IN EACH OTHER’S ARMS: FRANCE AND THE ST. LAWRENCE MISSION VILLAGES IN WAR AND PEACE, 1630-1730. by JEAN-FRANÇOIS LOZIER A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Graduate Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Jean-François Lozier (2012) In Each Other’s Arms: France and the St. Lawrence Mission Villages in War and Peace, 1630-1730 Jean-François Lozier Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2012 Abstract Beginning in the late 1630s, a diversity of Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples established under the auspices of Jesuit and, later, Sulpician missionaries a string of village communities in the St. Lawrence Valley. A diversity of peoples, whom the French lumped under the rubrics of “Algonquins”, “Montagnais”, “Hurons”, “Iroquois”, “Abenakis” and “Loups”, migrated to these villages in the hope of bettering their lives in trying times. This dissertation retraces the formation and the early development of these communities, exploring the entangled influence of armed conflict, diplomacy, kinship, and leadership on migration, community-building, and identity formation. The historiography of the St. Lawrence Valley – the French colonial heartland in North America – has tended to relegate these Aboriginal communities to the margins. Moreover, those scholars who have considered the formation of mission villages have tended to emphasize missionary initiative. Here, these villages are reimagined as a joint creation, the result of intersecting French and Aboriginal desires, needs, and priorities. The significance of these villages as sites of refuge becomes readily apparent, the trajectories of individual communities corresponding with the escalation of conflict or with ii its tense aftermath. What also becomes clear is that the course of war and peace through the region cannot be accounted solely by the relations of the French and Iroquois, or of the French and British crowns. Paying close attentions to the nuanced personal and collective identities of the residents of the mission villages and their neighbours allows us to gain a better understanding of the geopolitics of the northeastern woodlands during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Over the course of the long years it takes to complete a dissertation, a doctoral candidate incurs many debts. Making sense of St. Lawrence Valley and of the mission villages of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries took more time and effort than I thought. For helping me navigate my way through this muddled historical landscape, I owe gratitude to a number of institutions and individuals. First and foremost, I must thank Allan Greer for his patient and consistent support and encouragement. Kenneth Mills has been another source inspiration and motivation. The Greer-Mills joint seminars and lectures on the colonial history of the Americas, which I was privileged to attend as both student and teaching assistant, were truly a revelation. My dissertation committee was ably rounded out by Adrienne Hood. Jan Noel kindly joined the panel for the final examination, as did Denys Delâge. I am particularly grateful for the latter‟s generous and thoughtful feedback. I must also gratefully acknowledge Jan Grabowski, at the University of Ottawa, for ensuring that after my undergraduate discovery of New France I could not look back. His support for an old student has never ceased. To Roy Wright, ethnolinguist extraordinaire, I owe many ethnohistorical insights, including what (extremely) little understanding I have come to possess of Iroquoian and Algonquian languages. Christopher Parsons and Margaret Schotte were priceless doctoral companions; Andrew Sturtevant and Thomas Peace provided me with plenty of stimulating opportunities to discuss the Huron-Wendat, and Daniel Rueck to reflect upon the evolution of Kahnawake. Many other budding and established scholars kindly offered information, counsel, and encouragement at various phases of the process. Some of them may not remember our conversations or correspondence, but in one way or another they contributed to making this dissertation: Alain Beaulieu, Darren Bonaparte, David Buisseret, Brian Carroll, René Chartrand, Catherine Desbarats, Dominique Deslandres, Sylvie Dépatie, Anthony Di Mascio, Alexandre Dubé, Matthew Dziennik, Robert Englebert, Evan Haefeli, Gilles Havard, Christophe Horguelin, Martin Hubley, Jonathan Lainey, Moira McCaffrey, Jon Parmenter, Joshua Piker, Will Tatum, Daniel Richter, Brett Rushforth, Renaud Séguin, Kevin Sweeney, Thomas Wien. I hope that those whose names I have inadvertently failed to acknowledge will forgive me. Since the spring of 2011, my departmental colleagues at the Canadian Museum of Civilization have provided me with as much intellectual stimulation and emotional support as one can hope for anywhere: David Morrison, Xavier Gélinas, Jean- François Blanchette, Tina Bates, Matthew Betts, Karen Ryan, Terry Clark, Yves Monette, John Willis, Jean-Luc Pilon, Fanny Beaulieu and Diane Lalande. Several ideas at the core of the dissertation were presented and discussed at conferences organized by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History, American Society for Ethnohistory, and Conference on Iroquois Research. The early drafts of what would eventually evolve into Chapter 5 were written during a short-term fellowship at the Newberry Library, in Chicago, in the fall of 2008. Bruce Calder‟s welcoming of two Canadians on American Thanksgiving was very thoughtful. Roy Goodman was equally hospitable during another fellowship at at the American Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia, during the winter of 2009. In the summer of 2010, the West Point Summer Seminar in Military History offered another stimulating scholarly environment. iv Besides the Newberry Library and the American Philosophical Society, the staff of several libraries and archives aided in this project immeasurably: the University of Toronto Libraries, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, the Centre de Référence de l‟Amérique française, Library and Archives Canada, the New York State Library and New York State Archives, the New York Public Library, and foremost during this last year the library of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Without the generous financial support of the University of Toronto and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, this dissertation would never have materialized. The old friendship of Mathieu Mainville, Normand Lévesque, and Patrick McLaughlin has been yet another source of moral support over the years. My family, however, did the most to help me complete this dissertation. I owe everything to my parents, Albert and Françoise Lozier, for raising me and nurturing my interest in the past. Rita, Fernand, François, Stéphane and Anne-Marie Lozier all offered their steady encouragement; Michel Lozier and Yves Dufour were always welcoming during my sporadic returns to Toronto. Lastly and most importantly, though, I must express my undying gratitude to Genevieve Bonenfant, whose love enabled me to finish this damned thing. To her and to young Augustin I dedicate In Each Other’s Arms. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................ iv Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Fear is the Forerunner of Faith .................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2: With Their Consent or by Force .................................................................................. 76 Chapter 3: Flesh Reborn .............................................................................................................. 122 Chapter 4: Against Their Own Nation ......................................................................................... 159 Chapter 5: Friends and Brothers who Pray like Us ..................................................................... 220 Chapter 6: Trade and Peace We Take to Be One Thing .............................................................. 267 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 315 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... 320 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 322 vi INTRODUCTION In the summer of 1755, four Mohawk delegates traveled to the mission village of Kahnawake, or Sault Saint-Louis as the French knew it, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal. Speaking on behalf of the Six Nations Confederacy to which they belonged and on behalf of the British, they invited their Christian Iroquois brothers to remain neutral in the intercolonial war that was then under way. Kahnawake representatives respectfully responded that this would not be possible: “the French and we are one blood, and where they are to die we must die also. We are linked together in each other‟s arms and where the French go we must