“Annual Narrative of the Mission of the Sault from its Foundation until the Year 1685” by Claude Chauchetière, S.J., written in the beginning of 1686

1670

This year we recognized more clearly the design that God had regarding the Iroquois. The five cabins, all filled with baptized people, began to adopt the regular practices of a mission. Until that time, these had been little more than those, which are observed in the woods while the hunt is going on that is one person said the prayers and the others followed, learning them by force of repeating them every day. Mass was said in the little board cabin that was common for the French and the Natives. Although the number was small, they nevertheless held prayers evening and morning. The affection, which the Natives showed for the Faith obliged us to keep two missionaries there, according to the testimony made in the printed Relation of 1670 and 1671. They began to do buildings there, such as we see, to build a Church there in the manner of the country. Father Pierre Rafeix had the first hand. He was indefatigable in the care that he took of the Natives and of the French. The Natives, says the Relation, comprised of twenty families. Reverend Father Dablon, coming down from the Outaouaks to Quebec to go there and assume the duties of superior, passed at La Prairie and having thereafter seen the old Mission of the Hurons, said that the new one had the same pious exercises as the old one. We shall see the progress that the new one will make in the Faith in devotion and in the practice of all the most eminent virtues, which shine forth in the beginnings of the Mission, but which God has kept concealed within the enclosure of La Prairie. There was not as yet either Captain or Dogique, properly speaking and the missionaries took all the cares without dividing them. But, the number was greater, it was necessary to create Captains who should have jurisdiction over the village and Dogiques, who should be proper to hold prayers and take care of the affairs of God. All that was accomplished in the year following.

1671

The Iroquois have their government like all the rest of the peoples of the earth. The difference between them is that theirs may be called that of pure nature, where several things are wanting. But, the Faith of our new Christians well showed that there would be nothing more beautiful than this world if the Gospel were observed in it. It took from the new village, in the matter of government, only what vice had spoiled in the old Iroquois villages. Having then agreed together in the summer of the present year to accept forever the settlement of La Prairie, they resolved to elect two Captains, one for government and war, the other to watch over the observance of Christianity and religion. They recommended the matter to God, judging it of the utmost importance and with this intention heard Mass. Then having assembled, they in a common accord chose the two who in fact have most merit and capacity for the exercise of these two duties. This election took place by majority of voices as other transactions are settled among the Iroquois, among whom the Chiefs speak the truth, but they take the word from the elders of their village. We obey the two Captains, as was seen by experience, once losing their influence if they are not good Christians. They strictly obeyed them, especially in the observance of their regulations for good morals. Let us admire here the divine power, which formerly banished from Rome all the abominations, which the Romans had introduced into their Pantheon, derived from the spoils of so many peoples whom they had subjected to their empire. Today, it purges our little flock from all the brutalities, which our Iroquois had taken among the sixteen Nations whom they destroyed by their courage and ingenuity. Thus they have suddenly forsaken so many evil customs, in order to adopt all the customs of the Church, which is all the more admirable because the Natives are custom to guide themselves only through the imagination and are surrounded with superstitions, which they often see in their country. And yet no one speaks of these here, they have no esteem for them and accuse themselves for having thought of them. Our infant Church thus took form and state. These barbarians gathered from several nations made but one. Charity united them to the extent that they possessed nothing proper, which return to the Iroquois genius of among whose society, visits, hospitality, feasts and mutual gifts are much in usage. It was a long time before even the shadow of vice was seen there, which charmed those who came to visit them. Father Fremin, their chief missionary at that time, did not fail to prepare them to receive the sacraments of confession and communion, as yet unknown to these barbarous nations. There were predestined ones, in whom grace increased every day, who did not require much time for preparation. Thus, then, the Fathers began to have Natives receive Communion at La Prairie and they did even more devoutly than did the French. As soon as the fire of the Blessed Sacrament had animated our new Christians, it could not be confined to them. The missionary Fathers heard every day from the mouth of their children the sentiments of their hearts filled with the Holy Ghost. Father Pierron even sowed the seeds of the Holy Family by giving some Rosaries to the eldest Christian men and women. The Natives going through the woods made by means of their exactness in prayer and their pious utterances, almost as many Christians as they found other Natives in the regions where they hunted.

Then it was that two memorable trees were placed at the entrance to the village, to one they attached drunkenness, to the other impurity both subjugated by the Faith. Among the Iroquois, this saying became a proverb, “I am off to La Prairie,” and that is to say, “I give up drink and polygamy.” This was because, when any one spoke of living at La Prairie, there were first set before him these two clauses, which must be accepted without restriction and without limit, otherwise, he was not received. The village of La Prairie with all these qualities, became an argument of credibility for belief to all the Iroquois who went by there every spring, most of whom did not believe what had been said of it to them in their own country. They themselves came to see it and having seen, admired the wonders of which they had already heard. Many who were not naturalized Iroquois thought of slipping away and come to La Prairie, many thus slipped away during all the following years.

1672

Those who were already baptized in their country then preferred to lose everything that they had in their country rather than the Faith, which they could not there preserve. They came to La Prairie in secret, as much from their own impulse as from the instigation of the preachers of the Gospel. We know by, as many mouths as there are Christians here that one cannot, without some sort of miracle, or be a good Christian or persevere as a Christian among the Iroquois. La Prairie has then always been the asylum of those who wanted with a good heart to pray to God and be Christians. These holy fugitives that we began to see in the woods around here and in the hunting paths greatly hunted, because the hunt was the pretext which they took to come to live at La Prairie. The Christians, who left La Prairie in going to hunt beasts, went also to hunt men. The hunters always brought back some of their kinsmen or acquaintances in the spring in the form of a visit, where God touched their hearts, they had themselves instructed and became Christians. All those who had come from the Iroquois had thus eluded, as it were, the fury of the drunkards and the enemies of prayer. This made the elders distrustful in their declamations in their councils of the destruction of their land by the French and by the missionaries. The more they complained, the more people were desired of coming to see what was going on and among these curious ones some always remained. These, gradually took part, although they were distrustful and were baptized after long trials, finally attached themselves forever to La Prairie. The Oneidas were the first of the Mission and their virtues being, as it were, mother virtues engendered several children, giving birth to several Agniers, who are at present most numerous in the number of the believers and among the people of the Nation of Gonie (Agnier) those of the village of Gandaouague have taken the first rank, like the blood of the martyrs, which was first shed in the death of the Father Joque, who had his head crushed. The Agniers shed the blood of the Reverend Father de Brebeuf. It was also Gandaouague which first received the preachers of the Gospel in the persons of the Reverend Fathers Fremin, Bruyas and Pierron, who after peace was made, were sent as plenipotentiaries in those countries there. It was in that village that the first chapel was built. This village had given a treasure to our mission, in the person of a Native girl (Catherine Tegakouita) who died, six years ago in odour of sanctity.

The Onondaga with his usual schemes undertook to destroy our little church through his treacheries, under pretext of an embassy and these men became ministers of Hell by sowing false reports. They said much evil of the Faith. They exaggerated by unhappy sorts, they said of our Christians that were then on probation and did not come of their own interest and did not surrender to these apparent reasons. To come down to particular instances, I will report one that was mentioned in the Relation of 1671 and 1672. An Onondaga woman had a husband, who was not fervent as she and two children a daughter and a son. The unhappy man allowed himself to be carried away by the fine speeches of those ambassadors of the devil, which took him on his weak side that is by the war where he has since been, and by drink, which had him cause the loss of his nose, these are the two demons who possessed the Natives. Our brave woman, by order of the missionary Father, went away with her husband for the sake of trying to save him. But that wretched man as soon as he was in their country treated her so ill that this Christian woman’s infidel kinsmen took compassion on her and believed that they were dishonoured by her husband. They threatened this drunkard with death, which obliged him not too treat his wife so ill as he had done. The poor woman, who apprehended to lose her Faith than her life as her husband tried to constrain her to renounce her baptism resolved to forsake him and did so while he was at war. Her little son was the first to say to his mother, “Let us go away, let us return to La Prairie.” There, they have lived in peace. That peace of conscience has ever sustained this generous woman and her children, who have served as examples of right living to all the cabins of the village and what is remarkable is that the Faith has always gained the day over the regrets which they might feel for having given up much in their own country, for they have not found the same temporal advantages among the French. Although some of these had been ransomed and drawn out of the fire by the people of this woman’s cabin, which was one of the principal ones at Onondaga.

We see by the registers and baptismal records that the devil was himself deceived, because through these beginnings of persecution he only lighted the torch of the Faith in our Christians, by obliging them to become enlightened in several matters and the love of charity by uniting them more and more to God of whom they had felt needed. That is why from that time we saw Natives in the Church, at Mass and at prayers that cause shame to the oldest Christians. They came from a great distance, in winter to attend the ceremonies of midnight Mass, or of Good Friday. Sometimes they have even been seen to make the adoration of the cross in the woods, as we know by the report of the French, who have seen and taken part in it. The Church was divided into two compartments, one for the French and the other for the Natives. Although the French and Natives were as one, as was seen in the public rejoicing and in the visits and the little services that they rendered one another.

This mingling, however, gave occasion to the demon to tempt the Natives. He employed the French who traded with them and he sought to establish a tavern at La Prairie, as the inhabitants were already quite numerous. But, divine Providence employed the supreme authority, which afterward contradicted himself, to destroy this demon. Monsieur (Governor) the Count de Frontenac was grateful to Father Fremin because he had furnished flour for the fort of Catarakoui. Subsequently coming to La Prairie in the summer he made an ordinance expressly prohibiting the trade in intoxicating drinks at La Prairie. Thus the demon was suffocated in the cradle.