The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

by Francis Parkman, Conrad E. Heidenreich (Introduction), José António Brandão (Introduction)

Distinguished by Francis Parkman’s pictorial style, The Jesuits in North America opens with the arrival of French missionaries in Canada in 1632. The stage is set for the aggravation of old rivalries between the Huron and the Iroquois Indians. The Jesuits try to ensure the loyalty of the Hurons, suppliers of fur to the French, but find them resistant to religious conversion. The Iroquois, even more resistant, add the French to their list of enemies. Other factions enlist on one side or the other—French soldiers and anti-Catholic English, for example—but the dramatic pulse of Parkman’s narrative is provided by the Jesuits earnestly matriculating among the Indians, undergoing great hardship and occasionally embracing martyrdom.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, American History

586 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1867

About the author

Francis Parkman was an American historian.

He is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.

Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.

Reviews

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d been working on Jesuit spirituality and was eager to read a classic, so nothing better than an account of the Jesuit martyrs in North America in the earlier 17th century, especially the famous Jean de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues. I don’t think I’ve looked at Parkman since I was in my 20s and never his history of New France, so it was delightful to discover that he was a five-star historian—my test for five stars being able to make the readers feel they are actually present. Here’s part of the account of an Indian attack: “The Iroquois, on their part, swarmed up to the palisade, thrust their guns through the loop-holes, and fired on those within; nor was it till several of them had been killed and others wounded that they learned to keep a more prudent distance. A tall savage, wearing a crest of the air of some animal, dyed scarlet and bound with a fillet of wampum, leaped forward to the attack, and was shot dead. Another shared his fate, with seven buck-shot in his shield, and as many in his body. The French, with shouts, redoubled their fire, and the Indians at length lost heart and fell back. The wounded dropped guns, shields, and war-clubs, and the whole band withdrew to the shelter of a fort which they had built in the forest, three miles above. On the part of the French, one man was killed and four wounded.”

Doubtless some contemporary readers will be put off by Parkman’s references to “Indians” and “savages.” (The latter simply meaning “living in the woods”—translating the French ‘sauvage’—though now only employed by politicians as the obligatory epithet for ‘cuts’ in government programs. It’s useful to reflect that someday our current substitutes like “Native Americans,” “Indigenous peoples” and “First Nations” will seem equally dated and quaint. One good reason for reading the classics is to learn that not everybody thinks like us. (If the expression had existed in the 19th-century, Parkman could well have indicted the Iroquois of “genocide” against the Hurons and other tribes, “undergoing [a] process of extermination, absorption, or expatriation.”)

The mixture of bravery, piety, and selflessness exhibited by the Jesuits contrasted shockingly for me with the out-and-out superstition of their sacramental practices, especially administering baptism. Even though I was reared in a species of traditional Roman Catholicism with similar theology, I thought it outright idiocy that they preferred to baptize infants who were about to die so that they could be sure to go straight to Heaven. Dying adults (even those being tortured) were also favorites. They did not have to fear they would relapse into paganism and go to Hell instead. The technical term in sacramental theology is “ex opere operandus” (it works whether you believe in it or not). Sometimes the Protestant Parkman refers to himself as a “heretic” when he describes the more bizarre Jesuit practices. I was particularly amused by their carrying large elaborate holy pictures by canoe to their remote flock—the Indians were especially fond of “Virgins” and depictions of the damned being tortured in Hell by demons. But they themselves must not be shown in profile—only full face. They thought half a figure meant one was only half a man.

Besides depth of portrayal and exploration of ultimate causes, for history to rise to the level of literature we require a distinctive and polished style and I was delighted to discover Parkman excels other American historians. The following sentence describing the Jesuit efforts made me happy all day: “No element was wanting in them for the achievement of such a success as that to which they aspired,—neither a transcendent zeal, nor a matchless discipline, nor a practical sagacity very seldom surpassed in the pursuits where men strive for wealth and place; and if they were destined to disappointment, it was the result of external causes, against which no power of theirs could have insured them.” Hard to imagine from the pen of a 19th-century American and worthy of Dr. Johnson or Gibbon. Indeed it’s wonderful that America can boast a classical historian who can stand alongside Gibbon or Macaulay, though fortunately without the former’s incessant sneer or the latter’s delight in basking in his own self-congratulation.

[Graychin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Jesuit mission to the Hurons in the mid-1600s was the subject of a 1991 movie titled Black Robe and if you’ve seen that film you’ll have an idea of what you’re in for in this, the second installment in Parkman’s seven-volume France and England in North America. Not that the film gives an accurate record of events (it doesn’t), but the stark encounter of worlds, the excess of religious zeal, and the really unspeakable suffering are the same.

Parkman, as an Anglo-American Protestant of the nineteenth century, has little sympathy for the spiritual concerns and mystical preoccupations of the Jesuit missionaries (and even less, most of the time, for the Native Americans whom he frankly regards as barbarians), but the story is incredible, and when Parkman turns his focus to individual actors (whether Jesuit, Huron, Iroquois, etc.) all sins of political incorrectness are forgiven.

This is adventurous, enlightening, frequently inspirational, and consistently brutal reading. Prepare yourself, dear reader, for an immersion in a forgotten history of hopes raised and dashed, dreamers rushing headlong to martyrdom, long litanies of tortures beyond imagining, pestilence and cannibalism, and the relentless genocide carried out by the Iroquois against the miserable Hurons and neighboring tribes.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parkman's account here drew me to read in Les relations des Jesuites, from which I wrote a series of poems, several of them published in
my Westport Soundings, 1994. For example, Le Jeune wrote his superior in France about Huron morality, strongly disapproving female
promiscuity:
"If your / women are so--as they are--
How do you know your own children?"
"My own children? My own children are--
All the children of the tribe
are my children."

Reverend Father, he reasons like a mule.
As I write to you, Monsignor, I can say
he reasons just exactly like
(a Christian?)

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

Torture! Baptism by deception! Adventure! Pillage! More torture! It doesn’t sound like it would hold together, but Parkman tells quite a tale here. I’m hoping he’s getting the torture descriptions out of his system before delving into his next 5 books in the series. Time travelers, prepare to be depressed with this era, where life is cheap and dangerous at the edges, and the devout aren't above trickery to ensure souls of the natives are saved.

Note the Librivox (free) audiobook version I listened to of this book used different narrators for each chapter. Many, I think most, were women. Hearing vivid and graphic tales of the torture of Indians, settlers, and clergymen told by women was unexpected, and worthy of note. I found all narrators understandable, and would rate them good to great.

[Stephen Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was like, "So, this is going to be about a bunch of missionaries trying to convert Native Americans? And how long is this book?" Man, oh, man, is it excellent though. Parkman's story-telling abilities have improved from his first book and this is just packed with grade-a adventure story-telling. This one's a masterpiece.

[Andrew Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, despite the hilariously anti-catholic editorializing.

[Susan Molloy]

🖊 (REVIEW WRITTEN UPON MY COMPLETION.)

📕Published —1867. In the public domain.

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[Bob Gustafson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my opinion of "France in North America" only. Usually I don't review classics because history has already done that. There exists a Wikipedia article on this book which criticizes the book for not being accurate. Well, the reader should keep in mind that this was written in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and I suppose that other information may have surfaced in the mean time.

I found the book very informative. It was also very grisly. It was begun while the Civil War was being fought, so maybe my notion of grisly is a function of when and where I was raised. The author, the son of a Unitarian minister, wrote very critically of the Jesuits. Was this an objective report or does it reflect a bias?

I recommend this book, but as is true with any other piece of literature, the author's point of view may need be taken into consideration.