1649, 1650.
THE SANCTUARY.
Dispersion of the Hurons • Sainte Marie abandoned • Isle St. Joseph •
Removal of the Mission • The New Fort • Misery of the Hurons • Famine •
Epidemic • Employments of the Jesuits
All was over with the Hurons. 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 Hurons, as a nation, ceased to exist. [1]
[1] 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." [2]
[2] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1649, 26.
Several of the priests set out to follow and console the scattered bands
of fugitive Hurons. 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 rovings 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 Hurons 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 Hurons 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 Hurons 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 Hurons in former years of plenty,--pictures, vestments,
sacred vessels and images, weapons, ammunition, tools, goods for barter
with the Indians, cattle, swine, and poultry. [3] 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. [4] 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.
[3] 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.
[4] 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.
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 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 shore of
the island, a hundred feet from the water. [5] Detached redoubts were
also built near at hand, where French musketeers could aid in defending
the adjacent Huron village. [6] 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.
[5] 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.
[6] Compare Martin, Introduction to Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 38.
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 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. [7] 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. [8] 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. [9]
[7] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 3, 4. He reckons eight persons
to a family.
[8] "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.
[9] 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. [10] An epidemic presently
appeared, to aid the work of famine. Before spring, about half of their
number were dead.
[10] "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.
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. [11] 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. [12]
[11] Lettre de Ragueneau au Général de la Compagnie de Jésus, Isle St.
Joseph, 13 Mars, 1650.
[12] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1650, 6, 7.
Thus this miserable winter wore away, till the opening spring brought
new fears and new necessities. [13]
[13] 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.