A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

F >> Francis Parkman >> The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century




The fifth, sixth, and seventh belts were to open the passage by water
from the French to the Iroquois, to chase hostile canoes from the river,
smooth away the rapids and cataracts, and calm the waves of the lake.
The eighth cleared the path by land. "You would have said," writes
Vimont, "that he was cutting down trees, hacking off branches, dragging
away bushes, and filling up holes."--"Look!" exclaimed the orator,
when he had ended this pantomime, "the road is open, smooth, and
straight"; and he bent towards the earth, as if to see that no impediment
remained. "There is no thorn, or stone, or log in the way. Now you may
see the smoke of our villages from Quebec to the heart of our country."

Another belt, of unusual size and beauty, was to bind the Iroquois,
the French, and their Indian allies together as one man. As he presented
it, the orator led forth a Frenchman and an Algonquin from among his
auditors, and, linking his arms with theirs, pressed them closely to his
sides, in token of indissoluble union.

The next belt invited the French to feast with the Iroquois. "Our
country is full of fish, venison, moose, beaver, and game of every kind.
Leave these filthy swine that run about among your houses, feeding on
garbage, and come and eat good food with us. The road is open; there is
no danger."

There was another belt to scatter the clouds, that the sun might shine on
the hearts of the Indians and the French, and reveal their sincerity and
truth to all; then others still, to confirm the Hurons in thoughts of
peace. By the fifteenth belt, Kiotsaton declared that the Iroquois had
always wished to send home Jogues and Bressani to their friends, and had
meant to do so; but that Jogues was stolen from them by the Dutch,
and they had given Bressani to them because he desired it. "If he had
but been patient," added the ambassador, "I would have brought him back
myself. Now I know not what has befallen him. Perhaps he is drowned.
Perhaps he is dead." Here Jogues said, with a smile, to the Jesuits near
him, "They had the pile laid to burn me. They would have killed me a
hundred times, if God had not saved my life."

Two or three more belts were hung on the line, each with its appropriate
speech; and, then the speaker closed his harangue: "I go to spend what
remains of the summer in my own country, in games and dances and
rejoicing for the blessing of peace." He had interspersed his discourse
throughout with now a song and now a dance; and the council ended in a
general dancing, in which Iroquois, Hurons, Algonquins, Montagnais,
Atticamegues, and French, all took part, after their respective fashions.

In spite of one or two palpable falsehoods that embellished his oratory,
the Jesuits were delighted with him. "Every one admitted," says Vimont,
"that he was eloquent and pathetic. In short, he showed himself an
excellent actor, for one who has had no instructor but Nature. I
gathered only a few fragments of his speech from the mouth of the
interpreter, who gave us but broken portions of it, and did not translate
consecutively."

[ Vimont describes the council at length in the Relation of 1645.
Marie de l'Incarnation also describes it in a letter to her son, of
Sept. 14, 1645. She evidently gained her information from Vimont and
the other Jesuits present. ]

Two days after, another council was called, when the Governor gave his
answer, accepting the proffered peace, and confirming his acceptance by
gifts of considerable value. He demanded as a condition, that the Indian
allies of the French should be left unmolested, until their principal
chiefs, who were not then present, should make a formal treaty with the
Iroquois in behalf of their several nations. Piskaret then made a
present to wipe away the remembrance of the Iroquois he had slaughtered,
and the assembly was dissolved.

In the evening, Vimont invited the ambassadors to the mission-house,
and gave each of them a sack of tobacco and a pipe. In return, Kiotsaton
made him a speech: "When I left my country, I gave up my life; I went to
meet death, and I owe it to you that I am yet alive. I thank you that I
still see the sun; I thank you for all your words and acts of kindness; I
thank you for your gifts. You have covered me with them from head to
foot. You left nothing free but my mouth; and now you have stopped that
with a handsome pipe, and regaled it with the taste of the herb we love.
I bid you farewell,--not for a long time, for you will hear from us soon.
Even if we should be drowned on our way home, the winds and the waves
will bear witness to our countrymen of your favors; and I am sure that
some good spirit has gone before us to tell them of the good news that we
are about to bring." [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 28. ]

On the next day, he and his companion set forth on their return.
Kiotsaton, when he saw his party embarked, turned to the French and
Indians who lined the shore, and said with a loud voice, "Farewell,
brothers! I am one of your relations now." Then turning to the
Governor,--"Onontio, your name will be great over all the earth. When I
came hither, I never thought to carry back my head, I never thought to
come out of your doors alive; and now I return loaded with honors, gifts,
and kindness." "Brothers,"--to the Indians,--"obey Onontio and the
French. Their hearts and their thoughts are good. Be friends with them,
and do as they do. You shall hear from us soon."

The Indians whooped and fired their guns; there was a cannon-shot from
the fort; and the sail-boat that bore the distinguished visitors moved on
its way towards the Richelieu.

But the work was not done. There must be more councils, speeches,
wampum-belts, and gifts of all kinds,--more feasts, dances, songs,
and uproar. The Indians gathered at Three Rivers were not sufficient in
numbers or in influence to represent their several tribes; and more were
on their way. The principal men of the Hurons were to come down this
year, with Algonquins of many tribes, from the North and the Northwest;
and Kiotsaton had promised that Iroquois ambassadors, duly empowered,
should meet them at Three Rivers, and make a solemn peace with them all,
under the eye of Onontio. But what hope was there that this swarm of
fickle and wayward savages could be gathered together at one time and at
one place,--or that, being there, they could be restrained from cutting
each other's throats? Yet so it was; and in this happy event the Jesuits
saw the interposition of God, wrought upon by the prayers of those pious
souls in France who daily and nightly besieged Heaven with supplications
for the welfare of the Canadian missions. [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 29. ]

First came a band of Montagnais; next followed Nipissings, Atticamegues,
and Algonquins of the Ottawa, their canoes deep-laden with furs. Then,
on the tenth of September, appeared the great fleet of the Hurons,
sixty canoes, bearing a host of warriors, among whom the French
recognized the tattered black cassock of Father Jerome Lalemant. There
were twenty French soldiers, too, returning from the Huron country,
whither they had been sent the year before, to guard the Fathers and
their flock.

Three Rivers swarmed like an ant-hill with savages. The shore was lined
with canoes; the forests and the fields were alive with busy camps.
The trade was brisk; and in its attendant speeches, feasts, and dances,
there was no respite.

But where were the Iroquois? Montmagny and the Jesuits grew very
anxious. In a few days more the concourse would begin to disperse,
and the golden moment be lost. It was a great relief when a canoe
appeared with tidings that the promised embassy was on its way; and yet
more, when, on the seventeenth, four Iroquois approached the shore, and,
in a loud voice, announced themselves as envoys of their nation. The
tumult was prodigious. Montmagny's soldiers formed a double rank,
and the savage rabble, with wild eyes and faces smeared with grease and
paint, stared over the shoulders and between the gun-barrels of the
musketeers, as the ambassadors of their deadliest foe stalked, with
unmoved visages, towards the fort.

Now council followed council, with an insufferable prolixity of
speech-making. There were belts to wipe out the memory of the slain;
belts to clear the sky, smooth the rivers, and calm the lakes; a belt to
take the hatchet from the hands of the Iroquois; another to take away
their guns; another to take away their shields; another to wash the
war-paint from their faces; and another to break the kettle in which they
boiled their prisoners. [ Vimont, Relation, 1645, 34. ] In short,
there were belts past numbering, each with its meaning, sometimes literal,
sometimes figurative, but all bearing upon the great work of peace.
At length all was ended. The dances ceased, the songs and the whoops
died away, and the great muster dispersed,--some to their smoky lodges on
the distant shores of Lake Huron, and some to frozen hunting-grounds in
northern forests.

There was peace in this dark and blood-stained wilderness. The lynx,
the panther, and the wolf had made a covenant of love; but who should be
their surety? A doubt and a fear mingled with the joy of the Jesuit
Fathers; and to their thanksgivings to God they joined a prayer, that the
hand which had given might still be stretched forth to preserve.




CHAPTER XX.

1645, 1646.

THE PEACE BROKEN.


UNCERTAINTIES.--THE MISSION OF JOGUES.--HE REACHES THE MOHAWKS.--
HIS RECEPTION.--HIS RETURN.--HIS SECOND MISSION.--WARNINGS OF DANGER.--
RAGE OF THE MOHAWKS.--MURDER OF JOGUES.


There is little doubt that the Iroquois negotiators acted, for the moment,
in sincerity. Guillaume Couture, who returned with them and spent the
winter in their towns, saw sufficient proof that they sincerely desired
peace. And yet the treaty had a double defect. First, the wayward,
capricious, and ungoverned nature of the Indian parties to it, on both
sides, made a speedy rupture more than likely. Secondly, in spite of
their own assertion to the contrary, the Iroquois envoys represented,
not the confederacy of the five nations, but only one of these nations,
the Mohawks: for each of the members of this singular league could,
and often did, make peace and war independently of the rest.

It was the Mohawks who had made war on the French and their Indian allies
on the lower St. Lawrence. They claimed, as against the other Iroquois,
a certain right of domain to all this region; and though the warriors of
the four upper nations had sometimes poached on the Mohawk preserve,
by murdering both French and Indians at Montreal, they employed their
energies for the most part in attacks on the Hurons, the Upper Algonquins,
and other tribes of the interior. These attacks still continued,
unaffected by the peace with the Mohawks. Imperfect, however, as the
treaty was, it was invaluable, could it but be kept inviolate; and to
this end Montmagny, the Jesuits, and all the colony, anxiously turned
their thoughts.

[ The Mohawks were at this time more numerous, as compared with the other
four nations of the Iroquois, than they were a few years later. They
seem to have suffered more reverses in war than any of the others.
At this time they may be reckoned at six or seven hundred warriors.
A war with the Mohegans, and another with the Andastes, besides their war
with the Algonquins and the French of Canada soon after, told severely on
their strength. The following are estimates of the numbers of the
Iroquois warriors made in 1660 by the author of the Relation of that year,
and by Wentworth Greenhalgh in 1677, from personal inspection:--

1660. 1677.

Mohawks . . . . . 500 . . 300
Oneidas . . . . . 100 . . 200
Onondagas . . . . 300 . . 350
Cayugas . . . . . 300 . . 300
Senecas . . . . . 1,000 . . 1,000
----- -----
2,200 2,150 ]

It was to hold the Mohawks to their faith that Couture had bravely gone
back to winter among them; but an agent of more acknowledged weight was
needed, and Father Isaac Jogues was chosen. No white man, Couture
excepted, knew their language and their character so well. His errand
was half political, half religious; for not only was he to be the bearer
of gifts, wampum-belts, and messages from the Governor, but he was also
to found a new mission, christened in advance with a prophetic name,--the
Mission of the Martyrs.

For two years past, Jogues had been at Montreal; and it was here that he
received the order of his Superior to proceed to the Mohawk towns.
At first, nature asserted itself, and he recoiled involuntarily at the
thought of the horrors of which his scarred body and his mutilated hands
were a living memento. [ Lettre du P. Isaac Jogues au B. P. Jérosme
L'Allemant. Montreal, 2 Mai, 1646. MS. ] It was a transient weakness;
and he prepared to depart with more than willingness, giving thanks to
Heaven that he had been found worthy to suffer and to die for the saving
of souls and the greater glory of God.

He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend,
"I shall go, and shall not return." [ "Ibo et non redibo." Lettre du
P. Jogues au R. P. No date. ] An Algonquin convert gave him sage
advice. "Say nothing about the Faith at first, for there is nothing so
repulsive, in the beginning, as our doctrine, which seems to destroy
everything that men hold dear; and as your long cassock preaches, as well
as your lips, you had better put on a short coat." Jogues, therefore,
exchanged the uniform of Loyola for a civilian's doublet and hose; "for,"
observes his Superior, "one should be all things to all men, that he may
gain them all to Jesus Christ." [ Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 15. ]
It would be well, if the application of the maxim had always been as
harmless.

Jogues left Three Rivers about the middle of May, with the Sieur Bourdon,
engineer to the Governor, two Algonquins with gifts to confirm the peace,
and four Mohawks as guides and escort. He passed the Richelieu and Lake
Champlain, well-remembered scenes of former miseries, and reached the
foot of Lake George on the eve of Corpus Christi. Thence he called the
lake Lac St. Sacrement; and this name it preserved, until, a century
after, an ambitious Irishman, in compliment to the sovereign from whom he
sought advancement, gave it the name it bears.

[ Mr. Shea very reasonably suggests, that a change from Lake George to
Lake Jogues would be equally easy and appropriate. ]

From Lake George they crossed on foot to the Hudson, where, being greatly
fatigued by their heavy loads of gifts, they borrowed canoes at an
Iroquois fishing station, and descended to Fort Orange. Here Jogues met
the Dutch friends to whom he owed his life, and who now kindly welcomed
and entertained him. After a few days he left them, and ascended the
River Mohawk to the first Mohawk town. Crowds gathered from the
neighboring towns to gaze on the man whom they had known as a scorned and
abused slave, and who now appeared among them as the ambassador of a
power which hitherto, indeed, they had despised, but which in their
present mood they were willing to propitiate.

There was a council in one of the lodges; and while his crowded auditory
smoked their pipes, Jogues stood in the midst, and harangued them.
He offered in due form the gifts of the Governor, with the wampum belts
and their messages of peace, while at every pause his words were echoed
by a unanimous grunt of applause from the attentive concourse. Peace
speeches were made in return; and all was harmony. When, however,
the Algonquin deputies stood before the council, they and their gifts
were coldly received. The old hate, maintained by traditions of mutual
atrocity, burned fiercely under a thin semblance of peace; and though no
outbreak took place, the prospect of the future was very ominous.

The business of the embassy was scarcely finished, when the Mohawks
counselled Jogues and his companions to go home with all despatch, saying,
that, if they waited longer, they might meet on the way warriors of the
four upper nations, who would inevitably kill the two Algonquin deputies,
if not the French also. Jogues, therefore, set out on his return; but
not until, despite the advice of the Indian convert, he had made the
round of the houses, confessed and instructed a few Christian prisoners
still remaining here, and baptized several dying Mohawks. Then he and
his party crossed through the forest to the southern extremity of Lake
George, made bark canoes, and descended to Fort Richelieu, where they
arrived on the twenty seventh of June. [ Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 17. ]

His political errand was accomplished. Now, should he return to the
Mohawks, or should the Mission of the Martyrs be for a time abandoned?
Lalemant, who had succeeded Vimont as Superior of the missions, held a
council at Quebec with three other Jesuits, of whom Jogues was one,
and it was determined, that, unless some new contingency should arise,
he should remain for the winter at Montreal. [ Journal des Supérieurs
des Jésuites. MS. ] This was in July. Soon after, the plan was changed,
for reasons which do not appear, and Jogues received orders to repair to
his dangerous post. He set out on the twenty-fourth of August,
accompanied by a young Frenchman named Lalande, and three or four Hurons.
[ Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites. MS. ] On the way they met
Indians who warned them of a change of feeling in the Mohawk towns,
and the Hurons, alarmed, refused to go farther. Jogues, naturally
perhaps the most timid man of the party, had no thought of drawing back,
and pursued his journey with his young companion, who, like other _donnés_
of the missions; was scarcely behind the Jesuits themselves in devoted
enthusiasm.

The reported change of feeling had indeed taken place; and the occasion
of it was characteristic. On his previous visit to the Mohawks, Jogues,
meaning to return, had left in their charge a small chest or box.
From the first they were distrustful, suspecting that it contained some
secret mischief. He therefore opened it, and showed them the contents,
which were a few personal necessaries; and having thus, as he thought,
reassured them, locked the box, and left it in their keeping. The Huron
prisoners in the town attempted to make favor with their Iroquois enemies
by abusing their French friends,--declaring them to be sorcerers, who had
bewitched, by their charms and mummeries, the whole Huron nation, and
caused drought, famine, pestilence, and a host of insupportable miseries.
Thereupon, the suspicions of the Mohawks against the box revived with
double force, and they were convinced that famine, the pest, or some
malignant spirit was shut up in it, waiting the moment to issue forth and
destroy them. There was sickness in the town, and caterpillars were
eating their corn: this was ascribed to the sorceries of the Jesuit.
[ Lettre de Marie de l'Incarnation à son Fils. Québec, . . . 1647. ]
Still they were divided in opinion. Some stood firm for the French;
others were furious against them. Among the Mohawks, three clans or
families were predominant, if indeed they did not compose the entire
nation,--the clans of the Bear, the Tortoise, and the Wolf. [ See
Introduction. ] Though, by the nature of their constitution, it was
scarcely possible that these clans should come to blows, so intimately
were they bound together by ties of blood, yet they were often divided on
points of interest or policy; and on this occasion the Bear raged against
the French, and howled for war, while the Tortoise and the Wolf still
clung to the treaty. Among savages, with no government except the
intermittent one of councils, the party of action and violence must
always prevail. The Bear chiefs sang their war-songs, and, followed by
the young men of their own clan, and by such others as they had infected
with their frenzy, set forth, in two bands, on the war-path.

The warriors of one of these bands were making their way through the
forests between the Mohawk and Lake George, when they met Jogues and
Lalande. They seized them, stripped them, and led them in triumph to
their town. Here a savage crowd surrounded them, beating them with
sticks and with their fists. One of them cut thin strips of flesh from
the back and arms of Jogues, saying, as he did so, "Let us see if this
white flesh is the flesh of an oki."--"I am a man like yourselves,"
replied Jogues; "but I do not fear death or torture. I do not know why
you would kill me. I come here to confirm the peace and show you the
way to heaven, and you treat me like a dog." [ 1 ]--"You shall die
to-morrow," cried the rabble. "Take courage, we shall not burn you.
We shall strike you both with a hatchet, and place your heads on the
palisade, that your brothers may see you when we take them prisoners."
[ 2 ] The clans of the Wolf and the Tortoise still raised their voices
in behalf of the captive Frenchmen; but the fury of the minority swept
all before it.

[ 1 Lettre du P. De Quen au R. P. Lallemant; no date. MS. ]

[ 2 Lettre de J. Labatie à M. La Montagne, Fort d'Orange, 30 Oct. 1646.
MS. ]

In the evening,--it was the eighteenth of October,--Jogues, smarting with
his wounds and bruises, was sitting in one of the lodges, when an Indian
entered, and asked him to a feast. To refuse would have been an offence.
He arose and followed the savage, who led him to the lodge of the Bear
chief. Jogues bent his head to enter, when another Indian, standing
concealed within, at the side of the doorway, struck at him with a
hatchet. An Iroquois, called by the French Le Berger, [ 1 ] who seems to
have followed in order to defend him, bravely held out his arm to ward
off the blow; but the hatchet cut through it, and sank into the
missionary's brain. He fell at the feet of his murderer, who at once
finished the work by hacking off his head. Lalande was left in suspense
all night, and in the morning was killed in a similar manner. The bodies
of the two Frenchmen were then thrown into the Mohawk, and their heads
displayed on the points of the palisade which inclosed the town. [ 2 ]

[ 1 It has been erroneously stated that this brave attempt to save
Jogues was made by the orator Kiotsaton. Le Berger was one of those who
had been made prisoners by Piskaret, and treated kindly by the French.
In 1648, he voluntarily came to Three Rivers, and gave himself up to a
party of Frenchmen. He was converted, baptized, and carried to France,
where his behavior is reported to have been very edifying, but where he
soon died. "Perhaps he had eaten his share of more than fifty men,"
is the reflection of Father Ragueneau, after recounting his exemplary
conduct.--Relation, 1650, 43-48. ]

[ 2 In respect to the death of Jogues, the best authority is the letter
of Labatie, before cited. He was the French interpreter at Fort Orange,
and, being near the scene of the murder, took pains to learn the facts.
The letter was inclosed in another written to Montmagny by the Dutch
Governor, Kieft, which is also before me, together with a MS. account,
written from hearsay, by Father Buteux, and a letter of De Quen, cited
above. Compare the Relations of 1647 and 1650. ]

Thus died Isaac Jogues, one of the purest examples of Roman Catholic
virtue which this Western continent has seen. The priests, his
associates, praise his humility, and tell us that it reached the point of
self-contempt,--a crowning virtue in their eyes; that he regarded himself
as nothing, and lived solely to do the will of God as uttered by the lips
of his Superiors. They add, that, when left to the guidance of his own
judgment, his self-distrust made him very slow of decision, but that,
when acting under orders, he knew neither hesitation nor fear. With all
his gentleness, he had a certain warmth or vivacity of temperament; and
we have seen how, during his first captivity, while humbly submitting to
every caprice of his tyrants and appearing to rejoice in abasement,
a derisive word against his faith would change the lamb into the lion,
and the lips that seemed so tame would speak in sharp, bold tones of
menace and reproof.




CHAPTER XXI.

1646, 1647.

ANOTHER WAR.


MOHAWK INROADS.--THE HUNTERS OF MEN.--THE CAPTIVE CONVERTS.--
THE ESCAPE OF MARIE.--HER STORY.--THE ALGONQUIN PRISONER'S REVENGE.--
HER FLIGHT.--TERROR OF THE COLONISTS.--JESUIT INTREPIDITY.


The peace was broken, and the hounds of war turned loose. The contagion
spread through all the Mohawk nation, the war-songs were sung, and the
warriors took the path for Canada. The miserable colonists and their
more miserable allies woke from their dream of peace to a reality of fear
and horror. Again Montreal and Three Rivers were beset with murdering
savages, skulking in thickets and prowling under cover of night, yet,
when it came to blows, displaying a courage almost equal to the ferocity
that inspired it. They plundered and burned Fort Richelieu, which its
small garrison had abandoned, thus leaving the colony without even the
semblance of protection. Before the spring opened, all the fighting men
of the Mohawks took the war-path; but it is clear that many of them still
had little heart for their bloody and perfidious work; for, of these
hardy and all-enduring warriors, two-thirds gave out on the way, and
returned, complaining that the season was too severe. [ Lettre du
P. Buteux au R. P. Lalemant. MS. ] Two hundred or more kept on, divided
into several bands.

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