Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/440

 MISSIONS

388

MISSIONS

response to urgent rcciucsts from tlio Chippewas and Odawas. The next yoarucall eanu' from some fugitive Hurons, who hail tied to Green Bay in Wisconsin, to escapethe Iroquois. Tothen'monstranceof tliosewho knew the dangers of the way he rejihcd, " ( lod calls me. I must go, if it cost me my life. " In making a ilan- gerous port .age he became .separat etl from h is gu ides antl was ne\er seen again, but as the searchers came upon a hostile trail, and his Hreviary and cassock were after- wards found with the Sioux, it is believed that he was killed by a lurking enemy. His jilace was tilled by Father Claude .Mlouez, who, a-s vicar-general in the West, established the second t'lui)pewa mission in 166.1, under the name of 8aint-lCsprit at La Pointe Chegoimegon, now HayfieKl, Wisconsin, on the south shore of I.ake Superior. Other missions .soon followed at Sault Sainte 5larie (Sainte Marie) ami .Mackinaw (St. Ignace) in I'pper .Michigan; (in-cn liav (St- Fran<;ois Xavier), St. .Marc, and .'^t. Jacijues in \V iscon- sin, aniong Chippewius, Ottawas, Hurons, Mascoutens, Kickapoos, I'"oxes,and Miami. .■Vniongthe noted .lesuit workers were Fathei-s Claude Dablon, (Sabriel Druil- lettes, and the explorer Jacques Marquette. In 16S8 the mi.ssion of .St . Jo.seph was founded by .A.llouei! among the Potawatomi in northern Indiana. The mission at Lapointe w.as abandoned in 1671 on account of the hostile ."^iovix, but most of the others continued, with interruption, down to the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1764. In 1727 the Jesuit father, Louis (iuignas, founded the mission of St. Michael aniong the SioiLx, on Lake Pepin in .Minnesota, which continued until some time after 173, lieing abandoned probably on account of the war with the Foxes.

The first mi.ssion among the Illinois was that of the Immaculate Conception, founded by Mar<iuette in 1674 near the present Rockford, Illinois, and known later as the Kaskaskia mission. Others were estab- lished later at Peoria Lake and at Cahokia, opposite St. Louis, until by 172.5 the entire Illinois nation was enrolletl as ('hristian. .\mong the Jesuit names prom- inently connected with the Illinois missions are those of Manjuette, Rasle, and Jacques Gravier, author of the great manuscript Illinois dictionary.

Missions were also established later among the vari- ous branches of the Miami in Indiana as well as among the Potawatomi, which continued to flourish until the decree of expulsion, when the mission prop- erty was confiscated, although the Jesuits generally remained as .secular priests until their death. Their successors cont inued to minister to Indians and whites alike till the removal of the tribes, IS20— 10.

The majority of the Indians of .Michigan and Wis- consin remained in their own homes, with missions maintained either as regular establishments or as visit- ing stations served by secular priests. Of the later missionaries one of the distinguLshed names is that of the author and philologist Bishop F^rederick Baraga (d. 186.5), best known for his grammar and dictionary of the Chippewa language. (See for more recent work, Chippewa Indi.aj^s; Huron Indi.ojs; Illinois Indians; Kickapoo Indi.\ns; Ma.scoutens Indians; Menominee Indi.ois; Miami Indi.vns; Ottawa Indians; PoTAWATo^^ Indians; Sioux Indians; Winnebago Indians; Baraga; Gravier; Mak- QUETTE, Diocese of; M.\rquette, Jacques.)

V. Lower Mlssissii-pi IIecion: The Louisiana Mission. — The " Louisiana Mission " of the French colonial periml included the present States of Mis.souri, Arkansas, I>ouisiana, Mississippi, and Alal)ama, with the Tamarois foumlation near Cahokia in Illinois, but excluding the Caddo establishments on the disputed Spanish frontier of Texas. For several reasons, rival- ries and changes among the religious orders, intrigues of English traders, and general neglect or open hos- tility of the I^ouisiana colonial administration, these southern mLssions never attained any large measure of prosperity or permanent success. In 1673 the Jesuit

Marquette had descended the .Mississippi as far as the villages of the .\rkansas, later known as (^uapaw, at the mouth of the river of the .same name, making the earliest ma|> of the region and indicating the position of the various tribes, but without undertaking a foundation.

In 1682 the Recollect Franciscan Father Zcnobius Meml>re, with the party of the commander La Salle, descended the Mississippi to its mouth and returned, plant ing a cross among the .\rkansas, and preaching to them and to the Taen.sa, Natcln's, and others farther down. In 16S;i a l'"reiich fort was l)uilt at the Arkan- sas, and the conuuander Tonty set apart a mi.ssion site and maile formal recjucst for a Jesuit missionary, but apparently without result.

In l(i'.i8, under authority of the BLshop of Quebec, the priests of llie seminary of (^uclicc, an offshoot of the Paris Congre^al ion of Foreign .\Hssions, undertook the lower Mississip|ii field despite the protests of the Jesuits, who considered it partly at least within their own sphere. Early in 1699, three seminary priests having arrived, as many missions were established, viz., among the Tamaroa (Tamarois), a tribe of the Illinois confetleracy, at Cahokia, Illinois, by Father Jean-F'raneois de St-Cosme; among the Taensa, above the present Natchez, Mississippi, by Fran?ois-J. de Montigny; and among the Tonica, at the present Fort .Vdams, Mississippi, by F'ather Antoine Davion. Fa- ther de Montigny shortly afterw-ards transferred his mission to the kindred and more important Natchez tribe, about the present city of that name, ministering thus to both tribes. Feather Davion laboured also with the Yazooand minortribesonthatriver. Otherpriests of the same society arrived later. In the meantime Iber- ville, the father of the Louisiana colony, had brought out from France (1700) the Jesuit father, Paul du Ru, who, first at Biloxi, ^lississippi, and later at Mobile, Alabama, ministered to the small tribes gathered about the French post, including a band of fugitive Apalachee from the rcA'ived Florida mission. In the same year another Jesuit, Father Joseph de Limoges, from Canada, planted a mission among the Huma and Bayagula, Choctaw bands about the mouth of Red River, Louisiana.

In 1702 Father Nicholas Foucault, of the Semina- rists, who had established a mLssion among the Arkan- sas two years before, was murdered, with three companions, by the savage Koroa of Upper Mississippi while on his way to Mobile. Their remains were found and interred by Father Davion. In 1706 Father St- Cosme, then stationed at the Natchez mission, was murdered by the Shetimasha, near the mouth of the Mississippi, while asleep in a night camp.

The Tonica .station was abandoned in 1708, being threatened by the Chickasaw in the English interest. The whole southern work languished, the Indians themselves being either indifferent or openly hostile to Christianity, and when F'ather Charlevoi-x made his western tour in 1721 he found but one priest on the lower Mississippi, Father Juif, among the Yazoo. Partly in consequence of Father Charlevoix's report, the Louisiana Company, which had taken over control of the colony, gave permission to the Jesuits to under- take the Indian work, while the French posts and set- tlements were assigned to other priests. In 1726, therefore. Father Paul dti Poisson restored the Arkan- sas mission, which had been vacant since 1702; Father Alexis de Guyenne undertook the Alibamon, a tribe of the Creek nation, above Mobile, and Feather Mathu- rin le Petit began work among the Choctaw- in south- em Mississippi. The I'rsuline convent foundation at New Orleans in 1727 is due to Jesuit effort. In the next year the Jesuit father, Michel Baudouin, under- took a mission among the warlike Chickasaw.

In 1729 the southern missions were almo.st rtiined by the outbreak of war with the Natchez, provoked by the arbit rary exactions of the French commandant in