CHAPTER III

THE JESUIT MISSION TO THE HURONS

From 1615, when Father Joseph Le Caron celebrated the first mass among the Hurons, for fourteen years a few intrepid priests braved the difficulties of savage life, and endeavored at various times to set up missions in the populous Huron villages south of Georgian Bay. They suffered almost incredible hardships, and in 1629 Jean Brébeuf was the only one who was left in the region. He was recalled to Quebec, but five years later, a year before Champlain’s death, he set out with two Jesuit companions to found, in the villages where Champlain had wintered eighteen years before, the greatest Jesuit mission in the history of New France.

No man in the annals of Church history has shown greater personal heroism than Father Jean Brébeuf. He was tall and strong, well fitted to withstand the hardships of his chosen calling and to impress the Indians with his power. The square cap and surplice which he donned when he assembled them for instruction, in order, as he naïvely writes, to “give more majesty” to his appearance, were never less needed. With natural dignity he combined the power of a life consecrated with the utmost fervor to God and his Church. Never during long years of service did he waver in his devotion nor shrink from anything that lay before him in his work. From his reports sent home to his superiors it is evident that he made a deep impression on the Indians. In these detailed accounts of his experiences and of the savages among whom he worked we get a clear idea of the man. We see him on the long canoe journeys, sharing in the labor of paddling and portages, till even he, who already knew, as he says, “a little what it is to be fatigued,” was so weary that his body could do no more. But he tells us how at these very times his soul experienced a deep peace such as it had never known before. In the most matter-of-fact way he accepts and records the continual hardships, never complaining of his lot, but writing with rare modesty because his whole attention is centred on the work instead of on himself. From his vivid pictures we learn, however, the truth of one of his casual statements. “Truly,” he says, “to come here much strength and patience are needed; and he who thinks of coming here for any other than God will have made a sad mistake.”

In 1634 Father Brébeuf and his companions started on the northern journey by the Ottawa River and Lake Nipissing to the Huron country. They accompanied a party of Hurons who were returning from their annual summer trading visit to Quebec. This nine-hundred-mile trip took thirty days. Brébeuf kept count and found that they carried their canoes thirty-five times on portages one, two, and even three leagues long, covering the distance three and four times to transport even their small amount of baggage, and that they dragged the canoes through rapids at least fifty times, plunging into the icy water and cutting their feet on the rocky bottom. At night they slept on the bare earth or on hard rocks, stung by clouds of mosquitoes. Their only food was a small portion of Indian corn coarsely broken between two stones, which, though better than fasting, was regarded by the Jesuits as “no great treat.” Yet, denying themselves the ordinary necessaries of life, these priests transported the precious vessels for the mass over all this weary way.

The other Jesuits suffered even more than Brébeuf. Their goods were stolen; they were separated from the rest of the Huron party, and deserted midway in the journey. It was weeks before the worn-out travellers rejoined their superior in the Huron village. After a few experiences like this in reaching the mission these wise priests composed a set of instructions to the brethren who should follow them on this Ottawa route. This code of behavior is highly characteristic of the methods of the French Jesuits. In every detail,--from not keeping the Indians waiting when they were ready to embark and not asking too many questions, to being careful that in the canoe the brim of the priest’s hat did not annoy those who sat nearest him,--these Jesuit fathers aimed “not to be troublesome, even to a single Indian,” and to “love them like brothers with whom you are to spend the rest of your life.” In this spirit lay the success of all French effort among these savage peoples.

At length Brébeuf landed on the southern shores of Georgian Bay, only to be deserted at the last moment by his Huron guides and left standing in the midst of his baggage on the lonely shore. He knew the place well, for he had lived three years in a neighboring village. This settlement had, however, been destroyed and its inhabitants had built their huts on another spot several miles away. Brébeuf hid his goods in the woods and set out alone by one of the gloomy forest paths, which brought him, to his great relief, to the new village. At sight of him some one cried out, “Why, there is Echom come again,” and at once every one ran out to salute and welcome him, calling, “What, Echom, my nephew, my brother, my cousin, hast thou then come again?” His goods were fetched from the shore, and Brébeuf was established in the house of a leading chief. As soon as his brother priests had arrived the Indians set about building a house for the Jesuits. Bad crops and famine had afflicted the people of late, and they rejoiced doubly at the coming of Brébeuf, feeling sure that now the crops would no longer fail. They wished, therefore, to provide for his staying in their village instead of that of their neighbors.

The house which the missionaries had built for them was a constant wonder to the Indians. It was thirty-six feet long and twenty wide, and looked from the outside like any Huron bark house. But within, the “black-robes” had made innovations which were the marvel of all their visitors. They divided the house into three apartments, separated by wooden doors such as the natives had never seen. The first room served as antechamber and storm door to keep out the cold. The second was that in which they lived. It was at once kitchen, carpenter shop, place for grinding wheat, dining room, parlor, and bedroom. Beneath high wooden platforms, on which they placed their chests of goods, the missionaries slept on sheets of bark or beds of boughs covered with rush mats, with skins and their clothing for covering. The third part was their little chapel where they set up their altar, pictures, and sacred vessels, and celebrated mass every day.

The house itself attracted scores of visitors, but when the clock and the mill were set going the astonishment of the Indians knew no bounds. No guest came who did not beg to be allowed to turn the mill, and as for the clock, they sat in expectant silence by the hour, waiting for it to strike. They all thought it some living thing, and when it began to strike they would look about to make sure that all the “black-robes” were there and that no one was hidden to shake it. They named it “Captain of the Day,” and inquired for it as they would for a person, wishing to know what its food was and how many times it had spoken that day. The first time they heard it they asked what it said, and the clever Jesuits told them two things. “When he strikes twelve times, he says, ‘Come, put on the kettle.’” This speech they remembered particularly well, for their own scanty meals were usually in the morning and evening, and they were very glad during the day to take a share of the Fathers’ repast. “But when he strikes four times, he says, ‘Go out, go away, that we may close the door,’” the Jesuits told their guests, and immediately they rose and went out, leaving the weary Fathers free from the constant noise and chatter.

The missionaries gathered the Indians for instruction on every possible occasion, teaching the children their prayers in Huron rhymes and preaching and explaining the faith to their elders. The converts, save those baptized on the point of death or in some fear of deadly peril, were few, but the worthy Fathers persisted and won the gratitude of the people by their help in time of famine and their kindly ministrations to the sick. Other Jesuits joined them and founded additional missions in neighboring villages. The Indians never understood these mysterious white men, but regarded them with superstition, holding them answerable for bad weather, famine, and the like, and on the other hand honoring them when all was prosperous. The medicine men and sorcerers were constantly against them, and in 1637 Father Isaac Jogues, one of the leading Jesuits, heard the rumor that the white men were reported to have bewitched the nation and must therefore be cut off. The assembly of Huron chiefs met, and the Jesuit fathers addressed them as usual on their unfailing topic, the joys of heaven and the fires of hell, the latter being always the only part of the instruction that seemed to make any impression on the stolid audience. For the time being the Fathers escaped; but they were still in great peril. Brébeuf wrote a letter of farewell to his superior at Quebec, and no Jesuit left the house without the expectation of having a tomahawk crash into his head before he returned. The unflinching courage of the Fathers won the Indian respect. The Jesuits even went so far as to give, according to the usual Indian custom for one on the point of death, a farewell feast to all the savages, an act which was regarded as a declaration that they knew their peril and faced it boldly. From that time forth their supporters rose in defence of them. For the moment the danger was averted and the Jesuits walked abroad once more. From now on, however, their persecution as sorcerers continued at intervals in different places, rising now and then to a storm of superstitious frenzy.

During the next five years the Jesuits extended their missions among the Hurons till almost every town had resident priests. They established on the shores of the river Wye a central station, which by 1648 had grown into a prosperous community with buildings which would accommodate sixty persons. Pioneers went out to neighboring nations. Brébeuf and a companion journeyed to the Neutral Nation which lived north of Lake Erie and west and south of Lake Ontario, but were met with strong opposition stirred up by the superstitious Hurons, who conceived that it would be an easy and safe method of getting rid of the priests to have their neighbors kill them. The two escaped after great hardship and danger. Isaac Jogues and Charles Garnier went with attendants to the Tobacco Nation, which lived two days’ journey distant to the southwest, but were as rudely repulsed. Jogues was a young man of indomitable will to whom hard tasks seem always to have been assigned because of his complete self-surrender and consequent power. To him fell, nevertheless, in the autumn of 1641 the pleasant duty of visiting a tribe in the far west who had invited the priests to come to them. At Lake Nipissing in September the Jesuits met certain savages called Ojibways, who urged the “black-gowns” to visit them in their homes, and gave directions for the journey. In accordance with this invitation Jogues and Raymbault, with a small Huron escort, set sail on Lake Huron and after a voyage of seventeen days reached the rapids where dwelt their friends at the location of the modern Sault Ste. Marie. Here they found about two thousand savages who welcomed them cordially and looked and listened with awe as the priests celebrated mass and explained their doctrines. They invited the Fathers to take up their abode with them, saying that they would “embrace them like brothers and profit by their words,” but the Jesuits could not be spared from their other work. Jogues listened with interest to tales of a great lake beyond the Sault, which it took nine days to cross, and of a great river beyond, where dwelt mighty nations, “who,” the Fathers reported to Paris, “have never known Europeans or heard of God.” They could not stay, but sailed away, naming the place of their sojourn Ste. Marie after the mission from which they came. They were not the first white men to visit this strait. Nicolet, a voyager and trader, had travelled with Brébeuf in 1634 as far as the Huron mission and had then pushed on alone to the foot of these rapids and thence along the shores of Lake Michigan, greeted everywhere by crowds of wondering savages. It was left, however, to these pioneer missionaries to give to this important waterway the name which it still bears.

Jogues returned to the Huron mission and wintered there, starting in the spring of 1642 for Quebec with the Huron traders to bring supplies to the mission, which was in a state of destitution. As he was returning up the St. Lawrence River he and his companion, Goupil, were captured by the Iroquois, who led them to the Mohawk towns. There most of the Hurons of the party were killed, and Jogues and his white companion were tortured and terribly mutilated. Goupil lost his life in the Iroquois camp, but Jogues was finally rescued by Dutch allies of the Mohawks and sent to Europe. From there he returned to New France and was tortured and killed by the Iroquois in 1646.

Isaac Jogues was the first Jesuit to fall in the progress of that warfare which was to bring to a tragic end the Jesuit mission to the Hurons by wiping out the towns in which the missionaries labored. The journey from Quebec to the Huron country was now fraught with peril from the marauding bands of Iroquois warriors. Two years after the first capture of Jogues an expedition led by Brébeuf relieved the needs of the missionaries by bringing supplies. That same year another Jesuit on his way to the mission was taken by the Iroquois, but in 1645 a temporary peace rekindled the hopes of the Fathers. Three years later the warfare broke out with renewed fury, and it soon became evident that the Huron nation was doomed. Large bands of Hurons, deserting their towns, fled into the interior. The Jesuits aided those who remained to defend their homes, but town after town was taken and one after another Jesuit fell into the hands of the Iroquois and suffered martyrdom with cruel tortures. The story of the tragic death of Jean Brébeuf, the founder of the mission, is one of wonderful strength and endurance amid most revolting tortures. The few remaining Jesuits withdrew with the terrified Indian survivors to an island in Lake Huron, which they were able for a time to defend, but the Iroquois lay in an ambuscade and captured the fugitives whenever they went ashore. At the earnest entreaty of the chiefs of the doomed nation the Jesuits gathered the remnant of their people and abandoned with them the desolated country which had been for thirty-five years the seat of missionary labors. Sadly they proceeded on the long journey to Quebec, passing everywhere deserted villages which had been partially destroyed by fire. Once they were attacked by the Iroquois, but at length reached Quebec in safety. The Iroquois had driven the Hurons from their homes to perish by famine and pestilence until the whole nation was practically wiped out, and the most important field of Jesuit missions was turned into a solitude and a desolation. The future for French missions looked dark indeed, and for a time western exploration was also abandoned.

Within four years hope of better success in converting the heathen appeared in an unexpected spot. The crafty Iroquois, attacked by their southern neighbors, sent overtures of peace to Quebec and invited to their villages the once hated Jesuit priests. Father Le Moyne was the first to respond, and others followed, eager to convert this savage people. The first mission was brought to a speedy end by the uprising of the Iroquois against the remaining Hurons and their former white allies in 1658, but by 1665 the government of New France was strong enough to mete out deserved punishment to the marauding parties of Iroquois warriors, and by 1668 a mission was established in each of the Five Nations.