The North American Martyrs
The North American Martyrs refer to eight French Jesuit missionaries who were martyred in the 17th century while evangelizing Indigenous peoples in North America. Their canonization marks them as the first saints from the continent recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. The martyrs include Isaac Jogues, René Goupil, Jean Lalande, Jean de Brébeuf, Antoine Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, and Noël Chabanel, with their deaths occurring between 1642 and 1649. The missionaries faced violent opposition from the Iroquois Confederacy, who were aligned with British interests during ongoing territorial conflicts with the French. Many of these martyrs worked primarily among the Huron people, who faced significant threats from the Iroquois. Their stories reflect the complexities of cultural interactions during a tumultuous period marked by warfare and religious fervor. Today, remnants of their lives and sacrifices can be found enshrined in memorials, such as the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, and the Martyr's Shrine in Midland, Ontario. The legacy of the North American Martyrs continues to be a significant aspect of Catholic heritage in the region.
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The North American Martyrs
The North American Martyrs
The Feast of St. Isaac Jogues and Companions, observed by Roman Catholics, commemorates eight French Jesuit missionaries and martyrs who became the first canonized saints of the North American continent. The eight, all killed between 1642 and 1649, are known collectively as the North American Martyrs. Three of them, Isaac Jogues, René Goupil, and Jean Lalande, were killed in what is now New York State. The other five, Jean de Brébeuf, Antoine Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, and Noël Chabanel, were killed in New France (now Canada). With two exceptions, they were all priests. Goupil and Lalande had joined the missionaries as lay helpers. At some time between his arrival in the New World in 1640 and his death two years later, Goupil took the vows of a Jesuit brother.
The story of the North American Martyrs must be seen in the light of the times. In the 17th century and much of the 18th century, France and England were continuously battling over the possession of Canada. In this conflict the Iroquois people of the region were usually allied with the British, more out of hatred for the French than affection for the British.
The French missionaries, making their headquarters in New France in what is now the province of Ontario, wanted to bring the gospel of Christ to the native peoples of the New World. The Iroquois were a confederation of five tribes that stretched across territory including what is now New York State, with the Mohawk on the east and the Seneca on the west. The Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga tribes were in the center.
The expansionist Iroquois were at war with the more peaceful Hurons, who at that time were settled between Lake Simcoe (north of the eastern part of Lake Ontario) and Georgian Bay to the west. During the years that the French missionaries were working (mostly among the Hurons), the Iroquois repeatedly sent war parties into Huron territory until the Hurons were decimated or fled to new settlements. In 1694, the same year that the last four of the martyrs were killed, the Iroquois succeeded in permanently disrupting the Huron people.
The Jesuits (or Blackrobes, as the natives called them) made their missionary center at Fort Sainte Marie. Father Isaac Jogues had participated in the building of the old fort, which was destroyed in the Iroquois invasion of 1649. It was from Fort Sainte Marie that the Jesuits set out for their Huron missions scattered throughout the countryside.
The year 1642 was a particularly bad one in the land of the Huron. The harvest had been poor, illness was rampant and clothing was scarce. Even though the Iroquois posed a threat, an expedition had to be sent to Quebec for supplies. The 600 miles of land and water from Fort Sainte Marie to Quebec were in rugged territory made more dangerous by the Iroquois presence in the area. Father Jogues led the expedition, which left in June 1642 and arrived in Quebec in mid-July.
On August 1 he and about 40 others (including Goupil and some high-ranking Huron converts) headed back for the mission with their canoes heavily laden with supplies. The next day they heard the dreaded Iroquois war cry and were immediately ambushed by 70 Mohawk warriors in 12 canoes. Fighting ensued, but the mission convoy was outnumbered. The Mohawk warriors took their captives and booty back to their village of Ossernenon (later Auriesville), New York. During the 12-day trip from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the banks of the Mohawk River, the Mohawk warriors tortured their prisoners, especially the hated French and most especially Father Jogues.
When they arrived in Mohawk territory, the captives were dragged from village to village with the inhabitants of each community inflicting additional brutalities. The captives who did not die were given away as slaves. For a while Jogues and Goupil were kept in a kind of public slavery. It was six weeks before their wounds were even partially healed. Gradually the two men were given some degree of freedom in and around the stockaded village. Sometimes they were permitted to go a short distance up a hill, where they prayed together.
In the village itself there was one rather quiet cabin, where Goupil sometimes went to pray. One day while he was there a small child came in, and Goupil playfully put his hat on the child's head and made the sign of the cross over him. Just at that moment the child's grandfather happened to look in. He thought the “dog of a Frenchman” was bewitching the child. Enraged, he drove Goupil out of the cabin and plotted to have him killed outside the palisades.
A few days later Goupil and Jogues went to their “hill of prayer” outside the stockade. Evidently sensing their new danger, they offered themselves to God as martyrs. As they came down the hill, reciting the rosary, two warriors approached and ordered them back to the stockade at once. The two continued saying the rosary as they walked downhill with the warriors close behind. Then one of the warriors drew a hatchet from beneath his garments and struck at Goupil's head. Goupil fell to the ground and was attacked a second time. Jogues, seeing the hatchet, knelt down to pray, sure that he would be treated in like manner. Instead he was told to stand. He rushed to his dying companion, and while he was administering absolution he was thrust aside as the warriors cleft Goupil's skull. Thus died the first North American Martyr, on September 29, 1642. Father Jogues later wrote a biography of Goupil, the only North American Martyr whose life was recorded by another of the martyrs.
For more than a year, Jogues remained a slave of the Mohawk people. Some of the natives began to respect him, however, for his bravery and endurance. Although the Dutch at Fort Orange (later Albany) offered to ransom Jogues for the then substantial sum of $200, the natives refused. Once in a while Jogues was able to minister to other Christian captives, comforting them and hearing their confessions.
Finally, in August 1643 he escaped. He made his way to the Dutch settlements, and on November 5 found passage aboard a ship for France by way of England. He reached France in time to attend Mass in a Breton church on Christmas morning. After a ten -day trip on horseback, he arrived at the Jesuit college at Rennes, where his fellow Jesuits (who had long given him up for dead) did not recognize him at first. Jogues was received with acclaim wherever he went. The French queen, Anne of Austria, kissed his mutilated hands, while Pope Urban VIII granted Jogues the one gift he had longed for: permission to say the mass despite the handicap presented by his deformed fingers. In a few months he was back in New France, anxious to continue his work.
Tiring of the perpetual war, the Mohawk people notified the governor of New France that they wished to make peace with the French. In May 1646 Jogues, wearing civilian clothes, was sent down to the Mohawk country as the French ambassador of peace. En route he discovered Lake George on May 30, 1646. Since it was the eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi, he named it Lac du Saint Sacrement, or Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. The name was retained until 1755, when Sir William Johnson, a British colonial leader, renamed it Lake George in honor of England's King George II.
The peace council in the chief Mohawk village ended successfully. Jogues, who hoped to establish a permanent mission among the Mohawk people, stopped at Ossernenon on the way back. Then he returned to Quebec to report to the governor of New France on the successful negotiations. Although Jogues himself felt certain that God wanted him to labor and die among the Mohawks, his Jesuit superiors in New France were understandably hesitant to send him back to Ossernenon. However, the Huron council decided to send a peace mission of its own to the Mohawk people and requested that Father Jogues accompany their representatives. Jogues, determining to go chiefly as a missionary and only secondarily as a peace legate, replied “I shall go, but I shall not return.” He asked for a mission assistant. The young layman who accepted the challenge was Jean Lalande, who had recently come from Dieppe, France, to dedicate his life to helping the Jesuits in New France.
On September 24, 1646, three canoes left Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence River between Quebec and Montreal. One carried Huron on the peace mission, one transported returning Mohawk representatives, and the third carried Jogues, Lalande, and the Huron spokesman. By the time they reached Lake Champlain, however, the Mohawk and Huron had abandoned the party in fear.
As Jogues and Lalande approached Ossernenon, they were received with sullen expressions by a small group of Mohawk who then vanished. Suddenly a great number of Mohawk appeared, attacked Jogues and Lalande, ripped their clothing, and dragged them to the village. The two missionaries were rescued by the friendly Wolf clan of the Mohawk and learned that some of the warriors blamed the Jesuits and their “sorcery” for the blight and pestilence that the Mohawk had recently suffered. The Wolf clan and the Turtle (or Tortoise) clan spoke on behalf of the Frenchmen, and the next day Jogues was allowed to defend his position and refute the charges before the council of chiefs.
The chiefs then went to the capital village, six miles away, where they deliberated the fate of the missionaries and ultimately declared them innocent. However, it was too late. While the chiefs were deliberating, a warrior entered Jogues's cabin and invited him to a feast. Since refusal of such an invitation would give offense, Jogues decided to follow the warrior to a lodge. As he stooped to enter the door of the lodge, he was killed with a tomahawk. The date was October 18, 1646. The next morning Lalande met the same fate.
Jogues had often expressed the desire to suffer martyrdom. Therefore, when in the spring of 1647 his Jesuit companions in New France heard of his death, they celebrated the Mass of Thanksgiving instead of the usual Requiem Mass. For five of these Jesuits in New France, their own martyrdom was not far off.
On July 4, 1648, Father Antoine Daniel had just celebrated Mass at the Huron village of Teanaustaye, near what was later Hillsdale, Ontario. All the Huron warriors were away from the village when the Iroquois attacked. Daniel hurriedly baptized the women, children, and old men who came to him and urged them to escape through an opening in the palisade. The invaders set fire to the village and killed those who had not escaped in time. Daniel, still wearing his Mass vestments, came out of the chapel to meet the Iroquois. For a moment, stopped by the sight of the priest as he calmly approached them, the Iroquois merely stared. Then they sent a shower of arrows at him and a gunshot killed him.
Father Jean de Brébeuf, at 56 the oldest French missionary in Canada, was one of the first Jesuits sent from France (in 1625) to work among the natives. On March 16, 1649, he and Father Gabriel Lalemant were captured during an Iroquois raid into Huron territory and martyred in the village of St. Ignace, not far from Fort Sainte Marie. Brébeuf died under torture that day and Father Lalemant the following morning.
Father Charles Garnier met martyrdom on December 7, 1649, in another Iroquois raid. Alone among his Huron converts and friends in the village of St. Jean, he blessed and baptized them and urged them to flee from the oncoming Iroquois. As he ran from house to house, an Iroquois shot him three times, tore off his cassock and his black robe, and rushed off in pursuit of the fleeing Huron. The priest recovered sufficiently to try to drag himself towards a mortally wounded Huron to give him absolution, but before he could reach his convert he was killed.
Garnier's companion, Father Noël Chabanel, was away at the time and never returned. Later a Huron confessed that out of hatred for the faith, which he blamed for all his misfortunes, he had killed Chabanel as he was returning to the mission on December 8, 1649, and had thrown the body into the Nottawasaga River in Ontario.
Remains of three of the eight North American Martyrs (Jean de Brébeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, and Charles Garnier) were partially recovered and enshrined in reliquaries at the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville and in its Canadian counterpart, the Martyr's Shrine in Midland, Ontario.