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The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

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Maisonneuve sprang ashore, and fell on his knees. His followers imitated
his example; and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs of
thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms, and stores were landed. An altar
was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle Mance,
with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant, Charlotte Barré,
decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders.
[ Morin, Annales, MS., cited by Faillon, La Colonie Française, I. 440;
also Dollier de Casson, A.D. 1641-42, MS. ] Now all the company gathered
before the shrine. Here stood Vimont, in the rich vestments of his
office. Here were the two ladies, with their servant; Montmagny, no very
willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike figure, erect and tall,
his men clustering around him,--soldiers, sailors, artisans, and
laborers,--all alike soldiers at need. They kneeled in reverent silence
as the Host was raised aloft; and when the rite was over, the priest
turned and addressed them:--

"You are a grain of mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its
branches overshadow the earth. You are few, but your work is the work of
God. His smile is on you, and your children shall fill the Land."
[ Dollier de Casson, MS., as above. Vimont, in the Relation of 1642,
p. 87, briefly mentions the ceremony. ]

The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and twilight
came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow. They caught
them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung them before
the altar, where the Host remained exposed. Then they pitched their
tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards, and lay down
to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal.

[ The Associates of Montreal published, in 1643, a thick pamphlet in
quarto, entitled Les Véritables Motifs de Messieurs et Dames de la
Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal, pour la Conversion des Sauvages de la
Nouvelle France. It was written as an answer to aspersions cast upon
them, apparently by persons attached to the great Company of New France
known as the "Hundred Associates," and affords a curious exposition of
the spirit of their enterprise. It is excessively rare; but copies of
the essential portions are before me. The following is a characteristic
extract:--

"Vous dites que l'entreprise de Montréal est d'une dépense infinie,
plus convenable à un roi qu'a quelques particuliers, trop faibles pour la
soutenir; & vous alléguez encore les périls de la navigation & les
naufrages qui peuvent la ruiner. Vous avez mieux rencontré que vous ne
pensiez, en disant que c'est une œuvre de roi, puisque le Roi des rois
s'en mêle, lui à qui obéissent la mer & les vents. Nous ne craignons
donc pas les naufrages; il n'en suscitera que lorsque nous en aurons
besoin, & qu'il sera plus expédient pour sa gloire, que nous cherchons
uniquement. Comment avez-vous pu mettre dans votre esprit qu'appuyés de
nos propres forces, nous eussions présumé de penser à un si glorieux
dessein? Si Dieu n'est point dans l'affaire de Montréal, si c'est une
invention humaine, ne vous en mettez point en peine, elle ne durera
guère. Ce que vous prédisez arrivera, & quelque chose de pire encore;
mais si Dieu l'a ainsi voulu, qui êtes-vous pour lui contredire? C'était
la reflexion que le docteur Gamaliel faisait aux Juifs, en faveur des
Apôtres; pour vous, qui ne pouvez ni croire, ni faire, laissez les autres
en liberté de faire ce qu'ils croient que Dieu demande d'eux. Vous
assurez qu'il ne se fait plus de miracles; mais qui vous l'a dit? où cela
est-il écrit? Jésus-Christ assure, au contraire, que ceux qui auront
autant de Foi qu'un grain de senevé, feront, en son nom, des miracles
plus grands que ceux qu'il a faits lui-même. Depuis quand êtes-vous les
directeurs des operations divines, pour les réduire à certains temps &
dans la conduite ordinaire? Tant de saints mouvements, d'inspirations &
de vues intérieures, qu'il lui plait de donner à quelques âmes dont il se
sert pour l'avancement de cette œuvre, sont des marques de son bon
plaisir. Jusqu'-ici, il a pourvu au nécessaire; nous ne voulons point
d'abondance, & nous espérons que sa Providence continuera." ]

Is this true history, or a romance of Christian chivalry? It is both.




CHAPTER XVI.

1641-1644.

ISAAC JOGUES.


THE IROQUOIS WAR.--JOGUES.--HIS CAPTURE.--HIS JOURNEY TO THE MOHAWKS.--
LAKE GEORGE.--THE MOHAWK TOWNS.--THE MISSIONARY TORTURED.--
DEATH OF GOUPIL.--MISERY OF JOGUES.--THE MOHAWK "BABYLON."--
FORT ORANGE.--ESCAPE OF JOGUES.--MANHATTAN.--THE VOYAGE TO FRANCE.--
JOGUES AMONG HIS BRETHREN.--HE RETURNS TO CANADA.


The waters of the St. Lawrence rolled through a virgin wilderness, where,
in the vastness of the lonely woodlands, civilized man found a precarious
harborage at three points only,--at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Three
Rivers. Here and in the scattered missions was the whole of New
France,--a population of some three hundred souls in all. And now,
over these miserable settlements, rose a war-cloud of frightful portent.

It was thirty-two years since Champlain had first attacked the Iroquois.
[ See "Pioneers of France," 318. ] They had nursed their wrath for more
than a generation, and at length their hour was come. The Dutch traders
at Fort Orange, now Albany, had supplied them with fire-arms. The
Mohawks, the most easterly of the Iroquois nations, had, among their
seven or eight hundred warriors, no less than three hundred armed with
the arquebuse, a weapon somewhat like the modern carbine. [ 1 ] They
were masters of the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain,
had struck terror into their hearts.

[ 1 Vimont, Relation, 1643, 62. The Mohawks were the Agniés, or
Agneronons, of the old French writers.

According to the Journal of New Netherland, a contemporary Dutch document,
(see Colonial Documents of New York, I. 179,) the Dutch at Fort Orange
had supplied the Mohawks with four hundred guns; the profits of the trade,
which was free to the settlers, blinding them to the danger. ]

We have surveyed in the introductory chapter the character and
organization of this ferocious people; their confederacy of five nations,
bound together by a peculiar tie of clanship; their chiefs, half
hereditary, half elective; their government, an oligarchy in form and a
democracy in spirit; their minds, thoroughly savage, yet marked here and
there with traits of a vigorous development. The war which they had long
waged with the Hurons was carried on by the Senecas and the other Western
nations of their league; while the conduct of hostilities against the
French and their Indian allies in Lower Canada was left to the Mohawks.
In parties of from ten to a hundred or more, they would leave their towns
on the River Mohawk, descend Lake Champlain and the River Richelieu,
lie in ambush on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and attack the passing
boats or canoes. Sometimes they hovered about the fortifications of
Quebec and Three Rivers, killing stragglers, or luring armed parties into
ambuscades. They followed like hounds on the trail of travellers and
hunters; broke in upon unguarded camps at midnight; and lay in wait,
for days and weeks, to intercept the Huron traders on their yearly
descent to Quebec. Had they joined to their ferocious courage the
discipline and the military knowledge that belong to civilization,
they could easily have blotted out New France from the map, and made the
banks of the St. Lawrence once more a solitude; but, though the most
formidable of savages, they were savages only.

In the early morning of the second of August, 1642, [ For the date,
see Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1647, 18. ] twelve Huron canoes were
moving slowly along the northern shore of the expansion of the
St. Lawrence known as the Lake of St. Peter. There were on board about
forty persons, including four Frenchmen, one of them being the Jesuit,
Isaac Jogues, whom we have already followed on his missionary journey to
the towns of the Tobacco Nation. In the interval he had not been idle.
During the last autumn, (1641,) he, with Father Charles Raymbault,
had passed along the shore of Lake Huron northward, entered the strait
through which Lake Superior discharges itself, pushed on as far as the
Sault Sainte Marie, and preached the Faith to two thousand Ojibwas,
and other Algonquins there assembled. [ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons,
1642, 97. ] He was now on his return from a far more perilous errand.
The Huron mission was in a state of destitution. There was need of
clothing for the priests, of vessels for the altars, of bread and wine
for the eucharist, of writing materials,--in short, of everything; and,
early in the summer of the present year, Jogues had descended to Three
Rivers and Quebec with the Huron traders, to procure the necessary
supplies. He had accomplished his task, and was on his way back to the
mission. With him were a few Huron converts, and among them a noted
Christian chief, Eustache Ahatsistari. Others of the party were in
course of instruction for baptism; but the greater part were heathen,
whose canoes were deeply laden with the proceeds of their bargains with
the French fur-traders.

Jogues sat in one of the leading canoes. He was born at Orleans in 1607,
and was thirty-five years of age. His oval face and the delicate mould
of his features indicated a modest, thoughtful, and refined nature.
He was constitutionally timid, with a sensitive conscience and great
religious susceptibilities. He was a finished scholar, and might have
gained a literary reputation; but he had chosen another career, and one
for which he seemed but ill fitted. Physically, however, he was well
matched with his work; for, though his frame was slight, he was so active,
that none of the Indians could surpass him in running.

[ Buteux, Narré de la Prise du Père Jogues, MS.; Mémoire touchant le Père
Jogues, MS.

There is a portrait of him prefixed to Mr. Shea's admirable edition in
quarto of Jogues's Novum Belgium. ]

With him were two young men, René Goupil and Guillaume Couture, _donnés_
of the mission,--that is to say, laymen who, from a religious motive and
without pay, had attached themselves to the service of the Jesuits.
Goupil had formerly entered upon the Jesuit novitiate at Paris, but
failing health had obliged him to leave it. As soon as he was able,
he came to Canada, offered his services to the Superior of the mission,
was employed for a time in the humblest offices, and afterwards became an
attendant at the hospital. At length, to his delight, he received
permission to go up to the Hurons, where the surgical skill which he had
acquired was greatly needed; and he was now on his way thither. [ Jogues,
Notice sur René Goupil. ] His companion, Couture, was a man of
intelligence and vigor, and of a character equally disinterested.
[ For an account of him, see Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de
Québec, 83 (1863). ] Both were, like Jogues, in the foremost canoes;
while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted Hurons, in the rear.

The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
where it is filled with innumerable islands. [ Buteux, Narré de le Prise
du Père Jogues, MS. This document leaves no doubt as to the locality. ]
The forest was close on their right, they kept near the shore to avoid
the current, and the shallow water before them was covered with a dense
growth of tall bulrushes. Suddenly the silence was frightfully broken.
The war-whoop rose from among the rushes, mingled with the reports of
guns and the whistling of bullets; and several Iroquois canoes, filled
with warriors, pushed out from their concealment, and bore down upon
Jogues and his companions. The Hurons in the rear were seized with a
shameful panic. They leaped ashore; left canoes, baggage, and weapons;
and fled into the woods. The French and the Christian Hurons made fight
for a time; but when they saw another fleet of canoes approaching from
the opposite shores or islands, they lost heart, and those escaped who
could. Goupil was seized amid triumphant yells, as were also several of
the Huron converts. Jogues sprang into the bulrushes, and might have
escaped; but when he saw Goupil and the neophytes in the clutches of the
Iroquois, he had no heart to abandon them, but came out from his
hiding-place, and gave himself up to the astonished victors. A few of
them had remained to guard the prisoners; the rest were chasing the
fugitives. Jogues mastered his agony, and began to baptize those of the
captive converts who needed baptism.

Couture had eluded pursuit; but when he thought of Jogues and of what
perhaps awaited him, he resolved to share his fate, and, turning,
retraced his steps. As he approached, five Iroquois ran forward to meet
him; and one of them snapped his gun at his breast, but it missed fire.
In his confusion and excitement, Couture fired his own piece, and laid
the savage dead. The remaining four sprang upon him, stripped off all
his clothing, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his
fingers with the fury of famished dogs, and thrust a sword through one of
his hands. Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend,
threw his arms about his neck. The Iroquois dragged him away, beat him
with their fists and war-clubs till he was senseless, and, when he
revived, lacerated his fingers with their teeth, as they had done those
of Couture. Then they turned upon Goupil, and treated him with the same
ferocity. The Huron prisoners were left for the present unharmed.
More of them were brought in every moment, till at length the number of
captives amounted in all to twenty-two, while three Hurons had been
killed in the fight and pursuit. The Iroquois, about seventy in number,
now embarked with their prey; but not until they had knocked on the head
an old Huron, whom Jogues, with his mangled hands, had just baptized,
and who refused to leave the place. Then, under a burning sun, they
crossed to the spot on which the town of Sorel now stands at the mouth of
the river Richelieu, where they encamped.

[ The above, with much of what follows, rests on three documents.
The first is a long letter, written in Latin, by Jogues, to the Father
Provincial at Paris. It is dated at Rensselaerswyck (Albany), Aug. 5,
1643, and is preserved in the Societas Jesu Militans of Tanner, and in
the Mortes Illustres et Gesta eorum de Societate Jesu, etc., of Alegambe.
There is a French translation in Martin's Bressani, and an English
translation, by Mr. Shea, in the New York Hist. Coll. of 1857. The
second document is an old manuscript, entitled Narré de la Prise du Père
Jogues. It was written by the Jesuit Buteux, from the lips of Jogues.
Father Martin, S.J., in whose custody it was, kindly permitted me to have
a copy made from it. Besides these, there is a long account in the
Relation des Hurons of 1647, and a briefer one in that of 1644. All
these narratives show the strongest internal evidence of truth, and are
perfectly concurrent. They are also supported by statements of escaped
Huron prisoners, and by several letters and memoirs of the Dutch at
Rensselaerswyck. ]

Their course was southward, up the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain;
thence, by way of Lake George, to the Mohawk towns. The pain and fever
of their wounds, and the clouds of mosquitoes, which they could not drive
off, left the prisoners no peace by day nor sleep by night. On the
eighth day, they learned that a large Iroquois war-party, on their way to
Canada, were near at hand; and they soon approached their camp, on a
small island near the southern end of Lake Champlain. The warriors,
two hundred in number, saluted their victorious countrymen with volleys
from their guns; then, armed with clubs and thorny sticks, ranged
themselves in two lines, between which the captives were compelled to
pass up the side of a rocky hill. On the way, they were beaten with such
fury, that Jogues, who was last in the line, fell powerless, drenched in
blood and half dead. As the chief man among the French captives, he
fared the worst. His hands were again mangled, and fire applied to his
body; while the Huron chief, Eustache, was subjected to tortures even
more atrocious. When, at night, the exhausted sufferers tried to rest,
the young warriors came to lacerate their wounds and pull out their hair
and beards.

In the morning they resumed their journey. And now the lake narrowed to
the semblance of a tranquil river. Before them was a woody mountain,
close on their right a rocky promontory, and between these flowed a
stream, the outlet of Lake George. On those rocks, more than a hundred
years after, rose the ramparts of Ticonderoga. They landed, shouldered
their canoes and baggage, took their way through the woods, passed the
spot where the fierce Highlanders and the dauntless regiments of England
breasted in vain the storm of lead and fire, and soon reached the shore
where Abercrombie landed and Lord Howe fell. First of white men, Jogues
and his companions gazed on the romantic lake that bears the name,
not of its gentle discoverer, but of the dull Hanoverian king. Like a
fair Naiad of the wilderness, it slumbered between the guardian mountains
that breathe from crag and forest the stern poetry of war. But all then
was solitude; and the clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the
deadly crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened their angry echoes.

[ Lake George, according to Jogues, was called by the Mohawks
"Andiatarocte," or Place where the Lake closes. "Andiataraque" is found
on a map of Sanson. Spofford, Gazetteer of New York, article "Lake
George," says that it was called "Canideri-oit," or Tail of the Lake.
Father Martin, in his notes on Bressani, prefixes to this name that of
"Horicon," but gives no original authority.

I have seen an old Latin map on which the name "Horiconi" is set down as
belonging to a neighboring tribe. This seems to be only a misprint for
"Horicoui," that is, "Irocoui," or "Iroquois." In an old English map,
prefixed to the rare tract, A Treatise of New England, the "Lake of
Hierocoyes" is laid down. The name "Horicon," as used by Cooper in his
Last of the Mohicans, seems to have no sufficient historical foundation.
In 1646, the lake, as we shall see, was named "Lac St. Sacrement." ]

Again the canoes were launched, and the wild flotilla glided on its
way,--now in the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now
among the devious channels of the narrows, beset with woody islets,
where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the
cedar,--till they neared that tragic shore, where, in the following
century, New-England rustics baffled the soldiers of Dieskau, where
Montcalm planted his batteries, where the red cross waved so long amid
the smoke, and where at length the summer night was hideous with carnage,
and an honored name was stained with a memory of blood.

[ The allusion is, of course, to the siege of Fort William Henry in 1757,
and the ensuing massacre by Montcalm's Indians. Charlevoix, with his
usual carelessness, says that Jogues's captors took a circuitous route to
avoid enemies. In truth, however, they were not in the slightest danger
of meeting any; and they followed the route which, before the present
century, was the great highway between Canada and New Holland, or New
York. ]

The Iroquois landed at or near the future site of Fort William Henry,
left their canoes, and, with their prisoners, began their march for the
nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues,
though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body
covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a
heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and indeed the whole party,
were half starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the
upper Hudson, and, in thirteen days after leaving the St. Lawrence,
neared the wretched goal of their pilgrimage, a palisaded town, standing
on a hill by the banks of the River Mohawk.

The whoops of the victors announced their approach, and the savage hive
sent forth its swarms. They thronged the side of the hill, the old and
the young, each with a stick, or a slender iron rod, bought from the
Dutchmen on the Hudson. They ranged themselves in a double line,
reaching upward to the entrance of the town; and through this "narrow
road of Paradise," as Jogues calls it, the captives were led in single
file, Couture in front, after him a half-score of Hurons, then Goupil,
then the remaining Hurons, and at last Jogues. As they passed, they were
saluted with yells, screeches, and a tempest of blows. One, heavier than
the others, knocked Jogues's breath from his body, and stretched him on
the ground; but it was death to lie there, and, regaining his feet,
he staggered on with the rest. [ This practice of forcing prisoners to
"run the gauntlet" was by no means peculiar to the Iroquois, but was
common to many tribes. ] When they reached the town, the blows ceased,
and they were all placed on a scaffold, or high platform, in the middle
of the place. The three Frenchmen had fared the worst, and were
frightfully disfigured. Goupil, especially, was streaming with blood,
and livid with bruises from head to foot.

They were allowed a few minutes to recover their breath, undisturbed,
except by the hootings and gibes of the mob below. Then a chief called
out, "Come, let us caress these Frenchmen!"--and the crowd, knife in hand,
began to mount the scaffold. They ordered a Christian Algonquin woman,
a prisoner among them, to cut off Jogues's left thumb, which she did; and
a thumb of Goupil was also severed, a clam-shell being used as the
instrument, in order to increase the pain. It is needless to specify
further the tortures to which they were subjected, all designed to cause
the greatest possible suffering without endangering life. At night,
they were removed from the scaffold, and placed in one of the houses,
each stretched on his back, with his limbs extended, and his ankles and
wrists bound fast to stakes driven into the earthen floor. The children
now profited by the examples of their parents, and amused themselves by
placing live coals and red-hot ashes on the naked bodies of the prisoners,
who, bound fast, and covered with wounds and bruises which made every
movement a torture, were sometimes unable to shake them off.

In the morning, they were again placed on the scaffold, where, during
this and the two following days, they remained exposed to the taunts of
the crowd. Then they were led in triumph to the second Mohawk town,
and afterwards to the third, [ 1 ] suffering at each a repetition of
cruelties, the detail of which would be as monotonous as revolting.

[ 1 The Mohawks had but three towns. The first, and the lowest on the
river, was Osseruenon; the second, two miles above, was Andagaron; and
the third, Teonontogen: or, as Megapolensis, in his Sketch of the Mohawks,
writes the names, Asserué, Banagiro, and Thenondiogo. They all seem to
have been fortified in the Iroquois manner, and their united population
was thirty-five hundred, or somewhat more. At a later period, 1720,
there were still three towns, named respectively Teahtontaioga, Ganowauga,
and Ganeganaga. See the map in Morgan, League of the Iroquois. ]

In a house in the town of Teonontogen, Jogues was hung by the wrists
between two of the upright poles which supported the structure, in such a
manner that his feet could not touch the ground; and thus he remained for
some fifteen minutes, in extreme torture, until, as he was on the point
of swooning, an Indian, with an impulse of pity, cut the cords and
released him. While they were in this town, four fresh Huron prisoners,
just taken, were brought in, and placed on the scaffold with the rest.
Jogues, in the midst of his pain and exhaustion, took the opportunity to
convert them. An ear of green corn was thrown to him for food, and he
discovered a few rain-drops clinging to the husks. With these he
baptized two of the Hurons. The remaining two received baptism soon
after from a brook which the prisoners crossed on the way to another town.

Couture, though he had incensed the Indians by killing one of their
warriors, had gained their admiration by his bravery; and, after
torturing him most savagely, they adopted him into one of their families,
in place of a dead relative. Thenceforth he was comparatively safe.
Jogues and Goupil were less fortunate. Three of the Hurons had been
burned to death, and they expected to share their fate. A council was
held to pronounce their doom; but dissensions arose, and no result was
reached. They were led back to the first village, where they remained,
racked with suspense and half dead with exhaustion. Jogues, however,
lost no opportunity to baptize dying infants, while Goupil taught
children to make the sign of the cross. On one occasion, he made the
sign on the forehead of a child, grandson of an Indian in whose lodge
they lived. The superstition of the old savage was aroused. Some
Dutchmen had told him that the sign of the cross came from the Devil,
and would cause mischief. He thought that Goupil was bewitching the
child; and, resolving to rid himself of so dangerous a guest, applied for
aid to two young braves. Jogues and Goupil, clad in their squalid garb
of tattered skins, were soon after walking together in the forest that
adjoined the town, consoling themselves with prayer, and mutually
exhorting each other to suffer patiently for the sake of Christ and the
Virgin, when, as they were returning, reciting their rosaries, they met
the two young Indians, and read in their sullen visages an augury of ill.
The Indians joined them, and accompanied them to the entrance of the town,
where one of the two, suddenly drawing a hatchet from beneath his blanket,
struck it into the head of Goupil, who fell, murmuring the name of
Christ. Jogues dropped on his knees, and, bowing his head in prayer,
awaited the blow, when the murderer ordered him to get up and go home.
He obeyed but not until he had given absolution to his still breathing
friend, and presently saw the lifeless body dragged through the town amid
hootings and rejoicings.

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