The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century Part 31

"Nous sortismes de ces terres de Promission qui estoient nostre Paradis, et ou la mort nous eust este 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 opposees qu'elles paroissent a nos desirs, a nos plus saintes esperances et aux plus tendres amours de nostre cur."--Lettre de Ragueneau au P. Provincial a Paris, in Relation des Hurons, 1650, 1.

"Mais il fallut, a tous tant que nous estions, quitter cette ancienne demeure de saincte Marie; ces edifices, qui quoy que pauures, paroissoient des chefs-d'uure de l'art aux yeux de nos pauures Sauuages; ces terres cultiuees, 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 este 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 profana.s.sent ce lieu de sainctete et n'en prissent leur auantage, nous y mismes le feu nous mesmes, et nous vismes brusler a nos yeux, en moins d'vne heure, nos trauaux de neuf et de dix ans."--Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 2, 3. ]

Near the entrance of Matchedash Bay lie the three islands now known as Faith, Hope, and Charity. Of these, Charity or Christian Island, called Ahoendoe by the Hurons and St. Joseph by the Jesuits, is by far the largest. It is six or eight miles wide; and when the Hurons 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 sh.o.r.e of the island, a hundred feet from the water. [ 1 ]

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 Abregee, 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.

[ 1 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. ]

The island, thanks to the vigilance of the French, escaped attack throughout the summer; but Iroquois scalping-parties ranged the neighboring sh.o.r.es, killing stragglers and keeping the Hurons 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 Hurons, 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. [ 1 ]

Of this mult.i.tude 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 Abregee, 283. ]

[ 1 "Ie voudrois pouuoir representer a toutes les personnes affectionnees a nos Hurons, l'etat pitoyable auquel ils sont reduits; ... comment seroit-il possible que ces imitateurs de Iesus Christ ne fussent emeus a pitie a la veue des centaines et centaines de veuues dont non seulement les enfans, mais quasi les parens ont este outrageus.e.m.e.nt ou tuez, ou emmenez captifs, et puis inhumainement bruslez, cuits, dechirez et deuorez des ennemis."--Lettre de Chaumonot a Lalemant, Superieur a Quebec, Isle de St. Joseph, 1 Juin, 1649.

"Vne mere s'est veue, n'ayant que ses deux mamelles, mais sans suc et sans laict, qui toutefois estoit l'vnique chose qu'elle eust peu presenter a 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 d.a.m.nee, 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. ]

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 superst.i.tious feasts on the bodies of their enemies, their repugnance and horror were extreme at the thought of devouring those of relatives and friends. [ 1 ] An epidemic presently appeared, to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their number were dead.

[ 1 "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 a la pluspart, ce que seroient en France les mets les plus exquis. Les charognes mesme deterrees, 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 donne plus de lumiere qu'ils n'en auoient dans l'infidelite, ne creussent pas commettre aucun peche de manger leurs ennemis, aussi peu qu'il y en a de les tuer, toutefois ie puis dire auec verite, 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 necessite n'a plus de loy, et des dents fameliques ne discernent plus ce qu'elles mangent. Les meres se sont repeues 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 Abregee, 283. ]

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 ma.s.s, 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 a.s.sistance they could. Their ca.s.socks were worn out, and they were dressed chiefly in skins. [ Lettre de Ragueneau au General de la Compagnie de Jesus, Isle St. Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650. ]

They visited the Indian houses, and gave to those whose necessities were most urgent small sc.r.a.ps of hide, severally stamped with a particular mark, and ent.i.tling the recipients, on presenting them at the fort, to a few acorns, a small quant.i.ty 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 princ.i.p.al authorities are the Relations of 1649 and 1650, which are ample in detail, and written with an excellent simplicity and modesty; the Relation Abregee of Bressani; the reports of the Father Superior to the General of the Jesuits at Rome; the ma.n.u.script of 1652, ent.i.tled Memoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Peres, etc.; the unpublished letters of Garnier; and a letter of Chaumonot, written on the spot, and preserved in the Relations. ]

CHAPTER x.x.x.

1649.

GARNIER.--CHABANEL.

THE TOBACCO MISSIONS.--ST. JEAN ATTACKED.--DEATH OF GARNIER.-- THE JOURNEY OF CHABANEL.--HIS DEATH.--GARREAU AND GRELON.

Late in the preceding autumn the Iroquois had taken the war-path in force. At the end of November, two escaped prisoners came to Isle St. Joseph with the news that a band of three hundred warriors was hovering in the Huron forests, doubtful whether to invade the island or to attack the towns of the Tobacco Nation in the valleys of the Blue Mountains. The Father Superior, Ragueneau, sent a runner thither in all haste, to warn the inhabitants of their danger.

There were at this time two missions in the Tobacco Nation, St. Jean and St. Matthias, [ 1 ]--the latter under the charge of the Jesuits Garreau and Grelon, and the former under that of Garnier and Chabanel. St. Jean, the princ.i.p.al seat of the mission of the same name, was a town of five or six hundred families. Its population was, moreover, greatly augmented by the bands of fugitive Hurons who had taken refuge there. When the warriors were warned by Ragueneau's messenger of a probable attack from the Iroquois, they were far from being daunted, but, confiding in their numbers, awaited the enemy in one of those fits of valor which characterize the unstable courage of the savage. At St. Jean all was paint, feathers, and uproar,--singing, dancing, howling, and stamping.

Quivers were filled, knives whetted, and tomahawks sharpened; but when, after two days of eager expectancy, the enemy did not appear, the warriors lost patience. Thinking, and probably with reason, that the Iroquois were afraid of them, they resolved to sally forth, and take the offensive. With yelps and whoops they defiled into the forest, where the branches were gray and bare, and the ground thickly covered with snow.

They pushed on rapidly till the following day, but could not discover their wary enemy, who had made a wide circuit, and was approaching the town from another quarter. By ill luck, the Iroquois captured a Tobacco Indian and his squaw, straggling in the forest not far from St. Jean; and the two prisoners, to propitiate them, told them the defenceless condition of the place, where none remained but women, children, and old men. The delighted Iroquois no longer hesitated, but silently and swiftly pushed on towards the town.

[ 1 The Indian name of St. Jean was Etarita; and that of St. Matthias, Ekarenniondi. ]

It was two o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of December.

[ Bressani, Relation Abregee, 264. ] Chabanel had left the place a day or two before, in obedience to a message from Ragueneau, and Garnier was here alone. He was making his rounds among the houses, visiting the sick and instructing his converts, when the horrible din of the war-whoop rose from the borders of the clearing, and, on the instant, the town was mad with terror. Children and girls rushed to and fro, blind with fright; women s.n.a.t.c.hed their infants, and fled they knew not whither. Garnier ran to his chapel, where a few of his converts had sought asylum.

He gave them his benediction, exhorted them to hold fast to the Faith, and bade them fly while there was yet time. For himself, he hastened back to the houses, running from one to another, and giving absolution or baptism to all whom he found. An Iroquois met him, shot him with three b.a.l.l.s through the body and thigh, tore off his ca.s.sock, and rushed on in pursuit of the fugitives. Garnier lay for a moment on the ground, as if stunned; then, recovering his senses, he was seen to rise into a kneeling posture. At a little distance from him lay a Huron, mortally wounded, but still showing signs of life. With the Heaven that awaited him glowing before his fading vision, the priest dragged himself towards the dying Indian, to give him absolution; but his strength failed, and he fell again to the earth. He rose once more, and again crept forward, when a party of Iroquois rushed upon him, split his head with two blows of a hatchet, stripped him, and left his body on the ground.

[ 1 ] At this time the whole town was on fire. The invaders, fearing that the absent warriors might return and take their revenge, hastened to finish their work, scattered firebrands every where, and threw children alive into the burning houses. They killed many of the fugitives, captured many more, and then made a hasty retreat through the forest with their prisoners, butchering such of them as lagged on the way. St. Jean lay a waste of smoking ruins thickly strewn with blackened corpses of the slain.

[ The above particulars of Garnier's death rest on the evidence of a Christian Huron woman, named Marthe, who saw him shot down, and also saw his attempt to reach the dying Indian. She was herself struck down immediately after with a war-club, but remained alive, and escaped in the confusion. She died three months later, at Isle St. Joseph, from the effects of the injuries she had received, after reaffirming the truth of her story to Ragueneau, who was with her, and who questioned her on the subject. (Memoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Peres Garnier, etc., MS.). Ragueneau also speaks of her in Relation des Hurons, 1650, 9.

--The priests Grelon and Garreau found the body stripped naked, with three gunshot wounds in the abdomen and thigh, and two deep hatchet wounds in the head. ]

Towards evening, parties of fugitives reached St. Matthias, with tidings of the catastrophe. The town was wild with alarm, and all stood on the watch, in expectation of an attack; but when, in the morning, scouts came in and reported the retreat of the Iroquois, Garreau and Grelon set out with a party of converts to visit the scene of havoc. For a long time they looked in vain for the body of Garnier; but at length they found him lying where he had fallen,--so scorched and disfigured, that he was recognized with difficulty. The two priests wrapped his body in a part of their own clothing; the Indian converts dug a grave on the spot where his church had stood; and here they buried him. Thus, at the age of forty-four, died Charles Garnier, the favorite child of wealthy and n.o.ble parents, nursed in Parisian luxury and ease, then living and dying, a more than willing exile, amid the hardships and horrors of the Huron wilderness. His life and his death are his best eulogy. Brebeuf was the lion of the Huron mission, and Garnier was the lamb; but the lamb was as fearless as the lion.

[ Garnier's devotion to the mission was absolute. He took little or no interest in the news from France, which, at intervals of from one to three years, found its way to the Huron towns. His companion Bressani says, that he would walk thirty or forty miles in the hottest summer day, to baptize some dying Indian, when the country was infested by the enemy.

On similar errands, he would sometimes pa.s.s the night alone in the forest in the depth of winter. He was anxious to fall into the hands of the Iroquois, that he might preach the Faith to them even out of the midst of the fire. In one of his unpublished letters he writes, "Praised be our Lord, who punishes me for my sins by depriving me of this crown" (the crown of martyrdom). After the death of Brebeuf and Lalemant, he writes to his brother--

"Helas! Mon cher frere, si ma conscience ne me convainquait et ne me confondait de mon infidelite au service de notre bon maitre, je pourrais esperer quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux bien-heureux martyrs avec qui j'avais le bien de converser souvent, etant dans les memes occasions et dangers qu'ils etaient, mais sa justice me fait craindre que je ne demeure toujours indigne d'une telle couronne."

He contented himself with the most wretched fare during the last years of famine, living in good measure on roots and acorns; "although," says Ragueneau, "he had been the cherished son of a rich and n.o.ble house, on whom all the affection of his father had centred, and who had been nourished on food very different from that of swine."--Relation des Hurons, 1650, 12.

For his character, see Ragueneau, Bressani, Tanner, and Alegambe, who devotes many pages to the description of his religious traits; but the complexion of his mind is best reflected in his private letters. ]

When, on the following morning, the warriors of St. Jean returned from their rash and bootless sally, and saw the ashes of their desolated homes and the ghastly relics of their murdered families, they seated themselves amid the ruin, silent and motionless as statues of bronze, with heads bowed down and eyes fixed on the ground. Thus they remained through half the day. Tears and wailing were for women; this was the mourning of warriors.

Garnier's colleague, Chabanel, had been recalled from St. Jean by an order from the Father Superior, who thought it needless to expose the life of more than one priest in a position of so much danger. He stopped on his way at St. Matthias, and on the morning of the seventh of December, the day of the attack, left that town with seven or eight Christian Hurons. The journey was rough and difficult. They proceeded through the forest about eighteen miles, and then encamped in the snow. The Indians fell asleep; but Chabanel, from an apprehension of danger, or some other cause, remained awake. About midnight he heard a strange sound in the distance,--a confusion of fierce voices, mingled with songs and outcries.

It was the Iroquois on their retreat with their prisoners, some of whom were defiantly singing their war-songs, after the Indian custom.

Chabanel waked his companions, who instantly took flight. He tried to follow, but could not keep pace with the light-footed savages, who returned to St. Matthias, and told what had occurred. They said, however, that Chabanel had left them and taken an opposite direction, in order to reach Isle St. Joseph. His brother priests were for some time ignorant of what had befallen him. At length a Huron Indian, who had been converted, but afterward apostatized, gave out that he had met him in the forest, and aided him with his canoe to cross a river which lay in his path. Some supposed that he had lost his way, and died of cold and hunger; but others were of a different opinion. Their suspicion was confirmed some time afterwards by the renegade Huron, who confessed that he had killed Chabanel and thrown his body into the river, after robbing him of his clothes, his hat, the blanket or mantle which was strapped to his shoulders, and the bag in which he carried his books and papers.

He declared that his motive was hatred of the Faith, which had caused the ruin of the Hurons. [ Memoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Peres, etc., MS. ] The priest had prepared himself for a worse fate. Before leaving Sainte Marie on the Wye, to go to his post in the Tobacco Nation, he had written to his brother to regard him as a victim destined to the fires of the Iroquois. [ Abrege de la Vie du P. Noel Chabanel, MS. ]

He added, that, though he was naturally timid, he was now wholly indifferent to danger; and he expressed the belief that only a superhuman power could have wrought such a change in him.

[ "Ie suis fort apprehensif de mon naturel; toutefois, maintenant que ie vay au plus grand danger et qu'il me semble que la mort n'est pas esloignee, ie ne sens plus de crainte. Cette disposition ne vient pas de moy."--Relation des Hurons, 1650, 18.

The following is the vow made by Chabanel, at a time when his disgust at the Indian mode of life beset him with temptations to ask to be recalled from the mission. It is translated from the Latin original:--

"My Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the admirable disposition of thy paternal providence, hast willed that I, although most unworthy, should be a co-laborer with the holy Apostles in this vineyard of the Hurons,--I, Noel Chabanel, impelled by the desire of fulfilling thy holy will in advancing the conversion of the savages of this land to thy faith, do vow, in the presence of the most holy sacrament of thy precious body and blood, which is G.o.d's tabernacle among men, to remain perpetually attached to this mission of the Hurons, understanding all things according to the interpretation and disposal of the Superiors of the Society of Jesus.

Therefore I entreat thee to receive me as the perpetual servant of this mission, and to render me worthy of so sublime a ministry. Amen.

This twentieth day of June, 1647." ]

Garreau and Grelon, in their mission of St. Matthias, were exposed to other dangers than those of the Iroquois. A report was spread, not only that they were magicians, but that they had a secret understanding with the enemy. A nocturnal council was called, and their death was decreed.

In the morning, a furious crowd gathered before a lodge which they were about to enter, screeching and yelling after the manner of Indians when they compel a prisoner to run the gantlet. The two priests, giving no sign of fear, pa.s.sed through the crowd and entered the lodge unharmed.

Hatchets were brandished over them, but no one would be the first to strike. Their converts were amazed at their escape, and they themselves ascribed it to the interposition of a protecting Providence. The Huron missionaries were doubly in danger,--not more from the Iroquois than from the blind rage of those who should have been their friends.

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 20.