Assignment 1

In the fall of 1648, an army of 1,200 Five Nations (Iroquois) warriors, armed by Dutch traders with Thirty Years’ War-surplus muskets, moved north from the Finger Lakes region of New York and attacked two villages of their traditional enemies, the Huron, who lived near the south shore of Georgian Bay. The late-winter attack was a shock to the Huron, who still managed to raise a force of warriors and came close to defeating the better-armed invaders. Jesuit missionaries Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant, who lived with the Hurons and tried to convert them to Christianity, were captured on the first day of the campaign and were tortured to death that night. Within a few days of this battle, one of the largest fought in what is now Ontario, the Huron abandoned all of their towns.

Ragueneau watched the battle from the mission of Ste. Marie, on the outskirts of modern Midland, Ontario. The eight Jesuit martyrs killed in the Iroquois Wars, who Ragueneau had claimed were killed solely for their Catholic faith, were made saints of the Roman Catholic Church in 1930, and Pope John Paul II prayed over Brebeuf’s battered and scratched skull during his visit to Ste. Marie in 1984.

Please read the piece below and answer the following questions in about 700 words (3 double-spaced pages not including the mandatory cover page):

1.  How does the writer use language to demonize the Iroquois?

2.  What value does a story like this have for the author and the Catholic missions?

3.  Do you think the story would have been written differently if the tables had been turned and the Hurons had attacked the Iroquois in this way?

4.  My intro uses the standard explanation that "guns" were a deciding factor in this war, and it fits with the "Guns, Germs and Steel" school of explanation of the end of the Huron. Take a careful look and decide whether guns really were the deciding factor.

Father Paul Ragueneau, head of the Christian mission in Huronia, to the Jesuit Superior, The Indians of North America: From the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. II, Edna Kenton, ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1927)

The 16th day of March in the present year, 1649, marked the beginning of our misfortunes — if, however, that be a misfortune which no doubt has been the salvation of many of God’s elect.

The Iroquois, enemies of the Hurons, to the number of about a thousand men, well furnished with weapons — and mostly with firearms, which they obtain from the Dutch, their allies — arrived by night at the frontier of this country, without our having had any knowledge of their approach; although they had started from their country in the Autumn, hunting in the forests throughout the Winter, and had made over the snow nearly two hundred leagues of a very difficult road, in order to come and surprise us. They reconnoitered by night the condition of the first place upon which they had designs — which was Surrounded with a stockade of pine trees, from fifteen to sixteen feet in height, and with a deep ditch, wherewith nature had strongly fortified this place on three sides — there remaining only a little a space which was weaker than the others.

It was at that point that the enemy made a breach at daybreak, but so secretly and promptly that he was master of the place before people had put themselves on the defensive — all being then in a deep sleep, and not having leisure to reconnoiter their situation. Thus this village was taken, almost without striking a blow, there having been only ten Iroquois killed. Part of the Hurons — men, women, and children — were massacred then and there; the others were made captives, and reserved for cruelties more terrible than death.

Three men alone escaped, almost naked, across the snows; they bore the alarm and terror to another and neighboring village, about a league distant. This first village was the one which we called Saint Ignace, which had been abandoned by most of its people at the beginning of the Winter — the most apprehensive and most clear-sighted having withdrawn from it, foreboding the danger; thus the loss of it was not so considerable, and amounted only to about four hundred souls.

The enemy does not stop there; he follows up his victory, and before Sunrise he appears in arms to attack the village of Saint Louys, which was fortified with a fairly good stockade. Most of the women, and the children, had just gone from it, upon hearing the news which had arrived regarding the approach of the Iroquois. The people of most courage, about eighty persons, being resolved to defend themselves well, repulse with courage the first and the second assault, having killed among the enemy some thirty of their most venturesome men, besides many wounded. But, finally, number has the advantage — the Iroquois having undermined with blows of their hatchets the palisade of stakes, and having made a passage for themselves through considerable breaches.

Toward nine o’clock in the morning, we perceived from our house at Sainte Marie the fire which was consuming the cabins of that village, where the enemy, having entered victoriously, had reduced everything to desolation — casting into the midst of the flames the old men, the sick, the children who had not been able to escape, and all those who, being too severely wounded, could not have followed them into captivity. At the sight of those flames, and by the color of the smoke which issued from them, we understood sufficiently what was happening — this village of Saint Louys not being farther distant from us than one league. Two Christians, who escaped from the fire, arrived almost at the same time, and gave us assurance of it.…

On the evening of the same day, they sent scouts to reconnoiter the condition of our house at Sainte Marie; their report having been made in the Council of war, the decision was adopted to come and attack us the next morning — promising themselves a victory which would be more glorious to them than all the successes of their arms in the past….

All night our French were in arms, waiting to see at our gates this victorious enemy.… The whole day passed in a profound silence on both sides, — the country being in terror and in the expectation of some new misfortune. On the nineteenth, the day of the great Saint Joseph, a sudden panic fell upon the hostile camp — some withdrawing in disorder, and others thinking only of flight. Their Captains were constrained to yield to the terror which had seized them; they precipitated their retreat, driving forth in haste a part of their captives, who were burdened above their strength, like packhorses, with the spoils which the victorious were carrying off — their captors reserving for some other occasion the matter of their death.