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Home , Andrew White (Jesuit), Antoine Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Jean de Lalande, The Jesuit Relations

The Jesuit Mission to

A­ Jesuit Saint’s Connection to the Game of Lacrosse Fifty-three years after the Jesuits entered Mexico City, others from , in 1625, New Lacrosse is the oldest sport in North America. Played in different forms by The Jesuits in settled in . Nine years later, others from settled at St. Mary's City, In 1566, only a decade after Ignatius’s death, the a number of Amerindians to resolve conflicts or to heal the sick, lacrosse was documented in 1636 by Jesuit missionary and saint, Jean de Brébeuf Unlike the mission in French , the Maryland free to remain on American soil. Catholic activities in Maryland. Segments of these three cultures, Spanish, French, English, from which third Jesuit General, St. Francis Borja, responding mission left no paintings or sculptures, no experimental Maryland were galvanized under John Carroll (1735– (1593-1649). Called “baggataway” by Native Americans, Brébeuf christened emblem books—indeed, no objects of any kind other 1815), a native Maryland Jesuit educated in Europe who grew the rich variety of the Church in the northern continent, were eventually to to the request of Philip II of Spain, sent Pedro the game “lacrosse” because the stick reminded him of a bishop’s crosier, than a handful of church silver, books, and writings. in 1789 was named the first Bishop of Baltimore and la crosse in French. The surviving residences of the Jesuits look no different founded the school that would later become Georgetown be brought together within one political unity by the creation and expansion of the Martinez, S.J., and two companions to Florida. from the Georgian manors of their Protestant neighbors University. But the Maryland Jesuits were even able to except for the presence of modest attached chapels, and remain Jesuits, and Maryland was one of only two places of America. — William V. Bangert, S.J., ­ (The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972) Martinez was former rector of the Jesuit college even the few full-scale churches the Society was able to in the world in which the survived the at but had begged for the privilege of build during the eighteenth century exactly resemble 1773–1814 period of suppression. They managed this the churches of the Quakers and . But precisely with the help of an arcane legality whereby in 1804

serving the missions. He was the first Jesuit to s Figure 2. these similarities make them interesting. The buildings five of the Maryland Jesuits joined the White Russian Wampum belt, of the Maryland Jesuits represent an accommodation province of the Society—the only other place where 17th or 18th century. This important belt may have been made by a Huron community to enter what is now the United States and the first Probably Huron-Wendat. to the prevailing culture of Anglo-America. And this the Jesuits were allowed to continue being Jesuits, celebrate the band’s decision to allow the Jesuits to build a chapel in Shell beads, hide, plant fiber. accommodation was so successful that the Jesuits owing to Catherine the Great’s refusal to allow the to be martyred there as he reached the shore. their village, possibly the first wooden church in the Huron village David Ross McCord Collection, McCord Museum survived not only 150 years of colonial British rule but brief of suppression in her realm. With the world-wide of Ossossané, situated on Georgian Bay in present-day Southern of Canadian History. , in the summer of 1638. even the 1773 universal suppression of the Jesuits by restoration of the Society in 1814, the nineteen members s Figure 8. Père Marquette and the Indians, 1869 Clement XIV. of the restored order became the Mission of the United Wilhelm Lamprecht (German, 1838-1906) A traditional way of commemorating treaties among many Native States, and the name was changed to the Province of Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University American peoples, wampum belts were made of white and purple The Maryland colony was the only settlement in English Maryland in 1833. s Jacques Marquette, S.J., (1637-75) French Jesuit missionary, paddled down the Wisconsin River with fellow explorer, Louis beads made from the Atlantic seashells. The Huron belt uses the Figure 6. America to tolerate Catholicism. Founded on March Saint Church, Newtowne Neck, Maryland, 1731. Joliet, in 1673 and “discovered” the Mississippi River. Marquette drew a map of the country through which he passed and traditional technique and color scheme, with a predominance The first permanent Jesuit mission in Quebec was The most interesting of the surviving Jesuit manors is Newtown kept a diary of the voyage that is one of the most interesting and important documents of early American history. On his of purple signifying the solemnity of the occasion, and it has a 25, 1634, under the patronage of the Catholic Lord Representing the full spectrum of Jesuit ministry in Manor House in Saint Mary’s County, with its adjacent church return to the mission in Kaskaskia (Illinois), his party built a log hut, the first human dwelling place on the site of what traditional arrangement of forms—in this case human figures— Baltimore, the colony counted three Jesuits—Fathers the widest range of situations—from education of the founded in 1625. During their first years, the Jesuits of Saint Francis Xavier. Although the manor itself is a rather plain is now the city of Chicago. linked into a horizontal row to signify concordance. But the Huron Figure 3. s Andrew White (1579–1656) and John Altham alias colonial elite to evangelization on the itinerant missions structure, the church is a work of great elegance. Its tripartite porch belt also incorporates one of the oldest surviving Amerindian Louis Nicolas, Gravenor (1589–1640) and Brother Thomas Gervase in the hinterland to secretive ministry to Catholics in and apse and its prominent steeple over the front door, added within studied Amerindian languages, since ministry “La pesche des Sauvages.” depictions of a Christian church and one of a Christian cross. Drawing from (1590–1637)—among its first settlers. In an era when exile—the Society’s enterprises in North America were, a few years of the construction of the church, give the building a The Jesuits in Canada and the Great Lakes Histoire naturelle des Indes occidentales to the indigenous people was a primary goal. the penal laws prohibited the practice of Catholicism in a sense, a microcosm of their world ministry. Dutch or Central European appearance. This Jesuit manuscript is one of the most important records of life in (c. 1685, also known as the The legacy of the Old Society Jesuits in were doomed to failure owing to the colonists’ Codex canadiensis). in England and its other American colonies, Maryland It is the oldest Roman structure in continuous use early Canada. Nicolas illustrated his manuscript with ink drawings Tulsa, Gilcrease Museum By 1632, the Jesuits launched their missionary —Gauvin Alexander Bailey in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773 in Anglo-Colonial America. Built on land farmed by the Jesuits, it non-Spanish North America, divided between brutal eradication of the first inhabitants of the showing the flora, fauna, and peoples of New France. Archival Collection. seemed to provide an extraordinary opportunity for (Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005) was originally disguised as a tobacco barn to belie its real function. efforts among the Amerindians, an enterprise the Jesuits, whose activities in England were notable Canada and Maryland, embodies a dramatic region. Instead of grand churches and colleges, primarily for ending in martyrdom. contrast. In New France (Nouvelle France), the Maryland Jesuits built innocuous-looking that soon gained them worldwide fame thanks to “outward signs of our holy Religion” John Carroll consisting of today’s Quebec, Canadian manor houses, humble chapels, and (in the In the long run what saved the Jesuit mission in The Suppression of the Society in 1773 and the American Maritime provinces, and Great Lakes region, eighteenth century) a handful of parish churches. the publication of their Relations in by Paul Jesuit missionaries used pictures and wrote about the “esteem” the Hurons s Figure 4. Jesuit Finger Ring. Maryland was something that colonial Americans in Revolution brought the tiny American Church of 30,000 statues in their very earliest years in North and some had for “the outward the Jesuits were the emissaries of a triumphal Yet despite their differences, the Canadian and Excavated at the site general held to be one of their most sacred rights— Catholics to the most perilous state in its history. In this crucial Le Jeune, S.J. Like their counterparts in Spanish America, beginning with Pierre Biard in signs of our holy Religion. Crosses, of the Jesuit mission to the Susquehannock private property. As long as the Jesuits masqueraded period there emerged the impressive figure of John Carroll, Church. On the one hand, they engaged in one Maryland missions had something important Acadia, who during his sermons inside medals, and other similar Articles,” they Indians in present-day America, the Jesuits soon realized the dangers of as secular property owners, people generally did not former Jesuit (after the Suppression in 1773), an aristocrat of the world’s best known—if at times famously in common: in both regions, the missionary Wabanaki longhouses would pass out wrote, “are their most precious jewels. So Pennsylvania. Saint Joseph’s University interfere in their affairs. And that is how, even well of polish and social ease, but above all a man of vision who Collection. tragic—missionary efforts, among the Huron, Jesuits succeeded because they made bold having Amerindian villages too close to European crucifixes and images (either engravings fondly do they preserve These that they before the suppression, when they officially adopted not only sensed a great future for the young United States of or small statues) to his audience, and give wear them around their Necks, even at Iroquois, and other Amerindian peoples; on the accommodations to non-Catholic cultures, the title, the Jesuits in Maryland conducted themselves America but also divined, because of the freedom it enjoyed, settlements—owing to colonial animosity toward them medallions with Christ or the Virgin preaching in New Holland, where The as “Catholic Gentlemen of Maryland” rather than as a vigorous Church. He took the initiative in rallying his other hand, they built the grandest churches and adopting a policy that had already become a Mary to hang around their necks. During heretics have never been able to tear from missionary priests. fellow ex-religious in order to guarantee three things: first, an colleges ever seen in colonial North America, Jesuit trademark around the world. the indigenous population and the corrupting the and in Huronia, the Them a single bead of Their Rosaries.” s Figure 1. organization of former Jesuits to hold the mission lands for Jesuits introduced Christian imagery by From the very beginning, indigenous foundations that proclaimed the sovereignty of Novae Franciae Delineatio, 1657 influence of brandy and other vices—and founded One of the most remarkable stories concerning the the day when the Society would be restored; second, a college During this period the Jesuits also began the last Illustrated map by Francesco Bressani, S.J. (1612-72). means of metal medallions, paintings on religious specialists recognized the power (Georgetown) which would be a source of an intelligent Louis XIV’s France. Black Robes On The American Frontier The first Italian Jesuit in North America. National Library of Canada, Ottawa. Maryland Jesuits is what happened to them after the great mission expansion before the suppression. ­ cloth or leather, simple engravings from of Christian images, and believed that Catholic laity and probably of priestly vocations; third, some reductions, or mission towns, outside the colonial suppression in 1773. Although the twenty surviving France and Flanders, relics, rosaries, and objects such as crosses directly hindered sort of definite connection with . In 1789 the Holy See The most celebrated of the Jesuit missions Beginning in the 1660s, they returned to the rings. They used these in teaching the basic their own efficaciousness by negating Maryland Jesuits were officially subject to the Vicar designated him the first bishop of Baltimore. In 1808, Bishop Although the Huronia mission met its demise at the hands of the Iroquois Confederacy. The centers. Figure 5. s was Huronia. The Jesuit openness to other Great Lakes region and expanded outward into tenets of , and they also tried their medicine bundles, rattles, masks, Jesuit necklace with cross. Apostolic of and ought to have returned to Carroll became Archbishop, with suffragan sees at New York, Iroquois sacked and burned Huron villages in 1647–49, and killed the Jesuits residing there to convince the disease-stricken Hurons and other sacred objects. Used as an item of trade between the Jesuits and London after the suppression, the American Revolution Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown, Kentucky. Amerindian groups gained them the friendship what are now the states of Michigan, Illinois, and Amerindians. Shaped mineral “trade” beads with Figure 7. that images could cure them. The Jesuits —Gauvin Alexander Bailey in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773 bronze cross strung on deerskin lace, 18th century, of 1776—and the freedom of religion guaranteed in the Archbishop John Carroll Gilbert Stuart, c. 1803–5. of the Attignawantan, the largest band of the Wisconsin. The best known of the Great Lakes (including Jean de Brébeuf, , and ) after one of the lengthiest and (Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005) America. Saint Joseph’s University Collection. Declaration of Independence—meant that they were —Gerald P. Fogarty, S.J. Courtesy: . The British Colonies s Hurons (Wendat), a confederacy that controlled Jesuits was Jacques Marquette (1637–75), who most gruesome torture sessions in the annals of history, an episode immortalized in this engraving. 50 percent of Canada’s lucrative fur trade. Jesuits came to the region in 1668 and is most celebrated The Jesuit mission in Maryland began with such as Brébeuf wrote Huron grammars and for accompanying the explorer Louis Jolliet Black Robe was the name given by Native Americans chaplain to troops because he could not learn Huron; “Thanks be to God and Garibaldi.” In 1848, nearly 400 Italian Jesuits emigrated to the United States in the wake of the dictionaries and immersed themselves in the (1645–1700) on the first French expedition to 17th-century Jesuit missionaries to America. by drowning for Father Ménard; by disease and the foundation of the colony. On March Italian unification movement. The first wave of exiles taught in Jesuit colleges on the East Coast and played a major role in indigenous culture. down the Mississippi River in 1673, as far as the Among these men were the North American Martyrs, exhaustion for Father Marquette. 25, 1634, the first expedition of the Lords The Italian Jesuits in America reforming American seminary education. From their eastern base, the dispersed clerics moved to the frontier, shaping the Arkansas-Louisiana border. six priests of the Society of Jesus and their two lay Baltimore landed at St. Clement’s Island at Meanwhile, in the Maryland colony, the Jesuits companions from the Jesuit mission of Huronia, Commoner still, and bitterly felt, were the Brokers of Culture evolution of culture in eleven western states. Their contribution to the maturing of the American Church was invaluable. lived a life of intense secrecy, working against Jesuit missionaries such as Paul du Ru (1666– martyred by the Iroquois between 1642 and 1649 and humiliations of Father Davost, that perennially inept the mouth of the . There Fr. Their founding of Woodstock College in Maryland was crucial to raising educational standards for the American clergy. incredible odds to promulgate the faith among 1741) were active in today’s Mississippi and canonized by Pius XI in 1930. traveler; or the grinding discouragement that led Andrew White offered Mass and Governor a scattering of Catholics in an overwhelmingly Louisiana between 1699 and 1704, both in the Father de Crépieul, to sign himself “an unprofitable “Thanks be to God and Garibaldi,” exclaimed Joseph The anti-clericalism that drove the Italians from Europe When an early chronicler claimed there was “no more Once they arrived in an untrodden locale, the Jesuits Keller, S.J., Provincial of the Maryland Province, grateful caused them to locate their first Jesuit seminary in America on decisive turning point in the story of Jesuit development in immediately began composing word lists, dictionaries, Protestant part of the world. The Jesuits there nascent colony of Mobile and among the Indian The work of Jesuit missionaries among the Huron and servant of the Missions of Canada”; or the frustrations raised a ceremonial cross. It that the Italians had made America their destination. Their a 245-acre farm in Maryland, near the village of Woodstock. America” than the opening of Woodstock College, he was not and grammars to be used by their successors. These works dressed as lay gentlemen or Quakers and attended tribes of the Mississippi Delta (the town of Jesuit Iroquois in Canada and the Northeast United States of Father de Carheil, unable to keep his converts away was the beginning of Catholicism in English- arrival strengthened both the Church and the Jesuit order Thus, the Jesuit siege mentality combined with an American far from the truth. But by 1960 it was clear that Woodstock's were subsequently published by presses erected at Jesuit to their widespread flocks on horseback. Their Bend, Louisiana, attests to their legacy). at a crucial time when priests were badly needed. anti-urban bias to place the scholasticate in a secluded forest. physical seclusion mirrored and abetted its intellectual Missions. Thus, they applied their new learning to the task from brandy. Eight of the Jesuit missionaries to North missionary aims among the indigenous peoples was the subject of a 1991 motion picture “Black Robe” At odds with the world, the Jesuits espoused a religious isolation and fostered an unwillingness to reflect positively of translation of prayers and the into the languages —Gauvin Alexander Bailey in The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773 speaking America. As the suffocating social (Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005) directed by Bruce Beresford. The screen play was written America have been declared saints, but the Relations The Founding of Woodstock College, Maryland asceticism that reflected their alienation from the age but on secular culture and on the American Catholic experience. of the Blackfeet, Flathead, Kalispel, Nez Percés, Kootenai, and by Brian Moore, who based it on his 1985 novel of the show that even the saints were entirely human and atmosphere [anti-Catholic legislation] of The Italians’ crowning achievement was the founding in conflicted with their charism. The College moved to New York City in 1969 and closed in Salish, among others. same name. therefore entirely interesting. 1869 of Woodstock College, a national seminary for the 1974 as a result of decreasing candidates to the priesthood. —S. R. Mealing, ed., Maryland became worse and social ostracism Woodstock College became for many Neapolitans a stepping In addition to pastoral work, the education of youth was as Figure 9. cultivation of Jesuit priests that recast the way that American s The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: A Selection stone to their missions in distant New Mexico, Denver, and Italians in the West much a priority for Jesuits in the American West as it was Indian Chapel, Tadoussac. Founded 1640, (Carleton University Press, 1990) Jesuits would live, study, and work. Americans would rebuilt 1747–50 by Father Claude-Godefroi Coquart. The Jesuit missionaries in North America have been more stringent, the Jesuits looked to the freer now pursue the same course of studies in philosophy and California after finishing their studies and learning English. With the nation’s Catholic population doubling every elsewhere in the world. In fact, perhaps the most lasting legacy The only surviving Old Society church in abundantly idealized. They were indeed a highly atmosphere of Pennsylvania. There, in 1733, Fr. theology that was standard in Europe, thus pulling them A flourishing college press issued a flood of textbooks in decade, church leaders competed to acquire the services of of the Italian Jesuits lies in the numerous preparatory schools orth merica artyrs theology, philosophy, science, and mathematics. As soon and the five universities they founded, including Santa Clara French Canada is a humble chapel in selected body of men; but their archetype is hardly N A M into the intellectual orbit of the Catholic Church and the the displaced Italians as they began arriving in 1848 in the Society of Jesus worldwide. The seminary’s European faculty as Alessandro Diomedi made footfall in the Unites States in wake of Risorgimento. But besides ministering to whites University and the University of San Francisco; Gonzaga Tadoussac, built to serve the Montagnais St. Jean de Brébeuf, S.J. St. , S.J. Joseph Greaton opened the Chapel of St. Joseph 1874, for example, he rushed to Woodstock to master the University and Seattle University in Washington; and Regis to be found in a martyr like Father Brébeuf, who transformed the way theology was taught to Americans and of all nationalities, Jesuit missionaries worked among 17 reduction there. It has the traditional­­­­ professionalized the clergy, thereby launching a tradition of printer’s trade before cantering off to the Indian Missions. different Native American tribes in dozens of missions serving University in Colorado. conducted his mission with such ebullient success St. Noel Chabanel, S.J. St. Gabriel Lalemant, S.J. at Willing’s Alley in Philadelphia. pitched roof and clocher of the earliest Jesuit theological reflection and scholarship. Thus prepared, he founded the St. Ignatius Mission Press approximately 25,000 Native Americans. and met his cruel death with such fervent courage. St. Anthoine Daniel, S.J. St. René Goupil —Gerald McKevitt, S.J., Brokers of Culture: Italian Jesuits in the American West, 1848-1919 structures in Quebec. This church is also the in Montana, which published scores of dictionaries and (Stanford University Press, 2007) There were humbler forms of martyrdom: death by St. Charles Garnier, S.J. St. grammars of native languages. only surviving wooden church from before the — William V. Bangert, S.J. exposure for poor Father de Noue, relegated to be — Gauvin Alexander Bailey Conquest in all of New France.