France and England
in North America
A Series
of Historical Narratives
Part Second
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1867.
ii Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
Francis Parkman,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.
Few passages of history are more strikingthan those which record the efforts of the earlier French Jesuits toconvert the Indians. Full as they are of dramatic and philosophicinterest, bearing strongly on the political destinies of America,and closely involved with the history of its native population, itis wonderful that they have been left so long in obscurity. Whilethe infant colonies of England still clung feebly to the shores ofthe Atlantic, events deeply ominous to their future were inprogress, unknown to them, in the very heart of the continent. It willbe seen, in the sequel of this volume, that civil and religious libertyfound strange allies in this Western World.
The sources of information concerning the early Jesuits of New France arevery copious. During a period of forty years, the Superior of theMissionvisent, every summer, long and detailed reports, embodying oraccompanied by the reports of his subordinates, to the Provincial of theOrder at Paris, where they were annually published, in duodecimo volumes,forming the remarkable series known as the Jesuit Relations.Though the productions of men of scholastic training, they are simpleand often crude in style, as might be expected of narratives hastilywritten in Indian lodges or rude mission-houses in the forest, amidannoyances and interruptions of all kinds. In respect to the valueof their contents, they are exceedingly unequal. Modest records ofmarvellous adventures and sacrifices, and vivid pictures of forest-life,alternate with prolix and monotonous details of the conversion ofindividual savages, and the praiseworthy deportment of some exemplaryneophyte. With regard to the condition and character of the primitiveinhabitants of North America, it is impossible to exaggerate theirvalue as an authority. I should add, that the closest examination hasleft me no doubt that these missionaries wrote in perfect good faith,and that the Relations hold a high place as authentic andtrustworthy historical documents. They are very scarce, and nocomplete collection of them exists in America. The entire serieswas, however, republished,viiin 1858, by the Canadian government, in threelarge octavo volumes.[1]