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All was over with the Huron. The death-knell of their nation had
struck. Without a leader, without organization, without union,
crazed with fright and paralyzed with misery, they yielded to their
doom without a blow. Their only thought was flight. Within two weeks
after the disasters of St. Ignace and St. Louis, fifteen Huron towns
were abandoned, and the greater number burned, lest they should give
shelter to the Iroquois. The last year's harvest had been scanty;
the fugitives had no food, and they left behind them the fields in
which was their only hope of obtaining it. In bands, large or small,
some roamed northward and eastward, through the half-thawed
wilderness; some hid themselves on the rocks or islands of Lake
Huron; some sought an asylum among the Tobacco Nation; a few joined
the Neutrals on the north of Lake Erie. The Huron, as a nation,
ceased to exist.
| [Chaumonot, who was at Ossossané at the time of the
Iroquois invasion, gives a vivid picture of the panic
and lamentation which followed the news of the
destruction of the Huron warriors at St. Louis, and of
the flight of the inhabitants to the country of the
Tobacco Nation.--Vie, 62.] |
Hitherto Sainte Marie had been covered by large fortified towns
which lay between it and the Iroquois; but these were all destroyed,
some by the enemy and some by their own people, and the Jesuits were
left alone to bear the brunt of the next attack. There was,
moreover, no reason for their remaining. Sainte Marie had been built
as a basis for the missions; but its occupation was gone: the flock
had fled from the shepherds, and its existence had no longer an
object. If the priests stayed to be butchered, they would perish,
not as martyrs, but as fools. The necessity was as clear as it was
bitter. All their toil must come to nought. Sainte Marie must be
abandoned. They confess the pang which the resolution cost them;
but, pursues the Father Superior, "since the birth of Christianity,
the Faith has nowhere been planted except in the midst of sufferings
and crosses. Thus this desolation consoles us; and in the midst of
persecution, in the extremity of the evils which assail us and the
greater evils which threaten us, we are all filled with joy: for our
hearts tell us that God has never had a more tender love for us than
now." [Ragueneau. Relation des Huron, 1649, 26.]
Several of the priests set out to follow and console the scattered
bands of fugitive Huron. One embarked in a canoe, and coasted the
dreary shores of Lake Huron northward, among the wild labyrinth of
rocks and islets, whither his scared flock had fled for refuge;
another betook himself to the forest with a band of half-famished
proselytes, and shared their miserable roving through the thickets
and among the mountains. Those who remained took counsel together at
Sainte Marie. Whither should they go, and where should be the new
seat of the mission? They made choice of the Grand Manitoulin
Island, called by them Isle Sainte Marie, and by the Huron
Ekaentoton. It lay near the northern shores of Lake Huron, and by
its position would give a ready access to numberless Algonquin
tribes along the borders of all these inland seas. Moreover, it
would bring the priests and their flock nearer to the French
settlements, by the route of the Ottawa, whenever the Iroquois
should cease to infest that river. The fishing, too, was good; and
some of the priests, who knew the island well, made a favorable
report of the soil. Thither, therefore, they had resolved to
transplant the mission, when twelve Huron chiefs arrived, and asked
for an interview with the Father Superior and his fellow Jesuits.
The conference lasted three hours. The deputies declared that many
of the scattered Huron had determined to reunite, and form a
settlement on a neighboring island of the lake, called by the
Jesuits Isle St. Joseph; that they needed the aid of the Fathers;
that without them they were helpless, but with them they could hold
their ground and repel the attacks of the Iroquois. They urged their
plea in language which Ragueneau describes as pathetic and eloquent;
and, to confirm their words, they gave him ten large collars of
wampum, saying that these were the voices of their wives and
children. They gained their point. The Jesuits abandoned their
former plan, and promised to join the Huron on Isle St. Joseph.
They had built a boat, or small vessel, and in this they embarked
such of their stores as it would hold. The greater part were placed
on a large raft made for the purpose, like one of the rafts of
timber which every summer float down the St. Lawrence and the
Ottawa. Here was their stock of corn,--in part the produce of their
own fields, and in part bought from the Huron in former years of
plenty,--pictures, vestments, sacred vessels and images, weapons,
ammunition, tools, goods for barter with the Indians, cattle, swine,
and poultry. [Some of these were killed for food after reaching the
island. In March following, they had ten fowls, a pair of swine, two
bulls and two cows, kept for breeding.--Lettre de Ragueneau au
Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, St. Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.] Sainte
Marie was stripped of everything that could be moved. Then, lest it
should harbor the Iroquois, they set it on fire, and saw consumed in
an hour the results of nine or ten years of toil. It was near
sunset, on the fourteenth of June.1 The
houseless band descended to the mouth of the Wye, went on board
their raft, pushed it from the shore, and, with sweeps and oars,
urged it on its way all night. The lake was calm and the weather
fair; but it crept so slowly over the water that several days
elapsed before they reached their destination, about twenty miles
distant.
Near the entrance of Matchedash Bay lie the three islands now known
as Faith, Hope, and Charity. Of these, Charity or Christian Island,
called Ahoendoé by the Huron and St. Joseph by the Jesuits, is by
far the largest. It is six or eight miles wide; and when the Huron
sought refuge here, it was densely covered with the primeval forest.
The priests landed with their men, some forty soldiers, laborers,
and others, and found about three hundred Huron families bivouacked
in the woods. Here were wigwams and sheds of bark, and smoky kettles
slung over fires, each on its tripod of poles, while around lay
groups of famished wretches, with dark, haggard visages and uncombed
hair, in every posture of despondency and woe. They had not been
wholly idle; for they had made some rough clearings, and planted a
little corn. The arrival of the Jesuits gave them new hope; and,
weakened as they were with famine, they set themselves to the task
of hewing and burning down the forest, making bark houses, and
planting palisades. The priests, on their part, chose a favorable
spot, and began to clear the ground and mark out the lines of a
fort. Their men--the greater part serving without pay--labored with
admirable spirit, and before winter had built a square, bastioned
fort of solid masonry, with a deep ditch, and walls about twelve
feet high. Within were a small chapel, houses for lodging, and a
well, which, with the ruins of the walls, may still be seen on the
south-eastern shore of the island, a hundred feet from the water.2
Detached redoubts were also built near at hand, where French
musketeers could aid in defending the adjacent Huron village.
[Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 38.]
Though the island was called St. Joseph, the fort, like that on the
Wye, received the name of Sainte Marie. Jesuit devotion scattered
these names broadcast over all the field of their labors.
The island, thanks to the vigilance of the French, escaped attack
throughout the summer; but Iroquois scalping-parties ranged the
neighboring shores, killing stragglers and keeping the Huron in
perpetual alarm. As winter drew near, great numbers, who, trembling
and by stealth, had gathered a miserable subsistence among the
northern forests and islands, rejoined their countrymen at St.
Joseph, until six or eight thousand expatriated wretches were
gathered here under the protection of the French fort. They were
housed in a hundred or more bark dwellings, each containing eight or
ten families. [Ragueneau, Relation des Huron, 1650, 3, 4. He reckons
eight persons to a family.] Here were widows without children, and
children without parents; for famine and the Iroquois had proved
more deadly enemies than the pestilence which a few years before had
wasted their towns.3 Of this multitude
but few had strength enough to labor, scarcely any had made
provision for the winter, and numbers were already perishing from
want, dragging themselves from house to house, like living
skeletons. The priests had spared no effort to meet the demands upon
their charity. They sent men during the autumn to buy smoked fish
from the Northern Algonquins, and employed Indians to gather acorns
in the woods. Of this miserable food they succeeded in collecting
five or six hundred bushels. To diminish its bitterness, the Indians
boiled it with ashes, or the priests served it out to them pounded,
and mixed with corn. [Eight hundred sacks of this mixture were given
to the Hurons during the winter.--Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 283.]
As winter advanced, the Huron houses became a frightful spectacle.
Their inmates were dying by scores daily. The priests and their men
buried the bodies, and the Indians dug them from the earth or the
snow and fed on them, sometimes in secret and sometimes openly;
although, notwithstanding their superstitious feasts on the bodies
of their enemies, their repugnance and horror were extreme at the
thought of devouring those of relatives and friends.4
An epidemic presently appeared, to aid the work of famine. Before
spring, about half of their number were dead.
Meanwhile, though the cold was intense and the snow several feet
deep, yet not an hour was free from the danger of the Iroquois; and,
from sunset to daybreak, under the cold moon or in the driving
snow-storm, the French sentries walked their rounds along the
ramparts.
The priests rose before dawn, and spent the time till sunrise in
their private devotions. Then the bell of their chapel rang, and the
Indians came in crowds at the call; for misery had softened their
hearts, and nearly all on the island were now Christian. There was a
mass, followed by a prayer and a few words of exhortation; then the
hearers dispersed to make room for others. Thus the little chapel
was filled ten or twelve times, until all had had their turn.
Meanwhile other priests were hearing confessions and giving advice
and encouragement in private, according to the needs of each
applicant. This lasted till nine o'clock, when all the Indians
returned to their village, and the priests presently followed, to
give what assistance they could. Their cassocks were worn out, and
they were dressed chiefly in skins. [Lettre de Ragueneau au Général
de la Compagnie de Jésus, Isle St. Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.] They
visited the Indian houses, and gave to those whose necessities were
most urgent small scraps of hide, severally stamped with a
particular mark, and entitling the recipients, on presenting them at
the fort, to a few acorns, a small quantity of boiled maize, or a
fragment of smoked fish, according to the stamp on the leather
ticket of each. Two hours before sunset the bell of the chapel again
rang, and the religious exercises of the morning were repeated. [Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1650, 6, 7.]
Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring
brought new fears and new necessities.
| [Concerning the retreat of the Hurons to Isle St.
Joseph, the principal authorities are the Relations of
1649 and 1650, which are ample in detail, and written
with an excellent simplicity and modesty; the Relation
Abrégée of Bressani; the reports of the Father Superior
to the General of the Jesuits at Rome; the manuscript of
1652, entitled Mémoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus
des Pères, etc.; the unpublished letters of Garnier; and
a letter of Chaumonot, written on the spot, and
preserved in the Relations.] |
1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3. In the
Relation of the preceding year he gives the fifteenth of May as the
date,--evidently an error.
"Nous sortismes de ces terres de Promission qui estoient nostre
Paradis, et où la mort nous eust esté mille fois plus douce que ne
sera la vie en quelque lieu que nous puissions estre. Mais il faut
suiure Dieu, et il faut aimer ses conduites, quelque opposées
qu'elles paroissent à nos desirs, à nos plus saintes esperances et
aux plus tendres amours de nostre cœur."--Lettre de Ragueneau au P.
Provincial à Paris, in Relation des Hurons, 1650, 1.
"Mais il fallut, à tous tant que nous estions, quitter cette
ancienne demeure de saincte Marie; ces edifices, qui quoy que
pauures, paroissoient des chefs-d'œuure de l'art aux yeux de nos
pauures Sauuages; ces terres cultiuées, qui nous promettoient vne
riche moisson. Il nous fallut abandonner ce lieu, que ie puis
appeller nostre seconde Patrie et nos delices innocentes, puis qu'il
auoit esté le berceau de ce Christianisme, qu'il estoit le temple de
Dieu et la maison des seruiteurs de Iesus-Christ; et crainte que nos
ennemis trop impies, ne profanassent ce lieu de saincteté et n'en
prissent leur auantage, nous y mismes le feu nous mesmes, et nous
vismes brusler à nos yeux, en moins d'vne heure, nos trauaux de neuf
et de dix ans."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 2, 3.
2 The measurement between the angles of the two
southern bastions is 123 feet, and that of the curtain wall
connecting these bastions is 78 feet. Some curious relics have been
found in the fort,--among others, a steel mill for making wafers for
the Host. It was found in 1848, in a remarkable state of
preservation, and is now in an English museum, having been bought on
the spot by an amateur. As at Sainte Marie on the Wye, the remains
are in perfect conformity with the narratives and letters of the
priests.
3 "Ie voudrois pouuoir representer à toutes les
personnes affectionnées à nos Hurons, l'état pitoyable auquel ils
sont reduits;. . . comment seroit-il possible que ces imitateurs de
Iésus Christ ne fussent émeus à pitié à la veuë des centaines et
centaines de veuues dont non seulement les enfans, mais quasi les
parens ont esté outrageusement ou tuez, ou emmenez captifs, et puis
inhumainement bruslez, cuits, déchirez et deuorez des ennemis."--Lettre
de Chaumonot à Lalemant, Supérieur à Quebec, Isle de St. Joseph, 1
Juin, 1649.
"Vne mère s'est veuë, n'ayant que ses deux mamelles, mais sans suc
et sans laict, qui toutefois estoit l'vnique chose qu'elle eust peu
presenter à trois ou quatre enfans qui pleuroient y estans attachez.
Elle les voyoit mourir entre ses bras, les vns apres les autres, et
n'auoit pas mesme les forces de les pousser dans le tombeau. Elle
mouroit sous cette charge, et en mourant elle disoit: Ouy, Mon Dieu,
vous estes le maistre de nos vies; nous mourrons puisque vous le
voulez; voila qui est bien que nous mourrions Chrestiens. I'estois
damnée, et mes enfans auec moy, si nous ne fussions morts miserables;
ils ont receu le sainct Baptesme, et ie croy fermement que mourans
tous de compagnie, nous ressusciterons tous ensemble."--Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1650, 5.
4 "Ce fut alors que nous fusmes contraints de
voir des squeletes mourantes, qui soustenoient vne vie miserable,
mangeant iusqu'aux ordures et les rebuts de la nature. Le gland
estoit à la pluspart, ce que seroient en France les mets les plus
exquis. Les charognes mesme deterrées, les restes des Renards et des
Chiens ne faisoient point horreur, et se mangeoient, quoy qu'en
cachete: car quoy que les Hurons, auant que la foy leur eust donné
plus de lumiere qu'ils n'en auoient dans l'infidelité, ne creussent
pas commettre aucun peché de manger leurs ennemis, aussi peu qu'il y
en a de les tuer, toutefois ie puis dire auec verité, qu'ils n'ont
pas moins d'horreur de manger de leurs compatriotes, qu'on peut
auoir en France de manger de la chair humaine. Mais la necessité n'a
plus de loy, et des dents fameliques ne discernent plus ce qu'elles
mangent. Les mères se sont repeuës de leurs enfans, des freres de
leurs freres, et des enfans ne reconnoissoient plus en vn cadaure
mort, celuy lequel lors qu'il viuoit, ils appelloient leur Pere."--Ragueneau,
Relation des Hurons, 1650, 4. Compare Bressani, Relation Abrégée,
283.
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The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, 1867
Jesuits
in North America
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