An Era of Martyrdom
Distress in Huronia—Jogues leads relief expedition—Captured by Mohawks—Two-week trail in torture—Gruesome village spectacle—A year in slavery—A Martyr's Confessions—Goupil, 'first victim—Death for the Sign of the Cross—A martyr's interment.
Huronia was in distress. The mission itself was in great need. Harvests had been poor. Illness abounded. Clothing was scarce. The new mission stations needed vestments and altar-ware. Quebec was the only source of supplies. Raymbault's illness required him to go there, but some one must accompany him. The Iroquois were on the warpath. They were willing to make peace with the French, but not with the Hurons or Algonquins. The route lay through the villages of both.
Jogues was chosen to lead the expedition. He started early in June, 1642, arriving safely about mid-July. It took about two weeks for his Indian companions to transact business and see what was of interest. Many of them were Christians, or preparing to be. They would naturally wish to see the Indian Catholic settlement at Sillery, the convents, hospitals, and churches. The Fathers encouraged this, as it was an object lesson which impressed on them the strength and dignity of religion.
On August 1st he started homeward with about forty in the company, four of them Frenchmen, the canoes heavily laden with goods for the Mission. They were scarcely a day on the way when they were ambushed and taken captive by the Iroquois. The story of their ill-treatment, torture, captivity, and, in some instances, death has been frequently told, but never more impressively than by the principal victim, Jogues. Comment or paraphrase would spoil it. It is more like the "Confessions" of St. Augustine than a description of torture. Usually those who attempt to repeat the story in their own words apologize fastidiously for depicting such revolting cruelty. The language of Jogues lifts the imagination above gross details and centres the attention more on his own spiritual elevation than on his bodily suffering. His letter was written to his provincial, or chief superior, in France. It is dated from the Mohawk village then located near the site of the present village of Auriesville, New York. To appreciate its contents one need only recall that the Iroquois were the fiercest Indian tribes in the east at that time, that they were bitterly opposed to the French, implacable to the Hurons, hateful of the Black Robe, as the missionary was called on account of his clerical garment. There were five tribes or nations, Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cayugas and Senecas, situated in this order along the Mohawk Valley, between Schenectady and Lake Erie. They numbered about twenty-five thousand and had twenty-five hundred warriors. The Auriesville village was the easternmost, and it was there Jogues was tortured and kept in captivity for fourteen months. It was near there he wrote what follows of this chapter, being at the time in the Dutch settlement Rensselaerswyck, now Albany.
"Letter from Father Isaac Jogues to his Provincial Jean Filleau.
[dated August 5, 1643.]
"When desiring to write to Your Reverence, the first doubt that I had was, in which language I ought to do so,— Latin or French; then, having almost forgotten them both, I found equal difficulty in each. Two reasons have moved me to use Latin. The first, for the sake of being able sometimes to employ certain sentences from the Sacred Scripture, from which I have received great consolation in my adversities. The second, because I desire that this letter may not be too common. Your Reverence's great charity will excuse, as it has done at other times, my failings; especially since for eight years now I have been living among barbarians, not only in usages, but also in a costume similar to theirs. But I fear 'that I am unskilled in speech and in knowledge'; not knowing the precious time 'of my visitation': first, then, I beg you, if this letter shall come unto your hands, to aid me with your Holy Sacrifices, and prayers by the whole Province,— as being among people no less barbarous by birth than in manners. And I hope you will do this gladly, when you shall have seen by this letter the obligation under which I am to God, and my need of spiritual help.
"We started from the Hurons on the 13th of June, 1642, with four canoes and twenty-three persons — eighteen barbarians, and five Frenchmen. The journey — besides the difficulties, especially of portages,— was dangerous by reason of the enemies, who, seizing every year the highways, take many prisoners; and I know not how Father Jean de Brebeuf escaped them last year. They, being incensed against the French, had shortly before declared that, if they should capture any one of them, they would, besides the other torments, burn him alive by a slow fire. The Superiors, aware of the dangers of this journey,— necessary, however, for the glory of God,— spoke to me of them, adding that they did not oblige me thereto. But I did not gainsay them, 'nor have I gone back'. I embraced with good courage that obedience put before me for the glory of God; and if I had excused myself, some one else, of greater ability, would have been substituted in my place, with more detriment to the mission. We made the journey not without fear, dangers, losses, and shipwrecks, and, thirty-five days after our departure, we arrived safe and sound at the residence of Three Rivers; due thanks being there rendered to God, we spent twenty-five days partly there, partly at Kebek, according to necessity. Having finished our business, and celebrated the feast of our holy Father Ignatius, we embarked again on the first of August for the Hurons. On the second day of our journey, some of our men discovered on the shore fresh tracks of people who had passed there,— without knowing whether or not they were enemies. Eustache Ahatsistari, famous and experienced in war, believes them enemies. 'But, however strong they may be deemed,' he says, 'they are not more than three canoes; and therefore we have nothing to fear.' We then continue the journey. But, a mile beyond, we meet them to the number of seventy, in twelve canoes, concealed in the grass and woods. They suddenly surround us, and fire their arquebuses, but without wounding us. The Hurons, terrified, abandon the canoes, and many flee to the deepest part of the woods; we were left alone, we four Frenchmen, with a few others, Christians and catechumens, to the number of twelve or fourteen. Having commended themselves to God, they stand on the defensive; but, being quickly overwhelmed by numbers, and a Frenchman named Rene Goupil, who was fighting among the first, being captured with some Hurons, they ceased from the defense. I, who was barefoot, would not and could not flee,— not willing, moreover, to forsake a Frenchman and the Hurons, who were partly captured without baptism, partly near being the prey of the enemies, who were seeking them in the woods. I therefore stayed alone at the place where the skirmish had occurred, and surrendered myself to the man who was guarding the prisoners, that I might be made their companion in their perils, as I had been on the journey. He was amazed at what I did, and approached, not without fear, to place me with them. I forthwith rejoiced with the Frenchman over the grace which the Lord was showing us: I roused him to constancy, and heard him in confession. After the Hurons had been instructed in the Faith, I baptized them; and as the number increased, my occupation of instructing and baptizing them also increased. There was finally led in among the captives the valiant Eustache Ahatsistari, a Christian; who seeing me, said: 'I praise God that He has granted me what I so much desired,— to live and die with thee.' I knew not what to answer, being oppressed with compassion, when Guillaume Cousture also came up, who had come with me from the Hurons. This man, seeing the impossibility of longer defending himself, had fled with the others into the forests; and, as he was a young man not only of courageous disposition, but strong in body, and fleet in running, he was already out of the grasp of the one who was pursuing him. But, having turned back, and seeing that I was not with him, 'I will not forsake,' he said to himself, 'my dear Father alone in the hands of enemies;' and immediately returning to the barbarians, he had of his own accord become a prisoner. Oh, that he had never taken such a resolution! It is no consolation in such cases to have companions of one's misfortunes. But who can prevent the sentiment of charity? Such is the feeling toward us of those laymen who, without any worldly interest, serve God and aid us in our ministrations among the Hurons. This one had slain, in the fight, one of the most prominent among the enemies; he was therefore treated most cruelly. They stripped him naked, and, like mad dogs, tore off his nails with their teeth, bit his fingers, and pierced his right hand with a javelin; but he suffered it all with invincible patience,— remembering the nails of the Savior, as he told me afterward. I embraced him with great affection, and exhorted him to offer to God those pains, for himself and for those who tormented him. But those executioners although admiring me at the beginning, soon afterward grew fierce, and, assailing me with their fists and with knotty sticks, left me half dead on the ground, and a little later, having carried me back to where I was, they also tore off my nails, and bit with their teeth my two forefingers, causing me incredible pain. They did the same to Rene Goupil,— leaving unharmed the Hurons, who were now made slaves. Then, having brought us all together again, they made us cross the river, where they divided among themselves the spoil — that is, the riches of the poor Hurons, and what they carried, which was church utensils, books, etc., things very precious to us. Meanwhile, I baptized some who had not yet received that rite,— and, among others, an old man of eighty years, who, having had orders to embark with the others, said: 'How shall I, who am already decrepit, go into a distant and foreign country?' Refusing, then, to do so, he was slain at the same place where he had been baptized,— losing the life of the body where he had received that of the soul.
Thence, with shouts proper to conquerors, they depart, to conduct us into their countries, to the number of twenty-two captives, besides three of our men already killed. We suffered many hardships on the journey, wherein we spent thirty-eight days amid hunger, excessive heat, threats, and blows,— in addition to the cruel pains of our wounds, not healed, which had putrefied, so that worms dropped from them. They, besides, even went to far — a savage act — as in cold blood to tear out our hair and beards, wounding us with their nails, which are extremely sharp, in the most tender and sensitive parts of the body. I do not mention the inward pains caused at the sight of that funereal pomp of the oldest and most excellent Christians of the new Church of the Hurons, who often drew the tears from my eyes, in the fear lest these cruelties might impede the progress of the Faith still incipient there. On the eighth day of our journey, we met two hundred barbarians, who were going to attack the French at the fort which they were building at Richelieu; these, after their fashion, thinking to exercise themselves in cruelty, and thus to derive prosperous results from their wars, wished to travel with us. Thanks being then rendered to the sun, which they believe to preside in wars, and their muskets being fired as a token of rejoicing, they made us disembark, in order to receive us with heavy blows of sticks. I, who was the last, and therefore more exposed to these beatings, fell, midway in the journey which we were obliged to make to a hill, on which they had erected a stage; and I thought that I must die there, because I neither could, nor cared to, arise. What I suffered, is known to One for Whose love and cause it is a pleasant and glorious thing to suffer. Finally, moved by a cruel mercy,— wishing to conduct me alive to their country,— they ceased beating me, and conducted me, half dead, to the stage,— all bleeding from the blows which they had given me, especially in the face. Having come down from it, they loaded me with a thousand insults, and with new blows on the neck and on the rest of the body. They burned one of my fingers, and crushed another with their teeth; and the others, already bruised and their sinews torn, they so twisted that even at present, although partly healed, they are crippled and deformed. A barbarian twice took me by the nose, to cut it off; but this was never allowed him by that Lord Who willed that I should still live,— for the savages are not wont to give life to persons enormously mutilated. We spent there much of the night, and the rest of it passed not without great pain, and without food, which even for many days we had hardly tasted. Our pains were increased by the cruelties which they practised upon our Christians,— especially upon Eustache, both of whose thumbs they cut off; and, through the midst of the wound made on his left hand they thrust a sharp skewer, even to the elbow, with unspeakable pain; but he suffered it with the same — that is, invincible — constancy. The day following, we encountered other canoes, which were likewise going to war; those people then cut off some fingers from our companions; not without our own fear. On the tenth day, in the afternoon, we left the canoes, in order to make the remainder of the four days' journey on foot. To the customary severities was added a new toil, to carry their goods, although herein they treated me better than I expected,— whether because I could not, or whether because I retained in captivity itself, and near to death, a spirit haply too proud. Hunger accompanied us always; we passed three days without any food, but on the fourth we found some wild fruits. I had not provided myself sufficiently when we abandoned the canoes, for fear lest my body should be too robust and vigorous in the fire and in the torments, not to dissimulate 'about my infirmities'. On the second day, they put a kettle on the fire, as if to prepare something to eat; but there was nothing in it but warm water, which each one was allowed to drink at his pleasure. Finally, on the 8th day, the eve of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin, we arrived at the first village of the Hiroquois. I thanked the Lord that, on the day on which the Christians celebrate so solemn a feast, He had called us to share His pains. We had anticipated that day as truly bitter and calamitous; and it had been easy for Rene Goupil and for me to avoid it, because often, when unbound about midnight, we were able to flee,— with the hope, if not of returning to ours, at least of dying more easily in the woods. But he refused to do so, and I would rather suffer every pain than abandon my French and Huron Christians to death, and deprive them of the consolation which they could receive from a priest at that time. So, on the eve of the Assumption, about the twentieth hour, we arrived at the river which flows past their village. Here were awaiting us, on both banks of the river, the old Huron slaves and the Hiroquois, the former to warn us that we should flee, for that otherwise we would be burned; the latter to beat us with sticks, fists, and stones, as before,— especially my head, because they hate shaven and short hair. Two nails had been left me; they tore these out with their teeth, and tore off that flesh which is under them, with their very sharp nails, even to the bone. We remained there, exposed to their taunts a few moments; then they led us to the village situated on another hill. Before arriving, we met the young men of the country, in a line, armed with sticks, as before; but we, who knew that, if we had separated ourselves from the number of those who are scourged, we would be separated from the number of the sons, 'for He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth', offered ourselves with ready will to our God, Who became paternally cruel to the end that He might take pleasure in us, as in His sons. We went one by one. First there walked a Frenchman, altogether naked; Rene was in the middle; I the last, in shirt and trousers. The Hiroquois had placed themselves between us and the Hurons, in order to moderate our pace, for the sake of giving time to any one who struck us. A long time, and cruelly, 'the wicked have wrought upon my back', —not only with sticks, but also with iron rods, which they have from the Dutch; and one of the first, with a piece of iron thick as a fist, attached to a rope, gave us each a blow so fierce that I would have fallen half dead, if the fear of another like blow had not given me strength to pass on. We hardly had strength to reach the stage erected in the middle of the village. Rene, who was not very nimble, received so many blows, especially in the face, that nothing was seen of him but the whites of his eyes, all the more beautiful, since more like that one, 'as it were a leper and as one struck by God, in whom there is neither beauty nor comeliness'. Hardly did we breathe upon the stage when, with a great rod, we were three times struck on the bare shoulders; and they began to unsheathe knives, in order to cut off the rest of our fingers. Because they esteemed me the most, they began with me, whom they saw respected by the French and the Hurons. There approach me then an old man and a woman, whom he orders to cut off my thumb; at first she refuses, but being, as it were, compelled three or four times by the old man, she finally does so. This woman was an Algonquin,—a Christian slave, captured a few months before,— and her name was Jeanne.
What consolation to suffer at the hands of those for whom one dies rather than abandon them to visible and invisible enemies. Then I, taking with my other hand the amputated thumb, offered it to Thee, O my Living and True God,— mindful of the sacrifices which I had offered Thee in Thy Church,— until, admonished by one of my companions, I let it fall, for fear that they might put it in my mouth, in order to make me swallow it as they often do. As for Rene, they cut off his right thumb at the first joint. I thank God that they left me the one on my right hand, so that by this letter I may pray my Fathers and brethren to offer prayers for us in the Holy Church of God. Unto her we are recommended with a twofold and new title, since she is accustomed to pray 'for the afflicted and captives'. The following day, the feast of the Blessed Virgin,— after having kept us till noon on the stage, they conducted us to another village, five or six miles distant from the first; and the barbarians who was leading me took away my shirt, leaving me nothing,— except a rag, which he could not deny to decency,— but a piece of sacking, which I myself asked from him, in order to cover my shoulders. But these, bent with so many beatings, refused to sustain that rough and rude weight, especially after a burning sun roasted my skin as in an oven,— on account of which, shortly afterward, that of the neck, the shoulders, and the arms, being burned, fell off. At the entrance to this village, they did not omit — although contrary to their custom — to beat us once again, with blows the more atrocious in proportion as the multitude did not hinder them from measuring them; they struck us especially on the bones of the legs, with what pain may be imagined. The rest of the day we remained upon the stage; at night, in a cabin, naked on the bare ground, bound with chains, exposed to the revilings of each sex and of every age. They threw coals and live ashes on our bare flesh,— which, for us who were bound, it was difficult to throw off. We remained there two days and two nights, almost without eating or sleeping,— tormented further by the sight of the torments which they inflicted upon our Huron companions, whose wrists they bound so tightly with cords that they fainted therefrom. I regarded these as my spiritual sons, shortly before regenerated to God by holy baptism,— that is to say, with the bowels of a Father, to whom love served as executioner. I consoled them, however, with the words of the Apostle: 'Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God. You shall lament and weep', etc., 'but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, hath sorrow, but remembereth no more the anguish, for joy', etc. In a word, 'for that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us an eternal weight of glory'. The stages of the barbarians had not yet seen either Frenchmen or Christian Hurons: to satisfy, then, the curiosity of all, we were led everywhere. At the third village, we entered with great peace, but not without pain, since we met there four other Hurons freshly captured, and mutilated like us. I found means of instructing in the Faith and baptizing these prisoners,— two upon the stage itself, with the dew, which I found quite abundant in the great leaves of Turkish corn, the stalks of which they gave us to chew; the other two on the journey to another village, at a brook which we encountered by the way. Here the rain and the cold made our nakedness more keenly felt; therefore, trembling with cold, I sometimes went down from the stage in order to warm myself in some cabin, but I was forthwith led back to it. To cut off Guillaume's right forefinger, a barbarian used, not a knife, but a shell, like a saw; which could not cut the tough and slippery sinews; and therefore he tore it off by sheer force, which caused the sufferer's arm to swell even to the elbow. A certain person, out of pity, received him into a hut during those two days that we stayed there,— not without anxiety on my side, as I knew not where he was. At night, they led us into a cabin, where they commanded us to sing, as was their wont. It is necessary to obey and to sing, 'but of the canticles of the Lord in a land of exile'. From singing they came to torments, especially in the case of Rene and me; they burned me with coals and live ashes, especially on the breast; and they bound me upright between two stakes, set between the shoulders and the elbow, with two pieces of bark, wherewith they often bind those whom they burn, so that I thought that I was to be burned. And — that you may know that, if I endured the rest with strength and with patience, it was not my own courage, but that of Him 'Who giveth strength to the weary'— in that torture, being almost left to myself alone, I wept ('I will glory in the things that concern my infirmity') ; and, on account of the great pain, I begged that they would not tie me so tightly. But it so happened that the Lord permitted that, the more I besought Him, the more they bound me. They kept me thus about a quarter of an hour, then they loosed me; otherwise, I would have swooned. I thank Thee, O good Jesus, because I have learned with some little experience what Thou didst condescend to suffer for me on the Cross, where Thy most holy body was not even sustained with cords, but hung by Thy hands and feet, transfixed with hardest nails. For spending the rest of the night, they bound us on the earth to several stakes; and what did they not do to us, or try to do? But again I thank You, O Lord, that You kept me pure from the impure hands of the barbarians. Two days later, they led us to the second village, in order to take final counsel concerning us. Now for seven days they had been leading us from village to village, from stage to stage,— being made a spectacle to God and to the angels, the contempt and sport of the barbarians,— when finally we were notified of death by fire — news assuredly full of horror, but softened by the thought of the Divine Will, and by the hope of a better life. I spoke for the last time, as I believed, to the French and the Hurons to animate them by reminding them of the sufferings of that One 'Who bore with such contradiction from sinners against Himself, of the brevity of the torments, and the eternity of the glory, etc. I also admonished them, especially Eustache, that in the torments they should look at me, and made some sign, so that I might bestow on them the last absolution, as I did in his case, repeatedly; but the French and almost all the other Hurons were granted life. The fortitude of this man was marvelous; and — whereas the others, while in the fire, are wont to have the sentiment and use the words of him who said, 'may an avenger arise from our ashes', he, with Christian spirit, entreated the Hurons present, that the thought of his death should never prejudice the peace of the Hiroquois. They also killed Paul Onnonhoaraton, a young man of about twenty-five years, of great courage, who laughed at death,— being animated with the hope of a better life, as he publicly declared. This man, on the journey, when the Hiroquois were coming to torment me, offered himself for me, begging them that they should rather exercise cruelty toward him. God will have rewarded him for that notable charity wherewith 'he gave his life for his friends', who amid bonds had begotten him for Christ. Guillaume was given to a Hiroquois family. When they spare the life of any slave, they usually receive him into some family in the place of some dead kinsman, whom the slave is said to bring to life again, by taking the name and the same degree of relationship; so that they call him, like the dead man, 'father', 'brother', 'son', etc. But, in the case of Rene and myself, because we were not so strong, the final decision was not taken, but they left us together, as it were, in a free slavery. Therein, as being half idle, we began to feel more keenly the pains of unhealed wounds, irritated by a thousand annoying little creatures, from which our mutilated fingers did not permit us to defend ourselves. We observed, by necessity more than convenience, that aphorism, 'the food is not good for the sick',— especially Rene, who was not accustomed to the Turkish corn without salt. This diet perhaps availed to effect that, in the space of three weeks, we began to use our hands. Meanwhile, those two hundred returned, whom we had encountered on the journey,— overcome by the French in lesser number, who were commanded by the Chevalier de Montmagni, governor of the country, whom they were intending to surprise. On this account, it again began to be a question of killing us; but we know not how God prevented the execution of this threat. On the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, one of the principal persons among the Dutch, who have a colony about forty miles distant from the barbarians, came to treat for our ransom. He spent several days there, and offered much, but obtained nothing,— the barbarians, in order not to offend him, feigning, by way of excuse, that they would conduct us back to the French. Perhaps the leaders had some such intention; but, at the final council which assembled for this affair, the crowd and those who were most turbulent, prevented its accomplishment. Indeed, if by special Providence of God we had not been outside the village when the council was ended, they would have killed us; but, having sought us awhile in vain, they finally returned each one to his own village. Rene and I having gone back, and been warned of the danger, we withdrew without, toward a hill, in order to perform our devotions with more liberty; we offered our lives to God, and began the rosary of the Blessed Virgin. We were at the fourth decade when we met two young men, who commanded us to return to the village. 'This encounter', I said to Rene, 'is not auspicious, especially in these circumstances. Let us commend ourselves to God and to the Blessed Virgin.' In fact, at the gate of the village one of these two draws a hatchet, which he has kept concealed, and strikes Rene's head with it.
He fell, half dead, but remembered, according to the agreement made between us, to invoke the most Holy Name of Jesus, in order to obtain indulgence. I, expecting a like blow, uncover myself, and cast myself on my knees; but the barbarian, having left me a little time thus, commanded me to rise, saying he had not permission to kill me, as I was under the protection of another family. I then arise, and give the last absolution to my dear companion, who still breathed, but whose life the barbarian finally took away with two more blows. He was not more than thirty-five years of age; he was a man of unusual simplicity and innocence of life, of invincible patience, and very conformable to the Divine Will. He was worthy to be acknowledged by Your Reverence as yours, not only because he had been, with credit, for several months in our novitiate, but also because here he had consecrated himself, under obedience to the Superiors of the Society, in the service of our neophytes and catechumens,— to whom with the art of surgery he was of great assistance; and finally, because, a few days before, he had consecrated himself with the vows. The long prayers that he made had rendered him odious to the barbarians, who for this reason esteemed him a sorcerer; but the sign of the cross, which he often made on the brows of the children, was the last and true cause of his death,—an old man, grandfather of one of them, having ordered the murderer to chastise with death the Frenchman's superstition, as practised on the person of one of his descendants; and I learned this from the child's mother, and from many others of the country. But I was given to another master, who hated us mortally; in consequence, they believed so surely that he would kill me, that he who had lent me that wherewith to cover myself, asked it from me again, in order not to lose it at my death. I did not fail, however, on the following day, to seek, even at the peril of my life, the body of the deceased, for the sake of burying it. They had tied a rope to his neck, and dragged him naked through the whole village, and had then thrown him into the river, at some distance away. My first master warned me to withdraw, if I did not wish to be killed like him; but I, who was weary of that manner of living, would have reckoned it great gain to die in the exercise of a work of mercy. I then pursued my journey, and, with the guidance and aid of a man of the country,— furnished me for escort by the same person who, out of friendship, was dissuading me from going thither,— I found him by the bank of the river, half eaten by the dogs; and there, at the bottom of a dry torrent, I cover him with stones, intending to return thither the following day alone, with a pickaxe, in order to bury him securely. I found, at my return, two armed young men, who were awaiting me to conduct me, as they said, to another village,— but, really, to kill me in some retired place. I told them I could not follow them without orders from my master, who would not consent. It was necessary to hinder, on the following day, another, who had come for this purpose, from seeking me in a field,— the Lord causing me to see by experience that He was the protector of my life without Whom a hair of our head will not perish. On the following day, I return to the place with tools, but they had taken away my brother. I go again, I seek everywhere, and I myself go into the river up to my waist,— although it was swollen by the night's rains, and cold, since it was the month of October. I seek him with my hands and with my feet; they tell me that the high water has removed him elsewhere. I hold obsequies for him as best I can, singing the psalms and prayers thereto appointed by the Church; I mingle my tears with the water of the torrent; I groan and sigh. I can gain no news of him before the following spring, when, the snows being melted, the young men of the country notify me that they have seen his bones on the same bank of the river; these, together with the head, having reverently kissed, I then finally buried as best I could".(78)