Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/437

Rh continuing the war of desolation and extinction on which they had entered, had struck an appalling blow at the mission of St. Joseph, killing seven hundred Hurons, with the misssionary Father Daniel. On the 6th of March of the next year, 1649, the mission of St. Ignatius shared the same appalling fate, — Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant perishing with their flock. The inhabitants of five of the Huron villages, in their fright and despair, burned their cabins and dispersed to various other mission stations. There were then eleven of these stations, — eight for the Hurons, and three for the Algonquins, served by eighteen of the Fathers. Forty Frenchmen, soldiers, traders, and domestics lived with them. The principal mission was that of St. Marie, which a fort was supposed to make safe and tenable; but famine compelled its desertion, and Manitoulin Island was sought as a refuge. The Huron chiefs were reluctant to go so far, and the missionaries, yielding to their passionate entreaties, agreed to go with them to the Island St. Joseph. It was with heavy hearts that they abandoned St. Marie, which with all its woes and wretchedness had become to them a second country. Here, too, in their new refuge, famine made horrible ravages with the wretched remnant. Soon news came of the massacre at St. Jean, in which Father Garnier perished. The heroic Bressani was again sent for relief to Quebec, and reached it in safety; but he vainly sought succor from the enfeebled colonists. He longed to return, even empty of relief, to his despairing flock, but could not start till June 15, 1650. His errand then was, as had been agreed upon in Quebec, to gather the Huron remnant to the neighborhood of that place. As the party were encamped near the mouth of the Ottawa they were set upon furiously by ten Iroquois, six of whom fell. Bressani was dangerously but not fatally wounded. Farther on in their route they met Father Ragueneau, with a crowd of three hundred of every age and sex, rushing on to throw themselves under the