More Missions and New Fields A.D. 1639-1642
A change of policy—A mission centre and more stations— The missions and greater New France—Motive of the missionaries—Not after trade or land—Personnel of the head-quarters —Individual characteristics—Obedience—Jesuit auxiliaries— Exploring new fields—Tobacco Indians, Garnier's report— Jogues and the Ojibways—The Neuters—Brebeuf at Quebec —Failure and hope of the Mission.
The year 1639 was marked by a complete change of policy on the part of the Huron missionaries. At his earnest solicitation, Brebeuf had been relieved of his charge of the missions in August, 1638, and Jerome Lalemant was appointed in his place. His first move, early the following year, with the agreement of all the Fathers, was to establish a head-quarters, or central bureau for the missions, at a distance from the Indian villages, with a home to accommodate the priests, their attendants and the Frenchmen, about fifteen in number, who served as soldiers or laborers. The new location was named Stella Marie. It was situated on the Wye River which connected two lakes, on a peninsula between Midland Bay and Victoria Harbor, about eight miles from Ossossane, and twelve from Teanaustaye.
The pioneers had bravely and self-sacrificingly lived with and like the natives for five years. Experience taught them that to identify themselves with any one village, no matter how central, made them less welcome in the others; that they could not depend on any group to remain long in the same place; that with their own cabin as a rendezvous they were not free to attend to their work. From a central station they could not only visit at due intervals all the Huron tribes, but also make occasional excursions or explorations into the countries of tribes to the west and south. They built a commodious house where all the priests could assemble and confer from time to time; dwellings for their retainers; a hospital for the sick from the villages and a reception-place for those who would come for instruction or for the ceremonies. A fort was erected, the ruins of which still show the skill of a military engineer; and finally there was a God's acre for the burial of all who would die members of the Church.
The new settlement was approved and aided by the governor at Quebec, and by Richelieu, who saw in it a station for developing exploration and trade with the Indians west and southwest. It was really the beginning of a greater New France. Its originator, Lalemant, had in view a northern Paraguay Reduction; its civil promoters looked to it for territorial expansion and commerce. That was the difference in motive between missionary and mercenary. Very soon the opponents of the former would fail to see this difference and accuse the priests of seeking land and fur. Fortunately, those who had trade primarily in view came to their defence. The statement they issued is a remarkable one, as Vimont the Jesuit Superior at Quebec gives it in the Relation of 1642:
"Those who believe that the Jesuits go into this end of the world in order to make traffic of skins of dead beasts, account them very rash, and destitute of sense, to go and expose themselves to such horrible dangers, for a benefit so sordid. It seems to me that they have more generous hearts; and that only God and the salvation of souls can make them leave their native land, and the comfort of France, in order to go in quest of fires and torments in the midst of barbarism. Forasmuch, nevertheless, as this error about commerce might slip into the minds of those who are not acquainted with them, it has been judged proper to affix here an authentic attestation, which will show how far they are removed from such thoughts. If they who speak of them with freedom, for want of knowing them, chanced to be with them in that new world, they would certainly change their tone; and, becoming companions in their sufferings and their zeal, they would find themselves united and bound by like affections; and these chains might be eternal, since true love and true charity pass beyond time. Enough; let us conclude with a genuine and impartial testimonial, which may be drawn from the lips of honorable persons, who have stamped it with their names and confirmed it with their signatures.
Declaration of Messieurs the Directors and Associates in the Company of New France. The Directors and Associates in the Company of New France, called Canada, having learned that some persons persuade themselves, and circulate the report, that the Society of the Jesuit Fathers has part in the shipments, returns, and commercial transactions which are made in the said country,— wishing by this device to disparage and destroy the reputation and value of the great labors which they undertake in the said country, with pains and fatigues incredible, and in peril of their lives, for the service and glory of God, in the conversion of the savages to the faith of Christianity and the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, in which they have made and are making great progress every year, whereof the said Society is very intimately informed,—have believed themselves obliged by the duty of Christian charity, to undeceive those who might have this belief, through the declaration and certification which they make by these presents: that the said Jesuit Fathers are not associated in the said Company of New France, directly or indirectly, and have no part in the traffic of merchandise which is carried on by it. In witness whereof the present declaration has been signed by the said directors and associates, and sealed with the seal of the said company, at Paris, in the regular assembly of the same, the first day of December one thousand six hundred and forty-three. Thus signed:
De la Ferte, Abbe de sainte Magdeleine, Bordier, Margonne, Beruyer, Robineau, Tabouret, Berruyer, Verdier, Fleuriau, Caset, Bourguet, and Clarentin; and sealed with a Seal.
Collated with the original by me, Counsellor, and Secretary of the King, house, and Crown of France. Jolly,"(65)
No such statement was needed by those who were acquainted with the actual work of the missionaries. Nor will anyone now repeat the accusation that they were seeking landed properties, seigneuries, as they were called, for any purpose except for reservations and for the maintenance of the priests and of the many who were employed with them at Quebec, Montreal and out on the missions. Some of these concessions were never even claimed, as, for instance, the one which Governor de Lauson on April 12, 1656 granted to the "Reverend Fathers of the Society of Jesus", to wit, ten leagues (about thirty miles) square near the Onondaga mission, then south of Manlius and not far east of Syracuse. When under Prime Minister Mercier of Quebec a settlement of the controversy of these estates was finally effected, the Jesuits were content with a small part of the amount awarded, the balance going to the diocesan authorities. This amount was $400,000, in partial compensation for the properties which had been taken over by the British Government on the death of the last Jesuit in Canada, prior to the restoration of the Society.(66)
The personnel of the mission was motley for those who imagine that Jesuits are all men of a mould, stripped of individuality. Lalemant was a profound theologian, as Dr. O'Callaghan assures us, but fond of teaching children and candidates for baptism; "Father of the poor", Mary of the Incarnation styles him.
Brebeuf had studied theology enough to qualify for ordination. A very ox for labor, of large physique and ardent temperament, his self-restraint was remarkable.
He was in demand by the Indian captains, but he knew how to accommodate himself to file as well as rank. Chastellain never appears prominently in the story of the missions. In the Relation of 1640 he is represented as persistent when a good work was to be done. After eight years in Huronia, illness made him retire, but he spent twenty years thereafter in Quebec. Du Peron had a gay sense of humor; every letter, or part of a Relation, from his pen is enlivening. Ragueneau impresses by his thoroughness, his matter-of-fact attitude and sternness. Martyrdom was a part of the day's work for him. In his annals for the public, deeds are mentioned, but names scarcely ever. Still when the martyrdoms were over, he gave very precious and very affectionate accounts of them. Le Moyne was a man of romance. He reaped where others sowed, but he also sowed where others reaped abundantly.
Then there was Le Mercier, over thirty years on the mission, twice superior at Quebec, and for a time vicar of Bishop Laval, writer of many Relations of a style all his own. Finally comes Chaumonot, altogether baffling the pen-portrait, imaginative, mystical, over-credulous some say, without proving it, but as hardy in privation as Brebeuf, and credulous to a fault concerning the virtues and merits of all about him. Of the distinctive characters of Jogues, Daniel, Garnier it would be superfluous to speak.
Out from the palisaded enclosure of St. Mary's these men would venture in the autumn to the different villages, almost every one of which had now become a mission centre. They would go as directed by their chief, Lalemant, not, as some imagine, in a spirit of abject or servile obedience — it is impossible to attribute such dispositions to such men—but with one thing only in mind, the saving of souls. The obedience they had been trained to was that of the children of God, given with the utmost liberty and in a spirit of loyalty and allegiance. By their Rule they were just as much under obligation to make known to their superior what they thought of his command, and of their own ability or inability to obey it, as they were to carry it out; or to do something else, should he deem proper to change what he had ordered. The Relations contain numerous instances, the "Journal des Jesuites" especially, of the care with which superiors consulted their men, and considered from every point of view what was best to do and who was most fitted to do it.(67)
A new factor appears in the mission at this time, which engaged the attention of Jogues. He had charge of the laymen occupied at Ste. Marie. As the priests grew in number, their attendants also increased. Among the colonists were young men who had come to New France for trade, but who had become attached to the missionaries, acting as guides, interpreters, messengers, visitors, catechists, nurses and servants. They took the place of lay-brothers. At first they did not engage to serve for any length of time, but gradually they acquired a liking for the work and adopted it permanently. To satisfy their devotion, the Fathers permitted them to bind themselves by vow to the missions, engaging in return to provide for them for life, and to permit them to wear the religious habit. Neither the vow nor the wearing of a habit were approved by the General of the Order, but in 1644 he approved of the contract between mission and donne, involving service and provision for life. They were an important adjunct to the missionaries. Of their number were Goupil, Lalande, Couture, Guerin. Jogues with his kindly manner was particularly useful in managing the six donnes or oblates then at the new settlement, and the laborers who helped to build palisade and fort. He had charge also of four village missions. One advantage of the new arrangement for the mission became apparent when small-pox broke out among the Indians. Again they railed at the missionaries and threatened them, calling Brebeuf the arch-sorcerer, but this time the Fathers were too remote to suffer this annoyance as they had the two years before. The supreme advantage however was, as Chaumonot states, that in every cabin of the thirty-two villages instructions had been given by the Fathers.(68)
It was now possible to broaden the horizon and field of the missionaries. In 1640 Jogues and Garnier started on a special mission to the Petun Indians, thirty miles to the southwest in the Blue Mountains, between Lakes Huron and Ontario. They were known as Tobacco Indians, because they traded heavily in that commodity. As the braves were usually absent trading or fishing in summer and fall, winter was the only opportune season for such journeys. The two priests had to travel on snow-shoes. They were deserted by their guides. They had to sleep overnight in the woods. When they arrived at the first village they found that their repute for sorcery had preceded them. They were avoided and even abhorred by everyone. They were threatened and ordered out of every village.
In none of them could they remain more than two days. Part of Garnier's account of this experience is as follows:
"Here we have at last arrived, thank God, at the farthest and principal village of our district, to which we have given the name of Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul. Not having been able to find any savage at the village of La Conception to come with us,— the roads being then too bad, for people who are not seeking God,— we were constrained to start alone; taking our good angels for guides. About the middle of the journey, not having been able to find a certain detour which would have led us to some cabins which are a little isolated, we were surprised by night in a fir grove. We were in a damp place, and could not go from it to seek a drier one; we had trouble enough to pick up some pieces of wood to make a little fire, and some dry branches to lie down upon; the snow was threatening to put out our fire, but it suddenly ceased. God be blessed, we spent the night very quietly. The next morning we came across some poor cabins in the fields, but they had no corn. Finding company there to come into the country with, we were not willing to lose it, because the roads were very difficult on account of the newly-fallen snows, which had obliterated the trails. Accordingly, we set out, and went by many bad roads, at a very bad season, to a little village which we named St. Thomas; we made easily a league by the mere light of the snow, and arrived about eight o'clock in the evening, with good appetite,— not having eaten all day, save each a morsel of bread. We had no design on that village, rather than on another; but having taken what company of savages there offered, and having followed them, we arrived,— no doubt, where God was leading us, for the salvation of a predestined soul which awaited nothing but our coming, in order to die to all its miseries. While we were at a loss to know whether there was not some person critically ill, a young man came to beg us to go and give some relief to one in his cabin. We go thither, and find a poor woman at the last pass; she was instructed, and happily received with the Faith the grace of baptism; shortly after, she beheld herself in glory. In the whole village there was only that one who had need of our help. We ran to some other little villages, where they told us that there were sick people; we baptized some of them,— Our Lord's sheep are much scattered, hither and yon. We have met some persons who at first indeed relish the Gospel; God grant them the grace to embrace it altogether. We received consolation two or three days ago, seeing that a girl, who came to pledge herself to a young man, having a little later heard mention of God and the pains of hell, went to lie down alone, saying, 'He sees us even at night.'
"On arriving in this village, we knew not that there was a little child of the Neutral Nation, aged five years, whom its parents have recently brought here, where hunger causes them to take refuge; for a long time, it was each day believed that that would be the last of its life. Out of 45 or 50 cabins, without thinking of it, we first visited the one in which was this little stranger, and baptized him; he straightway saw himself out of exile and happy in his native land. Those are the first fruits of this Neutral Nation, and this was the very first one to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.
"This whole country is filled with evil reports which are current about us. The children, seeing us arrive at any place, exclaim that famine and disease are coming; some women flee, others hide their children from us; almost all refuse us the hospitality which they grant even to the most unknown tribes. We have not been able to find a house for Our Lord,— not having been able to find any place where we can say Mass. Our host,— who is the chief captain of this country, and who through a natural prudence had appeared quite peaceable,— on seeing us pray to God mornings and evenings on our knees, finally could not refrain, on one occasion, from revealing to us what he had on his heart. He begins, therefore, to speak, but in a council voice,— that is to say, loud and distinct: 'Truly, it is now that I fear and speak. What are now these demons but spells to make us die, and finish what the disease has left over, in this cabin? They had told me, indeed, that these were sorcerers, but I believe it too late. This is a thing unknown — that persons who come to lodge at one's house pass the night in postures to which our eyes are nowise accustomed.' Imagine with what looks they regard us in a cabin where they have such fine ideas of us!—We could hardly tranquilize this mind again. They treat us very ill, in order to oblige us to leave. It is, in sooth, all, if we have what suffices for life,— our hunger usually attends us from morning till evening; but these simple people do not see that what retains us here is more precious than all that they conceive in the way of pleasures in this world. There is hardly any corn in this village, and, nevertheless, every day some Attiouandarons arrive (they are those of the Neutral Nation),— bands of men, women, and children, all pale and disfigured, whom famine drives hither. Fleeing famine, they here find death, or rather a blessed life, for we see to it that not one dies without baptism. Among these people was a little child of one year who seemed rather a monster than a human being. It was happily baptized; God, it seems, preserved its life only by miracle, so that, being washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, it might bless His mercies forever. "While we try to render some honor to God, the devil continues to be adored; even yesterday, in our cabin, they made him a solemn sacrifice. All the people being assembled there, they repeatedly threw tobacco and fat into the fire, making several invocations; and all that for the cure of a wretch whom his private demon afflicts with a certain disease, because he has not obeyed him in the matter of some feasts which he had commanded him.
"Is it a wonder that we are held in abomination at a place where the devils are acknowledged as masters? Our host orders that his door be barricaded every evening, fearing lest they do us some violence by night; for, if they killed us in his house, he would have the reproaches to bear for it, even from those who desire naught but our death. It is not this which assures us; we have a more powerful protection, although less visible to these poor infidels."(69)
Their journey was a failure, but they knew well the fickle character of the natives. Next year Garnier would go there and establish a flourishing mission of the Apostles, and soon it would have nine stations, with an apostle's name for each. In 1649 he would die a martyr there.
These long-distance explorations became more frequent, now that the missionaries had provided for the home missions, and were free to move about. They were always in winter time. The "Relation" of 1640 tells of the journey of Jogues and Raymbault as far as Sault Sainte Marie. They had been invited by Ojibways from that region, who had come over to the Ottawas to celebrate a Feast of the Dead. This consisted in gathering together the departed of all their villages for the ten years previous and interring them in one great pit. It was a solemn occasion for the Indians, and they were religiously disposed. Jogues and his companion had to travel two hundred and fifty miles for the most part along the northern shore of Lake Huron. Two thousand Indians greeted them and urged them to remain there. All they could do was make known the Faith and plant a great cross facing the Far West to which their successors would go in after years.(70) Raymbault's health was broken by this journey and he died the year following in Quebec. It was the report of this exploration which led Le Jeune to suggest that the vast fresh-water sea Jogues and Raymbault discovered, Lake Superior, might be the coveted route to China!(71) Brebeuf and Chaumonot visited the Neuters, north of Lake Erie, with their forty villages and twelve thousand people, starting in November, 1641. They were also deserted by their guides, and as ill-received as Jogues and Gamier by the Petuns. They were fortunate in finding a leader and they were so persuaded that encouraging voices were leading them, that they determined to call this the Mission of the Angels.
They were treated as lepers; the very road they walked over was avoided as infected. They were threatened with death. A council was summoned to decide their fate. Brebeuf went boldly into it, and then retired with his companion to await the verdict. Three times it was adverse. The fourth ballot was favorable, but on condition they would leave the country. It was about this time Brebeuf had a foresight of what was to happen later to his cherished mission among the Hurons.
It came to him in the form of a huge cross, which had its stem in the heart of the Iroquois country and its arms overshadowing Huronia. "The cross was large enough to bear all the missionaries among the Hurons."(72)
They spent three hard winter months in this way, permitted only to visit the sick, some of whom they baptized. Heavy snows detained them for twenty-five days on their homeward journey. They were harbored in a cabin by a woman of kindly manners, who with her children ministered to them, but would not listen to their instruction. Brebeuf fell and broke his shoulder-blade soon after leaving the cabin and he had to struggle painfully over ice and through jungle until they reached home on St. Joseph's Day. His report of this expedition is a model of observation in ethnology.(73) For eighteen months he suffered from this fall, until in the summer of 1641 he was called to Quebec for rest and medical attention. Here at last, after seven strenuous years, he could witness consoling evidences of religion. His own brethren had three establishments: one at Sillery for the Indians who were gradually becoming Christian; one at Notre Dame des Anges for the French colonists; and the school for young people, which was started in 1632, developed into a college in 1636, and was provided with suitable buildings in 1647.
The work of the Ursulines and Hospital Sisters would also interest him, like as it was to similar works which he had seen in France. He had the gratification of converting two prominent Hurons who had been enemies of religion in Huronia. It was a well-deserved Sabbatical year of rest. His next such year would crown his labor with an everlasting rest. Jogues would soon pass his first year off the mission in far different surroundings. Each would have time to ponder over the problems of the missions, and one question that would interest them was; why so few Christians among the Indians after such long and arduous labor?
This problem was perplexing then. It is not so now. Cardinal Newman remarks that God's hand is not seen in events until they are over, and that is why memory of the past is always so consoling for the Church and for its individual members.74 The missionaries very properly would admit no adult to baptism without due instruction and without due trial also in constancy. They knew the fickle nature of their people, and they knew also the vicious surroundings in which the newly-converted would have to live. It required nothing short of heroism for tribesman or woman to become a consistent member of the Church. That was the first obstacle to numerous conversions. There was also the difficulty of language. No matter how adept the missionary would become in the use of any tongue, he had to coin new words for most of the things he needed to convey to the Indian mind, so lacking were their languages in terms to express Divine and spiritual facts or thoughts.
It was hard also to acquire the confidence of a people who believed the strangers were the cause of their misfortunes, and who were confirmed in that belief by settlers from other lands than France. The Hurons as a tribe were in no mood to try new things. Famished by drought, decimated by disease, frightened by what they considered the magic of Brebeuf and his associates, they clung all the more fiercely to their own superstitious rites, and indulged in the tribal vices of drinking, gambling, lascivious dancing and other immoralities. In these evil habits the missionaries felt that they were face to face with the demons of hell. Still they never gave up.
The first adult to be baptized in 1637, was followed by over eighty, two years later, and by sixty in 1641. That was little enough, but it proved that genuine conversion was not impossible. The missionaries knew they were doing the work of God. They recalled what their fellow-Jesuits had done and were doing in every part of the world, how in Bordeaux, for instance, within seventeen years (1572-1589), they reduced the Huguenots from seven thousand to an inappreciable number;78 how one hundred thousand in Paraguay had become Christians after six years of labor on the part of the Jesuit Ruiz de Montoya. Their keen joy over one baptism, even of an infant, suggests also their keen disappointment with the few adults in health they could convert. They were sowing in labor and in sorrow. They all agreed that something more than the ordinary dews of grace was required to fertilize such an arid soil. Among themselves they repeated the adage as old as the Church: The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. How could it be verified in this instanced Happy as they all were to live a life that had continual martyrdom, as Jerome Lalemant termed it, not one of them would presume to believe himself worthy of being chosen as the victim. Lalemant had the good sense to say in his "Relation' for 1639: "But if some one asks when we shall execute this great plan [for converting the Hurons],— seeing that hardly have we yet made a beginning, or advanced one step in these countries since we have been here,— my answer to this question is, first, that even if this is not to be accomplished until shortly before the end of the world, yet it is always necessary to begin before ending. . . ,"(76)
"We have sometimes wondered whether we could hope for the conversion of this country without the shedding of blood; the principle received, it seems, in the Church of God, that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians, made me at one time conclude that this was not to be expected,— yea, that it was not even to be desired; considering the glory that redounds to God from the constancy of the martyrs, with whose blood all the rest of the earth has been so lately drenched, it would be a sort of curse if this quarter of the world should not participate in the happiness of having contributed to the splendor of this glory."(77)
Two at least of the missionaries were praying constantly to have a share in the glory of suffering, if not of martyrdom. Every morning when communicating at the sacrifice of the Mass, Brebeuf repeated the vow which he had made when an exile from the missions, in France. Jogues often made a similar prayer. When in the summer of 1642, he was ordered down to Quebec to obtain relief for the mission, which was then in destitute condition, he went one day into the chapel, bent in prayer to the ground, beseeching Our Lord to grant him the favor of suffering for His glory. Engraved in the depths of his soul was the answer: "Thy prayer is heard. What thou hast asked is granted. Be courageous and steadfast". He was soon to enter on his suffering, but not yet as a martyr.