The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 1: Acadia, 1610-1613 — John Shaqi
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 1: Acadia, 1610-1613
History
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 1: Acadia, 1610-1613
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Indians of North America -- Canada; Jesuits -- Missions; Jesuits -- North America
During an Iroquois attack upon Quebec, seven years later (1653),
Father Joseph Anthony Poncet was taken prisoner by the marauders and
carried to the Mohawk, where he suffered in the same manner as his
predecessors; but his captors being now desirous of a renewal of
peace with the French, spared his life, and sent him back to Quebec
with overtures for a renewal of negotiations. Early in July, 1654,
Father Simon le Moyne was sent forth upon a tour of inspection, and
returned to Quebec in September, with glowing reports of the fervor
of his reception by both Mohawks and Onondagas. It was determined to
rear a mission among the latter, and thither (1655),--a four weeks'
voyage,--proceeded Claude Dablon and Peter Mary Joseph Chaumonot;
while, to appease the jealous Mohawks, Le Moyne at the same time
reopened a brief but unprosperous mission among that tribe.
At first, Dablon and Chaumonot had high hopes of their Onondaga
enterprise; but mistrust soon arose in the minds of the natives,
and Dablon found it necessary to proceed to Quebec and obtain fresh
evidences of the friendship of the French. He returned in the early
summer of 1656, accompanied by Fathers Francis Le Mercier, superior of
the Canadian mission, and René Ménard, two lay brothers, and a party
of French colonists under a militia captain, who designed founding
a settlement in the land of the Iroquois. By the close of the year,
the work was in a promising stage; a number of Christianized Hurons,
who had been adopted into the confederacy, formed a nucleus for
proselyting, several Iroquois converts had been made, and all five of
the tribes had been visited by the missionaries.
Fathers Paul Ragueneau and Joseph Imbert Dupéron, who had been sent
out from Quebec in July, 1657, to assist the Onondaga mission, reached
it only after many perils en route; for meanwhile, there had been
a fresh Iroquois uprising against the Hurons and Ottawas, in which
Father Leonard Garreau lost his life near Montreal, and the entire
confederacy was soon in an uproar against the white allies of its
ancient enemies. The intrepid Le Moyne joined the party in November,
and in the following March (1658), on learning that all of the French
had been condemned to death, the entire colony stole away in the night,
and reached Montreal only after a long and hazardous voyage. The great
Iroquois mission, which had promised so happily and cost so much in
blood and treasure, was now thought to be a thing of the past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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