2. Introduction Jesuit Relations are the annual reports (documentary material) of the French missionaries and their encounters with the Europeans and Native Americans. Some important recorded points are the progress of colonization, the detailed descriptions of their cultural customs and habits, And their efforts of converting the Native Americans to Catholicism.
3. Continued Intro Ignatius Loyola founded and established the Society of Jesus in Catholic Europe in 1534. They began to send missionaries to Canada shortly after Throughout the missions in Canada, the Jesuits were able to publish the annual Relations so that they could benefit their audiences back in France. (These “audiences” consisted of well-wishers, donors, and other curious readers.)
4. Chapter One Superior of the New France mission Father Paul Le Jeune had contact with the Montagnais and Algonquins. The Montagnais and Algonquins had extensive knowledge of their surroundings and seasonal resources and possessed amazing technical sophistication in such things as transportation.
5. Chapter 1 continued Father Paul Le Jeune used Montagnais and Algonquins as his focus on his earliest writings in the Jesuits Relations. These Relations focused on their cycle of life throughout the seasons, and migrational patterns, customs, cultures, and how they discipline their children. These writings were different then the writing most Europeans would normally use because he included paragraphs of ethnographic desciptions.
6. Chapter 3 Diseases! Smallpox, Influenza, and the Measles broke out and these “invisible diseases and viruses” swept quickly over villages. The Jesuits tried to heal themselves as best as they could but limited knowledge prevented them from being very successful. Their efforts turned into babtizing the infected and dying, instead of trying to relieve the suffering of the living. The natives did not like this.
7. Chapter 3 continued The Jesuits failed to report their remedies in as much detail as they did in their horrified fascination of the superstitious practices. The natives had medical practices that did work, but the success suggested the assistance of a supernatural force, though not one that derived from God.
8. Natural Environments The Relations contained many detailed accounts of the wild animals of North America and how the natives viewed them. The natives believed that the animals had morals, and that eagles were incharge of punishing them if they, for instance, carried off beavers. Strange things like Comets, Earthquakes and other natural phenomenon started to occur in 1663
9. Chapter 7 Father Isaac Jogues was the first of the Jesuit martyrs of New France that had the opportunity to write his own obituary. He was captured by a Mohawk raiding party but escaped and made his way to the Hudson River then eventually back to Europe He surprisingly returned to the New World and negotiated a truce between the Jesuits and the Mohawks.
10. Chapter 7 continued Father Isaac Jogues also gave readers a first hand view of how the prisoners in Iroquian societies were treated. He was fluent in the Iroquis language and because of this he was dispatched on two missions However, on the second mission the war party in Gandauague accused him of being a sorcerer and killed him.
11. KateriTekawitha Was a native named Catherine Tegahouita who became a Saint. (We know her now by the name of KateriTekawitha.) She was a Mohawk who lived the last four years of her life at the mission of Sault St. Louis outside of Montreal. She was a central figure among the native women and pursued a Christian life of perfection.
