2. The Jesuits were literate and masters of the
written word.
Jesuits were members of a religious order
known as the Society of Jesus and was founded
by a Spanish ex-soldier Ignatius of Loyola in
1534.
Every Jesuit was a college teacher at some
point in his career.
One of Loyola’s first disciples, priest Francis
Introduction
Xavier, baptized thousands of converts in
India, Japan, and China.
In two centuries, Jesuits dealt with almost every
Indian nation of the Northeast America.
French fisherman, explorers, and fur traders
had established relations with the natives of the
Northeast long before the Jesuits.
3. Jesuit missionaries had to work with the natives
instead of dominate them.
The natives welcomed the Jesuits because they
valued the French as supplies of goods and
allies in the war against the Iroquois.
Many Algonquins, Montagnais, and Hurons
converted to Christianity after suffering blows
from disease, Iroquois attacks and economic
dependency.
During their eventful years of Canadian Introduction
missions the Jesuits published annual
Relations.
European writing of the New World are
divided into two genres: the travel narrative and
the ethnographic description.
The Jesuits never admit to compromising their
European principles, but there is evidence of
soul-searching and shifting points of view.
4. Father Paul Le Jeune was the first superior
of the New France mission and his works
were the first published of Jesuit Relations.
Father Le Jeune followed a band of
Montagnais hunting from the fall of 1633
to the spring of 1634. Montagnais
They camped in twenty-three different
Hunters of the
places during the hunt; but always in the
snow. Northern
The Europeans lust for beaver pelts Woodlands
provides the Indians with kettles, hatchets,
swords, knives, and bread.
Father Le Jeune observed their rituals
which included a shaman inside a tent
chanting different dialects.
5. Father Le Jeune appreciated the Indians
physical features: tall, erect, strong, and
agile.
He compared the Indians to European
peasants but admitted that the Indians
were more clever than ordinary peasants. Montagnais
The Indians displayed much more
Hunters of the
patience than Europeans and rarely
expressed anger. Northern
Indian men and women cooperate Woodlands
admirably and the men allow the women
to handle the household arrangements
without interfering.
The French believed in punishing children
for wrongdoing while the Indians did not.
6. In contrast to the Europeans who kept their
sick isolated, the Hurons kept their sick in the
midst of the busy longhouse environment.
Some of Indians believed games such as
lacrosse was a cooling remedy to cure the sick.
Others believed a gambling game called dish
helped the ill, sometimes gambling away Disease and
everything they had in the process.
When Jesuit Jean de Brebeuf fell ill, the Medicine
Indians wondered at the orderly way they
cared for their sick and the regimen they put
them on.
Some Indians asked to be baptized when they
were ill only to revert back to their old customs
and superstitions when they recovered.
7. With disease ravaging the Hurons, an
Algonquin captain told the Indians the French
were to blame not the Devil.
When smallpox struck in 1640, the Hurons
believed the Jesuits were the greatest sorcerers
on earth.
The Jesuits spent days with Indians struck by Disease and
smallpox, which lead the Hurons to believe
death and disease followed the missionaries. Medicine
The Jesuits were most welcome and baptized
the greatest number of people where the
greatest number died.
Sometimes conflicts ensued between the
Jesuits and Indians regarding proper treatment
of the ill.
8. A Mohawk emissary named Kiotseaton,
brought with him two prisoners to Three
Rivers.
Kiotseaton was treated well by the Algonquins
and Montagnais; treatment he would not
receive in his own country.
He presented seventeen gifts and danced and Diplomacy
rejoiced with the other Indians.
After being presented with fourteen gifts by and War
Monsieur the governor, Kiotseaeton returned
home with good will.
The truce was not to last and as Jerome
Lalemant noted, “There are no hunters so
eager for game as the Indians are when hunting
men.”
9. In 1649 the Iroquois shifted their attacks
further west which surprised and overwhelmed
the Hurons.
The Iroquois easily conquered the town of St.
Ignace which had been abandoned by the
majority of its people at the beginning of
winter.
They prevailed in their next attack in the town Diplomacy
of St. Louis after a courageous battle by the and War
villagers.
The Iroquois bound and burned many of
captives.
Those who were not killed, mostly women,
were taken captive and became adopted
Iroquois.
10. The Iroquois had a treaty with the French
which allowed the Jesuits onto their land.
Fathers Fremin, Pierron, and Bruyas set out in
1667 to reestablish the missions in the
Iroquois land that had been interrupted by the
wars.
The Iroquois feared a French invasion with the Missions to the
arrival of a large French military force in
Canada. Iroquois
One of the major obstacles of the
establishment of faith to the Iroquois was
drunkenness.
Father Jean Pierron had threatened a return to
Quebec which might lead to an armed invasion
of the Iroquois which unnerved them.
11. Some of the Mohawks sought security by
linking with the English while others opted for
the French.
The Mohawks and Iroquois probably migrated
to French settlements more out of distain of
the English ideals than out of acceptance of
Christianity. Missions to the
The Jesuits tended to interpret the move as an Iroquois
expression of religious idealism and
submission to the French.
Some of the young Indian women who
accepted Christianity renounced marriage and
devoted themselves to a life of charity, prayer,
and “mortification of the flesh”
