[ GIFT OF Bancroft LIBRARY S SION S IN W e s t e r 11 N e w \ o r k CHURCH HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OE BUFFALO, BY THE BISHOP OF BUFFALO. BUFFALO: CATHOLIC SENTINEL PRINT. 1862. tsrnr GIFT OF Banc rati LIBRARY DEDICATION TO THE VENERABLE CLERGY AND FAITHFUL LAITY OF THE DIOCESE OF BUFFALO. Lookng round on a blessed increase of zealous Priests, crowded Churches, and fervent communicants, we, with worshipful thanksgiving to God, affectionate gratitude to our venerable Co-operators the Clergy, and grateful paternal love to the pious Laity — dedicate these hasty memoirs, as a monument of our affection to the worthy Priests, and generous, devoted Catholics of this new Diocese. Amidst occupations already almost excessive, it seemed wrong to attempt a work like this — when only interrupted moments, snatched from important and necessary duties, could be devoted to examining documents, written at various epochs, during hundreds of years. But the advice of respected friends, and their suggestion that, if not soon began, future steps in this direction might be almost impossible, made us hesitate. Then the desire to aid in preserving interesting details of the Church's first struggles, against error and crime in this region; a wish to invite the attention, of our generous native and adopt- ed citizens, to the heroic virtues, saintlv examples, and (iii.) 861383 IV. DEDICATION. martyr sufferings of the holy dead, who once trod the soil, which we now tread; who once labored in the fields of our present labors; who once preached and practiced what we now preach and practice; made hesitation change into iirm resolve. Then, far advanced in the midnight vigil; or long before dawn of day, we strove to make a beginning; hoping that our labors might in- duce others who have time and talent, to follow the glimpses, that may open through these pages, and unfold the shadows which still rest round the dark and stormy past; and even make it bright with evidence that, in America, as in every other land, the truth of God, the promises of God, the power of God, always protected the Church, preserved its light, and matured its fruits of love. We pause at this first volume. Its last paragraph will tell that we wait, to give ampler testimony, than the modest reserve of God's pious and faithful priests, per- mitted them to send, of their zealous cooperation in the great work which has been wrought in our midst. " Being confident of this very thing, that He Who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ," we pray that God may ever bless those faithful priests, and their generous flocks. + JOHN, Bp. of Buffalo. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page. Beginning of the Church in America — Vicissitudes — Prosperity and Adversity, In America, as elsewhere — Instructors of another race in America — Ancient Remains — Danes — Irish — Iceland, Christian — Lost to Science by Lutheranism — Greenland converted—America discovered, about the year 1000 — Bishop Eric visited it in 1120 — Last Mention in 1884 7 CHAPTER II. Success of Early Missions— General View — Assertion that Jesuit Missions are always Failures, contradicted — Failure of non- Co tholie Missions — Persecution 19 CHAPTER III. Earliest Missions— South of the U. S. — Quebec — St. Lawrence — The English destroy it — Rasles k 24 CHAPTER IV. Indians — Number of Martyred Priests — Indians, hospitable at first — Wronged, before they did wrong — Tribes many and populous in the State of New York — Hudson — Indians kid- napped — Hi-a-wat-ha &9 CHAPTER V. Religion, Rites and Ceremonies — Compared with the Ancients and with the Jews, , „ 47 CHAPTER VI f Catholic Missionaries, Franciscan Fathers — Invite and lodge the first Jesuits — Jesuits among the Hurons — The Francis- j an, then the Jesuit approach or reach Niagara River, 60 OH APTEU V II, Hubioi Martyrs, •«*.«»■■••■■»•« •.«..••.... .•-.-.11 (v) VI. CONTENT 6. Page. CH APTER VIII. Missions in Western New York — Iroquois — Franciscans in- struct them in 1621 — Father .Toques — Rev. W. J. Kipp — Father Ponset — Torture of Father Le Moyne — Discovers the Salt Springs of Syracuse — Indian Council — Father Chaumont — His Speech — Cayugas — Senecas — Intrigues — Persecution — Adversity, _ 80 CHAPTER IX. Gospel Fruits — Sanctity of Indians — Catherine Teaghokuita — Miracles . 112 CHAPTER X. Early Indian Missions, in what is now Diocese of Buffalo 147 CHAPTER XL Missions of the Buffalo district continued, in a place of Refuge from Persecution 185 CHAPTER XII. Missions for our Race — Beginning of Churches — Conflicting vices, but still onward progress 207 CHAPTER XIII. Buffalo, an Episcopal See _ -J36 Missions in W ester rt' ! 'Mw tor'k »»•*•••• CHAPTER I. BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH IN AMERICA. In every land, we trace the varying features of God's Church militant; now highly favoured, now chastised,, ■almost crushed; then rising, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, to more than former splendor. In Africa, what vicissitudes marked the state of the Church; once glorious, -then sunk in darkest niglit"; yet now the See of St. Augustine, from which all traces of Christi- anity seemed effaced, brightens again under Christ's blessed light. England too, twice or thrice had the faith almost to begin, and only lately, after the direst persecution on record, does the English Church again display in triumphs of grace, her undying work of love. Nor were the hours of gloom without blessed fruit. How many generous martyrs did not England, and Ireland send to heaven ? How many have not Japan and China, (which still daily sends,) sent, in past ages to swell "the glorious choir of martyrs." St. Francis Xavier converted Japan; the same arts which, for commer- cial purposes, or for domination, were so successfully practiced t*pon our Indians in this State; brought on, in Japan, a bloody persecution ; two millions of martyrs passed heroicly, through dreadful torments, to the Church trium- phant. Was this not a gain for earth, as well as for heaven ? We even have indications that in the mountains of Japan the ancient faith ever remained : may it not be that now the blood of the martyrs shall soon be the seed of Chris- tians?" For ages the faith has been struggling in China: at times, to men, it seemed extinct: during those ages of struggle, millions of martyrs passed to heaven : yet we am 8 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. told ili at there are rpw&rds of 2,000,000 of christians m China: churches, and seminaries, and Sisters of Charity, in ?ve:y . prov4i «cv, v)enetrafciijg % in their labours of light and 1 love, to the inmost recesses of the country. It would seem that our America had passed through some of the same phases; had its bright rays of hope; its. sad reverses, through the cunning and cruelty of God's enemies; may we not hope for a glorious crop, from the blood of Christian: martyrs that once consecrated the soil of America, even here is our State of New York. In beginning these memoirs that may serve in forming the history of the Church in this cliocess; it seemed useful to present an abridgment of historical fragments, on our early history; as curious developements are daily made, through the assidious labours of devoted and learned writers. In the compilation, the sources whence the facts are drawn will often be immediately noticed; more frequently perhaps, the notice, with all due praise, will be given at the end of the work. Baron Hfmbolbt remarking the evidences, that instructors, of another race, had penetrated into Mexico and South America, suppose that they came from Eastern Asia, Father Antonio Ruiz, mentions a miraculous cross, found in that part of Paraguay which is now called a Holy Cross" and speaks of a local tradition, pointing to St. Thomas, the- Apostle, as the first teacher of the faith, in that Southern part of America. Father Duran says that in South America,, the Indians declare that Saint Svme, (which in their language means Thomas*) predicted to their ancestors that priests of the mighty God would, one day, reproduce in their midst r . the doctrine which be announced, preach brotherly love r and teach them to have but one wife. In. reading what learned men have written, on early American traditions,, which gleam, like more than kalis MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. t* forgotten truths of Christianity, we almost feel inclined to i-eceive literally the Scripture declaration that on the day of Pentecost, " there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation tinder heaven'''' ; that America was represented there, and consequently, to suppose that our country was peopled, not only from the North-east and North-west, but also from the South ;■ and that the West Indian, and other islands, are but the lofty ridges of a con- necting land between the old and the new world which sunk to its present state, in some of the mighty convulsions of nature, that occurred at the death of our Lord, and recurred frequently during succeeding centuries. Bancroft has a curious passage, relating to the voluntary- mortifications and penances of the first discovered Indians; he says : u That man should take up the cross, that sin il should be atoned for, *cvre ideas that dwell in human " nature; they are so diffused among the savages that Le *< Clercq believed some of the Apostles must have reached the " American continent." His. U. S. 3vol. 291. De Witt Clinton says: "Previous to the occupation of this country by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race of men much more populous, and much further advanced in civilization." Speaking of ancient fortifications he says: "I have seen several of these works* " in the western part of this State* There is a large one in '* the town of Onondaga, one in Pompey, and one in Malins ; u one in Camillus, eight miles from Auburn ; one in Scipio, M six miles,, another, one mile, and another, about half a i( mile from that village. Between the Seneca and Cayuga " Lakes, there are several ;— three within a few miles of each " other. Near the village of C&nandaigua there are three. " In a word they are scattered all over that country." 44 There is from the Niagara to the Genesee river, upon the mountain Ridge, a line or eorden of these ancient fortt 10 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. ■fixations. Upon a slope or offset of the mountain Ridge, three and a half miles from the village of Lewiston, is a marked spot, which the Tuscarora Indians called Kiennka^ (fort or stronghold,) there is a burial ground, and twoeliptic mounds that have a diameter of twenty feet, and an elevation of from four to five. Eight miles east of this, upon one of the most elevated points of the mountain ridge, in the town of Cambria, on the farm owned by John Gould, is an •ancient fortification and burial place. . . An area of about six acres of level ground, appears to have been occupied. [Nearly in the centre of the area was a depository of the dead.* It was a pit, excavated to the depth of four or five feet, filled with human bones, over which were slabs of sand stone. Hundreds of both sexes, and of all ages seem to have been thrown in promiscously. Extreme old age was identified by toothless jaws and the complete absorption of the aveola process; and extreme infancy, by the small skulls and imcomplete ossification. In the position of the skeletons there was none of the signs of ordinary Indian burial. A tree had been cut down, growing directly over, the mound, upon its stump could be counted two hundred and thirty •concentric circles. Remains of earthernware, pieces of copper, and iron, instruments of rude workmanship, were ploughed •up within the area ! " At the head of a deep gorge, a mile west of Lockport, in the early settlement of the country, a circular raised work, or ring fort, could be distinctly traced. Leading from the area, there had been a covered way to a spring of pure cold water, that issues from a fissure of a rock, some fifty, or sixty feet down the declivity." There is an ancient battle field upon the Buffalo Creek, six miles from Buffalo, near the Mission station. The Sene- gas have a tradition that here was a Jast decisive battle between their people and their enemies, the Kah-Kwahs. A MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 11 mile north of Aurora village in Erie County, there are* several small lakes or ponds, around and between which there are knobs or elevations thickly covered with a tali growth of pine; upon them are several mounds, where many human bones have been excavated. Relics around: Aurora in Erie county, abound perhaps to a greater extent, than in any other locality in western New York. An area, from three to four miles in extent, would seem* to have been thickly populated. There are in Aurora vil- lage and vicinity few gardens and fields where ancient In- dian relics are not found at each successive ploughing. Few cellars are excavated without discovering them. In digging a cellar a few years since a skeleton was exhumed, the* thigh bones of which, w 7 oukl indicate great height. In* digging another cellar, a large number of skeletons or de- tached bones were thrown out upon the farm of M. B. Crooks, two miles from the village; where a tree bad been turned up several hundred pounds of axes were found*. The ancient works at Forthill, Le Roy, are especially wor- thy of observation, they are three miles north of Le Roy. There are undoubted evidences of its having constituted a valuable point of defence to a rude and. half civilized peo- ple. Such skeletons as have been found, in and about this locality indicate a race of men averaging, one third larger than the present race. From the fortification a trench leads to a spring of water. Arrow heads, pipes, beads, gouges, pestles, stone hatchets, have been found upon the ground. The growth of timber would show that these- works were over five hundred years old. It even seems possible that other growths may have preceded them ! About one and a half miles w r est of Shelby centre,. Orleans county, is an ancieut work — trees of four hundred years' growth stand upon the embankment, and underneath them have been found earthen ware, pieces of plate or. 12 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. xliahes, wrought with skill, presenting ornaments in relief of various patterns. Some skeletons, almost entire, have been exhumed; many of giant size — not less than from seven to eight feet in length. The late Hon. S. M-. Burrough says : u This was doubtless a spot where a great battle had been fought. Were not these people a branch of the Aztecs P Upon the middle branch of Buffalo Creek, three and a half miles from the village of Aurora, there are remains of one of the largest class of ancient fortifications. The spot had attractions for successive Indian nations — -the Eries, the Neuter Nation, and the Iriqtiois; for there are evidences of continued occupancy to our own periods When the French Franciscans and the Jesuit Missionaries came to this region, 'they undoubtedly made it one of their principal stations. In the year 1809, a copper plate was ploughed up, twelve inches broad, and sixteen long* It had engraven upon it, in regular lines extending the whole length of the plate, characters that appear to have been some record." — Turner's History of Hoi. Pur. Certain it is that indications, both in the physical and moral order, point to some early but long since forgotten intercourse with the Old World. The learned researches of the Danish antiquaries make it almost certain that our country was discovered long before Columbus. Baron Henrion, in his "Missions Catholiques," Liv. i., chap. 31, gives in much detail the proofs that the Northmen of Scandinavia discovered Iceland in the ninth century, and that they found on the shores crosses, bells, and sacred vessels of Irish workmanship. Iceland is about one-fifth larger than Ireland, Its area is estimated at 40,000 square miles. It seems to have been discovered in 861 by Naddor, who called it SnowVdud. Three years after, Garder and Floki visited it, and from the drift ice, along the northern shores, called it " Iceland." In MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK:, 13 8Y4, Norwegian nobles who had rebelled, and been defeated in Norway, reached Iceland. Ingolf and Leif conducted them. 'They finally settled at Reykjawk. Leif, enriched with pmtrder from Ireland, was killed by some of his captive Irish. The colony was soon augmented by plunder and slaves from abroad. Among tneir captives were many Christians, monks, priests, and even bishops. The truths of Christianity insinuated themselves, into the hearts of the worshippers of Woden. Frederick, a Saxon bishop, who came, or was brought there in 981, seems to have been the apostle of Iceland; we know 7 that Christianity was adopted by the National Assembly in A. D. 1000. In the year 1057, Isleif, Bishop of Ikaholt, introduced into Iceland the art of writing and the Latin alphabet, modified according to German forms. As usual, the monks, especially those of the Benedictine Monastery of Thingeyra, were large con- tributors to Icelandic literature. Nothing can compensate for the national loss sustained by the sack of convents, and the wholesale destruction of valuable manuscripts and relics of antiquity, at the introduction of Lutheranism in 1550. With the introduction of writing, a great and general educational and literary movement commenced in Iceland ; which continued unabated for five centuries. And Iceland became a country which, in point of general education, has hardly, if at all, been equalled. The natural result was «t refinement of manners, and an advanced civilization, which seems wonderful in that wild age of lawlessness and violence The records and memorials of this vanished civilization, and the monuments of this dead literature, still subsist in piles of dusty manuscripts preserved in the Royal Library of Copenhagen, in the British Museum, and elsewhere. Iceland is about one hundred and eighty miles from Greenland. Grenbiorn, who first discovered Greenland, gave & sad description of its ice-focm-nd shores; a few years M MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK; later, Eric the Red, under more favorable circumstances and' a better season, found the same land, was pleased with it and, from its then verdure, called it Greenland. Notwith- standing awful priv.ations, the colony was established, and' began to flourish. In 999, Leif, son of Eric, was converted to Christianity. All the settlers of Greenland followed" his example. A bishoprick was founded at Garde, convents of nuns were established. There were twelve parishes and two houses of religious men in the eastern division, and four parishes in the western. We have an authentic account of a voyage undertaken, by some priests of the diocese of Garder, in 1266, in the course of which they penetrated through Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait, and examined shores, tl.o re-discovery of which lately has been vaunted as among the most intrepid fruits of modern nautical daring. These priests, fortunately, have given us some astronomical observations, from which it appears that they advanced almost to the seventy-sixth degree of north latitude. The colonists of Greenland frequently visited the mother countries, Iceland and Norway. There was a continuous intercourse between Greenland and these countries; the inmates of the Greenland monasteries were often sent over to the convents of Iceland and Norway. The Bishops of Garder were Suffragans of the Archbishop of Trondhjem, a city of Norway, on the river u Nid," (whence its ancient name "Nidrosia;") and for their consecration, and for many other reasons, had frequent necessity of going to Europe. Greenland w r as the pioneer station, on the road to America. Biorni sailed from Norway to visit Herulf, his lather, in Greenland. Driven by storms too far south, he discovered Newfoundland and the mainland of America. Returning northeastwardly with favorable but strong winds, i)i four days he reached Greenland; Fourteen years after* MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK; 1$ Eric Rande bought Biorni's vessel, and witli thirty-five companions started to explore this " Newfoundland." They reached Newfoundland, which, from its barren aspect, they called "Helluland," or "The Barren Land." Continuing on west, they reached Nova Scotia; they called it " Mark- land," or " The Land of Woods." Coasting down, they reached the southern part of Massachusetts ; a colony was planted in Vinland, " Land of the Vine," on the continent, opposite to " Martha's Vineyard." The succeeding naviga- tors examined the coast of Long Island, the coasts of Dela- ware and Maryland, and even farther south. A commerce- in furs, etc, began; the intercourse between America,, Greenland and northern Europe continued for at least three centuries. The latest mention of ft occurs in a document compiled in 1348, where an Icelandic vessel is spoken of as having been to Markland for a cargo of timber, the very commodity, even now, for a vessel in the Canada or Nova Scotia trade. Some notices in the ancient documents are curious and interesting. One of them speaks of the shipwreck on a part of the American coast called "Ireland it mikla" (Great Ireland,) of Arc Marson, a wealthy Icelandic lord, in 983, during a voyage from Dublin to Reikjavik. The people are represented as white and Christians, speaking a dialect of the Erse. They baptised Arc Marson, and detained him thirty years. Arc Frode, one of the most trustworthy of Icelandic writers, to whom we owe the most detailed account of the settlement of Greenland, and of the American discoveries, was the great grandson of this Arc Marson, who, as well as Arc Frode, believed this American people to be an Irish colony that long before had made their way across the ocean. Other relations, such as that of Biorni Asbrandson, are equally strange. But they have a counterpart m many* 16 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW VORK. Indian traditions. The southern Indians, before their expulsion from Florida, had a tradition that the Florida, and Carolinas were, ages ago, inhabited by a race of white ftien, who used iron tools, cultivated the earth, and wor- shipped the Great Spirit in houses built for that purpose. 'The Mexicans had similar traditions. The records of the discovery of America by the Ice- landers are too consistent, too truthful to be rejected. The whole Scandinavian people must have conspired to invent a gigantic fiction, were it false, even in one of its leading- features; and they must have engaged unborn generations in the conspiracy. Such a fiction, too, must have guessed the configuration of some two or three thousand miles of coast, the distances and bearings of places, hundreds of miles apart, the zoology and botany of countries differing widely in soil, climate, and physical conformation. It was no fiction, surely, when Thornfinn exhibited the ears of maize in the streets of Trondhjem; nor wdien he sold the slab of bird's-eye maple to the Bishop of Bremen, for a mark of gold. More than eight centuries and a half have rolled away since Leif wintered in Vinland; yet his descriptions are pictures of Newfoundland and th« country around Martha's Vineyard, to this hour," — Dublin Review, May, L&6JL Iceland arid Greenland, almost from their discover} 7 , had their churches, their convents, their bishops, their colleges, their libraries, their apostolic men, and wheu the explorers Beorn and Leif and their followers coasted southernly along the Atlantic shore and discovered a great part of the United States, missionaries immediately offered to go and preach the gospel to the savages. In 1120, Bishop Eric visited in person this country, then called Yinland, or Land of Vines. The colonies of the Northmen on the west coast of Green- land continued to flourish till 1406, when the seventeenth MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 1? and last Bishop of Garcia was sent from Norway ; those on the eastern coast subsisted till 1540, when they Were destroyed by a physical revolution which accumulated the ice in that zone. Thus a focus of Christianity not only long- existed in Greenland, but from it, rays of faith for a time illuminated part of the territory now - embraced in the United States. As to the position of Viniand, there oan be little doubt* A careful study of the narratives of the early voyagers, narratives, stamped with the imprint of truth, leaves no doubt that they turned Cape God, and entered the water of the Narragansett Bay. To corroborate this, a ruin exists near Newport, evidently of Runic or Scandinavian origin* It was found on the settlement of the country, and is clearly no Indian work ; while its resemblance to acknowled Scan- dinavian works in Greenland and Iceland places the question beyond a doubt. " The ancient tholus in Newport, the erection of which,*' says the Royal Society of Antiquarians, "appears to be co-eval with the time of Bishop Eric, belonged to a Scan- dinavian church or monastery, where in alternation with Latin masses, the old Danish tongue was heard seven hundred years ago/' Dr. Holland, in a " Dissertation on the History and Literature of Iceland," remarks that the description given of a great country to the southwest of Greenland, which had formerly been visited by Icelanders, proves at least that the discoveries of the Northmen were not entirely unknown in Southern Europe. Antonio Zeno found in Viniand Latin books brought thither by a Bishop of Greenland in the beginning of the twelfth century. Baron Henrion gives a long article on the veneration of the cross by savages along the Saint Lawrence, and an their traditions, which seem to point to a 18 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. visit from Bishop Eric about the year 1120. Malte Brun thinks that the traditions of the savages on this subject are reasonable, and point to Bishop Eric, and to deliverance from an epidemic through him. Christianity was forgotten when the missionaries withdrew or w^ere martyred ; but the veneration of the cross remained. Father Lafitau attests that the veneration of the cross was practiced in America before the coming of Columbus. " Meurs des Sauvages Americains," vol. i., p. 424. This learned Father make* on this subject the following reflexion: "Although the Evil One might pervert anything, still, can it be thought that he would excite his adorers to venerate the sacred sign by which he was vanquished ? Or, may not this be a proof that Christianity had penetrated into America, before the discovery of later days !" From 1120 up to 1493 we only have vague accounts of Greenland : even these disappear about the time that Columbus discovered America, in which country the light seems to have faded away, amidst the murderous enmities and the dark passions of a savage people, who had perhaps despised and abused their first grace. " The antiquarian, as he excavates the mounds, and surveys the remains, which are scattered over the Western valleys, meets with relics of a remote antiquity and memorials of a populous race, advanced in civilization, who tl ' Heaped with long toil the earth, while yet the Greek Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms Of symmetry r and rearing on its rock The glittering Parthenon.' " The various tribes of aboriginal inhabitants which were found in possession of this country at its discovery, exhibited a diversity of institutions, customs, and language, which could; only have resulted from a separation at a period fan remote in their history," Marshall. MISSIONS IN WESEERN NEW YORK. 19 CHAPTER II ON THE SUCCESS OF EARLY MISSIONS. Ancient and recent monuments and discoveries, make it then almost certain, that at a very early period Catholic Priests exercised their ministry in this New World. Cer- tain, at least it is, that the first discoverers, and the first set- tlers were Catholics. Ambition, and the cursed thirst for gold, too much indeed, influenced many, yet, as the most lawless had still faith and conscience, which could restrain unlimited power, they frequently aided the Catholic Priest in his efforts to civilize and save the Indians; hence the In- dian race was preserved where Catholics ruled, but exter- minated, or nearly exterminated, wherever the Catholic re- ligion was either powerless or persecuted. The results at this day will show how differently the non-Catholics, as a body acted. From the north of Mexico to Cape Horn there yet exists about twenty millions of Indians; they are Christians; their civilization has not reached that of our race; but it may be much less than we imagine, behind that of England or of other countries, 300 years after their con- version. And, though, the Christian Indians of the South are far in advance of the Northern tribes, yet are they not now, what they would have been, had not a stronger race, with adverse social and religious ideas, undermined their principles and weakened their morality. Even now, in the far North the Catholic Indians are greatly in advance of the non- Catholic savages . These remarks are not intended as re- proach against respected Protestant fellow citizens, who gen- erally condemn, sometimes in stronger terms than we dare use, the wrongs inflicted upon the Aborigines. But, the Catholic historian is forced, however unwilling, 20 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. to make such remarks, in answer to the oft-repeated asser- tion, of some Protestant writers. The same in substance as the following quotation from Rev. W. I. Kip, M. A. : " Look over the world and read the history of the Jesuit missions. After one or two centuries, they have always come to naught. There is not a recorded instance of their permanency, or of their spreading each generation, wider and deeper r like our own missions in India. Thus it has been in China, Japan, South America, and our own land. For centuries the Jesuit foreign missionaries have been like those * beating the air.' And yet, greater devotion to the cause than theirs, has never been sii>ce the Apostle's days. Must there not have been something wrong in the whole system — some grievous error mingled with their teaching, which thus denied them a measure of success, proportioned to their efforts." Kip, Jes. Miss. Pref. It seems a duty respectfully to remove erroneous impressions. Hence we must point out retarding causes, which the Church could not remove. Unless, as in Japan, where about two mil- lions of converts died martyrs; unless, as in the North Eastern States, when the converted tribes were extermina- ted, the assertion above made is the very reverse of the truth. Jesuits may have been chased away, or murdered like Resues; but other Jesuits, or other Priests took their place; even after a price had been put upon the head of God's minister, as. was the casein our own state, Every one knows that the Catholic missions in India are immense- ly superior, and far more successful than the Protestant mis- sions there, notwithstanding the boast of Mr. Kip. Mis- representation, craft, and British power, destroyed the Indi- an missions in this State, but not the entire Indian Christi- anity of the State, which was transferred to Canada, where- very many Catholic descendants of the Christian Indians, of New York, still worship with fervor before their MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 2% Catholic altars. In many parts of the United States, in Michigan, Kansas, (fee, (fee, there are many Churches and large- congregations of faithful Indians, many of whose fathers had to fly from persecution in this State. Rev. Eugene Vetranile, Pastor of Biddeford, says in a let- ter to the writer of these memoirs:: "In the State of "Maine there are two* tribes of Indians of the Etchimiiv "nation, a division of the great Algonquin family. They " number one thousand, and are all Catholics. There are * no Protestant Indians in the State. These Indians have " a right to send two men to the Legislature of Maine. I " am informed by fishermen, who frequent Labrador, that " they are continually visited by Catholic Esquimeaux In- " dians?' Where are the Protestant Churches, or the Protestant Christian Indians of all the tribes that swarmed in New England and in Eastern New York. The power, the wealth, the religious zeal, of "old " and "New" England were brought to. aid the Indian Missions of Rev. John Eliot and others. Let a Protestant writer tell the result: Joshua, R. Clark, A. M., corresponding member of the New York. Historical Society, says in " Onondaga," vol. i. : " Two hun- dred years have not yet rolled around, and a Bible, (the Indian Bible printed through the aid of the British Parlia- ment,) the fruit of many years of diligent labor, translated expressly for a people, whose salvation was the end and aim of the great, the gracious, and the good of that era, lives only as a literary curiosity on the shelves of a very few libraries in Christendom. . . . The race for whose benefit these holy words were arranged, has passed away, and with, them their literature, and even their very names ." p* 2il. Gov. Andros, in his official report in 16/8, makes no mention of Catholics, in enumerating the religious denomi- £2 MISSIONS IF WESTERN NEW YORK. nations in the State; and this, because Catholics, publicly known as such, did not exist in the civilized districts. Gov. Dongan, in 1687, in his report to the British Par- liament, says, "New York has first a chaplain, belonging* to "the Fort, of the Church of England; secondly, a Dutch " Calvinist; thirdly, a French Calvinist; fourthly, a Dutch " Lutheran. Here be not many of the Church of England, "few Roman Catholics, abundance "of Quaker preachers, " men, and women especially, Singing Quakers, Ranting " Quakers, Sabbatharians, Antisabbatharians, some Anabap- " tists, some Independents, some Jews; in short, of all sorts " of opinions there are some, and the most part, of none at "all." Doc. Hist of N. Y. Vol. L, 116. Various intolerant laws soon forced most of the few in the State to leave it. In 1700, an Act was passed with this preample: "Whereas divers Jesuits, Priests, and Popish " Missionaries have of late come, and for some time have "had their residence in the remote parts of this province." (New York.) It is then enacted thai every priest, etc., remaining in or coming into the proviuce after November 1, 1700, "shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment." In case of escape and capture, to suffer death ! By the same law, harborers of Priests were to pay a fine of two hundred pounds and to stand two days in the pillory. Smith speaks of this law as " One for hanging any Popish Priest who would come voluntarily into the Province," and he says, " It continues in full force to this day, as it forever ought" A man then did not dare to avow himself a Catho- lic; it was odious; a chapel then would have been pulled down. It used to be said, "John Leary goes once a year "to Philadelphia to get absolution." In 1741, John Urt was hung in New York ostensibly on account of a pre- tended participation in a plot, but in reality on account of his being thought to be a Priest, as it seems he was. (This MISSIONS IN WESTERN HEW YORK. 23 blood} 7 law against Catholics was repealed by special act of the New York State Legislature, in 1784.) " In the year 17QQ, the Earl of Bellmont, Governor of New York, memoralized the Lords of trade and plantations, "to prevent their being practised upon by the French Priests, and Jesuits. (Laws enacted to hang the poor Priests who came into the Province must have appeared quite effica- cious.) "The Queen gave directions for the erection of a fort, with a chapel and house for the Clergyman, in the country of the Mohawks. . . „ . After about six j^ears of labor, trial, and disappointment, the Reverend W. Andrews solicited removal from that Mission, which was done. He gives anything but a favorable report of the success of his labors, saying, "There is no hope of making them better. Heathen they are, and Heathen they still must be." — 213. Great efforts were also made, among the Onondagas. The result is thus stated by the learned Author: "The general character and condition of the Onondagas, as a body of this day, is not remarkable either for industry, thrift, perseve- rance, temperance, or any of those higher virtues and graces which tend to exalt and elevate mankind." Clark, Vol. 1. p. 321. In 1778, in the month of February, a large French ship was taken by the British, near the Chesapeake, and sent for condemnation into New York, at that time still in pos- session of the English. Amongst her officers was a Priest, of the name of £)e la Motte, of the Order of St. Augustin, who was Chaplain of the vessel Being permitted to go at large in the city, he was solicited by his countrymen, and by those of his own faith, io celebrate Mass. Being advised of the existence of a prohibitory law, he applied to the commanding officer for permission, which was refused: but M. de la Motte, not knowing the language very well, mis- took what was intended i'ov a refusal as a. permission, and 24 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. accordingly celebrated Mass. For this be was arrested, and kept in close confinement until exchanged. This was under Governor Tryon's administration. His. of C. C. in N. Y. p. 29 & 35." That tbe Catholic Church under such circum- stances, could not continue its work of conversion among the Indians, and that the converted Indians would be forced into exile, is evident. That the Protestant religion, under such favorable circumstances, should have zero for the result of gigantic efforts and expenditures, can easily be explained, by thinking men. CHAPTER III. EARLIEST MISSIONS. Under God the discovery of America by Columbus, was greatly due to the Franciscan Monk John Perez di Mak- chena. But for him Columbus could not have sailed from Spain. On the 12th of October, 1492, in the Isle of San Salvador, another Monk, the Reverend Father Solozano, made the hills and forests of the New World witness the solemn rites, and re-echo to the sacred chants of Catholic worship; and, first in the Southern part of America, did that Monk plant the sign of man's salvation, on a soil, the discovery of which saved the life of Columbus. Thence onward, through difficulties, dangers and death, the Cath- olic missionaries pressed on, in their labors of love, to every part of the New World. In 1542 The Franciscans Father Padilla and Brother John of the Cross cheerfully died martyrs in the present diocese of Sante Fe. Before the English had formed a single settlement either in Virginia or New r England, all the tribes on the Rio Grande were converted and civilized: 4 'The Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits labored in Florida. "Villages of converted Indians gathered around the Spanish MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 25 "ports. Devotional works were translated and printed in "the Indian dialect. The ' Doctrina Christiana', of Pareja, "is the oldest published work in any Indian dialect of the "United States. The convent of Saint Helena, in the City "of St.'Augustine, became the centre whence the Franciscans "spread in every direction. The faith prospered among the "tribes, and the cross towered in every Indian village, till "the increasing English colony of Carolina brought war into "those peaceful regions. In 1703 the valley of the Appa- "lachicola was ravaged by an armed body of covetous fan- "atics; the Indian towns were destroyed; the missionaries "slaughtered, and their neophytes shared their fate, or still " more unfortunate, were hurried away, and sold as slaves in "the English West Indies. Fifty years after the whole "colony of Florida fell into the hands of England, and Cath- " olicity, under its crushing power, languished or escaped to " less intolerant rule. The Missions were destroyed, the "•Indians dispersed, and St. Helena, the convent whence "Christianity had radiated over the Peninsula, became a "barrack. Driven from their villages, the unhappy Indians "wandered in the wilderness, and resumed their nomadic "life, from which Christianity had reclaimed them. Buried "in the pathless everglades, they took the name of Semi- " noles, (wanderers,) gradually lost the faith, and became "the scourge of the whites.' , Discovery, by Shea. Cortier sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the feast of St. Lawrence, the 10th of August, 1535. The pious Frenchmen celebrated the feast of the glorious martyr, and gave his name to the Gulf and haver. The cross was erected perhaps where Bishop Eric had blessed it three hundred years before. In 1604, permanent settlements were begun at Quebec and Port Royal, now Annapolis. Bancroft says, "In 1608, the Apostolic Benediction of the " Roman Pontiff was solicited on families which exiled 26 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK\ " themselves to evangelize infidels, and by a compact with De "Biencourt, the proprietory's son, the Order of the Jesuits " was enriched by an imposition on the fisheries and on the "fur trade. The arrival of the Jesuit priests was signalized " by conversions among the natives. In the following year, " De Biencourt and Father Biart, explored the coast as far " as the Kenebeck. and ascended that river* The Canibas, "Algonquins, of the Abenaki nations, touched by the con— " tiding humanity of the French, listened reverently to the a message of Redemption. A French colony within the " United States followed. Under the auspices of Guerche- " ville and Mary of Medicis, the rude intrench ments of St. " Sauveur were raised on the eastern shore of Mount Desert " Isle. The natives venerated Biart as a messenger from u heaven; and under the summer sky, round a cross in the "center of the hamlet, matins [mass, we suppose,] and " vespers were regularly chanted. Fiance and the Roman "Religion had appropriated the soil of Maine." Vol. L, p. 27. The English, conducted by Argal, attacked St. ISauveur; one of the missionaries was mortally wounded, and his companions were carried off prisoners — the Chris- tian colony was broken up ! ! However desirable it is to abridge, yet there is something so touching in the following letter that it would scarcely be right to omit it; particularly as giving the key to the success of the missionaries of God's Church. Let it be read, remembering the axiom, "By one learn what all were." Letter from Father Sebastien Rashs, Missionary of the Society of Jesus in New France to Monsieur his Nephew: At Nanrantsouak, this 15th of Oct. 1722. Monsieur, My Dear Nephew: The Peace of our Lord be with you. During the more than thirty years that I have passed in the depth of the forests with the Savages, I have been so MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 27 occupied in instructing them and training them to Christian virtues, that I have scarcely had time to write many letters, even to tfiose who are most dear to me. I cannot, however, refuse you the little detail of my occupations for which you ask. I owe it, indeed, to the gratitude I feel for the strong interest which your friendship induces you to take in all that concerns me. I am in a district of that vast extent of country which is between Acadia and New England. Two other Mission- aries as well as myself are engaged there among the Abna- kis Indians; but we are separated very far from each other. The Abnakis Indians, besides the two villages which they have in the midst of the French Colony, have also three other considerable settlements, on the border of a river. There are three rivers, which empty into the sea to the south of Canada, between New England and Acadia. The village in which I live is called Nanrantsouak, and is situated on the banks of a river, which empties into the sea at the distance of thirty leagues beiow. I have erected a church there, which is neat and elegantly ornamented. I have indeed thought it my duty to spare nothing, either in the decoration of the building itself, or in the beauty of those articles, which are used in our holy ceremonies. Vestments, chasubles, copes, and holy vessels, all are highly appropri- ate, and would be esteemed so even in our churches of Europe. I have also formed a little choir of about foitv young Indians, who assist at Divine service in cassocks and surplices. They have each their own appropriate functions, as much to serve in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, as to chant the Divine Offices for the adoration of the Holy Sac- rament, and for the processions which are made by great crowds of Indians, who often come from a long distance to engage in these exercises; and you would be edified by the beautiful order they observe and the devotion they show. 28 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. They have built two chapels at three hundred paces dis- tance from the village: one, above on the river, dedicated to God under the invocation of the Holy Virgin, and where can be seen her image in relief; the other, under the invo- cation of the Angel Guardians, is below, on the same river. As they are both on the road which leads, both into the woods and into the fields, the Indians can never pass without offering up their prayers. There is a holy emula- tion among the females of the village as to who shall most ornament the chapel of which they have care; when the procession is to take place there, all who have any jewelry or pieces of silk or calico, or other things of that kind, employ them to adorn it. The great blaze of light contributes, not a little, to the beauty of the church and of the chapels, it not being neces- sary for me to be saving of the wax, for the country itself famishes it abundantly. None of my neophytes fail to repair twice in each day to the church, early in the morning to hear Mass, and in the evening to assist at the prayers which I offer up at sunset. As it is necessary to fix the imagination of these Indians, which is too easily distracted, I have composed some appro- priate prayers for them to make, to enable them to enter into the spirit of the august sacrifice of our altars. They chant them, or recite them in a loud voice during Mass. Besides the sermons which I deliver before them on Sun- days and festival days, I scarcely pass a week-day without making a short exhortation, to inspire them with a horrer of those vices, to which they are most addicted, or to strengthen them in the practice of some virtue. After the Mass, I teach catechism to the children and young persons, while a large number of aged people, who are present, assist and answer, with perfect docility the questions which I put to them. The rest of the morning, even to mid-day, is set MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 29 apart for seeing those who may wish to speak with me. They come to me in crowds, to make me a participator in their pains and inquietudes, or to communicate to me causes of complaint against their countrymen, or to consult me on their marriages, and other affairs of importance. It is therefore necessary for me to instruct some, to console others, to re-establish peace in families at variance, to calm troubled consciences, to correct others by reprimands min- gled with softness and charity; in fine, as far as it is possi- ble, to render them all contented. After mid-day, I visit the sick and go around among the cabins of those, who require more particular instruc- tions. If they hold a council, which is often the case with those Indians, they depute one of the principal men of the assembly, to ask me to assist in their deliberations; I accordingly repair to the place where their council is held; if I think they are pursuing a wise course, I approve of it; if on the contrary, I have anything to say in opposition to their decision, I declare my sentiments, supporting them with weighty reason^, to which they conform. My advice always fixes their resolutions. They do not even hold their feasts without inviting me. Those who have been asked carry each one a dish, of wood or bark, to the place of entertainment. 1 give the benediction on the food, and they place, in each dish, the portion which has been prepar- ed. After this distribution has been made, 1 say grace, and each one retires; for such is the order and usage of their feast. In the midst of such continued occupations, you cannot imagine with what rapidity the days pass by. There have been seasons, when I scarcely had time to recite my office, or take a little repose during the night; for discretion is not a virtue which particularly belongs to the Indians. But, for some years past, I have made it a rule, not to speak SO MrSSIONS IN WESTERN NEW TORK. with any person from the prayers in the evening, nntil the time of it, on the next morning. I have therefore forbidden tbem to interrupt me during this period, except for some very important reasons, as, for example to assist a person who is dying, or some other affair of the kind which it is impossible to put off. I set apart this time to spend in prayer, or to repose myself from fatigues of the day. When the Indians repair to the sea shore, where they pass some months in hunting the ducks, bustards, and other birds, which are found there in large numbers, they build on an island a church, which they cover with bark, and near it they erect a little cabin for my residence. I take care to transport a part of our ornaments, and the service is performed with the same decency, and the same crowds of people, as at the village. You see then, my dear nephew, what are my occupations. For that which relates to me personally, I will say to yon that I neither hear, nor see, nor speak to any but Indians. My food is very simple and light. I have never been able to conform my taste to the meat, or smoked fish of the savages, and my nourishment is only composed of corn, which they pound, and of which I make each day a kind of hominy which I boil in water. The only luxury in which I indulge is a little sugar, which I mix with it to correct its insipidity. This is never wanting in the forest. In the spring, the maple trees contain a liquor very similar to that which is found in the sugar-canes of the Southern Islands. The women employ themselves in collecting this in vessels of bark, as it is distilled from the trees. They then boil it, and draw off from it a very good sugar. That which is drawn oft* first is always the most beautiful. The whole nation of the Abnakis is Christian, and very zealous to preserve their religion. This attachment to the Catholic faith has induced them, even to this time, to prefer MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 31 our alliance to advantages which might be derived from an alliance with the English, who are their neighbors. These advantages would be, too, of very great importance to our Indians. The facility of trading with the English, from whom they are distant but one of two days' journey, the ease with which the journey can be made, the admirable market they would find there for the purchase of the mer- chandise that suits them — these things certainly hold out very great inducements. In place of which, in going to Quebec, it is necessary to take more than a fortnight, to reach there, they have to furnish themselves with provi- sions for the journey, they have different rivers to cross, and frequent portages to make. They are aware of these inconveniences, and are by no means indifferent to their interests, but their faith is infinitely more dear to them, and they believe that if they detach themselves from our alliance, they will shortly find themselves without a missionary without sacraments, without a sacrifice, with scarcely any exercise of their religion, and in manifest danger of being re plunged into their former heathenism. This is the bond which unites them to the French. Attempts have been vainly made to break it, sometimes by wiles which were held out to their simplicity, and sometimes by acts of vio- lence which could not fail to irritate a nation exceedingly jealons of its rights and liberties. The commencement of this misunderstanding could not but alarm me, for it made me fear the dispersion of that little community which Prov- idence had for so many years confided^ to my care, and for the sake of which I would willingly sacrifice what remains to me of life. Let me mention to you, then, some of the artifices to which the English had recourse to detaoh them from our alliance." • . . . But however striking the instances Father Rasles gives, it 32 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. is necessary to refrain. But the poetry of Whittier, given by Rev. M. Kip, should not be refused a place here: On the brow of a hill, which slopes to meet The flowing river, and bathe its feet — The bare washed rock, and the drooping grass, And the creeping vine as the waters pass — A rude and unshapely chapel stands, Built up ih that wild by unskilled hands; Yet the traveler knows a place of prayer For the holy sign of the Cross is there ; And should he chance at that place to be, Of a Sabbath morn, or some hallowed , and Sirenne, and Aurry, preached t'he gospel so effectually as to convert that powerful tribe. The mission long retained its zeal and fervour. But when Canada was conquered by England, the English from Massachusetts spread fire and death through the villages of the Abanakis* the missionaries were driven away, or slain; the churches destroyed; and the Indians deprived of all the consolations of faith. Yet these poor Indians remained true to their relioion. Down to our day, they have resisted the preachers of Protestantism*, and the remnants of this tribe, still occupy five villages in Maine and Canada, they are-all Catholics, as their forefathers have been for two centuries. CHAPTER IV-. INDIANS. In the preliminary details of this history, it was wished to give an idea of all the early Catholic Missionaries by authentic details of one who, though heroic, was surpassed in austerities and sufferings by many others. 0. H. Mar- shall, Esq., passing over the dead and martyred Francis- cans, says of the Jesuits: "During this same period, fifty-five of the Order arrived in Canada, of which number sixteen returned. One was frozen, two were drowned, fourteen died, seven suffered martyrdom by the Iroquois, five were otherwise killed, leaving ten remaining in the c 40 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. country in 1657. Thus, in a few years, of fifty-five priests, but twenty-six escaped from violent death or martyrdom . And most of the small remnant soon passed away to eternal rest, on account of fatigues and sufferings for souls redeemed by Christ. In few but eloquent words, Mr. Marshall follows the successors of those martyred missionaries, " as they located at Sault St. Marie and the l r ond du Lac of Green Bay, on the pictoresque islands of Mackinaw and along the borders of the Illinois and Mississppi rivers. They doubjed in their frail canoes, the head lands of Lake Superior, discovered the mines which abound on its shores and founded a mission at its farthest extremity." But it is time to return from herioc personal virtue, to consider those sacred ways of God's Providence by which the light of faith first dawned on Western New- York and on this diocese. ** Savage indeed, in many respects, as the Indians appeared to be," says Turner, "yet the kindest hospitality, from the purest motives was always readily extended to their foreign guests; and perhaps the golden cord of friendship would forever have remained unbroken, had the red man been the first to begin hostilities. ''Welcome English;" "welcome English," (The word " English," was too hard for Indian pronunciation, hence, in Indian mouths the welcome was: "welcotrie Yingees," "welcome Ythgees;*' hence the name Yankee;) are words intimately associated with early American history. These were the first accents our Pilgrim Fathers heard on the American strand, and ever have the same grateful sounds greeted the ears of the whites, upon their first interview, with, the rude sons of the forest Had the disposition of the- Aborigines been any other than friendly, the feeble colonies first planted on American soil would have been ; speedily annihilated." The following is an extract from the first sermon ever MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 41 preached in New England. It was by one of the Pilgrims. "To us the Indians have been like lambs, so kind, so sub- missive, and trusty, as a man may truly say, many Chris- tians are not so kind and sincere; when we first came into this country, we were few, and many of us sick, and many died by reason of the cold and wet, it being* the depth of winter, and we having no horses or shelter; yet, when there were not six able persons among us, though the Indians eaiiie daily to us, by hundreds, with, their sachems or kings, and might, in one hour, have made a dispatch of us, vet they never offered us the least injury. The greatest com- mander cometh often to visit us, often sends us presents, (fee." The Respectable Protestant writer who quotes this ser- mon, continues thus "And yet aggressions and wrongs commenced on the part of our race, in its earliest intercourse with theirs; were some of his own race, the chronicler of events — commencing with the discovery of Columbus and coming down to our own day of pre-emption bribes, and treaties attained with wrong and outrage — he would gather up a fearful account." — Turner, Hist, of the H. P. 76. "The Pilgrim Fathers" begun the war of oppression "and cruelty; the Indians, savagely retaliated." The last law of the " Holy Pilgrims" destroyed the Indian race within their reach. We quote Bancrofts Hist, of U.S. Vol. III. p. 217. The Indians could not be reduced by the usual method of warfare: hence " a bounty was offered for every Indian scalp; to regular forces under pay, the grant was ten pounds; to volunteers, in actual service, twice that sum; but if men would, of themselves, without pay, make up parties and patrol the forests, in search of Indians, as of old the woods were scoured for wild beasts, the chase was invig- orated by the promised encouragement of fifty pounds, (two hundred and fifty dollars) for each scalp." An educated Cayuga chief spoke thus before the New 42 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. York Historical Society. " The land of Ya-nun-no, or the "Empire State," as you love to call \% was once laced by our trails, from Albany to Buffalo. Trails that we had trod for centuries — trails worn so deep by the feet of the Iroquois, that they became your road of travel, as your possessions gradually eat into those of my people. Your roads still traverse those same lines of communication, which bound one part of the long house to the other. Have we, the tirst-Jiolders of this prosperous region, no longer a share in your history ? Glad were your fathers to sit down upon the treshold of the Long House. Uichdid they hold them- selves in getting the mere sweepings from its door. Had our Forefathers spurned you from it, when the French were thundering at the opposite side; to get a passage through; and drive- you into the sea; whatever has been the fate of other Indians, we might still have had a nation, and I — I, instead of pleading here for the pfivelege of lingering within your borders, I — I might have a country." [Turner.] It is sad, yet often instructive, to take a review of sins Jong past, and of the retribution in time which follow them. When our forefathers reached this lancl, the Indians were numerous, confiding and generous. The State of New York, especially, was filled with Indians. In it, and stretching into Ohio, were the Erie or Cat Nation ; where Buffalo now stands^ and west and east of it, was the Neuter Nation, then, lending eastward, with the course of the waters, were the Senecas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, the Oneidas, and the Mohawks; on the Susquehana were the Andastas or Canes- togues. The Delawares and others dwelt south and west of these tribes. Thirteen different tribes of Indians, all of whom are now extinct, dwelt on Long Island ; many Others to the easb> amongst which the Massachusetts early attached themselves to the English, their name means, " Toward the Big Moun- tain, Massatzoick. MISSIONS IN WESTERSi NEW YORK:, 4$ A writer who supposed Hudson' to ha-^e been, the first to* visit our State pays: " The first European advent to oui, State was marked by inflicting on the Indian race a curse, more terrible in its consequence* than all else combined,; While Hudson's vessel lay in the' river, near Albany, great multitudes of savages flocked on board. In order to discover whether '• any of the chiefe men of the country, had any treacherie in them, 1f our master and mate took them into the cabin, and gave them so-, inner* wine mid aqvavitce, that they were all memie. One of them became intoxicated,. staggered and fell at which the natives were astonished. !? It was u strange to them, for they could not tell how to* take it." Thw all luirried ashore in their canoes. The intoxicated Indian remaining." In 1609, Hudson, entered the Hudson river, lie testifies. to the friendly disposition of the natives. They soon com- plained that efforts bad heed m*ade or* his part to kidnap, two Indians. Afterwards some InxPfans attracted. by curiosity,, and having, perhaps imperfect ideas of the rights of prop- erty, stole into the cabin window; and-, pilfered' a pillow andi some wearing apparel. The Indian was shot at and killed; another Indian was killed in recovering the- propertv.- Fol lowing after these events, was a concerted' attempt ois the part of the natives to- get possession of the ship. It failed. Nine of the Indians were killed- none of the R ii~ ropeans. Thus a relation that began in* friendship, ended" in war. [Turner 83.7 The English ''Plymouth Company," in 1613, fitted out two vessels, and placed one of them under the command of Capt. Smith and the other, Capt, Huwt This expedition ex- plored with care the whole coast from Cape Cod to Penob- scot. Captain Hunt, who commanded one of the vessels, instead of returning with Sm ft h r enticed a number of In- dians aboard his vessel, and , touching at Malagar, on his- 44 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. homeward voyage, sold them as slaves; thus, upon the threshold of New England civilization, provoking the na- tives to abandon their pacific policy, and look upon the new comers as enemies. The very next vessel that visited the coast of New England brought news of their vindictive hos- tility." Turner, 82. " In the autumn of 1650 and spring of 1651, two fron- tier villages of the Neutral Nation, one of which was located near what is now Buffalo, were sacked and destroyed by the Senecas. The largest village contained 1,600 men. Those spared from death were taken to Gannogareo, a Sen- eca village east of the Genesee River, where they were found bv Father F rem in, in 1669. The " relations," which will be here continued, '.of the mission, will also afford glimpses of the .Indian history. When the Indian missions on the American side were crushed, the Indian race rapidly sunk into #1 most .vassal- age. The following remarks from a distinguished Protes- tant writer, may be considered their epitaph: u It becomes us not to forget those distinguished braves, (the Six Nations,) who so freely shed their blood for their English allies. . . . Had it not been for, the long* contin- ued friendship of these distinguished peojde, and the inesti- mable service rendered by them in the English wars with the French, it is not at all certain that the English would have been successful; and it is possible, if not probable, that the colonies would have been governed by the Frej.>clr." He then tells us that these Indians, in ,the war of Ameri- can independence, were on, the side of 'England, "and ren- dered essential service to the Crown. " »Page317. 'SBut, after the war of the Revolution, the English treated their Indian allies with great indifference and neglect" [In i the treaty there was no stipulation made : in behalf of the |In~ dians. 'By treuties, they .were ..gradually deprived of i their MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 45 lands. In 1814, in council at Buffalo, the Oneidas, Onon- dagas, Cayugas, and Senecas pledged themselves to the American cause, against England. They fought and bled at Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, (fee, under the gallant gener- als, Brown, Scott, Ripley, and Porter. "Their services have never been duly appreciated, and the scanty pittance meted out for their services (he might also say for their land,) is but a common illustration of the gratitude and magnanimi- ty of powerful nations toward the weaker." History of On- ondagas, page 316. Among the old traditions of the Indians, the following speech is stated to have caused the celebrated confederacy of the Indians. The prediction of ruin through division was too well accomplished. God grant that the sad experience of a once powerful race, now fast passing away, may aid in restoring union to our far nobler, our far more prosperous confederacy. u The council assembled, and all w r ere anxious to hear the words of Hi-a-wat ha. A breathless silence ensued, and the venerable counselor began : "Friends and Brothers: You are members of many tribes ami nations. You have come here, many of you, a great distance from your homes. We have convened for one common purpose, to promote one common interest, and that is, to provide for our mutual safety, and how it shall be best accomplished. To oppose these hordes of northern foes by tribes, singly and alone, would prove our certain de- struction; we can make no progress in that w T ay. We must unite ourselves into one common band of brothers. Our warriors, united, would surely repel these rude invaders, and drive them -'from our borders. This must be done and. we shall be safe. tk You, the Mohawks, siting under the shadow of the Great Tree, whosei roots \sink deep- into the earth, and whose 4£ MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. branches spread over a vast country, shall be the first na- tion, because you are warlike and mighty. <>And you, Oneidas, a people who recline your bodies against the Everlasting Stone, that can not be moved, shall be the second nation, because you give wise counsel. "And you, Onondagas, who have your habitation at the Great Mountain, and are overshadowed by its, crags, shall be. the third nation, because you are greatly gifted in speech, and mighty in- war. "And you, Cayugas, a people whose habitation is the Park Forest, and whose home is everywhere, sball be the fourth nation, because of your superior cunning in hunting. 4< And you, Senecas, a people who live in the Open Coun- try, and possess much wisdom, shall be the fifth nation, be- cause you understand better the art of raising corn and beans, and making cabins. ** You, five great and powerful nations, must unite, and have but one common interest, and no foe shall be able to disturb or subdue you. "And you, Manhattoes, Nyacks, Montauks, and others, who are as the feeble Bushes; and you, Naragaosetta, Mo- hegans, Wainpanoags, and your neighbors, who are a Fish- ing People, may place yourselves under our protection. Be with us, and we will defend you. \ou of the South, and you of the West may do the same, and we will protect you. We earnestly desire your aMianee and friendship. ">Brother&, if we unite in this bond, ttye Great Spirit will smile upon us, and- we shall be free, prosperous, and happy. But if we remain as we are, we shall be subject to his frown ; we shall be enslaved; ruined, perhaps, annihilated forever. We shall perish, and our names be blotted out from among the nations of men. Brothers, these are the words of Hi-a- wat-ha; let them sink deep into your hearts. I have sai.to take place on the morrow. This diy is concluded with ^demonstrations ofjoy, festivity and dancing. The last day, and the one to which most consequence is .attached, being the great day of sacrifice, the people assem- ble at the council hi/use in great numbers. The exercises ^commence, by building, large fires early in the morning, by firing guns, and loud hallooing. The wood for the sacrificial offering is arranged wear the council house, by Jaying near half a cord in alternate layers, crosswise. This is done by a select committee of the maiwgers,.who proceed with eonsid- *e table .ceremony. 50 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. A house, near the council house, is selected as a place in which to make preparation. To this the managers pro- ceed, and prepare themselves for the occasion. One from each party is selected as a leader. They are dressed in long loose shirts of white; others are appropriately dressed, as managers, (fee., according to the duties they are expected to perforin. The grand master of ceremonies, or high priest, takes his station at the council house, and to him reports are made of the progress of the proceedings, and he, in turn gives new directions. Messengers are continually pas- sing and re-passing from the council house to the house of preparation. On the occasion, at which notes for this arti- cle wore taken, the venerable Oh-he-nu presided with great dignity. Having arrived at an early hour, we found this gray-headed chief gravely seated near the center of the council house , discoursing to his people, receiving messages, and giving directions. About nine o'clock, the managers rushed out of the house of preparation, and two white dogs, fantastically painted with red figures, and adorned with small belts of wampum feathers, and ribbons tied around their necks, legs, and tails, followed them. A long rope, with a single knot in the centre, was instantly passed over the head of one of them, when some eight or ten of the managers seized the rope on either side, commenced' pulling lustily, each party occa- sionally yielding to the other, as if to give greater force to their operations. After a few struggles, the dog was suffo- cated, and hung up on a ladder, which leaned against the house. The other dog was disposed of in precisely the same manner, and hung beside his fellow. Guns were now fired, and some thirty or forty persons rushed out of the council-house, gave three tremendous yells, and retired. After about half an hour, the dogs were taken down, and carried into the house of preparation. To this house spec- MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 51 tators were not admitted, and what particular ceremonies were there performed, we have no means of knowing. These dogs are always white, or as nearly so as they can procure them ; spot or blemish renders them unsuitable for sacrifice. A wound producing an effusion of blood would be productive of the same consequences. By some peculiar manceuvering, the sins of the people, which had become concentrated in the managers, are now transferred to the two individuals, who are clad in the white garments. These, b} T some peculiar ceremony, again work those sins off, into the dogs. These animals, thus laden with the sins of the nation are raised upon the shoulders of two persons appointed for that purpose, (their legs being tied so as to admit 6f their being slung, like a pack.) A procession is formed in rauks of double tiles, preceded by the two men dressed in white, and others of the managers, followed by as many others as may choose to join them. The procession moves slowly and silently, with measured step, around the house of preparation, through the council- house, which has two doors, one opposite the other, and around it. After which they are brought in, and the dogs laid upon a platform, about a foot from the floor. As they enter the council-house for the last time, they break into single file. While these ceremonies were going on at the house of preparation and -out of doors, others of importance were observed in the council-house. The offerings which had been collected were disposed of upon pins around the councils-room. The master of cere- monies, during the whole progress of proceedings, remained stationary, seated in the centre of the council- room* To him were brought, at different times, at intervals of about two minutes, every article which had been deposited. Every person who brought a piece of pork, a paper of tobacco, a bunch of herbs, or a handful! of straw, stopped 52 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. about three paces from him, holding it towards him, look ing him full in the face with the greatest attention. After lie had said a few word*, the old chief took it in his hands, over which he uttered a short ejaculatory prayer or thanks- giving, after which a hearty response was made by all present. It was then returned to the place from which it had been taken. Every article of the offerings was pre- sented and returned in like manner. The females present participated in these ceremonies. All the messengers who addressed the chief halted at a respectful distance, and stood a moment in silence before they made their commu- nications. These events all transpired at the council- house before the dogs were brought in. After the dogs were brought in, the procession, in single file, moved three times round the platform, before they were laid down. At each round, the master of ceremonies rose in a sedate and digni- fied manner, clapped his hands on the shoulders of the bearer of the dog who was foremost in the procession. He stopped in the precise position he was in when the hand of the chief was laid upon his shoulder and there remained as motionless as a statue for the space of a minute, during which he was addressed in a whisper by the master of ceremonies. Several other chiefs addressed those who carried the dogs, in the same manner, and again the pro- cession moved on. After this, the 1 dogs were laid upon the platform, and all joined in loud singing and chan.inir, while the procession continued slowly moving around the dead carcasses of the dogs, with the most devout solemnity. While these ceremonies were proceeding in the council house, lire had been applied to the altar of wood outside. The pile had become nearly half consumed and yielded greiU heat; while around it, in a circle, had been drawn a line, within which it was not intended spectators should pass. This, however, availed nothing, for the moment the pro- MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 53 cession had drawn around the fire, the area was crowded to its utmost capacity. Under the direction of " Oh-he-nu," the bearers of the dogs again resumed their burdens; a procession was formed in single file, the master of ceremonies taking the lead. Then followed the men in white robes, the persons who carried the dogs, the managers and others promiscuously. As the procession moved along, the principal actors in the scene commenced singing, which continued while the whore marched arouned the council house to the place of sacrifice. Around the burning pile they moved three separate times, the last of which, the master of ceremonies stopped on the west side;" with his face to the east and towards the fire. The remainder of the procession formed around the circle; the persons in white being on the left hand of the high priest, and those bearing the dogs near them. The leader of the ceremonies offered a short prayer to the Great Spirit; a sacrificial chant was sung; the dogs were laid at the feet of the officiating priest; another prayer was offered; another chant was sung, when one of the dogs was cast into the fire by the high priest A like ceremony was performed, and the remaining dog was also thrown upon the burning pile, and again followed the chanting. Differ- ent individuals now brought forward basktes of herbs, to- bacco, and such like, which were at intervals thrown upon the fire, and, with the consuming dogs, produced a variety of scents not easily comprehended. After the dogs were nearly consumed, the procession was again formed and re- turned to the council house, and the committee were di- rected to go to the preparation house. The solemnities of this day being concluded, they formally adjourned. The accustomed ceremonies of this interesting season are usually concluded by a war dance and feast on the same day after the sacrifice." 54 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. We will fitly close by the following remarks of the same author, Mr. Clark, in his History of the Onondagas, vol. 1, page 70. •' Sacrifices have in all ages and by almost every ration been regarded as necessary to appease divine anger, and to render Diity propitious." Pag ^ 70. "The origin of the institution of sacrifices is clearly traceable to Divine author- ity, and to that pure primeval period when our original an- cestor and his sons were yet upon earth." * Early in the morning, previous to the commencement of the war dance, several large kettles had been placed over the fires, in which were cooking the ingredients, upon which the whole nation were at liberty to feast. The contents were composed of meat, corn, beans, pease, potatoes, tur- nips, some garden herbs, which served for seasoning, and other things which had been previously gathered in the baskets.. After the close of the war dance, and the peace dance; the feast was wade ready, by removing the kettles to a convenient distance from the fires. The mass was frequently stirred till the whole became completely mixed. The contents ot the kettles were de- voured without regard to politeness or ceremony. Some dipped from the kettles with spoons, others skimmed out the more substantial parts with chips, some were provided with bowls and spoons, while others, as soon as the scalding all- went was sufficiently cooled^ thrust in their fingers, and thus *Of course the primeval idea of rewards and punishments beyond the grave, exists among the Indians. But it is strange that an idea common to the Hebrews in their Inst state before the coming of Chiist should also prevail among the Indians. Like those Hebrews. In- dians believe that no Indian, who lias not quit his national religion will be lost forever, lie will, if not good, go to the bad hunting ground, pursue, through briars and thorns, deer so lean that, when laken, they can not be eaten, yet, after expiation, he will be admit- ted to the good hunting ground. But if he quit his national reli- gion, he is los>t for ever. MISSIONS tN WESTERN NEW YORK. 55 ^obtained their share. After a reasonable time, the whole had vanished, and all appeared to be refreshed and satisfied. The pipe of peace Was now lighted, and the presiding offi- cer of the past ceremonies drew the first draught, puffed the first whirl, and was very careful that a large quantity of smoke should issue from his mouth at the same time, which he took great pains to make ascend hi graceful curls, and watched them with peculiar enjoyment. The pipe was pass- ed from him to the other chiefs present, and from them to the old men, who all partook of it with a commendable Velish. Having concluded the ceremonies of the great festival, and ftl'l its requirements being fulfilled, every one feels himself absolved from the sins of the past year, and forms new res- olutions for the time to come. Congratulations are ex- changed, and new hopes excited^, free from iniquity and re- solved to follow the path of evil no more; each one repairs to his home, happy in the propitious commencement of a liew year, in perfect readiness to embark in all the opera- tions of war, the chase, the council, or the cabin. During the celebration of these ceremonies, the Indians observe the strictest, sobriety and propriety of conduct, and seem pleased with the company of visitors and strangers \vho are disposed to treat them respectfully. These dances of the Onondagas, which are similar to those K){ the other five nations, may, with propriety, be called the descriptive dances. They are intended to exhibit some ac- tion, or series of actions, generally relating to war, and the imitation is often so close and so exactly executed, that the most indifferent spectator can follow the intentions of the performers. Dances are rather a business than a pastime. They mingle with all the occupations and enterpriz^s of life. When war is declared and proclaimed, it is by means of a dance, and the Warriors who engage in it^ are thereby 56 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. enlisted. When an alliance is concluded, or peace restored, the event is celebrated by a dance, corresponding to the difference of circumstances. The war dance is the exact im- age of a campaign. The Baron Lahontan, speaking of the dances of the Amer- ican Indians, says: "These dances may be compared to the military dance of Minerva; for these savages observe, whilst dancing, with singular gravity, the harmony of cer- tain songs, which the Greek soldiers of Achilles called Hy- porchematiques." It is not easy to decide whether the savages learned them of the Greeks, or the Greeks of the savages. Charlevoix, upon the same subject, remarks that the greatest of their feasts, their songs and dances appear to have their origin in religion, and still preserve some traces of it I have met with some who could not help thinking that our savages were descended from the Jews, and found in everything some affinity between these people and the children of God. Indeed, there are, in some things, a strong resemblance. The origin of the institution of sacrifice, as before remark- ed, is clearly traceable to Divine authority. Cain brought of the fruits of the ground an offering; and his brother Abel, of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof. From the examples of the early chosen people of God, the Gentile nations received or retained their notions of sac- rifice, and on this account, we need not wonder to find so many coincidences in the sacrificial systems of the Jews, and the neighboring nation?. All false religions can be consid- ered only as departures from the true The principal yearly sacrifice of the Jews, were the Pas- chal lamb, at the Passover, celebrated at the commencement of the sacred year, the day of Pentecost, or first fruits, lastly, the day of expiation or great day of atonement. Two MIS8J0NS IN WESTERN KEW YORK. 5f others were afterwards added. Besides these, were the monthly festivals, and others of Jess importance; yet they were nevertheless attended with the greatest punctuality, but never more so, than are the five stated festivals of the Six Nations, to this day, at Onondaga. Before the law was ^iven to Moses, burnt offerings served for all purposes of Divine worship, whether they gave thanks for blessings, or deprecated evil, or prayed for good. These sacrifices expi- ated sins of omission, as well as those of commission. This rite has been transmitted, with more or less of corruption, even to the wilds of America, and continued to the present time, among a people, shut out, we know not how long, from all intercourse with the old world. The priests office was at first, undoubtedly, exercised by heads of families, and afterwards by heads of clans. And, previous to the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, the office of priest and of magistrate were blend- ed in the same person.' Melchisedeck was both a king and priest of Salem and offered sacrifice. Abraham, who was styled a prince, performed the sacer- dotal functions; and Jethro, a prince and priest of Midian, offered burnt sacrifices as a priest, being at the same time a ruler of his people. So the chiefs of the Six Nations, invariably officiate as priests at their festivals or sacrifices. The place of sacrifice was directed, by the Jewish cere- monial, to be at the door of the tabernacle or place of worship; and, in like manner, is the Indian sacrifice univer- sal iy made at the door of their council house, their only place of worship. The Jewish priests, on all sacrificial occasions, were clothed in robes of pure white; and so are those clothed who officiate as priests at the Indian sacrifices. &8 MISSION itf WfcStfliRfc NEW YOliH. On Sacrificial occasions, the alms and offerings of tlie 1 Jews were gathered in baskets, brought to the altar, and set before the priest, with the strictest order and propriety. Almost precisely the same practice exists among the In- dians, who gather the alms and oblatidus df the people, and present them to the officiating high priest in a basket. The Jews offered in sacrifice only ofcen, sheep, and goats; other animals, althdugh they might be esteemed good for food, were unsuited for sacrifice. It may be asked, then, Ivhy the dog, an ftnimal entirely rejected from the Jewish ceremonial, should be received among the Indians as an an- imal suitable for sacrifice? Let it be borne in mind that, not many years since, dogs were their only domestic ani- mals; wild animals being nowhere commanded for sacri- fice, these were the only ones they could have always at hand; They were forced to adopt them or reject the rite entirely. By the Jews, in the selectidn of victims for sacrifice, the Utmost care was taken to choose* such only as were free from blemish. " Without spot and without blemish;" are the terms in frequent use throughout the Jewish ritual. And it was a custom among the nations surrounding Judea, and among the Egyptians, to set a seal upon the victim deemed proper for sacrifice. Among the Indians, a spot, or blem- ish, or maim, renders the animal as unfit for sacrifice; as did the same faults, among the Jews. We have endeavored to point out a few of the coinciden- ce.-! which may be supposed to exist between some of the ceremonies of the Jews, and those of the Indians as prac- ticed at Onondaga; We are satisfied that they prove noth- ing positively, as to their Origin from that peculiar people. If any thing, they may illustrate the common origin of all men, and the high origin of all religious institutions, which at first must have emanated from the same sduree\ MISSIONS IK WESTERN NEW YORK, 59 The learned and estimable Protestant author of u Onan- duga," from whom the above is copied, might go further — he might show that nearly the same strange mingling of sublime truth' with dangerous or ridiculous error, has been found in every page of human history, whenever men have separated from a teaching Church, Sophocles, Eschylus, Meander assert at times, in sublime language, the unity, eternity and sanctity of God. Cleanthus has a hymn or prayer, which was cited by St. Paul at Athens: ''Glorious and immortal King, adored under various names, eternally albpowerful, Author of nature, governing the world by thy laws, I salute thee! Mortals are permitted to invoke thee, for toe are thy off-^ spring! In the Philosophers and Poets, sometimes most clearly expressed, sometimes mingling with human fancies, we read of the Creation, the Fall, Immortality, and Judg« ment beyond the grave; the Guardian Angels, the minis-* taring spirits that protect; the evil ones that tempt; the Supreme Mighty God, who directs and modifies their actions. Herodotus, who wrote about four hundred and fifty years before Christ, remarks that it was Hesjod and Homer who first gave a genealogy of the Gods, assigned to each of them a name and form; that before those poets, who, he remarks, lived only four hundred years before Jiim, men adored the Gods who had submitted the universe to order, without giving them any name; for, says he, they never heard their name, Her. c,2, 6, 52, 53. Euripides has a strong passage on this subject. He introduces Theseus reasoning with Hercules, and alleging the crimes of the Gods in extenuation of those of mortals; Hercules answers; "I have never believed, nor ever will 1 believe, that the Gods give themselves up to incestuous love, A God, if he be God indeed, is in need of no one; it is the poets that have invented those miserable fictions," 60 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. The learned are now more and more convinced that in Ancient Egypt, philosophy had the same religious founda- tion as in India—a Supreme and Only God, manifesting his Being under three principal forms or persons, a Creating Word, the Sovereign Intelligence, the Fall of Man, the hope of a Redemption, Divine Incarnations, a Heaven, a Hell, Purgatory, (in most instances, by metempsychosis,) personifications of all that exist, the sun, moon, and stars, the Nile, tke winds, the seasons, or rather the Divinity, manifested, reproduced in all these things, in some manner transformed into them; in a word, every truth serving as a base for every error: for no error can he presented unless mixed with some truth. A pure error is an impossibility: as a pure poison is impossible. The most active poison is ever united with water, or with something that is good, without which it could not. be exhibited to man. CHAPTER VI. CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES. The eternal Providence of the Saviour God, who died M that he might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle," ever watches over it, and, far in advance, directs events to pi epare for the sanctification of each member u of his body, w finch is the Church." Often, as in the Sacred Head, so in the members, this is visibly accomplished by the cross. From Canada began the work of converting the Indians of Western New York: to Can- ada, when persecution was aided by the penal laws of England, those converted Indians, who did not migrate to heaven, migrated. And there, in their descendants, per- haps more numerous than ever, do they still worship the Son of Mary, in the land whence his blessed light, first MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORIt. 61 shone upon them. It must not, then, seem strange that some space is here devoted, to missions on the Canadian side of the waters, that mark our boundary. A certain knowledge of them is necessary in order to understand our own missions. The rich mine, there glowing in generous, Christian, heroic virtue, may tempt the historian a little farther than is absolutely necessary. Efforts will be made to resist that temptation ; and if these efforts be not always successful, the reader will still be edified^ and the time lost will be well repaid, by one generous thrill of holy desire, or of generous sympathy. In 1603, Ciiamplain accompanied Pontarave to Canada, and examined carefully the River St. Lawrence. Even then he is supposed to have planned a settlement there. On his second voyage, he reached Quebec in 1608. The place was called by the Indians " Kebbek," which means "a narrow passage." His views were comprehensive, his cour- age extraordinary, his labors great, his zeal for the missions truly Christian. Of his secular exploits, no judgment can here be pronounced. In 1615, he returned from France with Franciscan Fathers: their steps we will follow, but remark in passing that, in 1633, Champlain, worn out by fatigue and preparing for death, established an admirable order among his soldiers. The fort appeared to be a well- regulated Academy. Following the example of Champlain, all approached the sacraments; their deportment was edify- ing. During the repasts, one read: at dinner they read some pious history; at supper, the Lives of the Saints. At night, Champlain, like a good father, reunited them in his room, to make the examination of conscience, and recite night prayers. He also established in Canada the custom, so faithfully observed to our day, of ringing the Angelus Domini thrice each day. He died on December the 25tb, 1635, having received with great piety, the sacramenta of 02 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. the Church. Father Le Jeune pronouuced the funeral discourse His wife became a nun of the Ursuline Order, lived holily and died in her convent in blessed hopes of eternal life, on the 20th of December, 1654. A splendid monument was erected over bis grave, and when the vene- rable Father Charles Raymbould, worn out by apostolic labors, died in 1642, the Government, as a mark of special honor, had the remains of the honored priest, buried along- side of Champlain. The Franciscans who accompanied Champlain, on his yeturn to Canada from his visit to France, in 1615, were four in number, and were of the Reform called Recollects* When Father James Garnir^ Provincial of the Recollect Franciscans in Paris, sent a mission to Canada, that Society had already many missions in the New World. In 1621, the Recollects had in Spanish America five hundred con- vents, distributed in twenty-two provinces. The Papal Brief given to the Franciscan Missionaries for Canada, con- tains ample powers, and was expedited in 1018. Father Pknxis Jamay was named first Commissary of the Mission. His companions were Fathers John Dolbeav, Joseph Le Caron, and Brother Pacific Du P less is. The mission- aries reached Quebec in 1615. The first simple chapel was soon built; the first Mass was celebrated on the 25th of June, 1615. Other chapels were soon built m different places. Since then the " cJean oblation" has indeed hee-n perpetual in Canada. Le Caron soon started westward for the Huron country; through almost incredible fatigues, incessantly working, though half starved, but never complaining-, ho reached the Huron country, and built the Franciscan chapel and altar, near a Huron village. Great was the humble self-sacrificing zeal of those first missionaries; it is well to publish it, in- the following eloquent passage, from the discourse of 0. H. MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 63 Marshall, Esq. " The glowing narrative of Bancroft has* thrown the drapery of romance, over the lifes and labour* of the Jesuits, whilst only a bare allusion is made, to the daring intrepidity, and self denying zeal of Le Caron, D' Albion, Du Plessis, and Jamay, the humble Franciscans who with naked feet, and uncovered heads, threaded the forests, and first met the untamed Indian, in his home, on the borders of the northern Lakes." The labours of these zealous and self-sacrificing mission- aries, were repaid by many conversions. Henry de Levi, Duke of Yen tad our, in 1623, retired from the Court took holy orders, became a priest, and organised a mission to Canada. Divine Providence thus disposed to meet the wants of the Franciscans; for whilst they were pursuing their labors in the mission, another Franciscan, Father Piat, went to France to obtain the assistance of the Jesuits, who received the invitation with joy, and the following mission-* aries, (already promised to the noble priest, Henri de Levi,) Father Claude, Sallamant, Father Edmont Massi, and Father John de Broebeuf, were ready to sail early in the year 1625. These first Jesuit missionaries soon arrived in, Canada, prepared to announce the gospel to the heathen, Before the Franciscans, none had intercourse with the Aborogines of our land, except either in the character of traders, using every means to overreach, or in the garb of military adventurers. ''These sons of the forest, now for the first time saw men entering their villages, whose word breathed peace and love; whose business was only to suffer, and to teach humility; whose sword was the cross, and who preached sobrietv, good will, charity, and bright hopes beyond the grave. The privations of the wilderness, and rigors of the climate, wore borne with fortitude; native languages were mastered, the dispositions and oustoms of a strange people were studied, and conformed to; and diffi- 64r MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. culties sufficient to appal the stoutest heart, were encoun- tered and overcome. These devoted men, and their suc- cessors, entered upon their labours, with a zeal that knew no limit; and with a devotedness that shrunk fiom no trial. They were successful in winning these strange men, to their stranger doctrines and faith. The establishment of mission* among the natives naturally led to the exploration of the country. And thus the pioneers of the cross, became the first discoverers and historians of the whole interior of North America. They widely extended geographical knowledge, and did not overlook the importance, of providing the means of education, for the youth of the land. So impor- tant have their Relations become, that they may well be termed an elaborate history of the country. In propoition to their high value, is, at the same time their scarcity. Clark, History of Onandaga, Vol. 1. p. 128. Broebeuf and his associates, under the guidance of the Franciscan priest Dallion, a man no less distinguished for his illustrious birth, than for his piety, and religious zeal; landed in Quebec in 1625, the Jesuits met with a cool re- ception, on the part of the inhabitants; no one ofFeied to give them a shelter, or to supply them with provisions, and they were on the point of abandoning the enterprise. The Franciscans, after using much persuasion, obtained from the Governor, leave to receive the Jesuits into their estab- lishment One half of their convent garden, and farm, was generously surrendered to the new comers; and the two societies lived, and labored together, in uninterrupted friend- ship, and harmony, for two years. The vows which the Jesuits took, the austerities which they practiced, then- rigid discipline and untiring zeal, rend- ered them peculiarly adapted (says O. H. Marshall, Fsq.,) to encounter and overcome the obstacles incident to mission- ary life in the savage wilds of America. There is much in MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 65 the history of their efforts, which the heralds of a more spiritual faith might well admire and emulate." (Tho learned and estimable writer, would be puzzled to show how, the heralds of any Protestant sect, is, or can be, as spiritual as the heralds of the Roman Catholic Church.) Many of them were of hvjh birth, and entitled to princely fortunes, all of which, with every wordly prospect and ad- vantage, they laid on the altar of their faith, and sacrificed in the course of their missions." In 1624 the Jesuits set out for the Huron country, with Dallion, the Franciscan, over the same painful and toilsome route, which Le Caron had pursued, eleven years before. They had some difficulty in inducing the Hurons to give Father Broebeuf a seat in one of their canoes, as he was corpulent, and they feared his weight might overset it. They re-established the mis- sions which had been founded by the Franciscans. Father Dallion, of the noble house of the Counts DuLeid, stimu- lated by the desire of propagating his faith in remote regions, visited the Neuter Nations; he set out the 18th of October, 1626." After a perilous journey, through many villages of* the Neuter Nation, he entered the countrv bordering on the Niagara River, and lying around the western extremity of Lake Ontario. Through many dangers and sufferings, he tried to open a mission among the tribe of Neutrals." They dwelt near and on the Niagara River. He was at first well received, and being adopted by Soharissen, the chief of the whole nation, took up his residence among them. He was, however, soon after robbed and brutally beaten, and returned to the Hurons. In 1629, the English captured Quebec, and the Catholic missionaries had to return to France. In 1632, when Canada was restored to France, the Jes- uits returned to their missions among the savages. Cham- plain had intended to aid and arm the Hurons. He died. 66 MI8SJGNS IN WE8TERK NEW YORJf. Jlis successor had not such extensive views. The Hurons were left without aid. But the Jesuits went to their spiri- tual relief. Broebeuf, Chaumont, and others started for the Huron Mission. Broebeuf narrates, in simple and touching terms, their great sufferings on the rout. Almost in the last extremity, they reach a Huron Village. Broe- beuf was recognised and most kind I v received, a chapel was aoon erected, the Mass said, and the Mission dedicated to St. Joseph. Around its altars an extensive mission soon flourished. Refore the end of the year 1636, six Jesuit priests were employed in different villages. Broebeuf and Chaumont resolved to visit the Neuter Nation. The Neuter Nation, which, before the Seneca conquests, occupied both sides of the Niagara River, and claimed the territory west of the Genesee, and west as far as the EHes, were estimated, in 1641? at twelve thousand souls. They were visited by Catholic priests, but no dW tinct records of their labors have reached us. Their affec- tion or veneration for the dead induoed them to treasure up the bones of the departed for ten or twelve years, when, at an appointed time, all repaired, to a fixed spot, a va>t grave was made, the bones from every quarter, wrapped in furs, were brought, deposited together with religious rites, and a mound became the memorial. Some of these mounds exist around Buffalo. Many similar tumuli are found, of whose origin the Senecas disclaim all knowledge. They were conquered by the Iroquois, many killed, the rest led into captivity to the Seneca- country beyond the Genesee River. Father Fremin found them there, -in 1669, eighteen years after their capture. Many of them had become Cath- olics. After leaving Sainte Marie, Broebeuf and Chaumont, pursued a southerly course through the territories of the Hurona, until they reached their last village. Here they iitf.siofcs ift WEsffeufc new tonic. If procured provisions and a guide for their journey, and pur* suino- their way, slept, four tlight^ ih the woods, before reaching the territories of the Central Nation. The first Village thc) r entered they named %t A1l Saints,'* on their arrival at the re>ulence of the principal chief, whose approval of their missidh was necessary* they found him absent on a War expedition. His return was not expected Until spring, and they Were told by the remaining chiefs* that thev must wait that event The Jesuits eagerly embraced the opportunity, thus afford- ed of acquiring a knowledge of the language, character, and genius of the people. Suspicion was soon excited however, in the minds of the savages, w hich exposed them to a series of insults arid in* dignities, during their visit. They were accused of witch- craft and of conspiracy with the neighboring Senecas "who M livedo" says Broebetif, "but a days journey from the easter- *' most villages of the neutral nation." Their breviaries, inkhorns, and manuscripts, Were considered as so many in- struments of sorcery, and their prayers as magical incanta- tions. The chiefs withdrew 7 their protection, and there seem- ed to be no alternative but to retrace their steps. In the course of their travels they visiaed 18 villages, but they tar-* ried principally ih ten, these contained 500 families and 8,000 souls, to whom those Jesuits announced the Gospel. On the return to Sainte Marie, a deep fall of snow arres- ted them in a village, beyond which it was impossible to proceed. What they at first considered a calamity, soon proved a providential occurrence. A female of the village received them into her hut, ministered to their Wnnts, and substituted fi*di and vegetables, for the usual atii trial diet* during their observance of Lent* She also took great pairts to learn them her language, articulating the words, syllable by syllable, as a teacher to a scholar. Notwithstanding the 68 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. ridicule and jeers, heaped upon her by her own people, she continued these kind offices, until the Jesuits were enabled to construct a dictionary of the language, a work which Lalemand remarks, would be cheaply purchased, at the cost of many years 1 residence in the country, inasmuch as the savages are easy of access, to those who speak their language, all others being regarded as strangers. After undergoing incredible hardships, they safely reached the Huron Mission, where they rejoined their brethren, who had almost despaired of their return. It is not certain how far they penetrated, at this time, towards the River Niagara. It appears from their journal that they acquired, while in this vicinity, an accurate knowledge of the configuration of the lakes which it connects, though no mention is made of the Cataract which constitutes so striking a featuere in its scenery. In 1623 Father Nicholas Veil, and brother Gabriel Sagard, the first historian of the Huron missions, started for the Huron missions; Sagard in his " Great journey to the Huron country" thus describes the life of the Franciscan Missionaries. u We took our repasts on straw mats, a log of wood served us for a pillow at night, our cloaks, were our blankets, we had no other towel than corn husks, we had a few knives, but they were of little use, we had no bread to cut; and meat was so scarce, that we would pass, from six weeks to two months, without eating a mouthful. Our usual food was Sagamile, made with water and com meal, some pumpkins, or beans were added, and a little parsely, or a kind of spice wood, with wild onions, to give a better taste; our drink was from the stream. If, whilst the sugar maple was running in season, any of our pariy got sick, we would make an inscission in the tree, which then ozed out its sugary water, and this the sick man would use as a great remedy. Unremittingly the good Franciscans employed MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 69 every leisure hour, in learning the Huron language, and iu composing a Huron dictionary, but during the long nights of winter, they had only the light of the fire, or light from pine, or bark torches, which frequently had to be renewed, and which filled their cabin with smoke. Father Nicholas Viel and a neophyte were cruelly murdered two years after by some brutal savage Hurons, enemies of the faith. Such, with little variation, amidst great labours, was the life of the missionaries, until in 1634-5, Father Broebeauf returned to the Huron mission. He brought with him from France many articles of great use; but which caused the greatest wonder among the Indians; what most excited their admiration, was a clock. They called it the "Captain of the day." "When it strikes," says Broebeuf, "they cry out that it speaks; when they come to see us they ask 4 How many times has " the Captain of the day" spoken since morning?' They want to know what it eats, and what it says!" The devoted ness, the courage, and the holy perse- varence of those missionaries were finally crowned with success; the religion of Christ triumphed. Sixteen ye.urs after Broebeuf's arrival, the Indians were conquered; but whether captives with the Iroquois or safe among the French, they remained faithful. Even those who had not been converted in Huronia, were, for the greater part, con- verted along the waters of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. The "Relations," of 1648 say of the Huron Mission: " This mission of the Conception is the most fertile of all, both in the number and zeal of the ehristfans; whose faith shows itself with great advantage, and whose sanctity is respected even by Infidels. Three of the principle eaptains, and some of the men, set an example by the holiness of their lives, which has more effect than our sermons. In a word the Faith of this church emits a fragrance of Christianity all over the country. %0 kissiofca tK WEstEfctt new yor&» Tbe mission of St. Michael, is well founded and is daily increasing, in spite of the opposition of Infidels, who always oppose the commencement of a Churclu The mission of St. Joseph, is still more crowded, but, indeed it is longer founded* The mission of St. Ignatius, which is later than any of the preceding, has a fervor and innocence which astonishes the Infidels, and which we never expected to see, in so short a time, in the commencement of a church* The faith has increased far beyond our expectations, in these four missions ) so much so, that ollr chapels are too small for the number of the faithful on festival days, and our missionary is often obliged to say two masses on the Sunday, so that all can assist — still the church is filled, even to the corner of the altars, and numbers of the faithful kneel outside, even during the winter rains or snow! The mission of Holy Mary, consists of twelve or thirteen villages and has but one Father to attend them, which he does with incessant labor, visiting each at stated times. We hope to be obliged to form another mission, within eight months, still further from here, among some villages too for for us, and which We shall name, the Mission of vSt. Mary Magdelane* We asked permission of the Petun Nation to instruct them, and have sent there two of our Fathers, who have formed missions in two different nations, of which their eou ntry *is com posed ; the one is called the Wolf Nation, where we have formed the mission of St. John; the other is called the Stag Nation, among which we have formed the mission of St. Mathias* There is, without doubt, a great deal to suffer in all these missions, from hunger, as well as from the inclemency of the seasons; from cold and beat; from fatigue in travelling: and from the continual danger of being surrounded by the MISSIONS W WESTERN NEW YORK. 71 Iroquob, taken captive, and made suffer a thousand deaths* before you die once. But after all. all these evils are easier to support, than it is to practice the council of the Apostle, to become 'all to all," in order to gain souls to Jesus Christ. Excessive pa- tience is necessary, in order to endure thousands of insults. Invincible courage to overcome everything-; a humility, which counts itself to have done nothing, when it has done all; and a longanimity which Waits, with patience* the mo- ments of Divine Providence, in fine an entire conformity to His most holy will, that Pie may one day reward our labors often or twenty years. It is on this foundation that we must build these chinches, and establish the faith in these countries; this it is what God requires of lis* CHAPTER VII. HOST OF MARTYRS. Almost incredible, and most affecting, are the simple details of the labors and suiierinos of the Franciscan and Jesuit priests; Chaumont compiled his Indian Grammar on the frozen earth; Broebeuf, paralyzed by a fall, wbh his collar-bone broken, crept on his hands and knees along the frozen ground, and slept unsheltered on the snow! The work of God advanced rapidly, conversions were numerous. In 1044, Fathers Broebeuf, G arrow, and Charronel became permanent residents at the stations of the Conception 8t Joseph's, and St. Michael's. Through aid given the Iroquois by the Dutch, in supplies of firearms, these pagan savages conquered the Hurons, and made many martyrs. The u Relation," from the writings of eye- witness, as translated by O. 11. Marshall, Esq., is too thrilling, too edifying, not to find place here: " In this region, which the Jesuits paint as so delightful, 72 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. chosen by the Hurom for their homes, and occupied by them for so long a period, that their traditions fixed no era for their arrival, the missionaries were- accustomed to assem- ble thrice in the year, to rehearse their toils and their triumphs, to confess one another, and to devise plans for the more rapid diffusion of the faith they taught. And here, year after year, they continued one uniform round of life, adhering to their simple and austere habits, secluded from the world, and devoted to their missions. " By night, a bundle of faggots served them for a pillow, and their mantles formed their only covering. Their meals ■were taken on the ground, while reclining on mats of rushes, or seated on billets of wood. The earth, or their knees, furnished a table, and leaves of Indian corn were their only napkins. Knives they had, but they were useless; for there was no bread to cut, and meat was so rare, that if, by chance, the Indians gave them a portion of their game, it was carefully laid aside and kept for Easter. Their ordinary food consisted of the Indian sagamite, or corn pounded between stones, or in a wooden mortar, and boiled in water. Into this was thrown, to give it relish, some sweet majoram, purslain, or balm, and a kind of wild onion which they found in the woods. Their only drink was water from the brook, or the sap, which they caught from the maple in their trough of bark. Wild grapes, bruised and pressed in a cloth, over a bark vessel, furnished them wine for the mass, or for medicinal purposes. " While they were thus pursuing their peaceful labors, the Iroquois made an incursion upon one of the villages, comprised within the Huron Mission, and called St. Joseph. Father Anthony Daniel, oue of the earliest pioneers to this region, having labored in it fourteen years, had just finished mass, and his neophytes were still engaged in their devotions, when the cry 4 To Arms' was heard. MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 7$ u It was the morning of the fouth of July, 164S. The enemy had approached the village under cover of the night, and thus effected a surprise. The greatest panic and con- fusion prevailed, and the terror-stricken Hurons flocked around the Father as their protector* He animated them, by his presence, where the danger was mast imminent, nnd encouraged them to defend their village. But it was of no avail. The dreaded name of the Iroquois, was ever sufficient to intimidate a Huron. (The Dutch from New York, as before remarked, had supplied the Iroquois with firearms.) They abandoned all defence and sought for baptism at the hands of the Jesuit, as a preparation for the certain death that awaited them. But the number was too large, and the danger too imminent, to take them singly, and dipping his handkerchief in water, he performed the rite upon the whole crowd by aspersion, In the meantime the enemy took possession of the place, and those w T ho were able to flee, escaped to the neighboring villages. Not so the Father. Forgetful of himself, he eagerly sought out the aged, infirm, and sick, to prepare them for their fate. The whole village was soon in conflagration, and none were spared in the general massacre. Daniel then repaired to the chapel, which was already crowded with Hurons. Some he bap- tized, others he confessed and absolved, and upon all he bestowed appropriate words of consolation. 4 My broth- ers,' he exclaimed, * to-day we shall meet in Paradise.' The enemy soon learned their place of refuge, and sending forth a shrill war-whoop, rushed in a body to the church. The Father, alone and undismayed, advanced to meet them. The savages, astonished at his temerity, and awed by his appearance, recoiled for a moment as he approached. Soon recovering from their surprise, but keeping at a distance, they pierced him with their arrows, and shot him in the heart with an arquebuse; he fell, the first Jesuit martyr of 74 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. the Huron Mission. His body, stripped and dishonored by his murderers, became a holocaust consumed in the tires of the burning church. A part of the Hurons, who succeeded in escaping found refuse among their brethren, in the neighboring vfllnge pfSiiifite Marie. About seven hundred, consisting principal] v of women and children* were taken captives by the Iroquois, and carried home to their country, to undergo the torture, or supply the waste of disease and war, by adoption into their tribes. The winter passed away among- the Hurons without further disturbance, and the mission continued to flourish until the next year. On the evening of the 16th day of March, 1649, about two thousand Iroquois, well supplied with firearms procured from the Dutch at Albany, arrived at the frontier settlement of the Hurons, and silently surrounded the village called by the French St. Ignace. This place, in additional to the natural strength of its position, was fortified with palisades fifteen or sixteen feet high, and surrounded by a deep* ditch. The «nemy reconnoitred its situation, and at break of day , while the Hurons were wrappad in profound sleep, effected an ftn trance, before any resistance could be ma le. Only ten Iroquois were slain, and all but three of the Hurons, num- bering more than four hundred souls, were either immedi- ately mastered, or reserved for the more terrible torture. The three that escaped, nearly naked, made their way over the snow to a neighboring village, to which they earned the alarm. The Iroquois pursuing their victory, appeared before sun- rise in front of the adjacent village of SL Louis, also fortified with palisades. The women and children escaped on hear- ing the approach of the enemy, leaving about 80 warriors to defend the place. They repulsed with vigour the fir-t and second assault, killing and wounding a large number of the assailants. But tbey were finally overpowered by numbers. MISSIONS IN WESTERN' NEW YORK. 75 The Iroquois having cut a passage through the palisades, were enabled to enter, and the fire and smoke from the consuming village, soon revealed to ihe anxious missionaries at Saiute Marie, about a league distant, that the work of destruction had commenced. The Iroquois raged, like incarnate fiends, among the consuming dwellings. The old men and children, the sick, the infirm, and the wounded, were alike thrown into the devouring flames, as useless in- cumbrances upon their c iptors. Two Hurons escaped to Sainte Marie and told the sad particulars. At the time of the attack, the Jesuits Brombeuf and Lalemand, were re- siding in the village. They had charge of the five contigous settlements, which wore all comprised under the name of 8t. Ignaee, and formed one of the eleven Huron missions, then carried on by the Jesuits. The Huron neophites be- sought the Fathers to flee, and it would be easy for them to have done so, but they considered the few moments of that terrible conflict, as the mo>t precious of their existence, and laboured incessantly during the heat of the combat, for what t be j deemed the welfare of their chosen flock; One stationed himself at the point, where the enemy had made a break in the palisades, baptizing the converts, and giving absolution to the neophites. Both encouraged the Christian Hurons to sutler death, under the influence of those senti- ments with which their teachings had inspired them. The Iroquois captured and secured the two Fathers, with many Huron prisoners, ami returned to St. I^nace. In the evening their scouts reconnoitred Sainte Marie for the pur- pose of an attack next morning. The Hurons in the latter village, remained all night under arms, in momentary ex- pectation of an assault, bit it passed away in profound silence. On the 19sJi, a sudden panic seized the enemy, and disregarding the remonstrances of their chiefs, they commenced a rapid and disorderly retreat. ?6 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW" YORft. Loading their captives like beasts of burden, they com- pelled them to carry the spoils which they secured. Those not needed for the purpose were put to death, with excru- ciating torture. Some were bound to stakes driven within the consuming dwellings, and the captors regaled their ears With the cries, uttered by their dying victims. Parents and children were tortured side by side, a spectacle at which it would seem that even cruelty itself, would have revolted. When it was ascertained that the Iroquois had retreated, a detachment of seven hundred Hurons were sent in pursuit, but the scarcity of provisions, and their fear of the fire arms of the enemv, induced them soon to abandon the chase. They found on their way, many of the captives, who* not being strong .enough to keep pace with the Iroquois, had been knocked on the head, or half burned at the stake When the Jesuit Ragneneau and his companions at Sainte Marie, had full assurance of the departure of the enemy* they searched for the remains of BROEttEtiF and Lalemand, of whose death they had been informed. Their eyes rested on a spectacle of horror, and they heard a tale of cruelty, of which history scarcely affords a parallel. As soon as the Jesuits had been captured, they were stripped, their nails were torn out, and on entering the village of St. Ignace, they were compelled to run the gauntlet. Their bodies were covered with bruises, inflicted by the clubs of their captors. Broebuef sunk under the weight of their blows, but his spirit was unsubdued. The savages now resorted to every species of cruelty to torture their victims. They cut off the hands of one of the Fathers, and pierced those of the others with sharp awls and pointed irons. They applied to their arm-pits and loin«, red hot hatchets, with which they also formed necklaces, to hang around them in such a manner, that every movement of their bodies would cause MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 77 excruciating pain. Whether they leaned backwards of forwards, the red hot iron would enter the flesh. They bound bark girdles around their persons, filled with pitch, which, being set on fire, roasted the whole surface of their bodies. In the height of these agonies, Father Lalemand, of gentler mould than his companion, bis strength scarcely equal to his will, joining his hands from time to time, sup- plicated heaven for aid. Father Broebeuf endured like a rock. Insensible to torture, without a groan, he maintained unbroken silence for a long time, to the great astonishment of bis tormentors. At length he began to speak, and to preach to the Iroquois and to his companions in misery. Indignant at his zeal, the captors mutilated his mouth, and cut off his nose, but he continued, as far as he was able, to encourage those around him. In derision of the baptism, which the priests had admin- istered so freely, in the hottest of the conflict, these fiends in human guise, poured boiling water over their naked persons. "We baptize } r ou," said they, "that you may be happy in heaven, for no one can be saved unless baptized ;" others said, " What we thus do, is in friendship, since we will be the cause of your highest happiness in Heaven. Thank us for our kindness, for the more you suffer, the more your God will recompense you." They tore out the eyes of Lalemand and placed burning coals in their sockets. Both did not suffer at the same time. Broebeuf was undergoing the severest of his torments for nearly three hours, of the same day he was captured and expired about four o'clock in the afternoon. Lalemand suf- fered, from six in the evening until nine the next morning. While they were yet alive, pieces of flesh were cut from their hodies, broiled on coals, and devoured in their presence. Into the wounds thus made, red hot axes were repeatedly thrust To complete the tragedy, their hearts were torn V8 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. out, and the inhuman barbarians drank their blood gushing warm from its source. It appeared from the examination of their remains, that "Bkoebeuf had been scalped, that his feet were cut off, and his jaw split onen, with an axe. Lalrmand had a gash over his left ear, which had laj 1 bare his brain. There was no part of his body which had not Web burnt, while he was yet living. Their tongues had been destroyed by thrusting into their mouths at. various times firebrands and bark torches. Thus perished these de- voted Jesuits. Lalemand at the age of 39, having labored six months, among the Huron-; and Broebeuf at the acre of 56, after a residence of eighteen years in the same mission 14 But let us leave these objects of horror, and these mon- sters of cruelty, since, in one day, all their victims were robed in the glory of immortality ; since, also, the greatei their torments, the richer their crown, and since thev nov live in the repose of the saints, which they will enjoy fui eternity. " Qn Sunday, the 21st of M*rch, we buried the* precious relics with so much consolation from the tendei sentiments of those who assisted at the ceremony, I think that not one present did not desire death; not one who feared the thought of it, and who would not have believed himself happy to be at once in a place where God would give him the grace to sacrifice his blood and life in a similar manner. Not one of lis can make up our minds to pray for them, as though they needed our prayer; but our minds rise continually to heaven, where we believe their souls are. I pray God that it is so, and that he will accomplish hi* holy will in us, even unto death, as he has done with them." " Relations, 1649," p. 15. The Huron country was now desolated. The Nation de- spaired of recovering from the disastrous effects of these war- MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 19 like incursions, antl in less than eight days, accompanied by tbe remaining Jesuits tltey abandoned their homes, and bid fa re we- 1 forever, to their ancient domains. The Lake, which bears their name, still washes the shores they so long inhab- ited, an abiding memorial of the race; but, scattered by the exterminating hand of the Iroquois, they from thenceforth ceased to exist as a nation, (Not far from their old grounds, through Upper Canada, and Michigan, many villages of faithful christian Hurons still exist,) and wandered in fugi- tive bands, seeking shelter in remote Islands and secluded and inaccessible retreats. A few, under the auspices of Fa- ther Ragxeneau, settled in the Island of Orleans near Que- bec, and even there deemed themselves scarcely safe under French protection; Others escaped to the Islanrls of Lake Huron, from whence they subsequently joined their brethern near Quebec Some went South of Lake Erie and buried themselves in the forests of Pennsylvania and we find them at a later day in the vicinity of Sandusky under the name of Wynndots. The greater part however found the death from which they AmI, and more perished by famine and disease, than by the hand of the enemv, The prisoners were, for the most part, .adopted by the Iroquois, and, subsequent to that period, settlements were found among the latter, composed almost entirely of Huron captives, and which vvid be more fully noticed, when treating of the Jesuit missions among that people. The Iroquois en- gaged in this foray, were principally Senecas. Father Lemovne in his mission to thai tribe five years afterwards found the testament of Broebeuf in their possession, which he preserved as a precious relic of the martyr,' Q. £[. Maksiuli,, 80 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. CHAPTER VIII. MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. The holy Providence of God displayed itself, in a won- derful manner, by making the cruelty of the IroquoU against the Hurons, a source of in my nobta virtues, producing rich crops of generous martyrs for heaven; whilst it also sent the captive Hurons to be the nucleus of Christianity, among their conquerors. The five nations, among whom the Jesuits labored, on the south side of Lake Oniaiio and Eli**, have long had the nick-name of Iroquois, from the word "Hiro," I have said it, (dixi,) with which they end every discourse, and the exclamation, "Koue" denoting joy or salness, according to the manner in which it is pronounced. Ciiarlevois, says that their right name is ^ Agonnonsionnis," (Makers of Cabins.) Nor was Huron more than the ni •k-name for that people. When the French saw th< j m, with their cropped, and bristling hair, they cried out in French, 4, Qu«'lies Hjres," (what wild boar heads,) hence Huron. The Iroquois Confederation w;is, by them, compared to a Long House, .the eastern door of which opened on the Hudson, guarded by the Mohawks; the western on Lake Erie guarded by the Senecas. The council fires of the Senecas burned, for a 1 ng time, within what is now the limits of Buffalo city. The Recollect Franciscan, Farher William Poulain, was a prisoner in the hands of the Indians, in 1621, and, in his suffering, consoled himself, by instructing in ihe faith some of the Ircquois prisoners. When the Jesuits came to the aid of the Franciscans, it was resolved, that some priests from the Huron missions should cross the river, and found a mission among the Senecas. Various causes retarded Missions in western new york. 81 the mission. Father Joques, and other missionaries, who had just planted the Cross in Michigan, set out for Q lebec, they were captured by the Iroquois. Joques might have fled, but " could a minister of Christ abandon the wound- ed and the dying?" Joqites. after stooping to baptise a catechumen in his canoe, surrendered himself up, and join- ed the captives. The savages rej need at taking so imp >r- tant a prisoner. They led their captives towards the valley of the Mohawk. The wearied prisoners hi 1, sever .il tim3s, to run the gauntlet; m^st painful were the wounds and bruises they received. Toiture soon began. The brave Frenchman Cautuke had slain a chief, in the struggle at the capture; he was stripped, beaten, and mangled: and Father Joques, who consoled and strengthened in faith, the mangled victim, was himself violently attacked, and beaten until he fell senseless; they rushed on him like wolves, and not content with blows, tore out his nails, and gnawed his fingers to the very bone. Terrible were the tortures which Joques and Rene endured on their route to the River Mohawk. u God alone," writes Joques, "for whose love and glory it is sweet and glorious to suffer, can tell what cruelties they then perpetrated on me." 0. IL Marshall, Esq., in his lecture to the New York Historical Societv, says: , were martyrs to their faith. It will be- noticed in reading this volume, haw few of their number *' died che common death of all men," or slept at last in the gToun Is which their Church had consecrated 1 . Some, like Joques, and Du Poisso»n ana Soukl; sunk beneath the blows of the infuriated savages, and their bodies were thrown out, to feed the vulture, whose shriek, as he flapped his wings above them, had been their only requiem. Others, like Broeb • •, I -■!>'•• ** They w r ere already preparing the fires and irons, with which he was to suffer, on seeing this sad preparation, he turned towards me, and asked if he would go to heaven ; this question moved me, and I told him he would go to heaven, that he should take courage, that he would only suffer for a short time, and that he would then be eternally happy. He then repeated with me, over and over again : Lord have mercy upon me, until they told me the time for instruction was up, and that I should retire. I left him with regret resolved to return the next day. True enough, I returned the next morning at break of day ; T approached the captive, and told him I was sorry to see him in such a state. He assured me that I gave him great pleasure by speaking so: and when an Iroquois was ready to place a red hot iron upon his foot, I saw him rise it up himself, and keep it thus raised up against the red hot iron, until it had lost the greatest part of its heat.. They had not as yet burnt him any higher than his knees; but scarcely had the sun rose, when they uttered the cry through the village* for every one to assemble; they then conducted him towards the gate, where they had built two fires, and had driven a stake with which to fasten his hands and feet.. When this miserable captive saw himself, thus fastened between two fires, he commenced trembling all over his body, and 1 never saw r anything that reminded me more of oar Lord, at. the pillar, and the fear which, caused. 102 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. his bloody sweat in the garden of Olives. The more I saw him afflicted, the more I endeavored to console and comfort iiim. During the time of his sufferings, I kept close to Lim, sometimes throwing myself on my knees, and praying for the salvation of his soul, sometimes saying some good word to him, when they gave him some relaxation; and (/'neon raging hmY to turn his eyes to heaven, and to pray for his eterna 1 salvation. Tie suffered with so much constancy, iVat '1i3 was ad--ui'-ed by every one; all believed, that the rain, which fell for some days afterwards, was caused by his death. The savages were edified by the manner in which I assist- ed him in his sufferings, and they asked so many questions as to give me the opportunity of instructing them upon our mysteries. • This work of assisting captives, when they are burned alive, and wbon they are eaten, in the presence of the mis- sionary, requires a great deal of courage, and for one who has a natural horror of seeing men burnt and eaten, as is the case with a new missionary, there is great need of being well fortified with grace. Besides this captive, there were thirty others baptized this year, in the mission of the Onontagues, the most of them are dead and in heaven, praying to God for the salvation of their brethren." Dutch traders soon flooded the canton with intoxicating liquors; hence Father Le Movne disgusted, gladly accepted an invitation to visit Cayuga, then ravaged by an epedem- ick. He ministered to the sick, and saved many. A month was too short for him to confess the Christians, baptise their children, and instruct them all. He then returned to Onon- daga. Garacontic had, during liis absence, baffled the war party who had plotted the death of Le Moyne. The fervent missionary returned. He had preached to capcive Indians of ten different tribes, baptised two hundred infants, and won several adults to the faith. During his stay at MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 10S Onondaga, Christian Indians, especially women, came fre- quently from other cantons, under various pretexts, to profit by his sacred ministry. Some of them, by their piety and virtue, won their mistresses to the faith, and brought them to receive instruction from him. After the departure of Le Moyne the war broke Out anew; the Mohawks and Oneidas were defeated by the Chippewas. Near Conestogues, (called by the Hurons, Andastes, Andastognes, and Gandastagues,) pressed hard on the Western Cantons. The scattered Algonquins resumed courage, and cut off Iroquois parties, but being now Christians, they did not perpetrate on their prisoners, the fiendish cruelties usual with them before their conversion. Giving the prisoners a missionary, and time for instruction, they led them out and shot them. The pagan Indians, seeing this exclaimed: M Good, godd! when we will become Christians, we shall do so too." In the spring of 1664, the Indians, especially the Senecas, asked, for missionaries. Le Moyne offered to go, but the French* SO often deceived, refused. A Cayuga chief headed a del- egation of his tribe, but he also failed.* LeMoyne died November 24, 166o. His death was mourned as a public loss by the French. The Iroquois sent presents to wipe away the tears for his death. His place was soon filled by Fathers James Fkemin and Peter Reffaix. We cannot follow the zealous missionaries in their devoted labors on the Mohawk River. Many are the traits of truly apostolic zeal shown by these missionaries — many the instances of saintly virtue in their neophytes. At Canawago. Montgomery county, the child, Catherine Teagiiokuita, already began to develop the high sanctity which has made her name famous. * Fervor pervaded all, and converts were made who never swerved from the faith. The Catholic Indians of the Mohawk were now known and ridiculed by the people of Albany, who had never made 204 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. an attempt to introduce Christianity there. The burghers of Albany and New York even threatened the squaws for displaying their ' beads and popish trumpery' in their vil- lages ; but, far from concealing these marks of their faith,, the noble Mohawk women were ready to die for it," Onondaga, the central mission, was now established on a firm basis; the Offices of the Church were celebrated, the sacraments administered, and Christian virtues practiced a& regularly and carefully as in the most Catholic parts of Europe. In a short time, two hundred wore baptised — among them, five chieftains, pillars of the Church; one of whom, in a public assembly, advocated the faith as the only hope of saving their country, by restoring morality, and, above all, fidelity in marriage, and in their relations with each other, the want of which had been more destruc- tive than armies. The women, especially listened to the words of truth and the 'Relations* of the missionaries dwell with interest on the noble death of Magdalen TioTONHARASON,who had gone to Quebec to learn the prayer, (Christianity,) and who remained steadfast to her last sigh, amid the seduc- tions and persuasions of her unbelieving relatives. The bold stand of the missionaries against polygamy, had won to their cause all the women, who felt indeed the crimes, to which their actual state often gave rise. The Church was composed of three nations— Onondagas, Hurons and Neutrals — all bound together by the common tie of faith, which made master and slave kneel down side by side. Obstacles were no. longer raised by the medicine- men, no sachem opposed the missionaries, and all gloried in the name of Christian. The reader will understand better the cause, not of the failure of the mission, but of its being chased off by men, and transferred by God to another region — by reading the MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 10& following letters : one, from a New York Governor, who, professed to be a Catholic, but who placed his politics high above his religion, who promised the Indians "English Black-Gowns," (they got Protestant ministers, who would not stay with them ;) and one from a Jesuit priest — both copied from (l Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York," Yol III., pages 438, etc. : " Propositions to the Five Nations westward, viz. : to the- cheife Sachems and Captains of the Senekes, Cajouges, Onondages, Onneydes and Maquasse by the Gov r in the Citty Hall of Albany, the fifth day of August, 1687, in, the third year of his Maj ties Reigne: M Brethren: — "I am verry gladd to see you all here in this house and am heartely gladd that you have sustained no greater losse by the French, tho' I beleive there intention was to, destroy you all, if they could have surprised you in your castles ; and as soon as I heard of there designe to warr with you, I gave you notice of itt, and came up here my-, selfe that I might bee ready to give you all the assistance and advice, that soe short a time would, allow me My advice is, further, to you, that Messengers goe in the behalfe of all the Five Nations to the Christian Ind n s att Cannada, to persuade them to come home to their native Country, and to promisse them, all protection, which will; be another great means to weaken your Enemies, and if they will not be advised, then you know what to doe with them. I think itt verry necessary- for the Brethren's security and assistance, and to the endamaging the French, to build a Fort upon the Lake, where I may keepe stores and provisions in case of necessity, and therefore I would have the Brethren let me know what place will be most convenient for itt. . . . There* is no advice or proposition that I made to the Brethren, all the while that the Priest 1(36 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. lived att Onondaga, butt hee writt itt to Cannada, as I have found by one of bis letters that hee bad given to an Indyan to carry to Cannada, and was brought here; there- fore I desire the Brethren not to receive him or any French Priests any more, having sent for English Priests, whom you can be supplyed with, all to content." li-EV. DEAN DE LAMBERVILLE TO GOV. DONGAN. Onontaque 10th Sept. 1685. My Lord " I had the honor not long since to write to you; it was just month. Since the dispatch of my last letter, the vSenecas who were desirous to make trouble and to persuade the Mohawks and other villages to unite with them against Mons. De La Barre, have changed their minds; since they were assured that the peace concluded last year, as you desired, would not be broken by M. De La Barre, as they were maliciously told, and as a hundred false reports which are never ceased being related would persuade them. * * * Since peace, through your care, will apparently last, we shall continue to carry the Christian faith, through this country, and to solicit the Indians, whom your honor with your friendship, to embrace it as you yourself embrace it, for this is the sole object that has caused us to come here, that the blood of Jesus Christ shed for all men may be useful to them, and that His glory may be great through- out the earth. IT you will please to honor me with a line from your hand you can have your letter given to one named Garak- ontie who is deputed from the Onnontagues to repair to tfie Diet which you have convoked at Albany. Do him the charity to exhort him to be a good Christian, as he was whose name he bears, and who was his brother. Recom- mend him I beseech you not to get drunk any more, as he promised when he was baptized, and to perform the duties MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 10/ of a Christian. One word from you will have a wonderful effect on his mind, and he will publish throughout that it is not true that the English forbid them to be Christians since you who command them will have exhorted him to per- severe therein. 1 ' The border war ended with the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, and the French then hoped as much as the English dreaded, to see the restoration of the Jesuits' missions. The seed of opposition sown by Dongan had now grow T n to ripeness, and a new Governor, an Irish peer, of deeprrooted' fanaticism, ruled the destines of New York. One of his first acts was to warn the Indians against the French priests. Mindful of Dongan's promise of English Black-gowns, the deputies asked Bellamont to fulfill it, Accordingly, Dellins, the Dutch pastor at Albany, was appointed missionary to the Mohawks, although, he never took up his residence among them, and limited his ministry to occasional visits, when he preached by an interpreter,. and to the administration of baptism, to such children as were brought to him in Albany. Such a man hardly seemed to the Indians a successor of zealous Catholic priests whose cabins had so long been seen in their villages. Dis- appointed in their application to New York, they naturally turned to Canada for religious teachers. Bellamont was provoked, and resolved to exclude the Jesuits, unblushingly declaring, "that the Five Nations had earnestly implored him to drive out the Jesuits who oppressed them," although he knew that since 1685 there had been no missionary in the cantons, except Father Milet, and he not an oppressor, but oppressed, a prisoner and a slave. To carry out his plan, he sent to the Assembly the draft of a bill against Jesuits and priests. It was not relished : several of the missionaries had, at various times, visited the colonies; they were known and esteemed by the leading 4 OS MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. men, who had thus been enabled to see Catholicity in its workings, which the infatuated Governor had not. The Council negatived the bill: Bellamont, voting as a mem- ber, made a tie, and then voting again as Governor, carried his point, and made it the law of the land. Assuming the Iroquois to be subjects of the English monarch, and with still greater disregard of truth, averring that "Jesuit priests and popish missionaries, had lately come into, and for some time had their residence in remote parts of the province, to excite hostility against the English government," the bill enacts that every priest in the colony, " after the 1st of November, be deemed an incendiary, a disturber of the public peace, and an enemy of tbe Christian religion;" and condemned him to perpetual imprisonment, and, in case of escape, to death, if retaken. The generous burghers, and their clergy, who had so often showed hospitalit} T to the French missionaries, w r ere, by the same act, threatened with a heavy fine, and with the pillory, should they ever again harbor a priest under their roofs. Bellamont had sought to prevent the Iroquois from making any separate peace with the French ; but on Fron- tenac's death, the cantons sent deputies to the St. Law- rence to condole with the colony. This was not, however, : their only care; they asked that Father Bruyas should be sent among them, and the elder De Lamberville, be re- called from France to resume his old mission. The answer was 'deferred, but on the coming of a second embassy, Father Bruyas, with Joncaire and Mari court, adopted Iroquois, set out for Onondaga. Here they were received by Tegamissoran with much solemnity, and all terms having been arranged, peace was signed at Montreal, on the 8th of September, 1700, by deputies of all the nations. To carry out its provisions, Bruyas visited Onondaga MISSIONS XS WESTERN NEW YORK. 109 again in 1701, and having brought back the French pris- oners, there, a new treaty was signed at Montreal by the French, Iroquois, Abnakis, Hurons, Ottawas, Illinois, and Algon quins. No mention was made of the missions in this document ; but a deputation sent, at the request of Tegammissoran, in 1702, invited the return of the missionaries to their former posts. * Fathers were accordingly sent everywhere," says Charlevoix, "and a cotemporary list numbers as Iroquois missionaries Father James de Lamberville, Julian Gar* nier and Le Vail l ant, who renewed their labors among the Onondagas and Senecas." These missions the cantons bound themselves to maintain; and though a new war be- tween England and France soon broke out, the missionaries w r on the cantons to neutrality ; so that New York and Can- ada, then escaped all the horrors of Indian war. The missions accordingly continued, but we have no tidings of them. Father James D'Heu, and Father Peter De Marenil joined the rest, and they labored on till 1708, when the English finally induced all but the Senecas to take up arms. By the extract of a letter from M. De Vaudrenil to M. De Pontchaatrain, dated Quebec, 14th November 1709, it will be seen that an ti- Catholic diplomacy outwitted the Jesuits; proving what Our Lord said: "the children of this world are wiser in their generations, than the children of light." " Abraham Schuyler having had a long conversation with the Reverend Father De Lamberville, and having likewise expressed to him his regret at being obliged to pre- sent the hatchet to the Indians, managed so well that he persuaded this good Father to come himself to Montreal to give me an account of what was passing; and, as he de- sired nothing better than to send off Father De Lambbr* H'd MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. ville> of whose influence over the Onontagues he was aware, he took advantage of his absence, as soon as he saw him depart, and told the Reverend Father Be Marinel, who had remained, that his life was not safe, insinuated to him that the only means of extricating himself from certain danger, to which he was exposed was to accompany them to Orange, which this good father complied with, as appears by a copy of a letter, which he himself addressed to Father D'Heu, Missionary at Seneca, and which I annex hereunto. In order to. engage the Onontagues the more to declare war against us, Abraham Schuyler immediately made some drunken Indians set Are to the Father's chapel and house, which he first caused to be pirlaofed.' , -r-Documents, etc., Col. Hist. ofN. Y., Vol. IX. p. 829. In 1700 Earl Belmont writes his instructions to Romer, about locating a fort at Onondaga; he concludes thus: 4t You will do well to assure them, (the Indians,) of my kindness, provided they continue faithful to the king, and keep no correspondence with the French in Canada, nor receive any of the priests and Jesuits among them. All which instructions you are carefully to observe and perform for His Majesty. 3d September, 1700.. Signed Belmont." A fitting close, showing why New York Indians did not become Christians, will be found in the following dispatch. In the official letter of Secretary Wraxall to Sir William Johnson, of January, 1756, we read: "The French de- bauched many of our five nations to their religion and in- terests, actually drew several off to go and live in Canada, and laid the foundation of that formidable and fatal seduc- tion, which now forms the Cagnawaga nation. " Still profiting by our supineness, and presuming on the weakness of our Indian management, the French push a joint not less insolent than alarming, with the consent of MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 11 L some Onondaga Indians whom they had debauched to their interests. They built a fort, and were building a chapel at the Onondaga castle. Our Albany commissioners awoke; Coll Schuyler went up there with a party of men, de- stroyed both the fort and chapel, drove the French away, and strengthened our Indian interest. However we relapsed into our former indolence, and the French, though not so bold\y, yet steadily pursued their measures." An unaccountable thirst for large tracts of land, without the design of cultivation, hath prevailed over the inhabi- tants of this and the neighboring provinces, with a singular rage. Patents have been. lavishly granted, (to give it no worse term,) upon the pretence of fair Indian purchases, some of which the Indians have alleged were never mad( j , but forged. Others bought of Indians who were no propri- etors; some by milking two or three Indians drunk, and giv- ing them a trivial consideration. They say also, the survey- ors have frequently run patents vastly beyond even the pre- tended conditions or limits of sale. But at the same time it appeared, Firstly, That the con- federate nations, at their meeting with Coll Johnson, did with great reluctance take up the hatchet against the French and their Indians. Secondly, That they declined sending any of their people to join General Braddock. Thirdly, That they were np.t inclined to join General Shirley. He then, advises that 44 The soldiers to. be encouraged by some gratuities and advantages to. marry such Indian women as will embrace Protestant Christianity."— Documents relating to Colonial History, Vol. YII, p. 16, etc. Who can tell what would have been the happy lot of the Indians, and that, still more glorious than at present, of our noble state, had not politics, and cupidity, and frantic hatred of 112 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORE. the Catholic religion wrested from the New York Indians all means of becoming Catholic Christians; other than that they never will be. In time, through great efforts and sac- rifices, some may be made tolerably decent gentiles; Chris- tians, never, but through the 'full form our Lord established. It would scarcely be just to pass onward, without givino* some correct notion of the sanctity to which poor New York Indians had reached, long before their Christianity was placed under penal law. CHAPTER IX. GOSPEL FRUITS SANCTITY AMONG THE INDIANS. A distinguished feature of the Catholic Church is, that the "good oder of Christ, will ever be found" wherever exterior or- interior secular power, does not impede the sa- cred movements of the Christian Priesthood; fetter the di- vine Hierarchy of the Church of the Living God, "which is the body of Christ, and the fulness of Him;" or impede the due action of the Visible Head, on the living but scat- tered numbers. Then, always and everywhere, will be found many who can, in some just and true degree, say with St. Paul: **J live; now not I, but Christ Jesus lives in me." How wonderful a change did not the Jesuits effect in Paraguay! An infidel combination chased away the Pas- tors ; " and the sheep of the flock were dispersed I" Most touching are the early annals of Mexican Christianity. The innocence and piety of the devoted early Mexican Christian Indians; still linger, with holy freshness, round many secluded spots, to which liberal, (illiberal, almost in- fidel) Christians had no access. Our General Pike, (who during the war of 1812, died heroically, the Patriot's MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 113 death at Fort Erie ; opposite Buffalo,) having, before the Mexican revolution, strayed, with a small band of soldiers, into the Mexican territory, was made prisoner, and led to the City of Mexico. Treated with the greatest kindness, led through almost the whole country, abiding long enough to become intimately acquainted with it, he wrote a work on Mexico, in which he praised the general innocence and piety of the people, the estimable character of the priest- hood, and its beneficent action on the Indians. In 1810 the revolution began. More than twelve years of civil war, injured the vineyard of the Lord. But when the so called Liberals, adopted a form of Government for which, neither the traditions, nor the habits of the people were prepared, the Bishops and Spanish Priests, that is nearly all the well instructed clergy of the country were banished. The poor Indians were left with a handful of Priests, each often forced to say six or eight masses, every Sunday, in different and distant churches. In- struction, the frequentation of the Sacraments, &c, became for many, an impossibility. Add to this, that most of the Indian Christians, after having been legally robbed of their lands, by liberal speculators, were driven up the mountains, towards the region of eternal snow, whither the few, over worked missionaries, could not follow them ; strange then would it be, if many were not now sadly different from what they were when General Pike uttered his words of high commendation. It has been seen already, and will be seen yet more clearly, that here, also hostile opposition struggled, from the beginning, against " the grain of mustard seed.'''' Still, almost from the beginning, the fruits of sanctity, gave evidence to the work of God. And that, too, in the very way which Scripture notes, as distinguish- ing God's work, from the work of the Father of lies. If the Redeemer was to be " Emmanuel," "God with 114 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. us" he was also to be " The Son of David," " The man of sorrows." He sought not to please himself; he watched ; he fasted; he suffered. David, who had seen the Lord, in distant blessed vision, caught his spirit, and says of himself: " I covered my soul in fasting; and it was made a reproach to me. And I made hair cloth my garment. I have la- bored in my groanings; every night I will wash my bed; 1 will water my couch with my tears. I have watched, and become as a sparrow , all alone on the house top. For 1 did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping !" The holy youth Daniel tells us almost the same. St. Paul is eloquent, when he often alludes to how severely " he chastised the flesh, and brought it into sub- jection. In labor and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." Must not a Christian admire, and adore in his work, the Sa- viour God, who is "the same yesterday, to-day and forev- er:" when he sees the poor Indian, unknown to the Priest, and with an exaggerated zeal, which the Pastor cheek* as soon as known, practice the penances to which the spin} of God impelled his saints in every age. But it is time to be- gin the life of one, who, we will find, had many imitators. Letter from Father Cholonec, Missionary of the Society of Jesus to Father Augustine Le Banc, Procurator of Missions in Canada: At Sault de St. Louis, 27th Aug. 1715. My Reverend Father: The peace of our Lord be with you : The marvels which God is working every day through the intercession of a young Iroquois female who has lived and died among us in the order of sanctity, have induced me, to inform you of the particulars of her life. You have yourself been a witness of these wonders, when you dis- charged here, with so much zeal, the duties of a missiona- MISSIONS IN WESTERN KEW YORK. 115 ry, and you know that the exalted Prelate who governs this Church, touched by the prodigies, with which God has deigned to honor the memory of this holy maiden ; has, with reason, called her "the Genevieve of New France." All the French who are in the colonies, as well as the In- dians, hold her in singular veneration. They come from a great distance to pray at her tomb, and many, by her in- tercession, have been immediately cured of their maladies, and have received from Heaven other extraordinary favors. 1 will write you nothing, my Reverend Father, which I have not myself seen, during the time she was under my care, or which I have not learned of the missionary, who conferred on her the rite of holy baptism. Teaghokuita, (which is the name of this holy woman, about whom I am going to inform you,) was born in the year 1656, at Gandaugue, one of the settlements of the lower Iroquois, who are called Agnez, (Mohawks.) Her father was an Iroquois and a heathen; her mother, who was a Christian, was an Algonquin; taken prisoner by the Iroquois, she remained a captive in their country. We have since learned that, in the midst of heathens, she pre- served her faith, even to her death. By her marriage she had two children, one son and one daughter — the latter of whom is the subject of this narrative— but the poor mother died, without having been able to procure for them, the grace of baptism. The small pox which ravaged the Iro- quois country, in a few days removed her husband, her son, and herself,. TeaOhokuita was also attacked like the others, but she did not sink, as they did, under the violence of the disease. Thus, at the age of four years, she found herself an orphan, under the care of her aunts; and in the power of an uncle, who \vas the leading Irnan in the settle- ment. When a little older, she occupied herself in rendering to 116 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. her aunt, all those services of which she was capable. She ground the corn; brought water and wood; for such, among these Indians, are the ordinary employments of fe- males. Any spare time, she spent, in the manufacture of little articles, in which she displayed extraordinary skill. By this means she avoided two rocks which might have been fatal to her innocence — idleness, which is the source of many vices; and the extreme passion which Indians have for gossipping visits, and for showing themselves in public places, where they can display their finery. The young Teaghokuita had naturally a distaste for all vain display, but she could not oppose the persons who stood to her in the place of father and mother, and to please them, she had sometimes recourse to ornaments. But after she be- came a Christian, she looked back upon this as a sin, and expiated her compliance by severe penance, and almost continual tears. M. De Tracy, having been sent by the government to chastise the Iroquois, who had laid waste our colonies; car- ried the war into their country, and burned three villages of the Mohawks. This expedition spread terror among the Indians, and they acceded to the terms of peace which were offered them. Their deputies were well received by the French, and a peace concluded to the advantage of both nations. We availed ourself of this occasion, which seemed a favo- rable one, to setfd missionaries to the Iroquois. They had already some smattering of the Gospel which had been preached to them by Father Joques, and particularly those of the Onontagues, among whom this Father had fixed his residence. It is well known that this missionary received there that recompense of martyrdom which well befitted his zeal. The labors of his two companions were crown- ed with the same holy death of martyrdom, and it is with- MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 117 out doubt, to the blood of these first Apostles of the Iro- quois nation, that we must ascribe the blessings, which God poured out on the zeal of those, who succeeded them. Father Fremin, Father Brugas, and Father Pierron, who knew the language of the country, were chosen to accompany the Iroquois deputies. The missionaries hap- pened to arrive, at a time when these people are accustom- ed to plunge into all kinds of debauchery; hence they found no one in a fit state to receive them. This, how- ever, procured for the youug Teaghokuita the advantage of early knowing those, whom God sent to instruct her in the way of perfection. She was charged with the task of lodging the missionaries, and attending to their wants. The modesty and sweetness with which she acquitted herself of this duty, touched her new guests; while she, on her part, was struck with their affable manners, their regularity in prayer, and their daily pious exercises. God even then, disposed her to the grace of Baptism, which she would have requested, if the missionaries had remained longer in her village. The third day after their arrival they were sent for to Tionnontoquen, where their reception was to take place; it was very pompous. Teaghokxtita being now marriageable, her relatives were anxious to find a husband for her; because, according to the custom of the country, the game which the husband kills in the chase, is appropriated to the benefit of his wife, and the other members of his family. But the young Ir- oquois had inclinations, very much opposed to the designs of her relations. She had a great love for purity, even be- fore she knew the excellence of this virtue, and anything which could in the least soil it, impressed her with horror. When, therefore, they proposed to establish her in life, she excused herself, under different pretexts; alleging, above 1-18 MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. all, her extreme youth, and the little inclination she had for marriage. The relations seemed to approve of these reasons; but a little while after they resolved to betroth her, when she least expected it; and, without even allowing her a choice in the person to whom she was to be united. They, there- fore, cast their eyes upon a young man, whose alliance ap- peared desirable, and made the proposition both to him and to the members of his family. The matter being set- tled on both sides, the young man, in the evening, entered the wigwam, which was destined for him, and seated him- self near her. It is thus that marriages are made among the Indians; and, although these heathens extend their li- centiousness to the greatest excess, yet is there no nation which in public, guards so scrupulously that outward de- corum, which is the attendant of perfect modesty. A young man would be forever dishonored, if he should stop to converse publicly with a young woman. Whenever marriage is in question, the business is to be settled by the parents, and the parties most interested, are not even per- mitted to meet It is sufficient that they are talking of the marriage of a young Indian with a young woman, to force them to shun seeing each other. When the parents on both sides have agreed, the young man comes by night to the wigwam of his future spouse, and seats himself near her;; which is the same as declaring, that lie takes her tor his wife, and she takes him for her husband. Tegahkou- ita appeared utterly disconcerted, when she saw the young man seated by her side. She at first blushed, and then ri- sing abruptly, went forth, indignantly, from the wigwam, nor would she return until the young man left it. This firmness rendered her relatives outrageous. They consid- ered it an insult to them, and resolved not to be disap- pointed. They, therefore, attempted other stratagems; MISSIONS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 11 which served only Id show, more clearly, the firmness of their neice. Artifice not having proved successful, they had recourse to violence. They noVv treated hef as a slave, obliging her to do everything painful and repulsive, and malignantly in- lerpreting all her actions, even when most innocent. They reproached her, without ceasing, for