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 he 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 had 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, and 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 headwaters 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 or ten tribes, some of whom had been
driven westward by the Iroquois and others eastward by the Sioux. He
called 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 Pere.[1] 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
Marquette and sent them all flying eastward, like dry leaves before an
October gale. The zealous Marquette accompanied them, and, with such
bands as he could induce to settle around him, opened a new mission on
the mainland near Mackinac Island, at the Point St. Ignace of to-day.
[Footnote 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_.]
[Illustration: SITE OF THE MISSION AT DE PERE]
Meanwhile, Allouez 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 Shawano,
where the Chippewas 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 the
natives. Another Jesuit, Louis Andre, 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 _ostensorium_ (or _soleil_) made in
Paris. The _ostensorium_ is one of the vessels used at the altar, in
celebrating the mass. 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.