Spreading the Gospel Among the Iroquois

REV. FATHER LOUIS CELLOT, Letter to Father François Le Mercier (1656)

The French Jesuit mission to the Hurons and Iroquois in “New France,” the region of Quebec between the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, provides another example of cultural conflict and adaptation. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Jesuits had achieved some success and some fatal failures in their efforts to spread God’s word among North American tribes. While spreading their Christian beliefs, they also developed an understanding and appreciation for native cultures. Jesuits sent letters, like this one from 1656, to report the wonder working of God among the “Savages,” but they also show the extent to which native and European cultures responded to each other.

[M]Y REVEREND FATHER,

Pax Christi.

After addressing all our vows to Heaven to implore its aid we have recourse to your Reverence to ask your holy blessing, before embarking on the most dangerous and likewise the most glorious enterprise that can be undertaken in this country. We are on the eve of our departure to go and collect what remains of the blood of the Son of God among those peoples, where we have had the happiness of shedding our own and of carrying the light of the Faith to them, although their sole design hitherto has been to extinguish it; that is, we go to establish ourselves among the Iroquois. I think that, in mentioning those Barbarians, I say all that can be said; for their name alone shows the risk which we run and the glory which will accrue to God from the execution of that design.

We are not ignorant of the fact that these Savages have eaten us with relish and have drunk with pleasure the blood of the Fathers of our Society; that their hands and their lips are still wet with it, and that the fires in which they roasted their limbs are not yet quite extinguished. We have not forgotten the conflagrations that they have kindled to consume our houses, and the cruelty that they have practiced on our bodies, which still bear its marks. We know that their whole policy consists in knowing well how to plot treachery, and to conceal all their plans for it; that no Nero or Diocletian ever declared himself so strongly against the Christians as these bloodthirsty Savages have done against us; and that the Faith would at the present moment be received among many Infidel Nations, had they not surpassed in rage and fury the greatest persecutors of Jesus Christ. We have not yet been able to dry the tears in which, for six years, our eyes have been bathed when we cast them upon the flourishing condition of the Huron Church before those Oppressors had sapped its foundations, making Martyrs of its Pastors, and Saints of most of its members; and leaving but a very pitiful remnant, who have sought refuge under the wing of the French, the only asylum left them in their misfortune. We see that, ever since that first havoc, they have always pushed on their conquests, and have made themselves so redoubtable in this country that everything gives way before their arms. They still have strength in their hands, and perhaps treachery in their hearts; and our allies are so weakened and so reduced in numbers, that barely enough remain to preserve the names of many very populous and very important nations. Notwithstanding all that, we consider ourselves so convinced of the will of God — who, of old, turned his greatest persecutors into his most illustrious Apostles — that we have no doubt that, at the present time, he opens the door to his Preachers, that they might go and plant the faith in the very heart of his enemies, triumph over their barbarity, change those Wolves and Tigers into Lambs, and bring them into the fold of Jesus Christ.

It is not without reason that we conceive such bright hopes. The manifestations of Divine providence and the means employed by its guidance, which has so well directed matters to the point at which they have now arrived, compel us to admit that we cannot, without extreme cowardice, disappoint the expectations that God has caused to arise for us where we least expected them. Had we not observed the finger of God at the outset and in the course of this undertaking, we would have mistrusted our own zeal, and have feared that we were acting with more fervor than prudence; for all human appearances seem to contend against our resolution. But God acts so manifestly, in the whole of this matter, that no one can doubt that it is a work of his hand, the execution and the glory whereof belong solely to him. For what power other than his could force these peoples, inflated with pride on account of their victories, not only to come and seek a peace with us of which they seemed to have no need, but also to place themselves unarmed in our hands, and throw themselves at our feet, begging us to accept them as our friends, when we were so weak that we could no longer withstand them as enemies? They had but to continue, to massacre the remainder of the French Colony, for they met with hardly any resistance either from the French or from the savages, our Confederates; and, nevertheless, for over three years, they incessantly sent presents and embassies to ingratiate themselves with us, and to solicit us to make peace. Old and young, women and children, place themselves at our mercy; they enter our forts; they act confidently with us, and spare no effort to open their hearts to us, and to make us read therein that all their solicitations are as sincere as they are pressing.

They are not content with coming to us, but for a long time they invite us to go to them, and offer us the finest land that they have, and that is to be found in this New world. Neither the necessities of trade nor the hopes of our protection induce them to do all that; for they have hitherto had and still enjoy both those things with the Dutch, much more advantageously than they can ever hope to do with the French. But it is the act of God; he has, doubtless, lent an ear to the blood of the Martyrs, which is the seed of Christians, and which now causes them to spring up in this land that was watered by it. For, not only have those greatest enemies of the Faith given presents to declare that they wish to embrace it; not only have they asked for Preachers to instruct them, and publicly professed in open Council that they were Believers; but the Fathers of our Society who have passed the last winter with them have also observed so many good dispositions for the planting of a new Church among them, not only from the miraculous things that have happened there, as Your Reverence will see in the Journal, but also from the numerous first-fruits already consecrated to heaven, that we depart, with all confidence, to cause the name of Jesus Christ to resound in those lands where the Devil has always been master from the beginning of the world.

If those peoples are so anxious to have us in their country, we feel no less eagerness to leave ours, and to go among them. And this is another proof of the will of God, who disposes all things so opportunely that I find myself equally and agreeably importuned from two very different directions, on one side, by the Iroquois, who urge us; on the other, by our Fathers and Brethren, who eagerly ask to be allowed to join the party. The desire of the former and the zeal of the latter compel me to satisfy them all; and, although the former have hitherto manifested nothing but cruelty, the latter feel only an affection for them, which makes them hold life cheap, and lavish it generously, for the salvation of those who have so often sought to put them to death. I have no doubt that God — who himself governs his work, and who inspires that fervor in the Fathers of our Society who are in these countries — will do likewise in our Houses in France; and will induce many to come and have a share in Conquests so brilliant, although accompanied by incredible labors and very great dangers — or rather, by lofty hopes of dying on the field of battle. I can readily imagine that they Will cast themselves at the feet of Your Reverence, as I see them here embracing mine, in order to obtain the greatest favor that a member of the society of Jesus can expect to obtain; for he can never hope for a greater honor than that of sacrificing himself to carry into barbarism the name of his leader, and to cause him to be adored by the Iroquois.

Divine providence also manifests itself by giving us at this moment a goodly number of our Fathers, who not only have the courage to expose themselves to everything, but also possess the capacity of teaching those Barbarians, whose language, as well as that of many other Nations still more remote, is not very different from that of the Hurons. It is this that revives their fervor and gives to old men, broken down after glorious labors, the courage to desire to go among those peoples, and to spend the remainder of their lives, with the same zeal that they manifested fifteen or twenty years ago when they labored in the Huron Missions. Even those who do not belong to our body feel in their hearts some sparks of the same ardor, and offer to lend a hand to so grand a work. Were one to believe them, either New France would be almost entirely Iroquois, or we would no longer have any French except among the Iroquois, so greatly are they convinced of the sincerity of those nations. That is why, after having well implored the assistance of the Holy Ghost and deliberated upon all the circumstances of that peace, there is not a single person who can reasonably doubt that they are earnest in so persistently seeking to obtain it.…

Such is the state of affairs; and such are the effects of so many prayers, mortifications, fasts, alms, and good works, which have been performed in both Frances, and have caused so great a design to be conceived. But, as the undertaking is arduous and difficult of execution, we beg those pious Souls to continue their fervor, so that God may continue to pour his blessings on this country. And, for my part, I beg Your Reverence and all our Fathers and Brethren of your Province to lift your hands to heaven, while we go to declare war against Infidelity, and to fight the devil in the very heart of his country, I am, with all possible respect and submission,

Your Reverence’s

Very humble and very obedient servant in Our Lord,

From Montréal, this FRANÇOIS LE MERCIER,

6th of June, 1656

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1898), 52–65.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS