STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE.  THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES


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STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE
by Reuben Gold Thwaites
New York  Cincinnati  Chicago
American Book Company
Copyright, 1900, by Reuben Gold Thwaites.
Sto. Badger Sta.
W. P. 7
page(s) 51-58


THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES

In planting settlements in Canada (or New France, as it was then called),
the French had two principal objects in view: the fur trade with the
Indians, and the conversion of these Indians to the Christian religion.
Roman Catholic missionaries from France therefore accompanied the first
settlers, and were always prominent in the affairs of the colony. Governor
Champlain brought to Quebec some missionaries of the Recollect order, a
branch of the Franciscans; but after a few years, the difficulties of their
task proved So great that the Recollects asked the Jesuits, a much stronger
order, to come over and help them. It was not long before nearly all the
Franciscans returned home, and the Jesuits were practically the only
missionaries in New France.

During the first few years, these missionaries spent their winters in
Quebec, ministering to the colonists, and each spring went out to meet the
Indians in their summer camps. It was soon found, however, that greater
persistence was needed; and after that, instead of returning home in the
autumn, they followed the savages upon their winter hunts. In order to
convert the Indians, the missionaries studied their many languages, their
habits, and their manner of thought, lived as they lived, and with them
often suffered untold misery, for life in a savage camp is sometimes almost
unbearable to educated and refined white men, such as the French Jesuits
were. They did not succeed in winning over to Christianity many of their
savage companions; indeed, the latter frequently treated them with great
cruelty, and several of the missionaries were tortured to death.

Such were the ignorance and superstition of the Indians, that every
disaster which happened to them, poor luck in hunting, famine, accident, or
disease, was attributed to the "black gowns," as the Jesuits were called
because of their long black cassocks. When the missionaries were performing
the rites of their church, baptizing children or sick people, or saying
mass, it was thought by these simple barbarians that they were practicing
magic for the destruction of the red men. Thus the Jesuits, during the
hundred years or more which they spent in traveling far and near through
the forests of New France, seeking new tribes to convert, while still
laboring with those already known, were in a state of perpetual martyrdom
for the cause of Christianity. No soldier has ever performed greater acts
of heroism than these devoted disciples of the cross. Several of the best
and -bravest of them were among the pioneers of the Wisconsin wilderness.

The first Jesuit missionary to come to Wisconsin was Father Rene Menard
(pr. Ray-nay' May-nar'). He had sailed from France to Canada in the year
1640, when was thirty-five years old, and on his arrival was sent to the
savages east of Lake Huron, among whom he labored and suffered for eight
years. Later, he went to the Iroquois, in New York, and at last had to fly
for his life, on account of an Indian plot to murder all the French
missionaries in that country. He was for some time the superior of his
order, at the Three Rivers mission, on the St. Lawrence, halfway between
Quebec and Montreal, and in the early autumn of 1660 was summoned to go to
Lake Superior, which had been made known through the explorations of
Radisson and Groseilliers.

These brave adventurers had returned from their second voyage into the
Northwest, accompanied by a fleet of Indian canoes; several of the canoes
were manned by Hurons from the Black River, who had come down all the way
to Montreal to trade their furs for European goods. The red men spent some
ten days there, feasting with the fur trade agents, and about the first of
September set out on their return. With them were Menard, his servant, and
seven other Frenchmen. Menard was now only fifty-five years old, but so
severe bad been his life among the Indians, that his hair was white, he was
covered with the scars of wounds, and "his form was bent as with great
age." 'The long journey was therefore a severe strain upon the good man,
for in addition to the exposure to weather, he was forced to paddle most of
the time, to Carry heavy packs over the numerous portage trails, to suffer
many indignities at the hands of his hosts.  By the time the company had
finally made their weary way up the Ottawa River, over to Georgian Bay, and
through to Sault Ste. Marie, the missionary was in a deplorable condition.
An accident happened to his canoe, and the Frenchmen and three Indians were
abandoned on the south shore of Lake Superior, at Keweenaw Bay. There he
was forced to spend the winter in a squalid Ottawa village, and nearly lost
his life in a famine which overtook the natives of that region.  In the
spring of 1661, while at Keweenaw Bay, Menard received an invitation to
visit a band of poor, starving 	Hurons at the headwaters of the Black
River. Several of these Indians had been baptized by Jesuits before the
Iroquois had driven them out from their old home to the east of Lake Huron.
In spite of his weak condition, and the many perils of this journey of a
hundred and fifty miles through the dense forest, the aged missionary bade
farewell to the Keweenaw Ottawas, among whom had also wintered several
French fur traders, and in July set out to obey the new summons, In his
company were his servant and several Hurons who had come to trade with the
Ottawas. They proceeded along the narrow trail which ran from Keweenaw Bay
to Lake Vieux Desert, the head-waters of the Wisconsin River, but the
feeble missionary's. gait was too slow for the Indians, who, after the
manner of their kind, promptly deserted their white friends, leaving them
to follow and obtain food as best they might. At the lake the Frenchmen
embarked in a canoe upon the south-flowing Wisconsin, and paddled down as
far as Bill Cross Rapids, some five or six miles above the mouth of Copper
River, and not far from where is now the city of Merrill. From the foot of
these rapids, they had intended leaving their canoe, and following a trail
which led off westward through the woods to the headwaters of the Black,
near the present town of,Chelsea. Menard's servant took the canoe through
the rapids, while the missionary, as usual, to lighten the boat, walked
along the portage trail. He ,must have lost his way and perished of
exposure in the depths of the dark and tangled forest, for his servant
could not find any trace of him. Thus closed the career of Wisconsin's
pioneer missionary, who died in the pursuit of duty, as might a soldier
upon the field of battle.

The death of Menard left the Lake Superior country without a missionary;
but four years later (1665), another Jesuit was sent thither in the person
of Claude Allouez (pr. Al-loo-ay'), who chose Chequamegon Bay for the seat
of his labors. There he found a squalid village, near Radisson and
Groseilliers' old forts, on the southwest shore; it was composed of
remnants of eight ten tribes, some of whom had been driven westward by the
Iroquois and others eastward by the Sioux. He led his mission La Pointe,
from the neighboring long point of land which, projecting northward,
divides Chequamegon Bay from Lake Superior.  

Allouez could make little impression upon these poor savages. After four
years of hard service and ill-treatment, he was relieved by Jacques
Marquette, a youthful and enthusiastic priest. Late in the autumn of 1669,
Allouez went to Fox River, and there he founded the mission of St. Francis
Xavier, overlooking the rapids of De Pere1.  This was a more successful
mission than the one at Chequamegon Bay; for, during the next summer, the
western Sioux furiously attacked the Indian neighbors of Marquee and sent
them all flying eastward, like dry leaves before an October gale. The
zealous Marquee accompanied them, and, with such bands as he could induce
to settle around him, opened a new mission on the mainland near Mackinaw
Island, at the Point St. Ignite of today.

Meanwhile, Allowed continued his mission at De Pere, making long trips
throughout Wisconsin, preaching to the Indians, and establishing the
mission of St.. Mark on the Wolf River, probably on or near Lake Shawnee,
Chippers then lived in great numbers.  Later, he opened St. James mission
at the Mascoutin Village near Berlin.  His churches were mere huts or
wigwams built of reeds and bark, after the manner of he natives. Another
Jesuit, Louis Andr&, was sent to Wisconsin to assist this enterprising
missionary, and they traveled among the tribes, preaching and healing the
sick in nearly every Indian village in the wide country between Lake
Michigan and the Mississippi. The career of these good missionaries was not
one of ease. Their lives were frequently in peril ; they suffered severely
from cruel treatment, hunger, cold, and the many hardships of forest
travel; and were rewarded by few conversions.

Allouez remained in Wisconsin until 1676, when he departed to carry on a
similar work in Illinois, dying thirteen years later, after a score of
years spent in Western missions. In Wisconsin, he was succeeded, in turn,
by several others of his order; chief among them were Fathers Silvy,
Albanel, Nouvel, Enjalran, and Chardon. Chardon was the last of his kind,
for he, with other Frenchmen, was driven out of Wisconsin in 1728, at the
time of the Fox War.

It was during the time of' Enjalran, at De Pere, that Nicolas Perrot, a
famous fur trader, was military commandant for the French in the country
west of Lake Michigan. In all this vast district, Enjalran was then the
only priest. In token of his appreciation of its work, Perrot presented to
the mission a beautiful silver tensorium (or soleil) made in Paris. The
ostensorium one of the vessels used in the church, in conducting the
service. This was in the year 1686; the following year, during one of the
frequent outbursts of Indian hostility against the missionaries, Enjalran
was obliged to fly for his life. In order to lighten his burden, he buried
this silver vessel, evidently intending to return some time and regain
possession of it.

In 1802, a hundred and fifteen years later, a man was digging a cellar in
Green Bay, several miles lower down the bank of the Fox River than is De
Pere, when his pickax ran through this piece of silver. It was brought to
light, and for safe keeping was given to the Catholic priest then at Green
Bay. Nobody would have known its story except for the clearly engraved
inscription on the bottom; the words are in French, but in English they
signify: "This soleil was given by Mr. Nicolas Perrot to the mission of St.
Francis Xavier, at the Bay of the Puants, 1686"; for the early French name
for Green Bay was " Bay of the Puants." The old ostensorium, with its
inscription just as plainly to be read to-day as when engraved over two
centuries ago, can now be seen among the treasures of the State Historical
Society, at Madison. It is an enduring memorial to the labors and the
sufferings of Wisconsin's first missionaries.

1. Called by the early French Rapides des Peres, or "The Fathers" Rapids "
but it was soon shortened into Des Peres, and finally by the Americans,
into De Pere