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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




When the Iroquois could not win by force, they were sometimes more
successful with treachery. In the summer of 1645, two war-parties of the
hostile nations met in the forest. The Hurons bore themselves so well
that they had nearly gained the day, when the Iroquois called for a
parley, displayed a great number of wampum-belts, and said that they
wished to treat for peace. The Hurons had the folly to consent. The
chiefs on both sides sat down to a council, during which the Iroquois,
seizing a favorable moment, fell upon their dupes and routed them
completely, killing and capturing a considerable number. [ Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55. ]

The large frontier town of St. Joseph was well fortified with palisades,
on which, at intervals, were wooden watch-towers. On an evening of this
same summer of 1645, the Iroquois approached the place in force; and the
young Huron warriors, mounting their palisades, sang their war-songs all
night, with the utmost power of their lungs, in order that the enemy,
knowing them to be on their guard, might be deterred from an attack.
The night was dark, and the hideous dissonance resounded far and wide;
yet, regardless of the din, two Iroquois crept close to the palisade,
where they lay motionless till near dawn. By this time the last song had
died away, and the tired singers had left their posts or fallen asleep.
One of the Iroquois, with the silence and agility of a wild-cat, climbed
to the top of a watch-tower, where he found two slumbering Hurons,
brained one of them with his hatchet, and threw the other down to his
comrade, who quickly despoiled him of his life and his scalp. Then,
with the reeking trophies of their exploit, the adventurers rejoined
their countrymen in the forest.

The Hurons planned a counter-stroke; and three of them, after a journey
of twenty days, reached the great town of the Senecas. They entered it
at midnight, and found, as usual, no guard; but the doors of the houses
were made fast. They cut a hole in the bark side of one of them, crept
in, stirred the fading embers to give them light, chose each his man,
tomahawked him, scalped him, and escaped in the confusion. [ Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1646, 55, 56. ]

Despite such petty triumphs, the Hurons felt themselves on the verge of
ruin. Pestilence and war had wasted them away, and left but a skeleton
of their former strength. In their distress, they cast about them for
succor, and, remembering an ancient friendship with a kindred nation,
the Andastes, they sent an embassy to ask of them aid in war or
intervention to obtain peace. This powerful people dwelt, as has been
shown, on the River Susquehanna. [ 1 ] The way was long, even in a
direct line; but the Iroquois lay between, and a wide circuit was
necessary to avoid them. A Christian chief, whom the Jesuits had named
Charles, together with four Christian and four heathen Hurons, bearing
wampum-belts and gifts from the council, departed on this embassy on the
thirteenth of April, 1647, and reached the great town of the Andastes
early in June. It contained, as the Jesuits were told, no less than
thirteen hundred warriors. The council assembled, and the chief
ambassador addressed them:--

"We come from the Land of Souls, where all is gloom, dismay, and
desolation. Our fields are covered with blood; our houses are filled
only with the dead; and we ourselves have but life enough to beg our
friends to take pity on a people who are drawing near their end." [ 2 ]
Then he presented the wampum-belts and other gifts, saying that they were
the voice of a dying country.

[ 1 See Introduction. The Susquehannocks of Smith, clearly the same
people, are placed, in his map, on the east side of the Susquehanna,
some twenty miles from its mouth. He speaks of them as great enemies of
the Massawomekes (Mohawks). No other savage people so boldly resisted
the Iroquois; but the story in Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania, that a
hundred of them beat off sixteen hundred Senecas, is disproved by the
fact, that the Senecas, in their best estate, never had so many warriors.
The miserable remnant of the Andastes, called Conestogas, were massacred
by the Paxton Boys, in 1763. See "Conspiracy of Pontiac," 414. Compare
Historical Magazine, II. 294. ]

[ 2 "Il leur dit qu'il venoit du pays des Ames, où la guerre et la
terreur des ennemis auoit tout desolé, où les campagnes n'estoient
couuertes que de sang, où les cabanes n'estoient remplies que de cadaures,
et qu'il ne leur restoit à eux-mesmes de vie, sinon autant qu'ils en
auoient eu besoin pour venir dire à leurs amis, qu'ils eussent pitié d'vn
pays qui tiroit à sa fin."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 58. ]

The Andastes, who had a mortal quarrel with the Mohawks, and who had
before promised to aid the Hurons in case of need, returned a favorable
answer, but were disposed to try the virtue of diplomacy rather than the
tomahawk. After a series of councils, they determined to send
ambassadors, not to their old enemies, the Mohawks, but to the Onondagas,
Oneidas, and Cayugas, [ 1 ] who were geographically the central nations
of the Iroquois league, while the Mohawks and the Senecas were
respectively at its eastern and western extremities. By inducing the
three central nations, and, if possible, the Senecas also, to conclude a
treaty with the Hurons, these last would be enabled to concentrate their
force against the Mohawks, whom the Andastes would attack at the same
time, unless they humbled themselves and made peace. This scheme,
it will be seen, was based on the assumption, that the dreaded league of
the Iroquois was far from being a unit in action or counsel.

[ 1 Examination leaves no doubt that the Ouiouenronnons of Ragueneau
(Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46, 59) were the Oiogouins or Goyogouins,
that is to say, the Cayugas. They must not be confounded with the
Ouenrohronnons, a small tribe hostile to the Iroquois, who took refuge
among the Hurons in 1638. ]

Charles, with some of his colleagues, now set out for home, to report the
result of their mission; but the Senecas were lying in wait for them,
and they were forced to make a wide sweep through the Alleghanies,
Western Pennsylvania, and apparently Ohio, to avoid these vigilant foes.
It was October before they reached the Huron towns, and meanwhile hopes
of peace had arisen from another quarter. [ On this mission of the
Hurons to the Andastes, see Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 58-60. ]

Early in the spring, a band of Onondagas had made an inroad, but were
roughly handled by the Hurons, who killed several of them, captured
others, and put the rest to flight. The prisoners were burned, with the
exception of one who committed suicide to escape the torture, and one
other, the chief man of the party, whose name was Annenrais. Some of the
Hurons were dissatisfied at the mercy shown him, and gave out that they
would kill him; on which the chiefs, who never placed themselves in open
opposition to the popular will, secretly fitted him out, made him
presents, and aided him to escape at night, with an understanding that he
should use his influence at Onondaga in favor of peace. After crossing
Lake Ontario, he met nearly all the Onondaga warriors on the march to
avenge his supposed death; for he was a man of high account. They
greeted him as one risen from the grave; and, on his part, he persuaded
them to renounce their warlike purpose and return home. On their arrival,
the chiefs and old men were called to council, and the matter was debated
with the usual deliberation.

About this time the ambassador of the Andastes appeared with his
wampum-belts. Both this nation and the Onondagas had secret motives
which were perfectly in accordance. The Andastes hated the Mohawks as
enemies, and the Onondagas were jealous of them as confederates; for,
since they had armed themselves with Dutch guns, their arrogance and
boastings had given umbrage to their brethren of the league; and a peace
with the Hurons would leave the latter free to turn their undivided
strength against the Mohawks, and curb their insolence. The Oneidas and
the Cayugas were of one mind with the Onondagas. Three nations of the
league, to satisfy their spite against a fourth, would strike hands with
the common enemy of all. It was resolved to send an embassy to the
Hurons. Yet it may be, that, after all, the Onondagas had but half a
mind for peace. At least, they were unfortunate in their choice of an
ambassador. He was by birth a Huron, who, having been captured when a
boy, adopted and naturalized, had become more an Iroquois than the
Iroquois themselves; and scarcely one of the fierce confederates had shed
so much Huron blood. When he reached the town of St. Ignace, which he
did about midsummer, and delivered his messages and wampum-belts, there
was a great division of opinion among the Hurons. The Bear Nation--the
member of their confederacy which was farthest from the Iroquois, and
least exposed to danger--was for rejecting overtures made by so offensive
an agency; but those of the Hurons who had suffered most were eager for
peace at any price, and, after solemn deliberation, it was resolved to
send an embassy in return. At its head was placed a Christian chief
named Jean Baptiste Atironta; and on the first of August he and four
others departed for Onondaga, carrying a profusion of presents, and
accompanied by the apostate envoy of the Iroquois. As the ambassadors
had to hunt on the way for subsistence, besides making canoes to cross
Lake Ontario, it was twenty days before they reached their destination.
When they arrived, there was great jubilation, and, for a full month,
nothing but councils. Having thus sifted the matter to the bottom,
the Onondagas determined at last to send another embassy with Jean
Baptiste on his return, and with them fifteen Huron prisoners, as an
earnest of their good intentions, retaining, on their part, one of
Baptiste's colleagues as a hostage. This time they chose for their envoy
a chief of their own nation, named Scandawati, a man of renown, sixty
years of age, joining with him two colleagues. The old Onondaga entered
on his mission with a troubled mind. His anxiety was not so much for his
life as for his honor and dignity; for, while the Oneidas and the Cayugas
were acting in concurrence with the Onondagas, the Senecas had refused
any part in the embassy, and still breathed nothing but war. Would they,
or still more the Mohawks, so far forget the consideration due to one
whose name had been great in the councils of the League as to assault the
Hurons while he was among them in the character of an ambassador of his
nation, whereby his honor would be compromised and his life endangered.
His mind brooded on this idea, and he told one of his colleagues, that,
if such a slight were put upon him, he should die of mortification.
"I am not a dead dog," he said, "to be despised and forgotten. I am
worthy that all men should turn their eyes on me while I am among enemies,
and do nothing that may involve me in danger."

What with hunting, fishing, canoe-making, and bad weather, the progress
of the august travellers was so slow, that they did not reach the Huron
towns till the twenty-third of October. Scandawati presented seven large
belts of wampum, each composed of three or four thousand beads, which the
Jesuits call the pearls and diamonds of the country. He delivered, too,
the fifteen captives, and promised a hundred more on the final conclusion
of peace. The three Onondagas remained, as surety for the good faith of
those who sent them, until the beginning of January, when the Hurons on
their part sent six ambassadors to conclude the treaty, one of the
Onondagas accompanying them. Soon there came dire tidings. The
prophetic heart of the old chief had not deceived him. The Senecas and
Mohawks, disregarding negotiations in which they had no part, and
resolved to bring them to an end, were invading the country in force.
It might be thought that the Hurons would take their revenge on the
Onondaga envoys, now hostages among them; but they did not do so, for the
character of an ambassador was, for the most part, held in respect.
One morning, however, Scandawati had disappeared. They were full of
excitement; for they thought that he had escaped to the enemy. They
ranged the woods in search of him, and at length found him in a thicket
near the town. He lay dead, on a bed of spruce-boughs which he had made,
his throat deeply gashed with a knife. He had died by his own hand,
a victim of mortified pride. "See," writes Father Ragueneau, "how much
our Indians stand on the point of honor!" [ This remarkable story is
told by Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 56-58. He was present at
the time, and knew all the circumstances. ]

We have seen that one of his two colleagues had set out for Onondaga with
a deputation of six Hurons. This party was met by a hundred Mohawks,
who captured them all and killed the six Hurons but spared the Onondaga,
and compelled him to join them. Soon after, they made a sudden onset on
about three hundred Hurons journeying through the forest from the town of
St. Ignace; and, as many of them were women, they routed the whole,
and took forty prisoners. The Onondaga bore part in the fray, and
captured a Christian Huron girl; but the next day he insisted on
returning to the Huron town. "Kill me, if you will," he said to the
Mohawks, "but I cannot follow you; for then I should be ashamed to appear
among my countrymen, who sent me on a message of peace to the Hurons; and
I must die with them, sooner than seem to act as their enemy." On this,
the Mohawks not only permitted him to go, but gave him the Huron girl
whom he had taken; and the Onondaga led her back in safety to her
countrymen. [ 1 ] Here, then, is a ray of light out of Egyptian
darkness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild hearts.

[ 1 "Celuy qui l'auoit prise estoit Onnontaeronnon, qui estant icy en os
tage à cause de la paix qui se traite auec les Onnontaeronnons, et
s'estant trouué auec nos Hurons à cette chasse, y fut pris tout des
premiers par les Sonnontoueronnons (Annieronnons?), qui l'ayans reconnu
ne luy firent aucun mal, et mesme l'obligerent de les suiure et prendre
part à leur victoire; et ainsi en ce rencontre cét Onnontaeronnon auoit
fait sa prise, tellement neantmoins qu'il desira s'en retourner le
lendemain, disant aux Sonnontoueronnons qu'ils le tuassent s'ils
vouloient, mais qu'il ne pouuoit se resoudre à les suiure, et qu'il
auroit honte de reparoistre en son pays, les affaires qui l'auoient amené
aux Hurons pour la paix ne permettant pas qu'il fist autre chose que de
mourir avec eux plus tost que de paroistre s'estre comporté en ennemy.
Ainsi les Sonnontoueronnons luy permirent de s'en retourner et de ramener
cette bonne Chrestienne, qui estoit sa captiue, laquelle nous a consolé
par le recit des entretiens de ces pauures gens dans leur affliction."--
Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 65.

Apparently the word Sonnontoueronnons (Senecas), in the above, should
read Annieronnons (Mohawks); for, on pp. 50, 57, the writer twice speaks
of the party as Mohawks. ]

We hear no more of the negotiations between the Onondagas and the Hurons.
They and their results were swept away in the storm of events soon to be
related.




CHAPTER XXIV.

1645-1648.

THE HURON CHURCH.


HOPES OF THE MISSION.--CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN.--BODY AND SOUL.--
POSITION OF PROSELYTES.--THE HURON GIRL'S VISIT TO HEAVEN.--A CRISIS.--
HURON JUSTICE.--MURDER AND ATONEMENT.--HOPES AND FEARS.


How did it fare with the missions in these days of woe and terror?
They had thriven beyond hope. The Hurons, in their time of trouble,
had become tractable. They humbled themselves, and, in their desolation
and despair, came for succor to the priests. There was a harvest of
converts, not only exceeding in numbers that of all former years, but
giving in many cases undeniable proofs of sincerity and fervor. In some
towns the Christians outnumbered the heathen, and in nearly all they
formed a strong party. The mission of La Conception, or Ossossané,
was the most successful. Here there were now a church and one or more
resident Jesuits,--as also at St. Joseph, St. Ignace, St. Michel, and
St. Jean Baptiste: [ 1 ] for we have seen that the Huron towns were
christened with names of saints. Each church had its bell, which was
sometimes hung in a neighboring tree. [ 2 ] Every morning it rang its
summons to mass; and, issuing from their dwellings of bark, the converts
gathered within the sacred precinct, where the bare, rude walls, fresh
from the axe and saw, contrasted with the sheen of tinsel and gilding,
and the hues of gay draperies and gaudy pictures. At evening they met
again at prayers; and on Sunday, masses, confession, catechism, sermons,
and repeating the rosary consumed the whole day. [ 3 ]

[ 1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 56. ]

[ 2 A fragment of one of these bells, found on the site of a Huron town,
is preserved in the museum of Huron relics at the Laval University,
Quebec. The bell was not large, but was of very elaborate workmanship.
Before 1644 the Jesuits had used old copper kettles as a substitute.--
Lettre de Lalemant, 31 March, 1644. ]

[ 3 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 56. ]

These converts rarely took part in the burning of prisoners. On the
contrary, they sometimes set their faces against the practice; and on one
occasion, a certain Étienne Totiri, while his heathen countrymen were
tormenting a captive Iroquois at St. Ignace, boldly denounced them,
and promised them an eternity of flames and demons, unless they desisted.
Not content with this, he addressed an exhortation to the sufferer in one
of the intervals of his torture. The dying wretch demanded baptism,
which Étienne took it upon himself to administer, amid the hootings of
the crowd, who, as he ran with a cup of water from a neighboring house,
pushed him to and fro to make him spill it, crying out, "Let him alone!
Let the devils burn him after we have done!"

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 58. The Hurons often resisted
the baptism of their prisoners, on the ground that Hell, and not Heaven,
was the place to which they would have them go.--See Lalemant, Relation
des Hurons, 1642, 60, Ragueneau, Ibid., 1648, 53, and several other
passages. ]

In regard to these atrocious scenes, which formed the favorite Huron
recreation of a summer night, the Jesuits, it must be confessed, did not
quite come up to the requirements of modern sensibility. They were
offended at them, it is true, and prevented them when they could; but
they were wholly given to the saving of souls, and held the body in scorn,
as the vile source of incalculable mischief, worthy the worst inflictions
that could be put upon it. What were a few hours of suffering to an
eternity of bliss or woe? If the victim were heathen, these brief pangs
were but the faint prelude of an undying flame; and if a Christian,
they were the fiery portal of Heaven. They might, indeed, be a blessing;
since, accepted in atonement for sin, they would shorten the torments of
Purgatory. Yet, while schooling themselves to despise the body, and all
the pain or pleasure that pertained to it, the Fathers were emphatic on
one point. It must not be eaten. In the matter of cannibalism, they
were loud and vehement in invective.

[ The following curious case of conversion at the stake, gravely related
by Lalemant, is worth preserving.

"An Iroquois was to be burned at a town some way off. What consolation
to set forth, in the hottest summer weather, to deliver this poor victim
from the hell prepared for him! The Father approaches him, and instructs
him even in the midst of his torments. Forthwith the Faith finds a place
in his heart, he recognizes and adores, as the author of his life,
Him whose name he had never heard till the hour of his death. He
receives the grace of baptism, and breathes nothing but heaven. . . .
This newly made, but generous Christian, mounted on the scaffold which is
the place of his torture, in the sight of a thousand spectators, who are
at once his enemies, his judges, and his executioners, raises his eyes
and his voice heavenward, and cries aloud, 'Sun, who art witness of my
torments, hear my words! I am about to die; but, after my death, I shall
go to dwell in heaven.'"--Relation des Hurons, 1641, 67.

The Sun, it will be remembered, was the god of the heathen Iroquois.
The convert appealed to his old deity to rejoice with him in his happy
future. ]

Undeniably, the Faith was making progress; yet it is not to be supposed
that its path was a smooth one. The old opposition and the old calumnies
were still alive and active. "It is _la prière_ that kills us. Your books
and your strings of beads have bewitched the country. Before you came,
we were happy and prosperous. You are magicians. Your charms kill our
corn, and bring sickness and the Iroquois. Echon (Brébeuf) is a traitor
among us, in league with our enemies." Such discourse was still rife,
openly and secretly.

The Huron who embraced the Faith renounced thenceforth, as we have seen,
the feasts, dances, and games in which was his delight, since all these
savored of diabolism. And if, being in health, he could not enjoy
himself, so also, being sick, he could not be cured; for his physician
was a sorcerer, whose medicines were charms and incantations. If the
convert was a chief, his case was far worse; since, writes Father
Lalemant, "to be a chief and a Christian is to combine water and fire;
for the business of the chiefs is mainly to do the Devil's bidding,
preside over ceremonies of hell, and excite the young Indians to dances,
feasts, and shameless indecencies."

[ Relation des Hurons, 1642, 89. The indecencies alluded to were chiefly
naked dances, of a superstitious character, and the mystical cure called
Andacwandet, before mentioned. ]

It is not surprising, then, that proselytes were difficult to make,
or that, being made, they often relapsed. The Jesuits complain that they
had no means of controlling their converts, and coercing backsliders to
stand fast; and they add, that the Iroquois, by destroying the fur-trade,
had broken the principal bond between the Hurons and the French, and
greatly weakened the influence of the mission. [ Lettre du P. Hierosme
Lalemant, appended to the Relation of 1645. ]

Among the slanders devised by the heathen party against the teachers of
the obnoxious doctrine was one which found wide credence, even among the
converts, and produced a great effect. They gave out that a baptized
Huron girl, who had lately died, and was buried in the cemetery at Sainte
Marie, had returned to life, and given a deplorable account of the heaven
of the French. No sooner had she entered,--such was the story,--than
they seized her, chained her to a stake, and tormented her all day with
inconceivable cruelty. They did the same to all the other converted
Hurons; for this was the recreation of the French, and especially of the
Jesuits, in their celestial abode. They baptized Indians with no other
object than that they might have them to torment in heaven; to which end
they were willing to meet hardships and dangers in this life, just as a
war-party invades the enemy's country at great risk that it may bring
home prisoners to burn. After her painful experience, an unknown friend
secretly showed the girl a path down to the earth; and she hastened
thither to warn her countrymen against the wiles of the missionaries.
[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 65. ]

In the spring of 1648 the excitement of the heathen party reached a
crisis. A young Frenchman, named Jacques Douart, in the service of the
mission, going out at evening a short distance from the Jesuit house of
Sainte Marie, was tomahawked by unknown Indians, [ 1 ] who proved to be
two brothers, instigated by the heathen chiefs. A great commotion
followed, and for a few days it seemed that the adverse parties would
fall to blows, at a time when the common enemy threatened to destroy them
both. But sager counsels prevailed. In view of the manifest strength of
the Christians, the pagans lowered their tone; and it soon became
apparent that it was the part of the Jesuits to insist boldly on
satisfaction for the outrage. They made no demand that the murderers
should be punished or surrendered, but, with their usual good sense in
such matters, conformed to Indian usage, and required that the nation at
large should make atonement for the crime by presents. [ 2 ] The number
of these, their value, and the mode of delivering them were all fixed by
ancient custom; and some of the converts, acting as counsel, advised the
Fathers of every step it behooved them to take in a case of such
importance. As this is the best illustration of Huron justice on record,
it may be well to observe the method of procedure,--recollecting that the
public, and not the criminal, was to pay the forfeit of the crime.

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