|
An Analysis of the Possible Effects of European Events on the Jesuit Mission
There can be no doubt that events in Europe had a definite effect on the events in the Jesuit mission of New France. The
Jesuits operated in a time period where the Catholic Church was under intellectual attack from the Protestants and from the
intellectual elite. Their mission was founded at the end of a period of great religious conflict in Europe and lasted through
the Enlightenment. The mission witnessed the start of the chain of events that would change the world through the American
Revolution, fifteen years after the English conquered New France, and the French Revolution. The mission in New France, in
it’s time, was connected by rule and by culture to one of Europe’s most glorious and famous absolute monarchs,
Louis XIV. The times, in which these men lived, changed and they, along with their missions, changed with them.
The Jesuits, who came in 1610, with the Recollects and then assumed the monopoly of the mission in 1632, were French
priests. As French and as priests they had a tremendous hatred of the English. These long standing enemies of the French
had the audacity to, less then one hundred years before, with draw from the Holy Mother Church and embrace heresy. For an
order of incredibly devote men dedicated to stopping the spread of the protestant faith, this was a truly wretched crime.
France and England had struggled for years along this religious conflict and along political lines. The French had weathered
religious war after religious war. The war of Three Henries(1588-1598), the last of the religious conflicts in France, had
seen a Catholic king assassinated, a Catholic king cooperate with Protestants and a Protestant duke covert to Catholicism
to become King. The French, prompted in no small part by these events, were firmly attached to their religion. None more
strongly then the ‘sock troops of the counter reformation’ the ‘solders of the Pope’,
the Jesuits.
Not long after the Jesuits came to the new World, another religious war erupted in Europe, this time in the Holy Roman
Empire. France sided with the Protestant powers of the war in 1935, under Louis XIII and the very practical and Catholic
Cardinal Richelieu. This was an insult to the Jesuits, devoted first to the pope and his Church. It can be clearly seen
in the first volumes of the Jesuit Relations, the reported of the Jesuits to their French supporters and their superiors,
the fervor the Jesuits brought to the task of converting the savages. They meant to save the true faith and make good repentant
sinners of all they encountered. For all the remaining years of the Thirty Years war, the conflict between France and England
was reflected in the Jesuit relations. For example in Vol. 15 (1639) they report losing ground to the English-backed Iroquois
(230). In Vol. 20, 24 and 26 the tone of conflict between Indians makes it clear that those that attack the Huron and the
French are motivated by outside forces. In fact, in Vol. 29(1646: 31-33), the French have trouble with English pirates.
Despite the international conflicts, they struggled on to convert the ‘noble savages’.
It was not an easy task, the Jesuits had won the right to be the only missionaries in New France from Richelieu in 1932
and he expected results. The Cardinal was clear in his desire to promote the Catholic faith and to consolidate the power
of the French monarch. Not only did the Jesuits have to deal with political pressure from above to succeed but they had to
deal with pressure from surrounding areas, as the international community competed to establish functioning and flourishing
colony. The English had a thriving colony to the south and wanted to expand north. The English spent much time hassling
(1616: Vol. 3) the Jesuits and the fur trades in New France. But the worst problem the Jesuits faced was with those they
were to convert, the First Nations of Canada.
The Jesuits came from a highly structured society, one that had definite definitions of political power and a command
structure. They found themselves in a culture that traveled almost constantly, that relied on no violent means to enforce
behavior and was matriarchal in many ways. The Jesuits were forced to adapt to this life style, and tried to get the Native
to adapt to theirs. Ten years after their arrival, the Jesuits opened Ville Marie in an effort to get the native peoples
to settle down, for they well realized that a nomadic people were useless to them in terms on conversion. In 1634 the Jesuits
decided to try t convert the Huron for the same reason. The Huron were not only the middle men of the fur trade but they
lived in villages and practiced limited agriculture. They were prone to stay in one place so the Jesuits were able to spend
time attempting to convert them.
In the beginning (1636) of the New France Mission the Jesuits were keen to teach before conversion, trying to make GOOD
Catholics, not just Catholics. This is illustrated by the writings of Father Brebeuf in vol. 11 and 12. That trend did not
last long. By 1642, they again sought to baptize any and all, but especial the old and young, the sick and dieing. They
were unwelcome in the Huron lands by many and had to fight hard to the few conversions they made. The longer they stayed
in Huronian, the sicker the people became due to imported European diseases. The Jesuits found themselves by turn blamed
for the illnesses and held as the only hope of survival. They used the later to their advantage a great many times.
After the thirty years war, the intellectual environment in Europe began to branch into what we, today, call the Enlightenment.
The death and destruction of the previous religious wars finally began to breed tolerance and open again the doors for intelligent
discussion. This general attitude, of course, does dot include the beheading of Charles I of England by the Puritan Rump
Parliament and Oliver Cromwell. This particular instance went against the prevalent attitude in France. Richelieu was, in
effect, ruling France as a Catholic monarch and he firmly believe in the divine right of a king. For the puritan English
to behead their king was a two fold sin. In New France, the Jesuits finally had their captive audience of Hurons, who were
now dependant on the protection of the Jesuits and the French since their nation had been decimated by disease and Iroquois
attack. With the loss of Huron lands, the nation had to find shelter from the French, in the all Christian native communities
founded by the Jesuits. That protection was based on religion, meaning to live in those communities you had to respect the
rules of the Catholic faith, in effect converting. In addition to this development, the Jesuits stepped up their efforts
to convert Indians, convincing the Company of one Hundred and Richelieu to allow converted Indians the same trading privileges
ad the French and sending missionaries in to the very hostile Five Nations of the Iroquois. This proved to be a powerful
lure to Native men.
In France, in 1661, Louis the XIV came to power after Richelieu and his successor died. He would be the monarch remembered
as the pinnacle of absolutism, a man devoted to the idea ‘One King, One Law, One faith” He would push,
and push hard for the security of the New France colony and the Christianization on the Natives. His devotion to this would
forge a new fashion in French high society, one that involved adopting natives to educated and sending funds to the Jesuits.
While Louis consolidated power and sought to drive the Protestants out of France, the intellectual developments continued
in the opposite direction. Philosophers began to publish work after work undercutting the believe of God as a direct cause
of all things and undercutting the question-less submission that categorized not only the Jesuit order but society in general.
As the Jesuits were highly educated men, there is no way they could have missed these works, and despite Louis dislike of
the power they wielded in his country and the resulting hostility toward the order, the Jesuits were fully committed to giving
the King his wish, a fully Catholic New France, as part of their effort to preserve and defend the Church.
As the years flowed by, the Jesuits became more and more condescending towards their soon to be converts. In the beginning
they were kind of accommodating. As time passed and they gained royal support for their actions and royal protection in the
form of troops, they could afford to be far more demanding of those they sought to convert. The Jesuits wrought countless
changed on the native people of Canada in their time there, the longer they stayed the more they demanded and the harsher
they became to the native peoples. Wither it was due to the prolonged nature of the mission or not can not be answered.
However, it is my belief that they were not operating in a vacuum and felt the earthshaking events of Europe from all the
way across the ocean.
|
