2. FRENCH EXPLORATION OF CANADA
Early Visitors to “New France”
• 1497 John Cabot (Italian)
• 1535 Jacques Cartier went up the St.
Lawrence R. and named Que bec (What a
beak!). He planted a cross, claiming land
for Francis I
• Early 1600’s Samuel de Champlain
started first settlement in Nova Scotia,
called Port Royal.
• 1608 settles Quebec
• Fight with Iroquois
Mission Work Begins
• 1615 Joseph Le Caron of the Recollets
• 1625 Jesuits are sent to assist Recollets
• Jean de Brebeuf, Charles Lalemant,
Enemand Masse
• Sainte Marie founded on Georgian Bay
among the Huron people (aka Wyandot)
• 1,000 miles from Quebec
3.
4. WHO WERE THE HURON & IROQUOIS?
• Horticulturalists after ~1300
• C4/C3 in bones, dental caries, Harris
lines, C-14 dates, etc.
• Iroquois & Huron are broad terms
• Iroquois (5 tribes) & Huron (4 tribes)
confederacies
• “own territory, councils, customs, and
history” (Trigger, 19)
• Huron settlements on edge of
Algonquin territory, allowing for trade
• Pushed from St. Lawrence River to Lk.
Huron by the Iroquois
• Iroquois lived in upstate New York
• Blocked French expansion into Ohio
Complex Linguistic Picture
Iroquois and Algonquin
"You may have been a famous professor or
theologian in France, but here you will
merely be a student and with what
teachers! The Huron language will be your
Aristotle and, clever man that you are,
speaking glibly among the learned, you
must make up your mind to be mute in the
company of these natives.“
~Jean de Brebeuf
6. WHO WERE THE HURON & IROQUOIS?
• Huron Population
• 30,0000 estimated early on
• Census taken by Gabriel Lalemant estimated
12,000 inhabitants in 32 villages, 700 “cabins,” and
2,000 hearths. Estimate of 4,000 families (Trigger,
18)
• Matrilineal descent
• Men lived with the wife’s family, women had a large
role in the community
• Lived in long houses within palisaded villages
• Average house 18 m long with 3 hearths
• Up to 30+ people, with an estimated 2.5-3.5
square meters per person. (Trigger 70)
• Women lived within the settlement and
clearing, men went out into forests
• Villages moved at 10-30 yr. intervals
• Women farmed, men hunted
• Squash, beans, corn
• Bear (w/dogs), deer, beaver, fish etc.
• Warfare
• Three reasons among Iroquois (Trigger,
52)
• 1) Personal prestige
• Tests of endurance and bravery
• 2) Retaliation for past violence
• 3) Religious Ideals
• Sacrifice to Iouskeha, ritual
torture
• Identified with warfare, the
sun, and the force that made
human life possible
• Sacrifice ensured a
continuation of the natural
world.
• Witchcraft
• Fear of people casting spells and
causing physical harm.
• Witchcraft warranted the death
sentence
7. JESUITS AMONG THE HURON
• French Jesuits viewed as relatively accepting
of the Huron culture, working with, not
against
• Charles Garnier (O’Brien 210)
• Traveled with and lived with the Hurons, often
in the same homes
• Many hardships and fears
• People slow to accept the faith
• Sexual promiscuity (in the eyes of the French)
• Close quarters, smoky
• Hurons feared witchcraft and sorcery
Mission Work Begins
• 1615 Joseph Le Caron of the Recollets
• 1625 Jesuits are sent to assist Recollets
• Jean de Brebeuf, Charles Lalemant,
Enemand Masse
• Sainte Marie founded on Georgian Bay
among the Huron people
• 1,000 miles from Quebec
• Jesuit Relations
8. RISING TENSION IN “NEW FRANCE”
Disease & Superstition
• Diseases precede and occur during the
time of the Jesuits
• Disease and hardship often blamed on
the black robes
• Many did not want to convert
• Seen as the religion of the Europeans.
Iroquois & Dutch Relations
• Dutch had control of Hudson River valley
(began 1625)
• Provided Iroquois with weapons in
exchange for pelts
• Beaver pop. dwindles, Iroquois move north
• Champlain allied with the Huron,
making the French a target
• Fought with Iroquois war party at what is
now Lake Champlain. First encounter
with guns.
9. EXAMPLE OF A MARTYRDOM
• Hailed as a living martyr back home.
• Pope Urban VIII gave dispensation to
say mass with mutilated hands
• Visited with mother in Orleans, but
quickly went back to Osserneon
• Martyred because infectious disease
and crop failure seen as his fault.
• Tomahawked and thrown into the
Mohawk River Oct. 18, 1646
St. Isaac Jogues
• Sent to New France in 1636
• Captured by Mohawk Iroquois in 1642
• Lived as a slave at Osserneon (home of
Kateri Tekawitha in the 1650s)
• Tortured, lost fingers
• Seen in the movie
• Ransomed and returned to France with
the assistance of the Dutch @ Fort
Orange
10. THE END
• Seminaries founded and failed, especially due to
disease and unwillingness to learn
• Disease, famine, and Iroquois attacks caused the
Huron population to dwindle
• Sainte Marie abandoned and burned
• Some Jesuits followed the Huron in their
diaspora
• Assimilation into other tribes, intermarriage with
French
• Some continued to practice Christianity for years.
• Huron/Wyandot people currently live in OK, KS,
MI, and Quebec.
