1. The Jesuit Relations
Natives and Missionaries in
Seventeenth-Century North America

2. Jesuit Relations
• The Jesuit Relations constitute the most important set of
documentary materials on the 17th century encounter of
Europeans and natives North Americans.
– Relations are the annual reports of French missionaries of the
Society of Jesus on their efforts to convert the natives to
Christianity.
– The yearly chronicles has information about the progress of
colonization, the devastation of epidemics, the outbreak of war,
and other important events affecting the Indians.
– They have detailed descriptions of the customs habits, and
cultures of native nations.
– They are a good source of information about the peoples in the
early phases of colonization because they described every
aspect of the natives culture (even those they disapproved of)
and were literate, masters of the written word.

3. The Society of Jesus
• It was founded by the Spanish ex-soldier Ignatius of Loyola in
1534.
• Jesuits were members of a religious order, the Society of
Jesus, where they took special vows of poverty and obedience
that distinguished them from regular parish priests.
• Their activities included education, literacy, and scientific
activities, pastoral care, and overseas missions.
– They had a view of world conflict as a struggle between good
and evil; heresy (Protestant Christianity) and paganism (non-
Christian religions) were the external threats, but Christians also
had to battle internal enemies: vices that were the evil’s
temptations.
– The suppression of sexuality, the exaltation of celibacy, and the
use of fasting, self-flagellation, and other ascetic practices were
done in penance for sins.

4. Indian Nations
• In the 1600’s Jesuits concentrated mainly on four nations:
the Montagnais and Algonquins, both Algonquian speakers;
and the Hurons and Iroquois, both Iroquoian peoples.
– The Huron and Iroquois designated confederacies; four tribes
constituted the Huron confederacy: the Arendarhonons,
Attignawantans, Attigneenongnahacs, and Tahontaenrats.
• The Jesuits frequently referred to the Five Nations of the
Iroquois League individually: the Mohawks, Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas.
• The Hurons and the Iroquois, though very similar culturally,
were militarily at odds through most of the period covered
by the Jesuit Relations, but the Hurons, Algonquins,
Montagnais, and the French remained allies in spite of the
great differences between them.

5. Colonization
• Relations that developed between the Jesuits and the natives is one
aspect of a wider process of colonization.
– The missionary enterprise was affected by the larger relations
between Indians and French.
• What developed in the 17th century was not an empire domination
and subjugation, instead it was one of multistranded commercial
and diplomatic links between France and the different Indians of
the inland.
– Consequently, Jesuits missionaries had to work with natives who
generally retained a high degree in the French of independence,
regardless of how entangled they became in the French network of
alliance and trade.
• Because of colonization, terrible epidemics ravaged the Indians,
native economics were transformed, political instability, conflict,
and deadly wars were among the many indirect consequences, as
well as the reshape of native thinking and behavior in conformity
with Christian principles.