The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 1: Acadia, 1610-1613

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 1: Acadia, 1610-1613

There is a dramatic unity in the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, as they will be presented in this series. Commencing with a report of the first conversion of savages in New France, in 1610, by a secular priest, and soon drifting into the records of Jesuit missionary effort, they touch upon practically every important enterprise of the Jesuits, in Canada and Louisiana, from the coming of Fathers Biard and Mass, in 1611, to the death, in the closing decade of the eighteenth century, of Father Well, "the last Jesuit of Montreal." I. The series fitly opens with Lescarbot's La Conversion des Savvages. Marc Lescarbot, a Paris lawyer, a Huguenot poet as well as historian, and in many respects a picturesque character in the early scenes of our drama, adroitly seeks in this document to convince the Catholic Queen of France that his Huguenot patrons, De Monts and Poutrincourt, are so wisely ordering affairs in their New World domain that not only will the glory of France be enhanced, but the natives be won to Christ through the medium of the Church; for it was part of the agreement entered into with the Crown, by these adventurers, that while their colonists should be permitted to have Huguenot ministers, the aborigines must be converted only by Catholic priests. To this end, Lescarbot 46describes with unction the sudden conversion by a secular priest, Messire Jess Flch, of old Chief Membertou and twenty other Micmacs, and their formal baptism on the beach at Port Royal. The object is, of course, to ward off the threatened invasion of New France by the Jesuits, by showing how thoroughly the work of proselyting is being carried forward without their aid. II. By the same ship which, in the hands of Poutrincourt's son, Biencourt, carries to France this ingenious document, one Bertrand, a Huguenot layman, sends a message to his friend, the Sieur de la Tronchaie. In his Lettre Missive, M. Bertrand describes the conversion of Membertou and his fellow savages, and speaks with enthusiasm of the new country: as well he may, for in Volume II. we shall find Lescarbot testifying that in Paris the worthy Bertrand was "daily tormented by the gout," while at Port Royal he was "entirely free" from it. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 44669
Author: Thwaites, Reuben Gold
Release Date: Jan 14, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Thwaites, Reuben Gold, 1853-1913