The Jesuit Relations Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America

As a 73-volume library, the original Jesuit Relations has long been inaccessible to undergraduate students. Vitally important, the writings of seventeenth-century French Jesuits in Native North America tell the story of early American encounters. This new edition deftly binds them into a thematically arranged, 35-document sampler with a detailed introduction that provides background on these missionaries, the Native Americans, and their cohabitation in early North America. Colorful journal entries by such fathers as Paul Le Jeune, Jean de Brébeuf, Claude Dablon, and Claude Allouez describe the Wendat, Algonquin, Iroquois, and Innu peoples. Changes to this edition include recent scholarship in the Introduction, chapter notes, and bibliography, as well as a new chapter which recounts the early stages of the Jesuits’ westward expansion into the region of Lakes Superior and Michigan and the upper Mississippi valley, and sheds light on the anti-Iroquois alliance that was taking shape in the late 1660s. Two maps, a chronology, a bibliography, and questions for consideration supplement the firsthand accounts.

Foreword

Preface

PART ONE

Introduction: Native North America and the French Jesuits

The Society of Jesus in Europe and Abroad

Iroquoians and Algonquians

The Colonization of New France

The Canadian Missions

The Jesuit Relations and Their Readers

How to Read the Jesuit Relations

1. Paul Le Jeune, Journal [of a Winter Hunt], 1634

2. Paul Le Jeune, On Their Hunting and Fishing, 1634

3. Paul Le Jeune, On the Beliefs, Superstitions, and Errors of the Montagnais Indians, 1634

4. Paul Le Jeune, On the Good Things Which Are Found among the Indians, 1634

5. Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Language of the Hurons, 1636

Religion, Myth, and Ritual

6. Jean de Brébeuf, What the Hurons Think about Their Origins, 1636

7. Jean de Brébeuf, That the Hurons Recognize Some Divinity; Of Their Superstitions and of Their Faith in Dreams, 1636

8. Jean de Brébeuf, Concerning Feasts, Dances . . . and What They Call Ononharoia, 1636

Law and Government

9. Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Polity of the Hurons and of Their Government, 1636

10. Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Order the Hurons Observe in Their Councils, 1636

11. Jean de Brébeuf, Of the Solemn Feast of the Dead, 1636

12. Jean de Brébeuf, [Cure by Lacrosse], 1636

13. Jérôme Lalemant, [Cure by Gambling], 1639

14. Jérôme Lameant, {Satisfying the Soul’s Desires], 1639

15. François Le Mercier, The Malady with Which Our Little Household Has Been Afflicted, 1637

16. François Le Mercier, The Help We Have Given to the Sick of Our Village, 1637

17. François Le Mercier, Ossossané Afflicted with the Contagion, 1637

18. François Le Mercier, Of the Hurons Baptized This Year, 1638

19. Jérôme Lalemant, Of the Persecutions Excited against Us, 1640

20. Barthélemy Vimont, Treaty of Peace between the French, Iroquois, and Other Nations, 1644-1645

21. Jérôme Lalemant, Some Iroquois Surprised after Defeating the Algonquins; A Woman Kills an Iroquois and Escapes, 1647

22. Paul Ragueneau, Of the Capture of the Villages of the Mission of St. Ignace, 1648-1649

23. Francesco-Giuseppe Bressani, New France Accurately Depicted, 1657

24. Paul Le Jeune, Of Their Customs and Their Belief, 1637

25. Jérôme Lalemant, Various Matters, 1647-1648

26. Jérôme Lalemant, Three Suns and Other Aerial Phenomena Which Appeared in New France, 1662-1663

27. Jérôme Lalemant, Universal Earthquake in Canada and Its Marvelous Effects, 1662-1663

28. François Le Mercier, Of the Comets and Extraordinary Signs That Have Appeared at Quebec and in Its Vicinity, 1664-1665

29. François Le Mercier, Of the Condition of Canada over the Last Two Years, 1666-1667

30. François Le Mercier, Of the Mission of Ste. Marie among the Mohawk Iroquois, 1667-1668

31. Jean Pierron, Of the Mission of the Martyrs in the Country of the Mohawks, or the Lower Iroquois, 1669-1670

32. Claude Chauchetière, [Letter on Intense Religious Practice among Indigenous Converts], 1682

33. Jérôme Lalemant, How Father Isaac Jogues Was Taken by the Iroquois, and What He Suffered on His First Entrance into Their Country, 1647

34. P. F. X. de Charlevoix, Catherine Tegahkouita: An Iroquois Virgin, 1744

35. Claude Dablon and Claude Allouez, Relation of the Mission to the Ottawa, 1669-70

A Chronology of Events Related to the Jesuit Relations (1534-1773)

Questions for Consideration

Selected Bibliography

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