINGS.
The Bedouins of the Forest — Mission of the Holy Ghost — Feast of the Dead — Dance of the Nipissings — Pijart and Garreau — With the Roving Horde — Heroism of the Priests — Dispersion of the Nipissings — Father Claude AUouez — His Story. - - -156
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MARTYR OF THE MOHAWK.
St. Mary 's-On-the- Wye — Father Jogues — Before the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament — On the Way to Quebec — The Return — Cap- ture of the Huron Flotilla — Jogues a Prisoner — His Indifference to Danger — Couture — His Heroic Devotion— On to the Mohawk Villages — Atrocious Torture — The Fisking Party — At a Mohawk Village — Plight of an Algonquin Woman — Excruciating Suffer- ings of Jogues — Suspended in the Air — Death of Ren6 Goupil — Jogues Attachment to His Friend — Searching for the Dead — Ransomed by the Dutch — In France Again — Jogues and the Sup- erior General — Jogues Sails for Canada — Sent as Ambassador to the Mohawks — Returns to Quebec — Leaves to Open the Mohawk Mission — His Prophetic Utterance — Tortured Again — In a Mo- hawk Lodge — Reflections — Death of the Great Priest. - - 169
ne
INDEX. 337
CHAPTER XIX.
AN ITALIAN PRIEST. PAGE
Father Joseph Bressani — His Arrival in Quebec — Leaves for Hur- onia — Taken by the Iroquois — Letter of a Poor Cripple — On the Upper Hudson— A Children's Plaything — A 1 aste of Fire — The Fingerless Hand — Atrocious Torture — An Old Woman's Ward Humanitj' of the Dutch — In Huronia Again — On the Way to Quebec — Pleading for Assistance — Reinforcements for the Mis- sion— On the Ottawa — The Night Attack — The Meeting — In Italy Again — Father Bressani's Death. 187
CHAPTER XX.
MARTYRDOM OF BREBEUF AND LALEMANT.
Flourishing Condition of the Missions — Marvellous Change — Pray- ing for Their Enemies — The Iroquois — Storming of a Frontier Village — Death of Father Daniel — Slaughter at the Mission of St. Joseph — Mohawks and Senecas — Capture of St. Ignatius — Brebeuf and Lalemant Taken — Martyrdom of Brebeuf and Lale- mant — Heroism of the Priests. 200
CHAPTER XXI.
DESTRUCTION OF THE HURONS.
Alarm at St. Mary's — Flight of the Iroquois — Burning of St. Mary's-On-the-Wye — Leave For Christian Island — Alarming News — Storming of a Petun Town — Martyrdom of Father Gar- nier — His Heroic Death — Death of Father Chabanel — Fathers Grelon and Garreau — On Christian Island — The Famine — Plight of the Hurons — Devotion of Huron Converts — Abandonment of Christian Island — Priests and Hurons on their way to Quebec — Jesuits with the Northern Tribes— Death of Father Menard — Claude AUouez and the Algonquins. ...... 216
CHAPTER XXIL
FLIGHT OF THE HURONS.
On Manitoulin Island — Capture of a Foraging Party — Stephen Annastaha — Strategy and Dissimulation — The Iroquois Deputies — Slaughter of the Senecas — Flight of the Iroquois — Pleading for Adoption — Received by the Senecas — Fidelity of Huron Con- verts— Chaumonot Among the Iroquois — Examples of Earnest V
338 INDEX.
PAGE
Piety — The Eries and the Hurons — War between the Eries and Iroquois — Storming of Erie Towns — Slaughter and Destruction of the Eries. - - - 233
CHAPTER XXIII.
FLIGHT OF THE TINNONTATES.
The Tobacco Nation — The Missions — Departure of the Tribe — Pursued by 1 he Iroquois — Appeal to the Andastes — Driven Back by the Dacotah — Attacked the Sioux — Their Retreat — Devoured by Famine — Ren6 Menard — His Visit to the Tribe — Marquette and the Tinnontates— The Tribe at Detroit— Their Extinction. 243
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAUMONOT AND LE MOYNE
From the Old France to the New — Safe with Friends — Chaumonot At Loretto — Northward Bound — Life with the Tribes — A Close Call — At the Mission of St. Francis Xavier — Flight of the Xav- ierites — Following His Flock — Peace at Last— The Onondaga Deputies — Father Le Moyne — The Deputies and the Priest — On the Way to the Iroquois — The Fishing Village — Le Moyne with the Onondagas — Speech of Le Moyne — Harangue of the Onon- daga Orator — Propositions — Discovery of the Onondaga Salt Wells. — Return of Le Moyne. 253
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAUMONOT.
Le Moyne and the Huron Chief — Appeal of the Neophyte — Chau- monot and Dablon Leave for Onondaga — At a Fishing Village — The Ambassadors — Their Reception — Chaumonot's Eloquence — Arrive at Onondaga — The Iroquois League — Their Form of Gov- ernment—Solemnity of Their Assemblies — Torture of An Erie — Chaumonot's Great Speech — Reply of the Onondaga Chief — First Catholic Church in New York — Devotion of the Exiles — Threat- ening Clouds — Charge of the Onondagas — French Colonists Leave for the Iroquois Country — The Missionaries — In the Council House of the Onondagas — Chaumonot's Address —Instructing the Huron Exiles — Conspiracy of the Iroquois — Chaumonot's Reflec- tions—Slaughter of the Huron Exiles — In the French Fort — Strategy of the French— The Flight— Safe at Home— The Last of the Huron Veterans — His Death and Burial. - - - - 267
INDEX. 339
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SULPICIANS. PAGE
Jean Jacques Olier — Invited to Become a Bishop — Consults St. Vin- cent de Paul — Declines the Honor — At the Church of St. Ger- main-des-Pres — The Mysterious Voice — At the Chateau of Meu- don — A Strange Meeting — The Mass and Communion — Oiler's Appearance — His Intense Piety — La Dauversiere — A Command and Vision — The Consultation — The Result — Arrival of the Sul- picians — Influence of the Order — Formation of Priestly Charac- ter— Mission of the Bay of Quinte — Bishop Laval — Fenelon and Trouv^ — Among the Cayugas — Fenelon and Laval — At the Mouth of the Humber — The Sulpicians Recalled — RecoUets Re- enter the Field — End of the Quints Missions — Father Picqueb — His Famous * ' Reductions " — His Extraordinary Success — Voy- age of Picquet — Picquet Leaves for France — End of His Famous Mission. 286
CHAPTER XXVII.
VOYAGE OF DOLI.IER DE CASSON AND GALINEE.
On the Shores of the Nipissing — The Illinois Slave — Preparing for the Voyage — La Salle — The Expedition Sails — With the Senecas — Their Reception — Father Fremin — Perils of Their Stay — Sick- ness of DoUier — At the Mouth of the Niagara — Coasting the Southern Shore — On Burlington Beach — Joliet — La Salle Re- turns— At the Mouth of the Grand River — The Long Winter — The Inscription — First Ascent of the Detroit River — On Lake Huron — At Sault Ste. Marie — Dablon and Marquette — Home- ward Bound — Safe in Montreal. 303
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