THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following works from the Miami Archives should be read
and considered within the historical context in which they were composed and
printed. The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the
opinions or standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are,
rather, indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the
documents were published.
ST. JOSEPH'S
MISSION(continued - part 2 of 6; manuscript pgs. 29- 35)
From THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEW
written by George Pare
At the fort, and seemingly acting as chaplain, Father Allouez lay ill. Joutel describes him as being fearful of La Salle's return because of some intrigue which Allouez had set on foot against him. This passage has been used to confirm the story of Jesuit opposition to La Salle. Joutel was strongly partisan, and the accusation is sufficiently refuted by the fact that Tonty, commanding at Fort St. Louis, was no less devoted to Father Allouez than to his chief.
The survivors, always pretending that La Salle was still alive and would come on later, prepared to resume their journey towards Quebec at the end of February, 1688. Joutel writes:
I have before recounted that the Jesuit Father had been alarmed by our telling him that M. de La Salle might arrive at the fort according to what he had said when he left us. The Father was afraid of meeting him there, perhaps because something had occurred between the gentlemen, as I think I have stated, which was injurious to the Sieur is de La Salle.... In fine, the good Father fearing to be found there, preferred to take precautions by starting first.... It troubled us to see that these gentlemen were to be left without a priest; but we had decided to keep our secret, and so there was no help for it. Although M. Cavelier told the priest that he could remain, he left seven or eight, days ahead of us. (Ibid., 499-500).
Here we have Father Allouez returning to Mackinac in the spring of 1688. Of his subsequent movements we know practically nothing. Shea thinks it likely that he was at Fort St. Louis in 1689. (Shea, op. cit., 70. "I am inclined to believe from a deed which fell into my hands that he [Allouez] was at Fort St. Louis in 1689.") What we do know is the date of the missionary's death, found in a letter of Father Claude Dablon to his superior, and dated, Quebec, August 29, 1690. It is an admirable summary of the great missionary's activities. He had carried the Faith to more than eight nations. He had instructed more than one hundred thousand Indians, and had baptized more than ten thousand. He was in truth a second Francis Xavier. The letter goes on to describe his last moments.
One of our servants who was with him testifies that the stricken Father, having made frequent acts of contrition, tried to make a spiritual communion as his viaticum; that he next addressed himself to St. James to obtain through this Apostle the salutary effects of Extreme Unction; that finally having thrice pronounced the holy names of Jesus and Mary to obtain the indulgence of the Society he quietly expired the night of the 27 to the 28 of August, 1689. It is the seventy-sixth year of his age, the forty-seventh of his entry into religion, and the beginning of his thirty-ninth since his arrival in Canada (Margry, Decouvertes, I, 63).
Unfortunately, the letter says nothing concerning the place of Father Allouez' death; it simply states that he died on the Ottawa mission. As we have seen, this term included practically all missionary activity in the western country; only later was the Illinois mission spoken of as a separate field. There is yet to be found a contemporary statement to the effect that Father Allouez died on the banks of the St. Joseph River.
Another vague reference to the missionary's death is found in a letter of Father Gabriel Marest to Father Germon, dated November 9, 1712. Speaking of the beginning of the Illinois mission, he says: "It was Father Daloes who took it upon himself; he knew the language of the Oumiamis which somewhat resembles that of the Illinois; however he made a very short stay there because of the opinion that he would accomplish greater results in another district where indeed he ended his apostolic life" (Letters Edifiantes Toulouse, 1810, VI, 269-70). One could read into this passage the supposition that Father Allouez died in his Wisconsin missions, for he had greater opportunities there than with the relatively insignificant number of Indians living along the St. Joseph at the time.
Supplementing these unsatisfactory contemporary references to Father Allouez is the positive statement of Father Charlevois that the great missionary died on the St. Joseph River. (Shea, ed., P.F.X. de Charlevoix, History and General Description of New France (New York, 1871), V, 132. Cf. also 202 where, speaking of Father Aveneau, the writer states that this missionary's influence over the Indians was as great as that of his predecessor, Allouez.) There is no denying the weight of his assertion. Upon the occasion of his visit to the mission in 1721, he must have become thoroughly acquainted with its history. Moreover, when writing the record of his travels, it is safe to assume that he had access to documents and sources which are now lost. It is true that there are blunders in his History and General Description of New France, published more than twenty years after his return to France; but it seems improbable that he was mistaken in locating the death of a member of his own society whose greatness was apparent even to his contemporaries.
There is another bit of evidence in this matter which must not be ignored. The Indian had a tenacious memory. The first white settlers in the vicinity of Niles mention a large wooden cross standing on a bluff near the river. They were told by the Indians that it marked the resting-place of a missionary, and that it had been replaced as often as it had fallen from age and decay (Michigan Pioneer Collections, XXXV, 546; XXXIX, 289). We have enough details about every Jesuit missionary in the western country, with the exception of Allouez, to eliminate the possibility of any one of them dying in this locality. This holds true for all the missionaries down to the time when they were forced to withdraw. There is, hence, a strong presumption that if the cross guarded a missionary's grave, it was the grave of Father Allouez. (Just a short distance south of Niles, on the Low Road, an imposing granite cross has been erected to replace the last wooden one., It bears the following inscription: "To the memory of Father Claude Jean Allouez, S.J., whose intrepid courage won the admiration of the Indians, and whose apostolic zeal earned for him the title of the Francis Xavier of the American missions. Father Allouez was born at St. Didier, France, in 1622, and died near this spot August 27, 1689. Erected by the Women's Progressive League of Niles, Mich., 1918.").
Beginning with the year 1690, we are on more solid ground. According to Ferland, Father Claude Aveneau was sent in that year to labor in the St. Joseph Mission (J.B.A. Ferland, Cours d'Historie du Canada (Quebec, 1865), II, 336).. He gives no authority for his statement, but he doubtless relies upon a letter of Vaudreuil to the home government, dated November 14, 1708. The Governor was annoyed by Cadillac's constant diatribes against the Jesuits, and by his high-handed attempts to remove the Jesuit missionary from the St. Joseph Mission. He complains to the Minister that "the Sieur de Lamothe, on his own authority and without any reason, has taken away from the Jesuits their mission among the Miamis; he has ordered the retirement of a missionary [Father Aveneau], who has been with these Indians for eighteen years, and who knows their language and customs, in order to replace him with a Recollect who knows neither. The Sieurs Vaudreuil and Raudot are convinced that if this Jesuit missionary had remained with the Miamis that nation would never have attempted what it did this year against the French." (Camille de Rochemonteix, J.S., Les Jesuites de la Nouvelle-France au XVII Siecle (Paris 1895-96, III, 526. While Cadillac may have desired to have a Recollect at the mission, there is no evidence that one was ever there.)
This letter would justify placing the coming of Father Aveneau in 1690. Still, the matter of his term of service is complicated by the obituary notice found in a letter of Father Germain, dated November 5,1711.
Two fathers also died in this college. [Quebec] . . . One was Father Claude Aveneau who labored for more than 25 years in instructing the miamis.... This year he was attacked by a complication of several diseases, which did not permit him to continue his apostolic labors; and our fathers among the Outaouats thought it advisable to send him down to Quebec in a canoe, hoping that he would find there more remedies to restore his health, for his mission was at the river St. Joseph, 300 leagues from here...(Thwaites, Relations,, LXVI, 213-15. The letter goes on to state that Father Aveneau died on the seventh day in the octave of the Nativity of the B.V.M., that is, on Sept. 14, 1711.)
We know that Father Aveneau was sent to the West in 1685, and according to Father Germain's letter his service among the Miami must have begun in 1686. However, it is not difficult to harmonize this account with Vaudreuil's statement if we remember that not all the Miami were on the St. Joseph, but only one or two bands. There were many more in the Illinois country, and on the Maumee and Wabash rivers. (For further details concerning Father Aveneau, see Rochemonteix, op. cit., III, 479, 513, 526; and his Les Jesuites...au XVIII Siecle Paris, 1906, I, 67-70. This indispensable history of the Jesuits in North America devotes three volumes to the Jesuits of the 17th century, and two volumes to the Jesuits of the 18th century down to the suppression of the Society. to simplify matters, the volumes will be cited in this article as a continuous series.)
As for the mission itself, there is nothing to indicate its location prior to 1693. In that year, Frontenac sent Courtemanche to build a military post on the St. Joseph to prevent the Iroquois from corrupting the loyalty of the Miami, and the English from trading with them. (Emma Helen Blair, Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes Cleveland, 1911, II, 16.) Whether Courtemanche selected his own site for the fort, or whether he located it where the missionary was already settled, cannot be determined. In all likelihood the spot visited by Charlevoix in 1721 had been, since 1693, the actual site of the mission.
Father Aveneau pursued his apostolic work alone until a helper was sent him in the person of Father Jean Mermet. (Rochemonteix, op. cit., III, 513, 548; Thwaites, Relations, LXVI, 339. He arrived in Canada in 1698, and seems to have been sent directly to the Ottawa Mission. We can only conjecture the date of his coming to the St. Joseph Mission, but it was probably some time in 1699. Along with Father Aveneau, he became a target for Cadillac's attacks because he had not succeeded in having the Miami move to the new post on the Detroit River. To this circumstance we owe two letters from the missionaries explaining their stand in the matter. (See Mich. Pio. Colls., XXXIII, 123, for letter of Father Aveneau, dated June 4, 1702,; ibid.,, 118, for letter of Father Meremet, dated April 19, 1702.) Some time in the summer of 1702, Father Mermet went as chaplain to the post which Juchereau was trying to build on the Ohio near the present city of Cairo, Illinois. (Magazine of Western History, XII, 578; Thwaites, Relations, LXVI, 39.) Juchereau died a year later, and the post was abandoned in 1704. Father Mermet seems never to have returned to the St. Joseph Mission. His later years were spent in the Illinois mission, where he died, September 15, 1716. (Although Father Mermet is generally said to have gone directly to the Illinois after the abandonment of Juchereau's post, he seems to have been for some time with the Ouiatanons or Weas, a kindred tribe to the Miami. Their town was near the present site of Lafayette, Ind. See Mich. Pio. Colls., XXXIII, 234; Oscar J. Craig, "Ouiatanon, A study in Indiana History," Indiana Historical Society, Publications, II, 319 ff.)
Father Mermet's successor as assistant to Father Aveneau was Father Jean Baptiste Chardon. (Rochemonteix, op. cit., III, 527; V, 52, 66, Thwaites, Relations,, LXVI, 347, LXXI, Index.) Coming to Canada in 1699, he had been sent to the western mission in 1701. He was probably stationed at Mackinac for a time before being appointed to the St. Joseph Mission. He appears there for the first time in 1705. (Rochemonteix, op. cit., , IV, 66.) The following year a projected raid upon the Miami by the Ottawa from Mackinac was foiled, but fears were felt for the safety of the missionaries. Their superior wrote to Vaudreuil:
I asked the savages whether I could safely send a boat[load] of Frenchmen to St. Joseph['s] River; they replied that I could do so, and have even escorted me there, seeming to take an interest in the priests there; for while they are there, they do not think they are at liberty to make war on the Miamis as they would like to do. For this reason they would be pleased to see the priests all out of this post; but I do not think that you should desire it, for it is the most important after Mishilimakina.... (Mich. Pio. Colls., XXXIII, 267).
Evidently the danger was not very real, for Father Chardon is called "missionary to the Poutouatamis" in a report from Vaudreuil to the home government at the end of 1708. (Ibid., 395.) Out of the darkness which envelops the history of the mission, are flashes a charming picture in the closing days of Father Chardon's ministry. Father Gabriel Marest, missionary at Kaskaskia, decided to visit Mackinac in the spring of 1711 to confer both the Superior of the missions. Holding that office was his brother, Joseph, whom he had not seen for fifteen years. On the way up, Father Gabriel determined to visit his confrere the St. Joseph.
Hence I made up my mind to go to the St. Joseph, to the Pouteautamis mission which is in charge of Father Chardon. In nine days' time I accomplished this second journey which is seventy leagues. Sometimes on the swift current of the river, and sometimes cutting across country....
As I approached the Pouteautamis village, the Lord deigned to reimburse me for all my pains by one of those unexpected happenings which he sometimes reserves for the consolation of His servants. Some Indians who were seeding their land, having seen me from afar, went to advise Father Chardon of my approach. The Father came straight-way to meet me accompanied by another Jesuit. What a joyful surprise it was to see my brother, who fell on my neck to embrace me. For fifteen years we had been separated without any hope of ever seeing each other. It is true that I was on my way to meet him; but our reunion was to be at Michillimakinac and not a hundred leagues below. God had doubtless inspired him to make at this time his visitation to the St. Joseph mission in order to have me forget in a moment all my past distress. We both thanked the divine Mercy which brought us together from such widely separated places to give us a consolation which is better felt than expressed. Father Chardon shared in the happiness of this joyful reunion, and showed us all the attention we could expect from his goodness. Having stayed eight days at the mission, my brother and I, in his canoe, went on to Michillimakinac. (Lettres Edifiantes, VI, 289-91).
Upon his return from Mackinac, Father Marest revisited Father Chardon, and remained with him for a fortnight. He thus describes his host.
He is a missionary full of zeal, and with a rare talent for languages. He knows nearly every Indian tongue spoken on the Lakes; he has , even learned enough Illinois to make himself understood, although he sees these Indians only occasionally when they come to visit his village;
for the Pouteautamis and the Illinois are cordial enough and visit each other from time to time. Certainly, their customs are very different; the former are gross and brutal, the latter mild and affable...(Ibid., 292-293).
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Joseph Mission part 3 of 6]
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