Chapter VIII: The Gray Gowns and the Black

“My boatmen sit apart,
Wolf-eyed, wolf-sinewed, stiller than the trees.
Help me, O Lord, for very slow of heart
And hard of faith are these.
Cruel are they, yet Thy children. Foul are they,
Yet wert Thou born to save them utterly.
Then make me as I pray,
Just to their hates, kind to their sorrows, wise
After their speech, and strong before their free
Indomitable eyes.”

MARJORIE PICKTHALL.

THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.

When Champlain on his return from New France to his native village of Brouage told of the vast country which lay beyond the seas, with its thousands of inhabitants who knew nothing of Christianity, the priests of the monastery in that village were so impressed with the magnitude of the work and the necessity for having Christianity presented to these heathen and savages, that four volunteered to accompany him to New France. They reached Quebec in May, 1615. They were Franciscans of the Récollet Order, and were distinguished in dress by the gray robe girt with the white cord. Hence they are often referred to as the priests of the Gray Gown.

The most prominent of these was Le Caron, who joined a band of Hurons returning after a successful sale of their winter’s hunting. Their route was up the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French River to Lake Huron. This was a memorable trip in many ways, but especially because Le Caron was the first white man to see what we now call Lake Huron—indeed the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man—or to sail upon its waters. Down among the islands of what is now Georgian Bay they went until they came near where Penetanguishene now stands, and at a large Huron village he awaited the coming of Champlain.

On the 12th August Le Caron celebrated mass and held the first religious service in all this territory, which afterwards was known as Upper Canada. Three hundred years afterwards this event was remembered by mass being celebrated as nearly as known on the same spot, and a monument erected.

Champlain and he spent most of the winter with the Hurons and made visits to their neighbours, the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians, along the south shore of Nottawasaga Bay, and at the foot of the Blue Hills near where the town of Collingwood now stands.

After returning to Quebec to consult with the other members of the Order who had come out to reinforce the small number of missionaries, Le Caron in 1623 returned to his Hurons with Father Viel and Brother Sagard. To the industry of the latter we owe a dictionary of the Huron language.

They laboured on with zeal but without making much lasting impression and they realized that the field was too large and the priests were too few. The Récollets had been in New France for about ten years and had founded missions in Acadia in the east, Huronia in the west, Nipissing and Upper St. John. They now realized that the Order was not equipped with the machinery or organization necessary to deal with so great a problem and in their despair they sent a deputation to the Jesuits in France to state the problem and ask their aid.

The invitation to come to their help was accepted by the Jesuits and in 1625 three of these priests of the “Black Gown” landed at Quebec. They were met by the Récollets, who became their hosts and took care of them until the work of organizing the mission could be undertaken. Two of these were Brebeuf and Lalemant, the former of whom set off for Huronia but turned back when he heard of the death of the Gray Robe, Father Viel, who was on his way from Huronia to Quebec. He was drowned in what is known as the Riviere des Prairies near Montreal, where the rapids are known to this day as the Sault au Récollet—The Récollet Rapids.

Champlain granted to the Jesuits land for their headquarters, where they might build their mission, and establish their farm in connection therewith, for they were practical men. Indeed, so firmly did they believe in having a definite investment in the country in which they were labouring that by the end of the French rule in this country the Jesuits were the largest land owners in New France. In planning their missionary labours Brebeuf was assigned to Huronia, the field which for nearly twenty-three years was to be his home.

When Quebec was taken by Kirke four years afterwards, the priests with the other official inhabitants were taken away as prisoners, and when the country was restored to France and the conduct of affairs given over to the Company of 100 Associates, the Récollets were not allowed to return. The excuse was that one Order was all that could be supported by the Company, and the Jesuits were the better organized. Thus passed away the Brethren of the Gray Robes except in some isolated cases in later days, when as in 1669, under the Intendant Talon, some few returned.

And now commences the romantic story of the Jesuits, the priests of the Black Robe, to whose mission journals called “Relations,” we owe most of our information of the early history of our country. From 1632 to 1673 there appeared annually in Paris a volume called a Relation, in which the work of the Jesuits in New France for the twelve months was described and reports from the missionaries incorporated or quoted.

These were very popular for they were interesting, romantic, full of information that was new and strange, and often were the means of stimulating wealthy people to help the cause of evangelisation; in some cases impelling persons to offer themselves as helpers in the great work, and still others to come out to this great land for the sheer adventure.

All the work of the Jesuits was characterized by the spirit of self-sacrifice on the part of the individual and by the efficiency of machinery. This is noticeable in the Relation or Annual Report published each year and which in form and method furnishes even to-day a model for the annual report of great institutions. Another aspect of their efficiency is seen in the way in which they prepared their missionaries for the task before them. There was a training period of two years during which the Jesuit studied the languages of the tribes among whom he was likely to live and became accustomed to the methods of living and the customs of the new country.

A striking illustration of the worldly wisdom of the superior officers of the Order is found in a circular issued to the missionaries who were to go up with the Indians to Huronia:

“You should love the Indians like brothers with whom you are
to spend the rest of your life. Never make them wait for you
when embarking. Take a flint and steel to light their pipes
and kindle their fires at night; for these little services win
their hearts. Try to eat their sagamité, as they cook it,—bad
and dirty as it is. Fasten up the skirts of your cassock
that you may not carry water or sand into the canoe. Wear no
shoes or stockings in the canoe, but you may put them on in
crossing the portages. Do not make yourself troublesome even
to a single Indian. Do not ask them too many questions. Bear
their faults in silence and appear always cheerful. Buy fish
for them from the tribes you will pass; and for this purpose
take with you some awls, beads, knives, and fish hooks. Be not
ceremonious with the Indians; take at once what they offer you.
Ceremony offends them. Be very careful when in the canoe that
the brim of your hat does not annoy them. Perhaps it would
be better to wear your night cap. There is no such thing as
impropriety among Indians. Remember it is Christ and His cross
that you are seeking; and if you aim at anything else you will
get nothing but affliction for body and mind.”

There were some, of course, who had not the gift of learning languages. These returned to France or were employed in the missions in the white settlements. It was from such training and with the motto of the Order animating every thought and action they went forth: “Ad majorem Dei gloriam,”—for the greater glory of God.

Naturally, the first great mission was to the Hurons, who had been the firm friends of the French, and who had been introduced to Christianity already by the Récollets; and who, moreover, lived in permanent settlements, and cultivated their fields. So the Jesuits followed the trail of Le Caron and for nearly a quarter of a century Brebeuf and his companions worked faithfully in Huronia, that part of what is now known as the province of Ontario called the county of Simcoe and bordering upon the Georgian Bay. His brother priest in this great missionary enterprise was Lalemant. Headquarters with a school were now established in a well-planned fort, which they built on the eastern bank of the Wye and from which missionaries were sent out to some twelve stations in Huronia, and among the neighbouring tribes. This was really a model settlement for the Hurons, who could see fields of corn, beans, pumpkins and wheat, with pigs and cattle outside, and shops of useful trades inside where were the men at the forge, the shoe shop, the laundry and the carpenter shop.

The Hurons, however, were ignorant and superstitious and the medicine men took advantage of epidemics of sickness, which arose from the unsanitary living, to blame the missionaries, who indeed must have been men of infinite patience and unselfish devotion to their work.

Among the Iroquois the cultivation of maize, beans, squashes and other garden produce was extensive and furnished a large portion of their food supply. The women of each village were organized in companies to plant and harvest the grain. The men cleared the land and provided the meat supply, but they seldom worked in the fields.

This group depicts a harvest scene in the Genesee valley on the flats near Squakie hill at Mount Morris. The activities are gathering and braiding corn, shelling beans, pounding corn for meal and baking corn bread. The man has just come from his canoe and reaches the field in time for lunch.

The figures are life casts of Seneca Indians.]

And now just when it seemed as if they might see some result of their long and unselfish labour the Iroquois began to make raids upon this northern country. There were constant encounters on the trading journeys to Quebec, but in 1642 a great Huron village near where the town of Orillia now stands was wiped out by a marauding party of Iroquois. And yet the Hurons would not take seriously the warnings of their missionaries and made no preparations against their unrelenting enemies.

Watching for the departure of the great canoe fleet to Quebec in 1648, the Iroquois made a sudden attack on Huronia and Father Daniel and his village of St. Joseph were slaughtered. Next spring they returned, put St. Ignace to the sword, took the village of St. Louis and stripped and bound to stakes the Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant. The tortures to which these good men were put before they were killed can hardly be imagined and cannot be described, all of which they stood with amazing fortitude. Indeed, even the Indians, stolid as they were, could not help admiring the courage of these martyrs for they drank the blood of Brebeuf that they might be as brave as he.

The spirit of these men can be understood in the description given us by Marjorie Pickthall, one of our own poets, of Father Lalemant, on a missionary journey:

“My hour of rest is done;
On the smooth ripple lifts the long canoe;
The hemlocks murmur sadly as the sun
Slants his dim arrows through.
Whither I go I know not, nor the way,
Dark with strange passions, vexed with heathen charms,
Holding I know not what of life or death;
Only be Thou beside me day by day,
Thy rod my guide and comfort, underneath
Thy everlasting arms.”

And so the Iroquois went through Huronia burning and scalping until there was only a mass of ruins, and the remnant of the Hurons fled to St. Joseph, on Christian Island, in Georgian Bay. Here they built a fort, but soon realized that in such an isolated position they could be starved out. Part of the nation went to Quebec, where they were protected and given some land, and part went to Michillimackinac, and thence to Lake Superior, where Father Marquette found them. Driven out by fear of the Sioux they returned to Mackinac, and thence some of them settled near Detroit, where under the name of Wyandots, they took part in the rising against the English known as Pontiac’s war, just after the capture of Quebec by Wolfe.

This story of Huronia has been told in some detail because it illustrates the work of the men of the Black Robe who shrank from no sacrifice, who knew no fear, and for whom there could be no earthly reward. Huronia was the greatest of the missions of the Jesuits, for there were twenty-five members of the Order working among these people.

But there were other missions. That among the fickle and warlike Iroquois, with Jogues and Le Moyne, that at Ville Marie (Montreal), afterwards given over to Sulpicians, who to this day are an extremely powerful Order in this great city, and that at Sault Ste. Marie, where Allouez, Dablon and Marquette had a mission which exercised a powerful influence southwards to Michillimackinac and the country of the Illinois, and westwards to where Fort William, Duluth, and even Winnipeg, now stand. It was from this mission that Joliet, the Government official, and Marquette, the Black Robe, set out on their journey to discover the great Southern Sea, and which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi.

And so from Nova Scotia to the southern Mississippi and northwards to Hudsons Bay, wherever there were Indian settlements of importance there were Black Robes ministering to the wandering tribes, teaching methods of greater production and less waste in the more settled places, and everywhere endeavouring to show the benefits of law, order, and settled government. There were seven churches or missions of the Jesuits in New France—Acadia (Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton); Tadoussac (lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay); Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers as one; Huronia; to the Iroquois; the Ottawa or Sault Ste. Marie (Ojibways, Beaver, Crees, Ottawas, Menominees, Pottawatomies, Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, Miamis, Illinois and refugee Hurons), Louisiana.

What they have left to us is not material wealth, but something infinitely greater, the record of self devotion, self sacrifice, fearless zeal and unflinching bravery even to a lingering death in a cause which they put above all renown.