4. The Successes of the Mission. “The Scourge of the Infant Church.” Raids of the Iroquois. The Fearless Missionary. Death and Destruction. The Destruction of the Converted Tribe and the Downfall of the Mission. (Cont.)

The settlement of Saint Joseph was, so to speak, the protective fortress for the entire Huron country. With its destruction, the Iroquois had an open path into the interior of the country, and the following spring they renewed their raids. Within the country, not far from one another, were the settlements of Saint Ignatius, Saint Louis, and Saint Mary. The first of these, after the destruction of Saint Joseph, was most exposed to attacks, and so the Jesuits surrounded it with strong, high palisades according to the rules of military engineering, so that with greater or lesser valor, the warriors could easily withstand an Iroquois attack. But the Iroquois were as cunning as warriors as they were savage. They waited for the most favorable moments to attack. The inhabitants of Saint Ignatius, frightened by the fate of Saint Joseph, were on guard throughout the entire winter, and warriors did not go out on raids. When their meager stores were exhausted and they did not expect an Iroquois invasion, in the spring they set out on a hunt, leaving only women, children, and old men in the village. This was precisely what the Iroquois were waiting for. On March 16th, before dawn, a war cry suddenly rang out beyond the walls, and hardly had the sleeping population time to awaken before knives and tomahawks began their bloody work. Of the entire population of four hundred, only three managed to escape, who, half-naked, fled into the forest and managed to bring terrible news to the neighboring settlement of Saint Louis. Most of the warriors there were also out hunting, but about one hundred fifty men remained for defense, and they resolved to die fighting the Iroquois. Two missionaries were there—Brébeuf and Lallemant. The converts begged them to flee while there was still time. But the valiant warriors of the cross wished to live and die with their spiritual children, and comforted them with instruction and conversation. Meanwhile, hardly had the sun risen before the well-known cry of the Iroquois rang out beyond the walls, and these demons, maddened by bloodlust, made a terrible attack on the settlement’s walls. The Hurons bravely met them and held their ground. Twice they attacked and twice were forced to retreat. Then they crowded at the foot of the wooden wall and began desperately to hack at it until they made several breaches. In these a desperate struggle ensued. Life, death—everything depended on its outcome. Behind the fighting Hurons stood the Jesuits; they encouraged them by their presence and blessing, baptized those receiving instruction, and gave absolution to the dying. Finally the Hurons could not hold out, the Iroquois broke through, and all the people, together with the Jesuits, were taken captive. The entire settlement was immediately set on fire, and the remaining captives were taken to the ashes of Saint Ignatius, where the usual tortures began. The fury of the Iroquois fell with particular force on the Jesuits, and especially on Brébeuf, whose valiant appearance inflamed their savagery. They tied him to a post and began to cut off his limbs, and he comforted his spiritual children with a firm voice and threatened his torturers with eternal fire. To make him silent, the Iroquois cut off his lips and stopped his mouth with red-hot iron; and not once did he utter a sound of pain. They brought Lallemant to him, bound with tarred birch bark. When the latter saw the condition of his superior, he cried out in a broken voice: “we are a spectacle to the world, to the angels and to men,” and then threw himself at Brébeuf’s feet. But the Iroquois tore him away and set fire to the bark. For Brébeuf, his own sufferings were heavy, heavy also were the sufferings of his first assistant and colleague, but even heavier was it to hear some of the converted and baptized Hurons, to save their own lives, renounce Christianity and their teachers and join with the Iroquois in devising torments for the Jesuits. One such apostate declared that the black robes had poured much cold water on the heads of others (baptized) and so it would be fitting to reward them with hot water. And so they actually heated water and began to pour it on Brébeuf’s head. “We baptize you so that you will be happy in heaven!” they cried. After many such tortures, they scalped him, cut open his chest, and came to drink his blood to drink in his courage. Finally, the chief tore out his heart and devoured it. Thus perished one of the bravest missionaries, the heroic Brébeuf. He came from a noble Norman family and had before him a brilliant career, but abandoned it for the cause of Christ, and died the death of a martyr, a death that was a source of amazement to his savage torturers[1]. When the settlements of Saint Ignatius and Saint Louis were burning and falling to the Iroquois, smoke was visible in the settlement of Saint Mary, where stood the principal mission station under the direction of Ragueneau, Bressani, and their colleagues. In mortal dread they awaited the same fate; but the Iroquois, satiated with savagery, withdrew to their own country. Nevertheless, a mortal blow had been dealt to the missions. The settlement of Saint Mary was now completely exposed, and at any moment the Iroquois could destroy it. Terror from their invasion spread through all the small Huron villages, and the inhabitants themselves burned them and fled to inaccessible forests. Then the Jesuits, holding a council, decided to move the mission station to one of the islands of Lake Huron, considering it less accessible to the Iroquois. But there they had to contend with another enemy—hunger. With the Jesuits, many Hurons fled to the island to escape the Iroquois, but there was nothing to eat. After enduring a winter and living on roots and acorns, the Jesuits saw no further possibility of remaining there and decided to abandon the mission altogether. “Not without tears did we leave the country of our hopes and our hearts, where our brothers had gloriously shed their blood,” a missionary remarks on this occasion[2]. The scourge of the Iroquois swept over the wretched country once more and finished off the entire Huron people. “When I,” writes the Jesuit Ragueneau, “only thirteen years ago came to the headwaters of this great river (the Ottawa, a tributary of the Saint Lawrence River), I found its banks populated by Huron[3] peoples, who did not know God and, in their unbelief, thought themselves gods on earth; for they had everything they could desire: abundance of fish and game, and profitable trade with neighboring peoples. Moreover, they were feared by their enemies. But from the time they accepted the faith and began to worship the cross of Christ, He gave them the heavy part of this cross and made them prey to poverty, torment, and cruel death. In short, they, as a people, have been wiped off the face of the earth. Our only comfort is that they died as Christians, have a share in the inheritance of the true sons of God, whom He punishes because He loves them”[4].

Thus ended this terrible conclusion to the heroic attempt of a handful of missionaries to introduce the light of Christianity and civilization into the depths of a land of wild barbarism.