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Jesuit Relations Term Paper

¶ … Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America edited by Allan Greer. Specifically it will consider the role the Jesuit missionaries played in the history of New France circa 1633-1665. This book is an important historical document because it preserves many of the practices and parts of the Northeast Native American culture that are now long gone. Reading this book is an excellent introduction to Native American culture and values in the early seventeenth-century, and it is valuable for research into the culture, beliefs, and values at the time. The Jesuits were not in Canada and the Northeast to alter their way of thinking. Their main goals were to colonize and covert the areas to French Christianity. As the editor notes in the Introduction, "And of course, the Jesuits themselves were determined to reshape native thinking and behavior in conformity with Christian principles" (Greer 11). At the time when the Jesuits were colonized and creating missions to the Indians, they had a completely European idea of what was right and wrong morally, ethically, and spiritually. Many of the Indian practices were pagan to them, and they were not willing or even open to modify their European beliefs to accept different cultures. Some of the Jesuits grew close to the Indian bands, but they never totally accepted the way they lived. For example, Father Paul le Jeune wrote of the Native's good cheer, patience, proud bearing, and good nature, and yet he still could not call them anything other than "savages." He could not give up his own European notions of what made a "Christian" and what made a "pagan," even though he lived with these people and admired much of how they lived and worked. He even lamented their practice of not punishing their

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Christians and thus manipulate them, and so, they did not admire these missionaries or work with them. Some of the French leaders also seemed like cruel men who manipulated the Indians into near slave labor and only cared about them as Christian souls rather than people. This would also be easy for the Indians to see and take note of and scorn. The Jesuits wanted to recruit and save the Natives, but the natives in no way thought they needed saving. In fact, they seemed to enjoy a decent life before the French came along. Many of the Natives were quite wise individuals and could see their way of life would disappear as the white men continued to come to their country. They…

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Greer, Allan, ed. The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.
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