An Apostle in Slavery
The Dutch intervene—A slave on the Mohawk—The winter's hunt—A snow-bound oratory—Life in the balance—His friends among the Dutch—Final decision to seek freedom—Reformed Minister and Jesuit—Reception at New Amsterdam—Return to France—Return to Canada—Back to the Mohawks—Death.
As soon as news of the torture of Jogues and his companions reached the Dutch fort, Arendt van Corlaer, the commandant, Jean Labatie, his interpreter, and Jacob Jansen of New Amsterdam (now New York), went as ambassadors to the Mohawk village in order to obtain their release. This was on September 7. They were unsuccessful. The Indians pretended they would give the prisoners their liberty, but they did not keep their word. Jogues and Goupil became slaves. The other captives were distributed among the villagers farther west. As Jogues relates in his narrative, Rene Goupil was tomahawked by an Indian on September 29th for having made the sign of the Cross and taught it to some children.
Jogues was then adopted by the Wolf Clan, one of the three families or divisions of the tribe, the others being known as the Bear and the Turtle. He was given over to a family who had lost a son in war. His life was in constant danger. Several times attempt was made to decoy him beyond the village in order to kill him. His master, who alone had right of life and death over him, warned him of his danger. He, therefore, after attending to the work of the cabin, making the fires, drawing the water, and cooking, avoided crowded places and spent his time reading and praying. He had saved one book, the letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews, with comments by Godeau. He had a picture of St. Bruno with the device O Bonitas! (goodness) and a little wooden cross made by himself. Among the loot of the Indians he found a "Following of Christ" and a Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These were his consolation. He narrated how in his solitude he had strange dreams, all of them naturally having to do with persecution and crosses.
He constantly recalls that he was born in Orleans where the cathedral bears the name of Holy Cross, and that, therefore, he should be a citizen of the Cross. He learns as much of the language as the Indians permit him to learn. He goes so far as to preach to them and, whenever he can, baptizes children at the point of death. He ministers to the many captives, Algonquins and Hurons, who were in the villages, and sometimes to an unfortunate who was about to undergo torture and death. He accompanies the Indians on their winter hunt, refuses, in spite of his weakness, to partake of the game they got, because they had offered it idolatrously to their god Aireskoi, boldly telling them he would never live on food offered to the Devil. They in turn treated him cruelly. Besides hunger and insult, he had to suffer night and day from the intense cold, having only a wretched skin for covering. His whole consolation was in his remembrance of the Scriptures, which sometimes he repeats word for word, at other times in paraphrases; in fact he was accustomed to think in Biblical terms.
" 'I thought', he writes, 'of my dear companions, whose blood had so lately covered me, and I heard a report that good William had also ended his life in most cruel torments, and that a like end was in store for me on our return to the town. Then the remembrance of my whole life rushed back to me, with all its unfaithfulness to God, and all its faults. I groaned to see myself die "in the midst of my days", as if rejected by the Lord, deprived of the sacraments of the Church, and with no good works to propitiate my Judge. Thus tormented with a desire to live and the fear of death, I groaned, and cried to my God, "When shall my grief and my anguish come to an end? When wilt Thou 'see my abjection and my labor'? When wilt Thou give me 'calm after the storm'? When shall 'my sorrow be turned into joy'?" Then he adds, in a lively sentiment of humility and confidence: 'I should have perished unless the Lord "had shortened the evil days"; but I had recourse to my support and ordinary refuge, the Holy Scriptures, of which I could recall some passages. They taught me to see in God His goodness, and made me alive to the fact that although deprived of all aids of piety, "the just man liveth by faith". I often pondered on these words: "I followed the running waters" to endeavor to quench my thirst. On the law of the Lord I meditated day and night, for "unless Thy law had been my meditation, I had then perhaps perished in my abjection"; and "perhaps the waters had swallowed us up" '.
" 'But "Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us to be a prey to the teeth" of my enemies, " for now their hour seemed come and the power of darkness". "I was pressed out of measure above my strength, so that I was weary even of life". Meanwhile I repeated with Job, but in another sense, "Although God should kill me, I will trust in Him' "(79)
Jogues built an oratory a short distance from the cabin where he was accustomed to pray, kneeling before a large Cross which he had cut in the bark of a tree. He even made his annual Retreat, or Spiritual Exercises. On the way home from the hunt he had to carry more than his share of the burdens. Crossing a river, a woman and her child fell off the tree-trunk that had been thrown over for a bridge and were drowning, when Jogues plunged in and rescued them. Arriving home, he went from cabin to cabin, begging for something to cover him, not merely because of the cold, but for the sake of decency. Most of the Indians jeered at him, one threw him a rag, but a Dutchman, who was at the village trading, obtained clothes for him. The Indians sent him on long and arduous errands, carrying heavy parcels to members of other villages. They put him to care for a tribesman who was dying of a disease so loathsome that all shunned him. It was precisely what Jogues was happy to do.
Gradually, the mother of his master, and even the master himself, became more kindly disposed to him. They even helped him to learn the language. As the cabin was a resort for the more prominent members of the tribe, he learned many things about them, and took occasion to speak to them about religion. They plainly agreed that he knew the truth, but, like the Hurons, they asked: of what use it would be to them? They left him free to go about the villages, where he could instruct and console many captives. They took him on a fishing expedition over the Saratoga Lake. Difficult as these trips were, Jogues liked them. They afforded him time for greater union with God.
" 'How often in these journeys', he writes, 'and in that quiet wilderness, "did we sit by the rivers of Babylon, and weep while we remembered thee, Sion", not only exulting that Sion in heaven, but even thee, Jerusalem, praising thy God on earth. 'How often, though in a strange land, did we sing the canticle of the Lord', and mountain and wild-wood resounded with the praises of their Maker, which from their creation they had never heard! How often on the stately trees of the forest did I carve the most sacred name of Jesus, that seeing it the demons might fly, who tremble when they hear it! How often, too, did I not strip off the bark to form on them the Most Holy Cross of the Lord, that the foe might fly before it, and that by it Thou, O Lord my King, "mightest reign in the midst of Thy enemies"—the enemies of Thy cross, the misbelievers and the pagans who dwell in that land, and the demons who rule so powerfully there! I rejoiced, too, that I had been led by the Lord into the wilderness, at the very time when the Church recalls the story of His Passion, so that I might more uninterruptedly remember the course of its bitterness and gall, and my soul pine away at the remembrance' ".(80)
Life, however, for a prisoner among the Mohawks was always precarious. A dream, a foolish suspicion, the report of bad news from traders or warriors who were out of the village, would at any moment lead the sachems of the tribe to destroy a victim. As Easter came near it was decided that he should die, because ten Mohawk warriors who had been on the warpath for some time had not been heard of. Everything was prepared. The torture was to be applied on Good Friday. Unexpectedly a group of Abenaki Indians were brought in. Five of the men were doomed to torture, the women and children were consigned to slavery. The torture of Jogues was forgotten and he was even allowed to prepare the prisoners, whom he succeeded in baptizing before their ordeal began. Not long after three young women and some children were brutally treated and burned to death. Jogues had the consolation of baptizing one, having to rush into the flames to do so.
His life was thus spent in witnessing such harrowing scenes and in constant peril of being himself the victim in one of them. Still, in his humility he considered himself in some way responsible for all this evil.
" 'I certainly', says he, 'felt in my own person this punishment deserved for my sins, and pronounced of old by God to His people when He said "their solemnities, their new-moons, and all their festival-times . . . shall be turned into mourning and lamentation", as Easter, and Whitsuntide, and the Nativity of St. John the Baptist each brought sorrows on me, which increased to agony .... "Wo is me, wherefore was I born to see the ruin of my people?" Verily, in these and like heart-rending cares, "my life is wasted with grief, and my years with sighs"; "for the Lord hath corrected me for mine iniquity and hath made my soul waste away as a spider". "He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath inebriated me with wormwood"; "because the comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me"; "but in all these things we overcome", and by the favor of God will overcome, "because of Him that hath loved us", until "He come that is to come, and will not delay"; "until my day like that of a hireling come", or "my change be made" '.(81)
Jogues had good neighbors at Rensselaerswyck, now Albany, where Fort Orange, the Dutch trading outpost, was situated. The Dutch had never ceased to work for his release. The Governor of Quebec, Montmagny, was earnest enough, but negotiation on his part would be futile. He had not the military force to compel a deliverance. Indeed, to attempt this would have immediately resulted in Jogues' torture and death. Not only were the Dutch at Rensselaerswyck concerned about Jogues. The States-General had commanded the Dutch Governor at New Amsterdam to do all in his power to free the prisoner. On his part Jogues was not over eager to obtain his freedom. As he wrote to Governor Montmagny on June 30, 1643, his fourth letter, and his first to arrive at its destination, he begged that he should not be taken into consideration. "Let no sympathy for me prevent your taking any measure that seems to you best fitted to advance the greater glory of God."(82)
Soon after he wrote to his Provincial in France that: " 'Although I could in all probability escape either through the Europeans or the Indian nations around us, did I wish to fly, yet on this cross to which Our Lord has nailed me, with Himself, am I resolved by His grace to live and die. For who in my absence would console the French captives'?
Who absolve the penitent? Who remind the christened Huron of his duty? Who instruct the prisoners constantly brought in? Who baptize them dying, encourage them in their torments? Who cleanse the infants in the saving waters? Who provide for the salvation of the dying adult, the instruction of those in health? Indeed I cannot but think it a peculiar interposition of Divine goodness, that while a nation, fallen from the true Catholic religion, barred the entrance of the Faith to these regions on one side, and on the other, a fierce war between savage nations and, on their account, with the French, I should have fallen into the hands of these Indians, who by the will of God reluctantly, and I may say against their will, have thus far spared my life, that through me, though unworthy, those might be instructed, believe, and be baptized, who are predestined to eternal life. Since the time when I was taken, I have baptized seventy persons, children, young people and old, of five different nations and languages, that of "every tribe, and people, and tongue, they might stand in the sight of the Lamb' "(83)
It is true that he had some extraordinary consolations. On one of his chance excursions with some tribesmen, he came across the Indian who had charitably cut the thongs which bound him when he begged to be taken down from the gibbet to which they had attached him. He had the satisfaction of baptizing this man. On July 31st he went with the Indians of the village to Fort Orange to trade and fish. The fishery was about twenty miles below Rensselaerswyck. Growing tired of the life there, he told his "aunt" that he would like to return to their village, and she, who had grown very kind to him, gave him some food and set him on his way with some Indians.
At the fort he heard of the determination of the Mohawks to do away with him. They considered him guilty of causing every misfortune that had befallen their warriors. The commandant of the fort urged him to escape on a vessel that was lying at anchor. He begged for time to consider the proposal. What he really desired to do was to think and pray over it, in order to do what would appear to be God's will. After concluding that to remain a prisoner now would mean speedy death, whereas escaping he might some day return and with his knowledge of the language and acquaintance with the tribes help them as a missionary, he decided to accept the commandant's offer.
It was not, however, so easy to get away. When the Indians found that he was aboard the vessel, they threatened reprisals. For peace's sake he came back to the post and there had to wait, hidden in a miserable barn, and comforted only by the genial Dutch minister, John Megapolensis, fully aware that braves had come down from Ossernenon to demand his return. The commandant was imperturbable. "The Frenchman you are seeking is under my protection. I cannot give him up. If I surrender him to you, I would be false to my own honor and humanity. . . . The course I have followed is sanctioned by all the Dutch; but to give you full satisfaction, here is gold for the ransom of your prisoner", offering him three hundred livres.
Jogues still had to wait some days hidden from the Iroquois, lying motionless behind some casks in the storehouse of the commissary. At last, by command of William Kieft, Governor of New Netherlands, he was taken aboard a vessel that was about to sail down the Hudson. With him was Domine Megapolensis, and some of the leading inhabitants, who, with their proverbial good nature, celebrated the deliverance of the captive, the Domine giving an entertainment to the crew in his honor, and the entire company joining in the festivities at an island in the river, which they wished to christen after Jogues, as we are told, "amid the noise of cannons and bottles".
Governor Kieft was particularly cordial to Jogues, inviting him, with the pastor of New Amsterdam, to his table, clothing him and providing for his passage home in a little vessel of fifty tons. Jogues was honored by Protestants and Catholics alike, though the latter were very few, among them a Portuguese woman, the wife of an ensign, and an Irishman who had come up from Virginia on hearing that there was a Catholic priest so near. Later Jogues will write his description of Manhattan Island, under the name of New Belgium, describing its rivers, Nassau to the north and Maurice to the south (East River). Already eighteen different languages were spoken there by the inhabitants and almost as many religions were practised, but the Calvinist was the only one recognized. The Church of the Fort, still functioning under the name of the Collegiate Reformed Church, was the central place of worship. Megapolensis was soon to be made its fourth pastor.(84)
The description of the island and its people is quite minute, in Jogues' usual manner, and it is one of the earliest written accounts of the Dutch settlements.
The missionary's adventures were not entirely over. He narrates how, after an uncomfortable voyage, with the ropes on deck for cabin and berth, he reached England. After many mishaps he reached the French coast on Christmas Eve, had the consolation of worshipping at a village church the next morning, and then went on to the nearest Jesuit establishment, which was at Rennes, a journey of five days on horseback. One can imagine his reception. His survival of so much ill-treatment, and his return to his native country excited the keenest interest. At Paris, whither he went to report to his Provincial, he was so much in demand, as one who had suffered for Christ, that he longed to escape from his notoriety and return to his mission. The queen, Anne of Austria, insisted on seeing him and hearing his story. With mutilated fingers he could not celebrate Mass, and this pained him grievously. It was not difficult to obtain from Pope Urban VIII special permission to offer the Holy Sacrifice, Urban remarking, "It would be unjust that a martyr for Christ should not drink the Blood of Christ".
Early in 1644 Jogues was at sea again, sailing for New France. On the voyage he had to quiet a mutiny of the sailors and calm them during a severe storm. On arriving, he was sent to Montreal, which had been founded on May 17th of the year he was taken captive. He immediately began to work among the Indians in that neighborhood, awaiting the time when he could safely venture back to Huronia. The journey thither had every year become more hazardous. The Iroquois warriors were everywhere along the route. In fact, instead of waiting for the Hurons to come down over their trails for trade, they had begun to enter the Huron territory and to destroy the villages. Even while Jogues was on his way back from France, Bressani and his companions and interpreters were seized and led in captivity to Ossernenon to undergo the same tortures as Jogues and Goupil. Bressani has left his narrative, "Brief Relation", as it is called, of his for months' imprisonment.(85) He also wrote an account of the torture and captivity of Jogues, which is an explanation of the Martyr's own narrative.(86)
Altogether unexpectedly, the Iroquois sent an embassy to Three Rivers to sue for peace. They arrived on July 5, 1644. The conferences were almost as long and as elaborate as peace conferences nowadays. They are described in the Relations of 1644.(87) Peace was not finally concluded until May, 1646. Jogues had been present at the conference. Knowing the Iroquois as he did, he perceived that the embassy did not represent the responsible captains of the tribe. No one was present from the principal village, Ossernenon. It was clear also that they wished to be at peace only with the French, not with the Hurons. However, it was considered proper to send an embassy from New France to meet the chiefs of the Iroquois at Ossernenon, and Jogues was selected as ambassador on this occasion, with John Bourdon, who had for ten years been active in the government of the colony.
Jogues knew full well what his mission was to be. Even the Indians about Three Rivers warned him to be cautious, advising him especially while on this errand not to mention religion, and even to leave aside his clerical robes, as the Mohawks hated the "black robe", as they called the missionary. Jerome Lalemant was also aware of the peril of the expedition. When referring to it in the Relation of 1646, he wrote: "When I speak of an Iroquois mission, it seems to me that I am talking of some dream; and yet it is a reality. With good reason we have given it the name of 'Mission of the Martyrs'; for, besides the cruelty which these savages have already inflicted on some persons devoted to the salvation of souls, besides the pains and hardships which those appointed for this mission must encounter, we can say in truth, that it has already been ensanguined with the blood of a martyr, inasmuch as the Frenchman [Rene Goupil] who was killed at the feet of Father Jogues lost his life for having formed the sign of our Faith on some little Iroquois children. If we are permitted to conjecture in matters that seem highly probable, we may believe that the designs we have formed against the empire of Satan will not bear fruit till they are irrigated with the blood of some other martyrs".(88)
Jogues and Bourdon left Three Rivers May 16th, going down by the route of Lake Champlain and Lake George. It was on this occasion he christened it by its first name, Lake of the Holy Sacrament. On the way he met Theresa Oiouhatan, who had been captured with him in 1642 and given in marriage to one of the captains.
It consoled him to find her so steadfast in her faith. On June 10th he met the sachems in general assembly. They spent a week confirming their pact with New France.
On July 3rd Jogues was back in Quebec. Determined to return to the Mohawks as missionary, Jogues had left at Ossernenon a box of some pious articles. It was no slight relief not to have to carry burdens over a trail that took so many days. This box was to be the cause of his death. The Mohawks had poor crops that year, and soon after Jogues' departure an epidemic broke out amongst them. They blamed the scarcity and the disease upon the box, which they superstitiously believed had a devil in it. When, therefore, they heard that Jogues was on his third visit to their villages, they waylaid him two days before his arrival, stripped and ill-treated him and John Lalande, his companion, with the one Huron guide that did not flee. His captors this time were members of the Bear Clan. The other clans did all they could to protect the prisoners, but to no purpose. They insisted that the fate of the prisoners should be decided in council, but the Bear family would not wait.
Traitorously some of them invited Jogues to a meal on the evening of the 18th of October, and tomahawked him as he was entering the cabin. Cutting off his head, they put it on one of the palisade poles, facing the route over which he had come. The next day they tomahawked his companion, Lalande, and the faithful Huron, beheading them also, and throwing the bodies into the river.
The report of the martyrdoms reached Governor Montmagny from the Governor of New Netherlands in a letter dated November 14, 1646, enclosing the report of Labatie, secretary to the commandant at Fort Orange. The Indians carried to the Dutch some of Jogues' possessions, his missal, ritual and cassock.
Lalemant's name for Ossernenon had been justified. It was now in reality the Mission of the Martyrs. Jogues, Apostle of the Iroquois, had been martyred by them there.