THE JESUIT MISSION to CANADA and the FRENCH WARS of RELIGION, 1540-1635 Dissertation P
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“POOR SAVAGES AND CHURLISH HERETICS”: THE JESUIT MISSION TO CANADA AND THE FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION, 1540-1635 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Joseph R. Wachtel, M.A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Professor Alan Gallay, Adviser Professor Dale K. Van Kley Professor John L. Brooke Copyright by Joseph R. Wachtel 2013 Abstract My dissertation connects the Jesuit missions in Canada to the global Jesuit missionary project in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by exploring the impact of French religious politics on the organizing of the first Canadian mission, established at Port Royal, Acadia, in 1611. After the Wars of Religion, Gallican Catholics blamed the Society for the violence between French Catholics and Protestants, portraying Jesuits as underhanded usurpers of royal authority in the name of the Pope—even accusing the priests of advocating regicide. As a result, both Port Royal’s settlers and its proprietor, Jean de Poutrincourt, never trusted the missionaries, and the mission collapsed within two years. After Virginia pirates destroyed Port Royal, Poutrincourt drew upon popular anti- Jesuit stereotypes to blame the Jesuits for conspiring with the English. Father Pierre Biard, one of the missionaries, responded with his 1616 Relation de la Nouvelle France, which described Port Royal’s Indians and narrated the Jesuits’ adventures in North America, but served primarily as a defense of their enterprise. Religio-political infighting profoundly influenced the interaction between Indians and Europeans in the earliest years of Canadian settlement. The initial failure of the Jesuits to entrench themselves in Canada allowed an increasing number of Huguenots to trade in New France without a strong missionary presence to counter them. Although we often ii imagine French Canada as a place where Indians primarily interacted with Jesuit missionaries, the entire first generation of Indians in constant contact with French settlers operated without missionary pressures. In places where there was a limited missionary presence, such as at Port Royal in 1611-13 and Quebec after 1615, the Indians, acutely aware of divisions among the French, struggled to balance secular proprietors who taught them that baptism merely represented a diplomatic alliance and missionaries who believed it meant giving up native cosmologies. My work uncovers an essential link connecting the origin of the Jesuit missions to North America, Jesuit missionary activity within Europe, and confessional conflict. In contrast to other historians who assert that the early Jesuits used religion as a means to conquer Indians for France, I show that Jesuit conversion of Indians should be seen as a means for vanquishing heresy by renewing Catholicism worldwide. Through archival research at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, and the Vatican Film Library in St. Louis, I found that after evangelizing Indians, Biard used this training in his attempt to combat Calvinism in southeastern France. Port Royal’s other Jesuit missionary, Fr. Enemond Massé, instructed future missionaries and accompanied them when they returned to New France in 1626. Under Massé’s guidance, the younger missionaries overcame the anti-Jesuit sentiments that persisted among Canada’s proportionally large Huguenot population when Cardinal Richelieu excluded Protestants from settling in French America in 1627. They opened the collège de Québec—North America’s first college—to educate elite Canadians, instruct iii Indians, and promote the mission’s longevity by providing institutional support for the Jesuits as their colleges had done throughout Europe in the preceding century. iv Dedication For Lucina v Acknowledgements Few people get to dedicate their lives to following their passions. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to transform my love of history from a personal interest into a career that allows me to share my enthusiasm with the academic community, my friends and colleagues, and college undergraduates on a day-to-day basis. I would not have been able to attain such a luxury on my own, and I owe a debt of gratitude to those who have supported me. More than anyone, I owe my success to Alan Gallay. To begin, Alan has been a fantastic advisor, never failing to promptly handle paperwork, help me secure grants, give advice on research, and provide excellent comments on drafts. He’s guided me in the practicalities of our profession and vastly improved my writing habits. Yet Alan has been more than just a good adviser, but rather a mentor from whom I have developed my own professional outlook. From him, I learned that good historians are the ones who apply their analytical reasoning to subjects they enjoy studying rather than topics dictated by others. He taught me to consider the study of history as a creative rather than mechanical process, encouraging me to imaginatively envision the past and its participants while also visualizing my own goals as a scholar. Although all researching, writing, and teaching projects have specific goals to work toward, to achieve them I get to read history books, study languages, analyze four-hundred-year-old documents, craft narratives directed at vi both undergraduates and scholars, and participate in interpretive debates while being afforded the opportunity to travel to new places and try new things. Thanks to Alan, I appreciate the fact that my job is one of continuing education, and I consider myself lucky that I can take pleasure in the process of learning rather than focusing solely on outcomes. I thank Alan for everything he’s done, tangibly and intangibly, and I look forward to considering him both a colleague and a friend for the rest of my career. Dale Van Kley also has been profoundly influential in my development. After taking three of his graduate seminars in the Enlightenment and origins of the French Revolution, fulfilling a minor field in early modern Europe that he advised, and writing a dissertation involving French religious politics under the ancien Régime with his input, I can conclusively say that I owe my expertise on the European side of the Atlantic world to him. Dale’s genuine interest in my research has been overwhelming, and this project could not have turned out as it did without his support. His dedication to my future has gone above and beyond my expectations, and I will always remain grateful for the investment he has made in me. Many others shaped my intellectual development. John Brooke not only served as a dissertation reader, but also dedicated many hours in both the classroom and in his office to ensuring that I obtained a comprehensive framework for understanding the development of early America. His influence on my course development has already been profound, and I will carry his legacy with me for the rest of my career. In spite of his busy schedule, John has always gone to bat for me, and I sincerely appreciate every minute he has dedicated to the advancement of my career. Carla Pestana, who advised my master’s thesis, provided me with a sound foundation in the literature of colonial Atlantic vii North America and encouraged me to tackle the problem of religious tensions in the early years of New France after I completed my master’s degree. Ken Andrien co-advised my major field exam in Atlantic World, thus giving me the strong background in Latin American history required to fully appreciate Atlantic history. Similarly, Joe Miller provided a background in African history and helped me understand more clearly the role Africa played in fashioning Atlantic societies and how the Atlantic shaped Africa. I thank Wietse de Boer for helping me develop a full understanding of broader historiographical trends early in my career and for serving as a reader for my master’s thesis. Despite entering his course with no prior exposure to the language, I thank Mark Wright for teaching me Latin in a little over a year. I would like to acknowledge all of the other scholars with whom I’ve worked: Renee Baerenstein, Catia Brilli, Drew Cayton, Dan Cobb, David Cressy, Bob Davis, Dan Kilbride, Maria Marsilli, Marian Morton, Margaret Newell, Geoffrey Parker, Lisa Piorier, David Robson, Walter Rucker, Jonathan Strauss, Rich Ugland, Allan Winkler, Judith Zinsser, and all those who participated in The Ohio State University’s Center for Historical Research, Early Modern Seminar, and Ohio Seminar in Early American History. Each of you challenged me to think about analyzing, writing, and teaching history in new and exciting ways. There are countless others who contributed to this project. I am indebted to Susan L’Engle, Barbara Channell, and the Vatican Film Library Mellon Fellowship Program for supporting my studies. I would like to thank Yann Kergunteuil at the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Père Robert Bonfils at the Archives Françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, and the staff at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Bibliothèque de Sainte- Geneviève, and Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu. My first trip abroad would not have viii been as enjoyable without help from Daniel Watkins, who gave me a place to stay in France, showed me around Paris, offered valuable travel advice, and helped me practice my French. I also thank Andrea Ottone for arranging my lodgings in Italy, Donatella Rivoir and Paulo Polio for renting their spare room to me, and Maarten Bas-Backer for guiding me through Rome. And finally to Gene and Jan Boecker; for their genuine hospitality, for temporarily adopting me as one of their own, for introducing me to greater St. Louis, and for the vineyard tour. I am lucky to have supportive friends and family. To Sean Beienburg and Jessica Britton, who dedicated countless hours to discussing ideas, reading drafts, and offering feedback (despite their own busy careers): I cannot imagine two people with whom I would have rather shared my work.