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Tag Archives: Louis Jolliet

The Jesuit Relations: an invaluable legacy, revisited

22 Friday May 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Explorers, History, Missionaries

≈ 42 Comments

Tags

explorers, Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, Missionaries, New France, Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France, Reuben Gold Thwaites, Society of Jesus

tumblr_ltrbry5reu1r21vxto1_500

Père Marquette and the Indians [at the Mississippi River], oil painting (1869) by Wilhelm Lamprecht (1838–1906), at Marquette University[I]

Travel

Several visitors to North America have left precious accounts of their trips as well as fine analysis of the people whose lands they visited.  For instance, in recent years, Alexis de Tocqueville‘s (29 July 1805, Paris – 16 April 1859, Cannes) two-volume Democracy in America (De la démocratie en Amérique), published in 1840 and 1845, has received a great deal of attention.

The Jesuit Relations

Reuben Gold Thwaites: the Editor (portrayed to the right, below)

However, one could and perhaps should include The Jesuit Relations (73 volumes, 1896-1901), among works in which Europeans have described North America. The Jesuit Relations have been edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, as The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610-1791.  Having had the privilege of reading some volumes of the Relations attentively and browsing through every volume, it is possible for me to say that Mr Thwaites’ edition is not only extremely interesting, but also quite easy to read.  It has been translated into English (a parallel translation) from the French, Italian and Latin.[ii]

Richelieu and New France

Every year the Jesuits working in Canada sent a report (une relation) to their superiors in France. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia,

“[a]s a result of Cardinal Richelieu‘s decision to enlist the Jesuits in colonizing French North America, the early history of settlement was systematically and colourfully documented by priests attempting to convert the Indians and also to attract support at home for their project.”[iii]

Compilation and publication

The Jesuit Relations were compiled by missionaries “in the field,” (The Canadian Encyclopedia), edited by their Quebec superior and sent to the Paris office of the Society of Jesus. They were printed in France by Sébastien Cramoisy. These texts constitute the finest and most complete account of life in Nouvelle-France (New France) beginning in 1632, under Richelieu and Louis XIII, and ending in 1672, twelve years after Louis XIV ascended to the throne (1660). 

Documents were sent after 1672, but not systematically. 

Contents of the Jesuit Relations: a mixture

The Jesuits told everything. Wikipedia lists: “Marriages and Marriage Customs, Courtship, Divorce, Social Status of Women, Songs and Singing, Dances, and Games and Recreation.” The Relations are a mélange (mixture) blending the activities of Amerindians, the progress of missionaries and the daily life of settlers. Moreover, they include accounts of explorers.

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Henry P. Bosse

Minneiska, Minn., 1885

 

Jacques Marquette, S. J. and Louis Jolliet: Explorations down the Mississippi River

Among accounts of explorers, the Jesuit Relations include a relation by Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette (1 June 1637 – 18 May 1675), who was allowed to accompany French-Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet (21 September 1645 – last seen May 1700). They founded Sault Ste. Marie (now in Ontario, Canada) and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan, in the current United States. They reported the first accurate data on the course of the Mississippi. Two years later, Père Marquette and other missionaries were the first Europeans to spend a winter near Chicago.[iv]

Voyageurs

Métis

They left from St. Ignace on 18 May 1673 with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Amerindian ancestry (Métis) and entered the Mississippi on 19 June 1673.  They travelled down the Mississippi, nearly reaching the Gulf of Mexico. Two years later, Père Marquette was exposed to dysentery and died prematurely. As for Jolliet, he was not heard of after May 1700.

Conclusion

the “bon sauvage”

The Jesuit Relations are, therefore, eclectic, and they were widely read in the 18th century as “exciting travel literature.” They are the birthplace of the “Bon Sauvage,” who will be used later to provide a silent, yet eloquent, indictment of French society. They constitute invaluable “ethnographic and documentary sources.”[v]

Sources and Resources

The Jesuit Relations.1 (Internet Archive)
The Jesuit Relations.2 (Internet Archive)
_________________________
[i] Images are from Wikipedia, unless otherwise indicated.
[ii] Lacombe, Michèle. “Jesuit Relations”. The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Toronto: Historica Canada, 2006. Web. 8 Feb 2006.
[iii] Michèle Lacombe, op. cit.
[iv] “Jacques Marquette.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/366090/Jacques-Marquette>
[v] Michèle Lacombe, op. cit.

 

 Le Révérend Père Jacques Marquette, S. J., by Wilhelm Lamprecht

  

Paul Robeson – The Old Man River

© Micheline Walker
15 March 2012 (first published)
22 May 2015 (revised)
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The Louisiana Purchase Treaty

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in United States

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

France, Louis Jolliet, Louisiana, Louisiana Purchase, Monroe Doctrine, Napoleon, Paris, United State

Ceremony at Place d’Armes, New Orleans* marking transfer of Louisiana to the United States, 10 March 1804, as depicted by Thure de Thulstrup.

*Jackson Square
Thure de Thulstrup (April 5, 1848 – June 9, 1930), born Bror Thure Thulstrup
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
 

France controlled this vast area from 1699 until 1762, the year it gave the
territory to its ally Spain. Under Napoléon Bonaparte, France took back the
territory in 1800 in the apparent hope of building an empire in North America.  Here are the main dates:

Louisiana Purchase Treaty: 30 April 1803

  • The territory Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, S.J. (a Jesuit) explored in 1673 and claimed for France would be controlled by France from 1699 until 1762.[i]
  • In 1762, the French gave the territory to Spain.
  • Napoleon took it back in 1800, hoping to build an Empire in North America.
  • Three years later, in 1803, Napoléon sold Louisiana to the United States.

In 1673, explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled down the Mississippi to within 435 miles (700 kilometers) of the Gulf of Mexico and claimed both sides of the River (all the way to the Rocky Mountains) for France.  The territory was given to Spain in 1762, but reclaimed by Napoléon in 1800.

However, a mere three years after the territory was reclaimed by France, it was sold to the United States for 15 million dollars.  The Louisiana Purchase Treaty was signed on April 30, 1803 during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826), the third President of the United States.  The Treaty’s main American negotiator was Robert R. Livingstone, then US Minister to France.  This is what he had to say after the Treaty was signed:

We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives… From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank.

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Louisiana (green overlay)

The Story

Upon learning that Napoléon sold Louisiana, one is baffled.  Moreover, given that Napoléon sold it for 15 million dollars, one can easily jump to the conclusion that Napoléon knew nothing about real estate and made terrible mistakes on both sides of the Atlantic.  Yet, it may be that Bonaparte did what he had to do.

When the US approached Napoléon, which it did, all it was asking for was a right of way or a strip of land to the south of Louisiana which would have linked the eastern part of the current United States to its western part.  The US was somewhat landlocked.  However, Napoléon reflected that the United States could buy not only the very south of Louisiana, but all of it, for what we would call “peanuts,” i.e. very little money.

In fact, one wonders whether or not Napoléon had discussed the matter with Talleyrand.  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, prince de Bénévent, then prince de Talleyrand (1754–1838), was Napoléon’s éminence grise or right-hand man.  Well, Talleyrand actually negotiated the Louisiana Purchase Treaty.

It would appear that Napoléon needed to purchase ships so he could conquer the world, with the exception of what would become the United States of America.  Fifteen million dollars could buy him a fleet.  It also appears France had debts to repay. However, we cannot exclude early warning signs of the development of the rather pompous “Manifest Destiny.”  In the not-so-distant future, the territory France sold would probably have been conquered by an expansionist United States, in which case France would have lost Louisiana.  It at least earned itself a consolation prize.

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Louisiana extending to the Rocky Mountains

The Monroe Doctrine (1823)

For instance, on December 2, 1823, the United States introduced a policy known as the Monroe Doctrine, after President James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831).  The Monroe Doctrine was a document authored by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) who succeeded James Monroe as President of the United States (POTUS) between 1825 and 1829.  The document stated that European countries, or any other country for that matter, could no longer colonize South or North America.  Could he have been so bold had the US been considerably smaller?  I doubt it.

Therefore, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, signed on April 30, 1803, may have led, in part, to a somewhat inflated view on the part of the United States concerning its place among nations.  When Livingstone stated that “[f]rom this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank,” he was giving the US a glorious future. I do not know whether or not this notion has been expressed in textbooks on the history of the United States, but by selling Louisiana, Napoléon played a major role in empowering the United States of America.

Conclusion

In 1763, under the of Treaty of Paris, France chose to keep Guadeloupe and ceded Canada, Acadie and territory east of the Mississippi to the British.  Later, in 1803, under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, at fifteen million dollars, France chose to “give,” or nearly so, Louisiana to the United States.  

Père Marquette and Louis Jolliet would have felt betrayed by the Treaty of Paris (1763)and the Louisiana Purchase Treaty.  Napoléon Bonaparte removed from North America all that was left of France’s presence on the North-American continent, a continent French explorers, missionaries and Canadiens voyageurs had opened in its near totality, or almost.

* * *

Paris at the very end of April is a delightful city.  All that was old is new again.  But Mr Livingstone, with all due respect, could you really tell your fellow nation crafters that acquiring Louisiana was “the noblest work of [y]our whole lives?”  I would agree, however, that April 30, 1803 was a very fine day in the history of the United States of America and that all parties involved had something to gain, except for the people whose motherland ceased to be France, for better of for worse, with the stroke of a pen.

Territories Gained by the United States

Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; most of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans; and small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

RELATED ARTICLES:
French Canadians in the United States (November 14, 2012) 
Missionaries and the Noble Savage: Père Marquette & Gabriel Sagard (November 17, 2012)
The “Manifest Destiny” & the News (November 18, 2012)
 
_________________________ 
[i] Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet http://library.thinkquest.org/4034/marquettejolliet.html  
 
Micheline Walker©
November 19th, 2012
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Cartier, Champlain & Missionaries: a Chronology

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History

≈ 159 Comments

Tags

Canada, Jacques Cartier, Jesuit, Louis Jolliet, Mississippi River, Montreal, Quebec, Quebec City

800px-Jacques_Cartier_by_Hamel

Jacques Cartier
by Théophile-Abraham Hamel (1817–1870) 

I have developed a passion for the material I am putting online. So here I am re-examining the history of Canada, finding links with what is happening in France, and giving dates that allow me to follow the settlers and the missionaries in a systematic manner. One detail I omitted to provede is that Père Marquette and Louis Jolliet entered the Mississippi River at Prairie-du-Chien or Dog’s Prairie, which means that our coureurs de bois and voyageurs had already travelled that far. After Marquette and Jolliet mapped out the Mississippi, the Jesuits sent missionaries to these newly discovered areas.

The Jesuit Relations: on the internet

I have just discovered that the Jesuit Relations or Relations des Jésuites can be read online. For me, this is a Godsend. It is now possible to include a link to these sites: Jesuit Relations or Les Relations des Jésuites. Would that I were still teaching!

As for information about the authors of the Relations, I have provided links with Wikipedia, The Catholic Encyclopedia and the Encyclopædia Britannica.

The Standard Anthology

The excerpts my students had access to were published in the following anthology: Gilles Marcotte, rédacteur, Anthologie de la littérature québécoise (L’Hexagone, 1994). The Relations my students read were included in book 1 (tome 1) of the Anthologie entitled Écrits de la Nouvelle-France and edited by Léopold LeBlanc. My students read several complete texts, but the Anthologie was our organizer and browser. Two “tomes” have since been added to the original four. This Anthologie is considered the standard reference anthology on Quebec or French-Canadian literature.

Although the Anthologie is entitled Anthologie de la littérature québécoise, it includes texts written by other French-speaking authors and notably Gabrielle Roy (from Manitoba) and Marguerite Maillet, an Acadian writer and winner of the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious literary award for works written in French.

Jacques Cartier

I will search the internet for texts by Jacques Cartier, who claimed Nouvelle-France for France in 1534 and made a second trip in 1534-1536 (mentioned below), and Samuel de Champlain who is considered the father of Nouvelle-France. Champlain established a settlement first in Acadie (1604) and second in what the Amerindians called Canada. Québec city (1608) was in Canada and located near an Iroquoian village called Stadacona.

Jacques Cartier sailed up to Montreal or Hochelaga

Jacques Cartier (31 December  1491 – 1st September 1557) went up the Saint-Lawrence River, in search of China (la Chine), but could not proceed further than the Lachine Rapids. So Montreal (Hochelaga) was settled by Maisonneuve, in 1642.

Chronology

  • Jacques Cartier discovers what will be Canada in 1534;
  • Acadie is settled by Du Gua de Monts & Samuel de Champlain in 1604;
  • Quebec city is settled by Champlain  in 1608;
  • The Jesuits start arriving in 1609, when Quebec city was settled;
  • The Jesuits arrived at Port Royal, in Acadie, the current Nova Scotia, on 22 May 1611;
  • Récollets (Recollect) missionaries sail with Champlain from Rouen to Quebec City, arriving on 2 June 1615;
  • The Jesuit missions “would gain a strong foothold in North America in 1632, with the arrival of the Jesuit Paul Le Jeune. Between 1632 and 1650, 46 French Jesuits arrived to preach among the Indians” (Wikipedia);
  • Montréal is founded by Maisonneuve in 1642;
  • Eight Jesuits, killed between 1642 and 1649, became known as the North American Martyrs.

The First three settlements: Port-Royal; Québec (city) and Montréal

Port-Royal, established in 1604 in Acadie, by Champlain, is the first French settlement in North America. The Second is Quebec City, settled in 1608, by Champlain,  The Third was Montréal, settled by Maisonneuve in 1642.

Jesous ahatonhia

 

Postage stamp 1908

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16  March 2012
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