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The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

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




The Colony of Massachusetts had applied to the French officials at Quebec,
with a view to a reciprocity of trade. The Iroquois had brought Canada
to extremity, and the French Governor conceived the hope of gaining the
powerful support of New England by granting the desired privileges on
condition of military aid. But, as the Puritans would scarcely see it
for their interest to provoke a dangerous enemy, who had thus far never
molested them, it was resolved to urge the proposed alliance as a point
of duty. The Abenaquis had suffered from Mohawk inroads; and the French,
assuming for the occasion that they were under the jurisdiction of the
English colonies, argued that they were bound to protect them.
Druilletes went in a double character,--as an envoy of the government at
Quebec, and as an agent of his Abenaqui flock, who had been advised to
petition for English assistance. The time seemed inauspicious for a
Jesuit visit to Boston; for not only had it been announced as foremost
among the objects in colonizing New England, "to raise a bulwark against
the kingdom of Antichrist, which the Jesuits labor to rear up in all
places of the world," [ 1 ] but, three years before, the Legislature of
Massachusetts had enacted, that Jesuits entering the colony should be
expelled, and if they returned, hanged. [ 2 ]

[ 1 Considerations for the Plantation in New England.--See Hutchinson,
Collection, 27. Mr. Savage thinks that this paper was by Winthrop.
See Savage's Winthrop, I. 360, note. ]

[ 2 See the Act, in Hazard, 550. ]

Nevertheless, on the first of September, Druilletes set forth from Quebec
with a Christian chief of Sillery, crossed forests, mountains, and
torrents, and reached Norridgewock, the highest Abenaqui settlement on
the Kennebec. Thence he descended to the English trading-house at
Augusta, where his fast friend, the Puritan Winslow, gave him a warm
welcome, entertained him hospitably, and promised to forward the object
of his mission. He went with him, at great personal inconvenience,
to Merrymeeting Bay, where Druilletes embarked in an English vessel for
Boston. The passage was stormy, and the wind ahead. He was forced to
land at Cape Ann, or, as he calls it, _Kepane_, whence, partly on foot,
partly in boats along the shore, he made his way to Boston. The
three-hilled city of the Puritans lay chill and dreary under a December
sky, as the priest crossed in a boat from the neighboring peninsula of
Charlestown.

Winslow was agent for the merchant, Edward Gibbons, a personage of note,
whose life presents curious phases,--a reveller of Merry Mount, a bold
sailor, a member of the church, an adventurous trader, an associate of
buccaneers, a magistrate of the commonwealth, and a major-general. [ 1 ]
The Jesuit, with credentials from the Governor of Canada and letters from
Winslow, met a reception widely different from that which the law
enjoined against persons of his profession. [ 2 ] Gibbons welcomed him
heartily, prayed him to accept no other lodging than his house while he
remained in Boston, and gave him the key of a chamber, in order that he
might pray after his own fashion, without fear of disturbance. An
accurate Catholic writer thinks it likely that he brought with him the
means of celebrating the Mass. [ J. G. Shea, in Boston Pilot. ] If so,
the house of the Puritan was, no doubt, desecrated by that Popish
abomination; but be this as it may, Massachusetts, in the person of her
magistrate, became the gracious host of one of those whom, next to the
Devil and an Anglican bishop, she most abhorred.

[ 1 An account of him will be found in Palfrey, Hist. of New England,
II. 225, note. ]

[ 2 In the Act, an exception, however, was made in favor of Jesuits
coming as ambassadors or envoys from their government, who were declared
not liable to the penalty of hanging. ]

On the next day, Gibbons took his guest to Roxbury,--called _Rogsbray_ by
Druilletes,--to see the Governor, the harsh and narrow Dudley, grown gray
in repellent virtue and grim honesty. Some half a century before,
he had served in France, under Henry the Fourth; but he had forgotten his
French, and called for an interpreter to explain the visitor's
credentials. He received Druilletes with courtesy, and promised to call
the magistrates together on the following Tuesday to hear his proposals.
They met accordingly, and Druilletes was asked to dine with them.
The old Governor sat at the head of the table, and after dinner invited
the guest to open the business of his embassy. They listened to him,
desired him to withdraw, and, after consulting among themselves, sent for
him to join them again at supper, when they made him an answer, of which
the record is lost, but which evidently was not definitive.

As the Abenaqui Indians were within the jurisdiction of Plymouth, [ 1 ]
Druilletes proceeded thither in his character of their agent. Here,
again, he was received with courtesy and kindness. Governor Bradford
invited him to dine, and, as it was Friday, considerately gave him a
dinner of fish. Druilletes conceived great hope that the colony could be
wrought upon to give the desired assistance; for some of the chief
inhabitants had an interest in the trade with the Abenaquis. [ 2 ]
He came back by land to Boston, stopping again at Roxbury on the way.
It was night when he arrived; and, after the usual custom, he took
lodging with the minister. Here were several young Indians, pupils of
his host: for he was no other than the celebrated Eliot, who, during the
past summer, had established his mission at Natick, [ 3 ] and was now
laboring, in the fulness of his zeal, in the work of civilization and
conversion. There was great sympathy between the two missionaries; and
Eliot prayed his guest to spend the winter with him.

[ 1 For the documents on the title of Plymouth to lands on the Kennebec,
see Drake's additions to Baylies's History of New Plymouth, 36, where
they are illustrated by an ancient map. The patent was obtained as early
as 1628, and a trading-house soon after established. ]

[ 2 The Record of the Colony of Plymouth, June 5, 1651, contains,
however the entry, "The Court declare themselves not to be willing to aid
them (the French) in their design, or to grant them liberty to go through
their jurisdiction for the aforesaid purpose" (to attack the Mohawks). ]

[ 3 See Palfrey, New England, II. 336. ]

At Salem, which Druilletes also visited, in company with the minister of
Marblehead, he had an interview with the stern, but manly, Endicott, who,
he says, spoke French, and expressed both interest and good-will towards
the objects of the expedition. As the envoy had no money left, Endicott
paid his charges, and asked him to dine with the magistrates.

[ On Druilletes's visit to New England, see his journal, entitled Narre
du Voyage faict pour la Mission des Abenaquois, et des Connoissances
tiréz de la Nouvelle Angleterre et des Dispositions des Magistrats de
cette Republique pour le Secours contre les Iroquois. See also
Druilletes, Rapport sur le Résultat deses Négotiations, in Ferland,
Notes sur les Registres, 95. ]

Druilletes was evidently struck with the thrift and vigor of these sturdy
young colonies, and the strength of their population. He says that
Boston, meaning Massachusetts, could alone furnish four thousand fighting
men, and that the four united colonies could count forty thousand souls.
[ 1 ] These numbers may be challenged; but, at all events, the contrast
was striking with the attenuated and suffering bands of priests, nuns,
and fur-traders on the St. Lawrence. About twenty-one thousand persons
had come from Old to New England, with the resolve of making it their
home; and though this immigration had virtually ceased, the natural
increase had been great. The necessity, or the strong desire, of
escaping from persecution had given the impulse to Puritan colonization;
while, on the other hand, none but good Catholics, the favored class of
France, were tolerated in Canada. These had no motive for exchanging the
comforts of home and the smiles of Fortune for a starving wilderness and
the scalping-knives of the Iroquois. The Huguenots would have emigrated
in swarms; but they were rigidly forbidden. The zeal of propagandism and
the fur-trade were, as we have seen, the vital forces of New France.
Of her feeble population, the best part was bound to perpetual chastity;
while the fur-traders and those in their service rarely brought their
wives to the wilderness. The fur-trader, moreover, is always the worst
of colonists; since the increase of population, by diminishing the
numbers of the fur-bearing animals, is adverse to his interest. But
behind all this there was in the religious ideal of the rival colonies an
influence which alone would have gone far to produce the contrast in
material growth.

[ 1 Druilletes, Reflexions touchant ce qu'on peut esperer de la Nouvelle
Angleterre contre l'Irocquois (sic), appended to his journal. ]

To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's throne; but no less was the
earth His footstool: and each in its degree and its kind had its demands
on man. He held it a duty to labor and to multiply; and, building on the
Old Testament quite as much as on the New, thought that a reward on earth
as well as in heaven awaited those who were faithful to the law.
Doubtless, such a belief is widely open to abuse, and it would be folly
to pretend that it escaped abuse in New England; but there was in it an
element manly, healthful, and invigorating. On the other hand, those who
shaped the character, and in great measure the destiny, of New France had
always on their lips the nothingness and the vanity of life. For them,
time was nothing but a preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue
consisted in a renunciation of all the cares, toils, and interests of
earth. That such a doctrine has often been joined to an intense
worldliness, all history proclaims; but with this we have at present
nothing to do. If all mankind acted on it in good faith, the world would
sink into decrepitude. It is the monastic idea carried into the wide
field of active life, and is like the error of those who, in their zeal
to cultivate their higher nature, suffer the neglected body to dwindle
and pine, till body and mind alike lapse into feebleness and disease.

Druilletes returned to the Abenaquis, and thence to Quebec, full of hope
that the object of his mission was in a fair way of accomplishment.
The Governor, d'Ailleboust, [ 1 ] who had succeeded Montmagny, called his
council, and Druilletes was again dispatched to New England, together
with one of the principal inhabitants of Quebec, Jean Paul Godefroy. [ 2 ]
They repaired to New Haven, and appeared before the Commissioners of
the Four Colonies, then in session there; but their errand proved
bootless. The Commissioners refused either to declare war or to permit
volunteers to be raised in New England against the Iroquois. The Puritan,
like his descendant, would not fight without a reason. The bait of
free-trade with Canada failed to tempt him; and the envoys retraced their
steps, with a flat, though courteous refusal. [ 3 ]

[ 1 The same who, with his wife, had joined the colonists of Montreal.
See ante, chapter 18 (page 264). ]

[ 2 He was one of the Governor's council.--Ferland, Notes sur les
Registres, 67. ]

[ 3 On Druilletes's second embassy, see Lettre écrite par le Conseil de
Quebec aux Commissionaires de la Nouvelle Angleterre, in Charlevoix,
I. 287; Extrait des Registres de l'Ancien Conseil de Quebec, Ibid.,
I. 288; Copy of a Letter from the Commissioners of the United Colonies to
the Governor of Canada, in Hazard, II. 183; Answare to the Propositions
presented by the honered French Agents, Ibid., II. 184; and Hutchinson,
Collection of Papers, 240. Also, Records of the Commissioners of the
United Colonies, Sept. 5, 1651; and Commission of Druilletes and Godefroy,
in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 6. ]

Now let us stop for a moment at Quebec, and observe some notable changes
that had taken place in the affairs of the colony. The Company of the
Hundred Associates, whose outlay had been great and their profit small,
transferred to the inhabitants of the colony their monopoly of the
fur-trade, and with it their debts. The inhabitants also assumed their
obligations to furnish arms, munitions, soldiers, and works of defence,
to pay the Governor and other officials, introduce emigrants, and
contribute to support the missions. The Company was to receive, besides,
an annual acknowledgement of a thousand pounds of beaver, and was to
retain all seigniorial rights. The inhabitants were to form a
corporation, of which any one of them might be a member; and no
individual could trade on his own account, except on condition of selling
at a fixed price to the magazine of this new company.

[ Articles accordés entre les Directeurs et Associés de la Compagnie de
la Nelle France et les Députés des Habitans du dit Pays, 6 Mars, 1645.
MS. ]

This change took place in 1645. It was followed, in 1647, by the
establishment of a Council, composed of the Governor-General, the
Superior of the Jesuits, and the Governor of Montreal, who were invested
with absolute powers, legislative, judicial, and executive. The
Governor-General had an appointment of twenty-five thousand livres,
besides the privilege of bringing over seventy tons of freight, yearly,
in the Company's ships. Out of this he was required to pay the soldiers,
repair the forts, and supply arms and munitions. Ten thousand livres and
thirty tons of freight, with similar conditions, were assigned to the
Governor of Montreal. Under these circumstances, one cannot wonder that
the colony was but indifferently defended against the Iroquois, and that
the King had to send soldiers to save it from destruction. In the next
year, at the instance of Maisonneuve, another change was made. A
specified sum was set apart for purposes of defence, and the salaries of
the Governors were proportionably reduced. The Governor-General,
Montmagny, though he seems to have done better than could reasonably have
been expected, was removed; and, as Maisonneuve declined the office,
d'Ailleboust, another Montrealist, was appointed to it. This movement,
indeed, had been accomplished by the interest of the Montreal party; for
already there was no slight jealousy between Quebec and her rival.

The Council was reorganized, and now consisted of the Governor, the
Superior of the Jesuits, and three of the principal inhabitants. [ The
Governors of Montreal and Three Rivers, when present had also seats in
the Council. ] These last were to be chosen every three years by the
Council itself, in conjunction with the Syndics of Quebec, Montreal,
and Three Rivers. The Syndic was an officer elected by the inhabitants
of the community to which he belonged, to manage its affairs. Hence a
slight ingredient of liberty was introduced into the new organization.

The colony, since the transfer of the fur-trade, had become a resident
corporation of merchants, with the Governor and Council at its head.
They were at once the directors of a trading company, a legislative
assembly, a court of justice, and an executive body: more even than this,
for they regulated the private affairs of families and individuals.
The appointment and payment of clerks and the examining of accounts
mingled with high functions of government; and the new corporation of the
inhabitants seems to have been managed with very little consultation of
its members. How the Father Superior acquitted himself in his capacity
of director of a fur-company is nowhere recorded.

[ Those curious in regard to these new regulations will find an account
of them, at greater length, in Ferland and Faillon. ]

As for Montreal, though it had given a Governor to the colony, its
prospects were far from hopeful. The ridiculous Dauversière, its chief
founder, was sick and bankrupt; and the Associates of Montreal, once so
full of zeal and so abounding in wealth, were reduced to nine persons.
What it had left of vitality was in the enthusiastic Mademoiselle Mance,
the earnest and disinterested soldier, Maisonneuve, and the priest, Olier,
with his new Seminary of St. Sulpice.

Let us visit Quebec in midwinter. We pass the warehouses and dwellings
of the lower town, and as we climb the zigzag way now called Mountain
Street, the frozen river, the roofs, the summits of the cliff, and all
the broad landscape below and around us glare in the sharp sunlight with
a dazzling whiteness. At the top, scarcely a private house is to be
seen; but, instead, a fort, a church, a hospital, a cemetery, a house of
the Jesuits, and an Ursuline convent. Yet, regardless of the keen air,
soldiers, Jesuits, servants, officials, women, all of the little
community who are not cloistered, are abroad and astir. Despite the
gloom of the times, an unwonted cheer enlivens this rocky perch of France
and the Faith; for it is New-Year's Day, and there is an active
interchange of greetings and presents. Thanks to the nimble pen of the
Father Superior, we know what each gave and what each received. He thus
writes in his private journal:--"The soldiers went with their guns to
salute Monsieur the Governor; and so did also the inhabitants in a body.
He was beforehand with us, and came here at seven o'clock to wish us a
happy New-Year, each in turn, one after another. I went to see him after
mass. Another time we must be beforehand with him. M. Giffard also came
to see us. The Hospital nuns sent us letters of compliment very early in
the morning; and the Ursulines sent us some beautiful presents, with
candles, rosaries, a crucifix, etc., and, at dinner time, two excellent
pies. I sent them two images, in enamel, of St. Ignatius and St. Francis
Xavier. We gave to M. Giffard Father Bonnet's book on the life of Our
Lord; to M. des Châtelets, a little volume on Eternity; to M. Bourdon,
a telescope and compass; and to others, reliquaries, rosaries, medals,
images, etc. I went to see M. Giffard, M. Couillard, and Mademoiselle de
Repentigny. The Ursulines sent to beg that I would come and see them
before the end of the day. I went, and paid my compliments also to
Madame de la Peltrie, who sent us some presents. I was near leaving this
out, which would have been a sad oversight. We gave a crucifix to the
woman who washes the church-linen, a bottle of eau-de-vie to Abraham,
four handkerchiefs to his wife, some books of devotion to others, and two
handkerchiefs to Robert Hache. He asked for two more, and we gave them
to him."

[ Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS. Only fragments of this
curious record are extant. It was begun by Lalemant in 1645. For the
privilege of having what remains of it copied I am indebted to M. Jacques
Viger. The entry translated above is of Jan. 1, 1646. Of the persons
named in it, Giffard was seigneur of Beauport, and a member of the
Council; Des Châtelets was one of the earliest settlers, and connected by
marriage with Giffard; Couillard was son-in-law of the first settler,
Hébert; Mademoiselle de Repentigny was daughter of Le Gardeur de
Repentigny, commander of the fleet; Madame de la Peltrie has been
described already; Bourdon was chief engineer of the colony; Abraham was
Abraham Martin, pilot for the King on the St. Lawrence, from whom the
historic Plains of Abraham received their name. (See Ferland, Notes sur
Registres, 16.) The rest were servants, or persons of humble station. ]




CHAPTER XXIII.

1645-1648.

A DOOMED NATION.


INDIAN INFATUATION.--IROQUOIS AND HURON.--HURON TRIUMPHS.--
THE CAPTIVE IROQUOIS.--HIS FEROCITY AND FORTITUDE.--PARTISAN EXPLOITS.--
DIPLOMACY.--THE ANDASTES.--THE HURON EMBASSY.--NEW NEGOTIATIONS.--
THE IROQUOIS AMBASSADOR.--HIS SUICIDE.--IROQUOIS HONOR.


It was a strange and miserable spectacle to behold the savages of this
continent at the time when the knell of their common ruin had already
sounded. Civilization had gained a foothold on their borders. The long
and gloomy reign of barbarism was drawing near its close, and their
united efforts could scarcely have availed to sustain it. Yet, in this
crisis of their destiny, these doomed tribes were tearing each other's
throats in a wolfish fury, joined to an intelligence that served little
purpose but mutual destruction.

How the quarrel began between the Iroquois and their Huron kindred no man
can tell, and it is not worth while to conjecture. At this time, the
ruling passion of the savage Confederates was the annihilation of this
rival people and of their Algonquin allies,--if the understanding between
the Hurons and these incoherent hordes can be called an alliance.
United, they far outnumbered the Iroquois. Indeed, the Hurons alone were
not much inferior in force; for, by the largest estimates, the strength
of the five Iroquois nations must now have been considerably less than
three thousand warriors. Their true superiority was a moral one.
They were in one of those transports of pride, self-confidence, and rage
for ascendency, which, in a savage people, marks an era of conquest.
With all the defects of their organization, it was far better than that
of their neighbors. There were bickerings, jealousies, plottings,
and counter plottings, separate wars and separate treaties, among the
five members of the league; yet nothing could sunder them. The bonds
that united them were like cords of India-rubber: they would stretch,
and the parts would be seemingly disjoined, only to return to their old
union with the recoil. Such was the elastic strength of those relations
of clanship which were the life of the league. [ See ante, Introduction. ]

The first meeting of white men with the Hurons found them at blows with
the Iroquois; and from that time forward, the war raged with increasing
fury. Small scalping-parties infested the Huron forests, killing squaws
in the cornfields, or entering villages at midnight to tomahawk their
sleeping inhabitants. Often, too, invasions were made in force.
Sometimes towns were set upon and burned, and sometimes there were deadly
conflicts in the depths of the forests and the passes of the hills.
The invaders were not always successful. A bloody rebuff and a sharp
retaliation now and then requited them. Thus, in 1638, a war-party of a
hundred Iroquois met in the forest a band of three hundred Huron and
Algonquin warriors. They might have retreated, and the greater number
were for doing so; but Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, refused. "Look!"
he said, "the sky is clear; the Sun beholds us. If there were clouds to
hide our shame from his sight, we might fly; but, as it is, we must fight
while we can." They stood their ground for a time, but were soon
overborne. Four or five escaped; but the rest were surrounded, and
killed or taken. This year, Fortune smiled on the Hurons; and they took,
in all, more than a hundred prisoners, who were distributed among their
various towns, to be burned. These scenes, with them, occurred always in
the night; and it was held to be of the last importance that the torture
should be protracted from sunset till dawn. The too valiant Ononkwaya
was among the victims. Even in death he took his revenge; for it was
thought an augury of disaster to the victors, if no cry of pain could he
extorted from the sufferer, and, on the present occasion, he displayed an
unflinching courage, rare even among Indian warriors. His execution took
place at the town of Teanaustayé, called St. Joseph by the Jesuits.
The Fathers could not save his life, but, what was more to the purpose,
they baptized him. On the scaffold where he was burned, he wrought
himself into a fury which seemed to render him insensible to pain.
Thinking him nearly spent, his tormentors scalped him, when, to their
amazement, he leaped up, snatched the brands that had been the
instruments of his torture, drove the screeching crowd from the scaffold,
and held them all at bay, while they pelted him from below with sticks,
stones, and showers of live coals. At length he made a false step and
fell to the ground, when they seized him and threw him into the fire.
He instantly leaped out, covered with blood, cinders, and ashes, and
rushed upon them, with a blazing brand in each hand. The crowd gave way
before him, and he ran towards the town, as if to set it on fire.
They threw a pole across his way, which tripped him and flung him
headlong to the earth, on which they all fell upon him, cut off his hands
and feet, and again threw him into the fire. He rolled himself out,
and crawled forward on his elbows and knees, glaring upon them with such
unutterable ferocity that they recoiled once more, till, seeing that he
was helpless, they threw themselves upon him, and cut off his head.

[ Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1639, 68. It was this chief whose
severed hand was thrown to the Jesuits. See ante, chapter 11 (page 137). ]

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