The document discusses the interactions between Jesuit missionaries and various Native American groups in North America over two centuries, including the Algonquin-Montagnais, Hurons, and others. It describes aspects of their languages, spiritual beliefs, social structures, governance systems, and ways of life. It also discusses the challenges of missionary work among groups they did not understand, as well as conflicts with English settlers over land.
2. Jesuit and Indian
• The catholic reformation summoned up a great spirit of idealism, for it called on
believers to renounce complacent and remake the world.
• The success of the reduccion system of Latin America, established in opposition
to colonialist oppression, depended on that same oppression to pressure natives
into joining mission communities and to ensure that they stayed there.
• Over the course of almost two centuries of missionary work, the Jesuits had
dealings with almost every Indian nation of the northeast.
3. • Though the Jesuits tried to shield
converts from secular European
influences, the whole missionary
enterprise was affected by the
larger pattern of relations between
Indians and French.
• Conflict among English settler
societies and natives was common
as apposed to new France that had
more patterns of cooperation. The
French were not so much kinder
empire builders but they did not
require any substantial
appropriation of Indian lands.
• The Jesuits Considered serving
among the “savages” of north
America quite unappealing but
wanted to “sacrifice themselves” in
the forbidding land
4. Algonquin-Montagnais
• Algonquin-Montagnais spiritual believed that spirits could
be helpful or harmful to humans, and the aim of rituals was
to propitiate these spirits- to deflect their malevolence or
direct their power toward human end.
• Great difficulty talking to a people without understanding
their language.
• Indians have neither civil regulation, nor administrative
offices, nor dignities, nor any positions of command –for
they obey their chief only through goodwill toward him-
they never kill one another to acquire these honors.
• They are content with basic subsistence, and so not one of
them gives himself to the devil to acquire wealth.
5. • the indians are very much attached to each other
and cooperate admirabl. There are no
disputes,quarrels,enmities, or reproaches among
them.
• Men leave the household arrangements to the
women without interfering with them. The
women cut up and divide the food, deciding how
much for each family member.
• Everyone does his own chores, gently and
peacefully, without any disputes.
6. Hurons
• Huron verbs are different for living things and
inanimate objects and vary in tenses much like the
Greeks. In the first person numbers are in both dual
number and plural.
• Double conjugation and even feminine conjugation in
third person both for singular and the plural .
• Before the interaction with the French, they had never
dreamed that there was under heaven any land but
their own.
• Everyone believes as if it were an indisputable fact, and
no one takes the trouble to look into the truth of it.
7. Ways of Life
• The Jesuits point out that although the hurons have no
powerful leaders, or even the concept of submission to
authority, they do display a high degree of self-control
and mutual benevolence.
• They had a gentleness and affability almost incredible
for savages. They are not easily annoyed, and if they
have received wrong from anyone, they often conceal
the resentment they feel. very few allow themselves
any display of anger or vengeance.
• They maintain harmony by visiting one another
frequently, and in times of sickness, and by their feasts
and marriage alliances.
8. • They never marry anyone related to them in
any way , directly or collaterally; instead, they
always make new marital alliances, which is
very helpful in maintaining goodwill.
• Almost none were incapable of conversing or
of reasoning very well, and in good terms on
matters within their knowledge.
• Their procedure is scarcely less effective than
is the death penalty in other places.
• In councils they speak almost entirely in
metaphors.
• Even in wars , where confusion often
reigns, they do not fail to keep some order.
They never war without reason.
• The most common reason for taking up arms
is when some nation refuses to give
satisfaction for the death of someone and fails
to furnish the presets required by the
agreements made between them.
9. High rank
• The men who hold the first rank in the
local affairs of the villages, as well as in
those o the whole country, are still those
who have the greatest merit and
intelligence.
• These captains do not govern subjects by
means of commend and absolute
power, as they have no force at hand to
compel them to their duty. Their
government is only civil, and they merely
represent what is to be done for the good
of the villages of the whole country .
• Almost all of them have minds that are
naturally sound; they reason very clearly
and do not stumble in their speeches, and
so they make a point of mocking those
who trip over their tongues.
10. Mystics and martyrs
• Though they endured an abundance of pain
and extreme torment they always kept the
fact that God is infinite, in their hearts.
• Indians were not exempt from slander and
many times put an evil interpretation on the
most innocent actions in observation by
others. Saying much more about those who
were held high regard.
11. Exploring the Mississippi
• Jesuits involvement in French voyages of exploration was in part
serving as chaplains and also as scouts for potential new mission
fields.
• The influence of the Jesuits on the natives might have been less so
than that of the natives on intruding outsiders.
• Understanding the ways of the Natives was key in the success of
those wishing to be successful. Those who accepted this learned
much more than those who wanted no more than to eliminate
them.
