"We are dead men, my brothers...May death find you with God in mind." ~ The Martyrdom and Life of St. Charles Garnier

The death of St. Charles Garnier, as depicted in a French woodcut.

For the feast of the North American martyrs today, I post the account of Saint Charles Garnier's death and life as taken from the Jesuit Relation of 1650. Garnier was slain by the Iroquois on December 7, 1649 at the age of 44. 

Fr. Garnier's death occurred during that year of destruction, 1649, when the Iroquois erupted like a whirlwind from their base in present-day central New York and burst upon their traditional enemies to the north. Newly equipped with British muskets and schooled in their use, the Iroquois had an insuperable advantage over the Hurons, Algonquins, and Tobacco nations who were still armed with their more primitive traditional weapons. 

Fr. Garnier was a missionary among the Petun (or Tobacco) nation, allies of the Hurons who lived south of Georgian Bay in present-day Ontario. During that winter of 1649, news had gone out to the Petun that an Iroquois war party was headed their way. Rather than await the arrival of these raiders, the Petun warriors set out to find and destroy them in the wilderness. Unfortunately, their ambush was misled and the stealthy Iroquois arrived unopposed at the defenseless Petun villages.

The account below was drawn from the testimony of eye-witnesses who escaped the attack, and those who found his remains after the Iroquois withdrew: 

It was on the seventh day of the month of last December, in the year 1649, toward three o'clock in the afternoon, that this band of Iroquois appeared at the gates of the village, spreading immediate dismay, and striking terror into all those poor people—bereft of their strength, and finding themselves vanquished when they thought to be themselves the conquerors. Some took to flight. Others were slain on the spot. To many, the flames, which were already consuming some of their cabins, gave the first intelligence of  the disaster. Many were taken prisoners; but the victorious enemy, fearing the return of the warriors who had gone to meet them, hastened their retreat so precipitately, that they put to death all the old men and children, and all whom they deemed unable to keep up with them in their flight.

It was a scene of incredible cruelty. The enemy snatched from a mother her infants, that they might be thrown into the fire; other children beheld their Mothers beaten to death at their feet or groaning in the flames—permission, in either case, being denied them to show the least compassion. It was a crime to shed a tear, these barbarians demanding that their prisoners should go into captivity as if they were marching to their triumph. A poor Christian Mother, who wept for the death of her infant, was killed on the spot, because she still loved, and could not stifle soon enough her natural feelings. 

Father Charles Garnier was, at that time, the only one of our Fathers in that Mission. When the enemy appeared, he was just then occupied with instructing the people in the cabins which he was visiting. At the noise of the alarm, he went out, going straight to the Church, where he found some Christians. "We are dead men, my brothers," he said to them. "Pray to God, and flee by whatever way you may be able to escape. Bear about with you your faith through what of life remains; and may death find you with God in mind."

He gave them his blessing, then left hurriedly, to go to the help of souls. A prey to despair, not one dreamed of defense. Several found a favorable exit for their flight. They implored the Father to flee with them, but the bonds of Charity restrained him. All unmindful of himself, he thought only of the salvation of his neighbor. Borne on by his zeal, he hastened everywhere—either to give absolution to the Christians whom he met, or to seek, in the burning cabins, the children, the sick, or the catechumens, over whom, in the midst of the flames, he poured the waters of Holy Baptism, his own heart burning with no other fire than the love of God.

It was while thus engaged in Holy work that he was encountered by the death which he had looked in the face without fearing it, or receding from it a single step. A bullet from a musket struck him, penetrating a little below the breast; another, from the same volley, tore open his stomach, lodging in the thigh, and bringing him to the ground. His courage, however, was unabated. The barbarian who had fired the shot stripped him of his cassock, and left him, weltering in his blood, to pursue the other fugitives.

This good Father, a very short time after, was seen to clasp his hands, offering some prayer; then, looking about him, he perceived, at a distance of ten or twelve paces, a poor dying Man—who, like himself, had received the stroke of death, but had still some remains of life. Love of God, and zeal for Souls, were even stronger than death. Murmuring a few words of prayer, he struggled to his knees, and rising with difficulty, dragged himself as best he might toward the sufferer, in order to assist him it dying well. He had made but three or four steps when he fell again, somewhat heavily. Raising himself for the second time, he got, once more, upon his knees and strove to continue on his way; but he body, drained of its blood, which was flowing in abundance from his wounds, had not the strength of his courage. For the third time he fell, having proceeded but five or six steps. 

Further than this, we have not been able to ascertain what he accomplished—the good Christian woman who faithfully related all this to us having seen no more of him, being herself overtaken by an Iroquois, who struck her on the head with a war-hatchet, felling her upon the spot, though she afterward escaped. The Father shortly after, received from a hatchet two blows upon the temples, one on either side, which penetrated to the brain. To him it was the recompense for all past services, the richest he had hoped for from God's goodness. His body was stripped, and left, entirely naked, where it lay.

Two of our Fathers, who were in the nearest neighboring Mission, received a remnant of these poor fugitive Christians, who arrived all out of breath, many of them all covered with their own blood. The night was one of continual alarm, owing to the fear, which had seized all, of a similar misfortune. Toward the break of day, it was ascertained from certain spies that the enemy had retired. The two Fathers at once set out, that they might themselves look upon a spectacle most sad indeed, butt nevertheless acceptable to God. They found only dead bodies heaped together, and the remains of poor Christians—some who were almost consumed in the pitiable remains of the still burning village; others deluged with their own blood; and a few who yet showed some signs of life, but were all covered with wounds,—looking only for death, and blessing God in their wretchedness. At length, in the midst of that desolated village, they descried the body they had come to seek; but so little cognizable was it, being completely covered with its blood, and the ashes of the fire, that they passed it by. Some Christian Savages, however, recognized their Father, who had died for love of them. They buried him in the same spot on which their Church had stood, although there remained no longer any vestige of it, the fire having consumed all.

The poverty of that burial was; sublimed sanctity no less so. The two good Fathers divested themselves of part of their apparel, to cover therewith the dead; they could do no more, unless it were to return entirely unclothed...

Two days after the taking and burning of the village, its inhabitants returned—who, having discovered the change of plan which had led the enemy to take another route, had had their suspicions of the misfortune that had happened. But now they beheld it with their own eyes; and at the sight of the ashes, and the dead bodies of their relatives, their wives, and their children, they maintained for half the day a profound silence—seated, after the manner of savages, upon the ground, without lifting their eyes, or uttering even a sigh—like marble statues, without speech, without sight, and without motion. For it is thus that the Savages mourn—at least, the men and the warriors—tears, cries, and lamentations befitting, so they say, the women.

At this point, the author of the relation, Fr. Paul Ragueneau, provides a brief biography of his Jesuit colleague, Fr. Garnier. 

Father Charles Garnier was born in Paris, in the year 1605, and entered our Society in 1624. He was thus but little over 44 years of age on the 7th of December, 1649—the day on which he died in labors which were truly Apostolic, and in which he had lived since the year 1636, when he left France and went up to the country of the Hurons.

From his infancy, he entertained the most tender sentiments of piety, and, in particular, a filial love toward the most holy Virgin, whom he called his Mother. "It it she," he would say, "who carried me in her arms through all my youth, and has placed me in the Society of her Son." He had made a vow to uphold, until death, her Immaculate Conception. He died on the eve of that august Festival [December 8], that he might go to solemnize it yet more gloriously in Heaven.

From the time of his Novitiate, he seemed an angel, his humility being so uncommon that he was held before all others as a mirror of sanctity. He had experienced the greatest difficulties in obtaining permission from his father to enter our Society; but these were very much enhanced when, ten years after that first separation, it became necessary to reconcile the father to a second, of a still more painful kind. This was his departure from France, to go into these Missions at the end of the world—our Superiors having expressed their wish that his father should yield consent to this, on account of peculiar obligations which our Society was under to him. His voyage was thus delayed, an entire year, but this only served to fan the flame of his desires. Day and night he thought only of the conversion of the savages, and of devoting to them his life, to its latest breath....At length, he succeeded in obtaining this great boon from Heaven, and with so much joy in his heart, that he looked upon that day as the happiest of his entire life.

While crossing the sea, he made some remarkable conversions on shipboard. Among others, he was informed that belonging to the crew was a man without conscience, without Religion, and without God. This man avoided every one, and all avoided him. It was over ten years since he had confessed. The Father, carried away by his usual zeal, took in hand that gloomy temper and that hopeless man, and, after a thousand evidences of love—exhibited in all manner of attentions, instructions, and good of fines—succeeded at last in winning him. He induced this man to make a general confession, and brought him into so great a peace, and joy of conscience, that all wondered, and were touched by it.

As soon as he came among the Hurons, we had in him an indefatigable worker, replete with every gift of Nature and of Grace that could make an accomplished Missionary. He had mastered the language of the Savages so thoroughly that they themselves were astonished at him. He worked his way so far into their hearts, and with such a power of eloquence, as to carry them away with him. His face, his eyes—even his laugh, and every movement of his body—preached sanctity. His heart spoke yet louder than his words and made itself heard, even in his silence. I know of several who were converted to God by the mere aspect of his countenance, which was truly Angelic, and which imparted a spirit of devotion, and chaste impressions, to those approaching him—whether he were at prayer, of seemed to be communing with himself, collecting his thoughts, after some activity in behalf of his neighbor; or whether he spoke of God; or it might be, even, when Charity had engaged him in discourse of a different character, which afforded some relaxation to his mind. The love of God which reigned in his heart gave life to all his movements, and made them heavenly.

His virtues were heroic, nor was there lacking in him one of those which go to make up the greatest Saints....His prayers were so full of reverence for the presence of God, and so peaceful in the hush of all his own powers, that he scarcely seemed to suffer the least distraction, though engaged in occupational most apt to dissipate his thoughts. His Prayers, from the outset, were but a series of colloquies, devout emotions, and acts of love; and this ardor grew even more intense until the close.

His mortification was equal to his love. He sought it night and day. He always lay on the bare ground, and bore constantly upon his body some portion of that Cross which during life he held most dear, and on which it was his desire to die. Every time that he returned from his Mission rounds he never failed to sharpen freshly the iron points of a girdle all covered with spur-rowels, which he wore next to his skin. In addition to this, he would very often use a discipline of wire, armed, besides, with sharpened points. His daily fare differed in no way from that of the savages—that is to say, it was the scantiest that a miserable beggar would expect in France. During that last year of famine, acorns and bitter roots were, to him, delicacies—not that he was insensible to their bitterness, but that love gave a relish to them. And yet he had ever been the cherished child of a rich and noble house, and the object of all a Father's endearments....

In his latest letters, addressed to me three days before his death, in response to a request which I made to him touching the state of his health—asking if it would not be right that he should quit for a time his Mission, in order to come once more to see us, and recover a little his strength—he answered me by urging, at great length, many reasons which disposed him to remain in his Mission, but reasons which gathered their force only from the spirit of charity and truly Apostolic zeal with which he was filled. "It is true," he added, "that I suffer something in regard to hunger, but that is not to death; and, thank God, my body and my spirit keep up in all their vigor. I am not alarmed on that side. But what I should fear more would be that, in leaving my flock in the time of their calamities, and in the terrors of war—in a time when they need me more than ever—I would fail to use the opportunities which God gives me of losing myself for him, and so render myself unworthy of his favors. I take only too much care of myself," added he; "and if I saw that my powers were failing me, I should not fail, since your Reverence bids me, to come to you; for I am at all times ready to leave everything, to die, in the spirit of obedience, where God wills. But otherwise, I will never come down from the Cross on which his goodness has placed me."

These great aspirations after sanctity had grow with him from his infancy. For myself, having known him for more than twelve years—in which he opened to me all his heart, as he did to God himself—I can truly say that, in all those years, I do not think that, save in sleep, he has spent a single hour without these burning and vehement desires of progressing more and more in the ways of God, and of helping forward in them his fellow-creatures. Outside of these considerations, nothing in the world affected him—neither relatives, nor friends, nor rest, nor consolation, nor hardships, nor fatigues. God was his all; and, apart from Him, all else was to him as nothing.

He took some sick people, and carried them on his shoulders for one or two leagues, in order to gain their hearts and to secure the opportunity to baptize them. He accomplished some ten or twenty leagues during the most excessive heat of Summer, along dangerous roads, where the enemy was continually perpetrating massacres. All breathless, he would hurry after a single savage, who served him as guide, that he might baptize some dying man, or a captive of war who was to be burnt that same day. He has passed whole nights in groping after a lost path, amid the deep snows and the most biting cold of winter—his zeal knowing no obstacle at any season of the year.

During the prevalence of contagious diseases—when they shut on us everywhere the doors of the cabins, and talked of nothing but of massacring us—not only did he go unswervingly where he felt there was a soul to gain for Paradise, but, by an excess of zeal and an ingenuity born of Charity, he found means of opening all the ways that had been closed against him, and of breaking down, sometimes forcibly, all that opposed his progress. But that which imparted a more heavenly aspect to every such procedure, and did not result from human sagacity, was this, that, from the moment of his entry, he won over fierce spirits by a single word, and accomplished all that he had set himself to do. Nothing repelled him; and he always looked for good, even from souls the most hopeless.

He had a way of recourse to the angels all his own, and experienced their most powerful assistance. The savages, to whose aid he went at the hour of death, have seen him accompanied, as they said, by a young man of rare beauty and majestic glory, who remained at his side, and urged them to obey the instructions of the Father. These good people could tell no more, and inquired who was this companion who had so stolen away their hearts. They knew not that the angels do more than we in the conversion of sinners, although ordinarily, their operation is not so evident.

His strongest inclination was to aid the most depraved, however repulsive the disposition that any one might possess, however vile and insolent he might be. He felt for all alike, with the bowels of a Mother—not omitting any act of corporal Mercy which he could perform for the salvation of souls. He has been seen to dress ulcers so loathsome, and which emitted a stench so offensive, that the savages, and even the nearest relatives of the sick man, were unable to endure them. He alone would handle these, wiping off the pus and cleansing the wound, every day, for two and three months together, with an eye and a countenance that betokened only charity—though he often saw very clearly that the wounds were incurable. "But," said he, "the more deadly they are, the stronger inclination have I to undertake the care of them—that I may lead these poor people even to the gate of Paradise, and keep them from falling into sin at a time which is for them the most perilous in life."

Not one Mission was there in the whole territory of the Hurons in which he had not been; and several of them he had himself originated—that, in particular, in which he died. Toward the savages he conducted himself with a remarkable prudence, and with a sweetness of charity that could excuse all, and bear with all, though having in it nothing that was mean-spirited....

He was not so wedded to the conversion of the Hurons that his heart did not go out to Nations the most distant—were it only to baptize the infants, "who," he remarked, "are a certain gain for Heaven." He often said to us that it would have pleased him to fall into the hands of the Iroquois, and be their captive. For, had they burned him alive, he would at least have had a chance of instructing them for as long a time as they prolonged his torments; and, if they had spared his life, that would have been a precious means of obtaining their conversion—a thing impossible, as it is, the way being closed against us as long as they remain our enemies....

The full account, followed by a letter written by one of the Jesuit Fathers who buried St. Charles wrote, may be found here: Jesuit Relations, Volume XXXV. 

Other posts on this blog drawn from the Jesuit Relations may be found here:

• "The Invincible Spirit, Rising Again from the Midst of the Flames" — The gruesome death of the Iroquois Christian, Pierre Ononelwaia
• When the Jesuits were Catholic
• Charles Huault de Montmagny - The Great Mountain of New France
• Saint Isaac Jogues and the sign of the cross

"The Invincible Spirit, Rising Again from the Midst of the Flames" — The gruesome death of the Iroquois Christian, Pierre Ononelwaia

Torture of a captive in the Eastern Woodands. Detail of a woodcut from
Mason: True Stories of Our Pioneers, 1904. 

In my previous review of the novel Joseph the Huron by Antoinette Bosco, I mentioned briefly a scene in the book describing the capture and torture of an Iroquois prisoner by the Hurons. The details of this scene were drawn from the true story which appeared in the Jesuit Relations. Of course, Mrs. Bosco softened the story somewhat to make it more suitable for her audience of younger readers. 

When writing the review, I revisited the original account of this prisoner in the Relations. Written in 1639 by an eye-witness—Jesuit Fr. Jerome Lalemant—I recalled the impression the account had made on me when I first read it some 20 years ago. Beyond the sheer cruelty and brutality of the scene, what strikes the reader most forcefully is the victim's supernatural courage in the face of certain death. 

I post Fr. Lalemant's account here in part so I should not lose it again within the vast gulf of the internet. But I also post it so that those Catholics, who lack even a fraction of the fortitude of their forebears and who would apologize for their audacious missionary work among the indigenous tribes, may think twice. Indeed, may they shrink from such pusillanimous apologies once, twice, and every time they are tempted to offer them.

Without further ado, here is Fr. Lalemant's description of the death of the Iroquois convert Pierre Ononelwaia:

The first one baptized in this village was a poor unfortunate Hiroquois, a prisoner of war, who was taken to another village, near this, to be given as a recompense to the relatives of that brave Taratwane who was captured during these last years by the enemy, as has been mentioned in previous Relations. I do not know if I should not tarry for a moment to consider and admire the adorable Providence of God towards this poor wretch, and his fellow prisoners, to the number of 12 or 13, baptized by the Fathers of this Residence; but I prefer to leave these reflections to those who shall cast their eyes over this Narrative, and to stop only to observe some circumstances of these events which render them more important.

For a long time, the Hurons had no more good fortune or advantage over their enemies until last year. Having gone to war, together with some Algonquains, their neighbors, they captured at one stroke about eighty of their enemies, whom they brought home alive. Besides this victory, the most notable of all, they had others of less importance, which in all gave them more than a hundred prisoners.

All those who were assigned to the villages where we have residences, or which are near these, were, thank God, instructed and baptized, and hardly one without circumstances so peculiar that there is reason to believe that there was, in their cases, some special guidance of divine Providence and of their predestination. In many instances, we had only the exact time necessary for their instruction and baptism; others, after having been baptized, were so comforted that they could not refrain from putting into song the cause of their consolation, — that thenceforward, at least, they were sure of going to Heaven. Others nobly refused to imitate foul and immodest actions to which their captors tried to incite them. Others afterward displayed so much fortitude in their torments that our barbarians resolved no longer to allow us to baptize these poor unfortunates, reckoning  it a misfortune to their country when those whom they torment shriek not at all, or very little.

Indeed, this has given us so much trouble since then, that there has not been one of these for whose baptism we have not been obliged to give battle to those who are their Masters and Guardians; and sometimes it has been necessary to atone for this violence by some present.

Among those who showed most fortitude, and most appreciation of their good fortune, was one Ononelwaia, in baptism named Pierre, who was one of the prisoners at that principal defeat of which we have just spoken, a Captain of the Oneiouchronons [Oneidas], a nation of the Hiroquois. This man, being fastened to a stake upon a platform, not very far from his companion fastened to another — where our barbarians, every one according to his pleasure, tormented them, by the application of flames, firebrands, and glowing irons, in ways cruel beyond all power of description, and beyond all imagination of those who have not seen it — Pierre, I say, seeing this companion of his lose patience in the midst of these torments, comforted and encouraged him  by representing the blessedness they had found in their misfortune, and that which was prepared for them after this life. Finally seeing him dead, “ Ah, my poor comrade,” said he, “ didst thou ask pardon of God before dying? “ — fearing that the evidence of suffering he had given was some grievous sin.

This brave spirit, who merited a better fate, was more tormented than ever by our barbarians after the death of his companion; for, the latter having died sooner than they expected, they all wreaked the rest of their fury upon him who remained. Accordingly, the first thing they did to him afterward was that one of them cut with a knife around his scalp, which he stripped off in order to carry away the hair, and, according to their custom, to preserve it as very precious.

After such treatment one would hardly believe that there could remain any sensation of life in a body so worn out with tortures. But lo! He suddenly rises, and, seeing upon the scaffold only the corpse of his dear companion, he takes in his hands, which were all in shreds, a firebrand, that he might not die as a captive, and that he might defend the brief liberty he had recovered a little while before death. The rage and the cries of his enemies redouble at this sight; they rush towards him with pieces of red-hot iron in their hands. His courage gives him strength; he puts himself on the defensive; he hurls his firebrands upon those who come nearest him; he throws down the ladders, to cut off their way, and avails himself of the fire and flame, the severity of which he has just experienced, to repel their attack vigorously. The blood that streamed down from his head over his entire body would have rent with pity a heart which had any remnant of humanity; but the fury of our barbarians found therein its satisfaction. 

Some throw upon him coals and burning cinders; others underneath the scaffold find open places for their firebrands. He sees on all sides almost as many butchers as spectators; when he escapes one fire, he encounters another, and takes not one step without falling into the evil that he flees.

While defending himself thus for a long time, a false step causes him to fall backward to the ground. At the same time, his enemies pounce upon him, burn him anew, then throw him upon the fire. This invincible spirit, rising again from the midst of the flames — all covered with cinders that were imbued in his blood, two flaming firebrands in his hands — turns towards the mass of his enemies, to inspire them with fear once more before he dies. Not one is so hardy as to touch him; he makes a way for himself, and walks towards the village, as if to set it on fire.

He advances about a hundred paces, when some one throws a club which fells him to the ground; before he can rise again, they are upon him; they cut off his feet and hands, and, having seized the rest of this mangled body, they turn it round and round over nine different fires, which he almost entirely extinguished with his blood. Finally they thrust him under an overturned tree-trunk, all on fire, so that, at the same time, there may be no part of his body which is not cruelly burned. It was then that nature, before yielding to the cruelty of these torments, made one last effort, that could never have been expected. For, having neither feet nor hands, he rolled over in the flames, and, having fallen outside of them, he moved more than ten paces, upon his elbows and knees, in the direction of his enemies, who fled from him, dreading the approach of a man to whom nothing remained but courage, of which they could not deprive him except by wresting away his life.

This they finally did, one of them cutting off his head with a knife. Happy stroke which gave him freedom! For we have reason to believe that this brave spirit is now enjoying in Heaven the freedom of the children of God, since even his enemies loudly exclaimed that there was something more than human within him, and that without doubt baptism had given him his strength and courage, which surpassed all that they had ever seen.

Several Savages have reported with wonder, and a sort of conviction of the truths that we preach to them, that, shortly before he received the last blow which caused his death, he raised his eyes to Heaven and cried out joyfully, “ Let us go, then, let us go,” as if he were answering a voice that invited him. [Thwaites: Jesuit Relations, Volume 17]

The common reaction of modern secular scholars to these types of accounts is as facile as it is dishonest. The claim is advanced that this and similar accounts were "fictionalized" or "exaggerated" by the Jesuit fathers. It is noteworthy that the one thing these critics often don't do in their long-winded attempts to excuse this type of grotesque brutality is quote liberally from the accounts themselves. 

Which is another reason I have done that here.

Book Review: "Joseph the Huron" by Antoinette Bosco

Years ago, I read the first 30 or so volumes of the Jesuit Relations—that vast treasure house of historical and ecclesiastical data on the eastern woodlands peoples and the early colonization of Canada, New England and New York. This was part of a very rewarding project called Iroquois Wars, Volume 1: Extracts from the Jesuit Relations and Primary Sources from 1535 to 1650. While pouring over the multitude of reports and letters written by intrepid and saintly men with names like Brebeuf, Jogues, and Lallemant, one also runs across numerous intriguing native people with names like Taratwane, Atironta, and Ondaaiondiont. But perhaps the one that stands out most vividly is Chiwatenhwa. 

This man of the Huron nation, called Joseph Chiwatenhwa after his baptism, lived that most remarkable of lives. Even before the Jesuits arrived, his existence had been markedly different from most of his people. He was an independent thinker, who did not participate thoughtlessly in some of the more ignoble aspects of Huron life. Whereas the French missionaries were often horrified at the grotesque behaviors of some whom they termed "savages" (meaning, literally, "people of the woods"), they soon came to admire Chiwatenhwa as a different sort of man. Writing of events that occurred in the Huron country in AD 1638, Father Fraçois le Mercier offers the following summary of Chiwatenhwa's character even before the time of his baptism: 

This brave Neophyte is thirty-five years old, or thereabout, and has almost nothing of the Savage, except his birth. Now, although he is not one of the most prosperous men of this village, he belongs, nevertheless, to one of the most notable families, being the nephew of the captain of this Nation. He is a man of superior mind, not only as compared with his countrymen, but even, in our judgment, he would pass as such in France. As for his memory, we have often wondered at it, for he forgets nothing of what we teach him, and it is a satisfaction to hear him discourse upon our Holy Mysteries. 

He has been married since his youth, and has never had more than one wife,—contrary to the ordinary practice of the Savages, who are accustomed at that age to change wives at almost every season of the year. He does not gamble, not even knowing how to handle the straws, which are the cards of the country. He does not use tobacco, which is, as it were, the wine and the intoxication of the country. If he annually makes a small garden near his cabin, it is only for pastime, he says, or to give to his friends, or to buy some little conveniences for his family. He has never made use of a charm to be successful. [See Jesuit Relations, Volume 15.]

Following his baptism, Chiwatenwha and his family would be ostracized by his fellow Hurons, many of whom viewed the Jesuit Blackrobes as men of ill omen who would bring destruction upon the nation.

Click here for more info.

This is the setting for a remarkable book for younger readers entitled: Joseph the Huron by Antoinette Bosco. I recently discovered this short work, put back into publication by Bethlehem Books in 2017, and my interest in those heady years of extreme zeal and extreme danger in the forests of 17th century North America came flooding back. Originally written in 1961, the book remains faithful to the true history as I recalled it, softening the more awful parts, but only a little. Indeed, the author included a scene that had remained in my memory from reading the Relations twenty years ago thanks to the sheer dreadfulness of it. The incident followed the capture of an Iroquois warrior who was put to a day-long torturous death by the Hurons that was the equivalent of a town-wide festival in those evil days. As the man was literally being burnt alive, bit-by-bit, the Jesuit fathers, unable to restrain the fury of the pre-Christian Hurons, were able to console the victim with the solace of Christ's suffering and the promise of eternal life. Before being literally torn apart, scalped and decapitated, the Iroquois accepted baptism, and the Jesuit father who witnessed this atrocity, remarked afterwards, "that this brave spirit is now enjoying in Heaven the freedom of the children of God, since even his enemies loudly exclaimed that there was something more than human within him."

But incidents like this form only the briefest of interludes within Joseph the Huron. Most of the book concerns the man's journey of faith, from a virtuous pagan to a wondering if impatient neophyte, and finally into a thoughtful Christian who, at times, seemed to eclipse the piety of even the saintly future martyrs who were his mentors and friends. The faith of Joseph Chiwatenwha is not that of the comfortable Christians of our own time. It is a faith constantly challenged by the omnipresent reality of struggle, hunger, disease, and death. Living during a time when Huron culture and behavior was often governed by the precise fulfillment of dreams—often quite ludicrous in nature—Joseph struggled with his own dreams, sometimes wondering whether they were tricks of the demon or visions from God. It may be remembered from a previous post that "abandoning their belief in dreams" was one of the commandments that St. Jean de Brebeuf enjoined upon the Hurons who would become Christians.

The characters of his immediate family also loom large in Joseph the Huron. In particular, the author explores Joseph's relationship with his beloved wife, Marie Aonetta, who would suffer much for her Christian faith. Similarly, the book shows the often contentious relationship between Chiwatenwha and his elder brother, Teondechoren, one of those among the Hurons who was deeply skeptical of anything have to do with Christianity. But the most vividly drawn character aside from Chiwatenwha himself is the man known as Echon—St. Jean de Brebeuf. Echon is accurately presented as Chiwatenwha's friend, teacher, spiritual father, and collaborator. 

As a novel, Joseph the Huron is a fast-paced and beautiful vignette of one man's life during a time of great strife and struggle, particularly well-suited for readers ages 12 and up. Unlike most books written for young readers, the main protagonist is not a young person but a fully grown man grappling with spiritual revelations and cultural differences. As a fully grown man myself, I enjoyed it thoroughly. By pulling the details of this saintly man's life out of the history books, the author has done the world a great favor.

Of Council Rock, Teedyuscung and "the Place of Solemn Assembly Visited by Delaware Indians"

"Teedyuscung," as he is know by the locals, gazes out over the Wissahickon
Creek toward the West. As he appeared in 2011.

 

Since I was a youth, I have enjoyed hiking in Valley Green—a beautiful stretch of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia along the Wissahickon Creek. A destination I have particularly favored is the limestone statue of an Indian which most of us locals have long referred to as Teedyuscung, chief of the Delawares. Originally placed on the spot in 1902, the statue is 12 feet high and the work of noted Scottish-American sculptor, John Massey Rhind. It sits high above Council Rock on a bluff commanding the east bank of the Wissahickon Creek. This picturesque location was so named because of its association with Lenape councils which took place there in olden days. I have been blessed to be able to share this pleasant spot with my own children and we have made the trek many times.

Sad to say, Valley Green has not been spared the ravages of Kenney-era Philadelphia. For reasons that remain obscure, the park has recently become a major party spot for revelers from out of state. Not that this is a bad thing on its face—the park is a public area that should be enjoyed by all. The problem is that many of the visitors who are part of the recent surge come to bathe in the creek (supposedly prohibited), set up grills and campsites, regale all and sundry with obnoxiously loud music, and leave piles of their filth behind for others to clean up. Things have gotten bad enough that locals are staging protests and Philly police have been blocking off parking lots, to little avail.

But honestly, the recent travails along Forbidden Drive are not what spurred me to write. It was, instead, a surprising complaint I heard from some representatives of the politically-obsessed but historically-challenged segment of society about the Indian statue specifically and any kind of Native American-inspired public art more generally. These are the folks who can't be bothered to read and analyze actual historical documents, but happily follow Howard-Zinn-style ersatz-history down whatever blind alleys it leads. Far from seeing the statue as an homage to Teedyuscung and the long departed Delawares (as it was intended), they claim that because it is not historically correct, the statue should be removed and/or replaced. Furthermore, they say, the rock upon which it sits was never a council site for the Lenape.

If this is starting to sound similar to my previous post about the statue of Christopher Columbus that was recently removed from Cooper River Park in New Jersey, keep reading.

Teedyuscung in Philadelphia
wearing his colonial-era finery.

With regard to the first issue, the statue does indeed show a Native American brave wearing a war-bonnet more typical of the Plains tribes of the 19th century than a Delaware of the mid-18th century. Interestingly, however, the only rough period depiction of Teedyuscung I could find showed him in a British great coat more reminiscent of William Penn than Tamanend (see image at right). I don't suppose that the complainants above would approve of a statue showing the Delaware chief in such garb, of course.

It is noteworthy that Rhind, the sculptor, never intended to depict Teedyuscung in this work, but rather a Native American figure looking toward the West, symbolizing the departure of the Delaware for Indian territory after the Treaty of Easton in 1758. According to the Friends of the Wissahickon Valley website:

“At the dedication of the statue, which was an event attended by the elite of the city and even by the governor of Pennsylvania, a presenter referred to the statue as 'Tedyuscung' and the name has persisted.” 

The presenter above may be forgiven this faux pas in that the existing stone statue replaced two wooden images that actually did depict Teedyuscung that had stood in the same spot but had deteriorated over the years. More about this below. 

So the claim that the statue is not a historically accurate representation of Teedyuscung is a red herring. It was never intended to be. That said, the statue itself is a beautiful piece of public art in perfect harmony with its surroundings, is a fitting tribute to Native peoples, and has its own very interesting history within local lore that should be respected. 

The second claim – that there is no evidence that Council Rock was ever an Indian meeting place – is simply not true. A post at the Hidden City site entitled “Monument to Ignorance” claims: “There is in fact little evidence that the Lenape lived along the Wissahickon. It is believed they came there to hunt and fish but that was all. Indeed, historians have found no evidence that so called 'council rock' was ever used as a gathering spot and a visit to the location reveals a rather small bluff that would hardly be a good location for a mass gathering.” 

In making that claim, Hidden City does not provide a citation to the research of those “historians who have found no evidence.” They do, however, make passing mention of an article by Rev. Thomas Middleton (1842-1923), a Catholic priest who was a convert from Quakerism and who later in life served as president of Villanova College. A read over Fr. Middleton’s article, entitled "Some Memoirs of Our Lady’s Shrine at Chestnut Hill, PA. AD 1855-1900", provides some fascinating evidence that Hidden City apparently overlooked—or disregarded. I am happy to post the following excerpt from this forgotten piece of history: 

“…There can be no question that at Chestnut Hill on the north bank of the picturesque Wissahickon is yet to be seen the place of solemn assembly visited by Delaware Indians, known to them as Council, (though now more commonly styled Indian,) Rock—an unfailing object of curiosity to passers-by on the Wissahickon road. In this reference to Council Rock, no pointed allusion is intended to their yearly visits thither of the Delaware Indians from Bethlehem, all Moravians, I should say. That members of this particular tribe with their chieftains, one of them Tedyuscung, whose name is famed in story and song, came periodically on pilgrimage to Chestnut Hill is unquestioned.

At Council Rock, April 2011.

But while there is no positive evidence, as must be said in all honesty, that Catholic Indians were settled at the Hill, or thereabouts, or even visited it, still, unless I am mistaken in my reasoning, there is a fair, even strong, probability, that while on their road to St. Joseph’s, or the city, and their return home, these same Indians were wont too with their other forest brethren to gather at Council Rock or matters of tribal or family discussion.

In his boyhood days the writer was acquainted with two aged maiden ladies—the Misses Lydia and Susan Piper, daughters of John Piper, whose residence (as it too had been their father’s) was a few years ago on the purchase of the property of Charles A. Newhall transformed by him into a coach-house. These two old dames (now many years dead) told the father of the writer how in their girlhood days, the Indians (we have been speaking of,) in their yearly pilgrimage to Council Rock never failed in passing by to stop at their father’s house, for hospitality on their way to the spot, that for ages maybe had been the meeting-place of their sires. John Piper was regarded by these wild children of the forest as their friend. From him they got food and drink; and were given shelter in his barn—a very tumble-down affair, just across Chestnut avenue in front of what once was the old Piper homestead.

Near by the “barn” or the ruins of it, the observer may yet descry their lines, though now barely distinguishable from the surrounding soil, are (or rather were) mounds of aboriginal construction, apparently used for burial purposes, as therein at one time (so the writer has been told) could be found interred various relics of Indian make, but of late years overturned and rifled of their contents by curio-seekers. Usually the visit to the Hill of these forest pilgrims lasted a month, during which time they were engaged chiefly in “pow-wows” around the Rock.

The "apse" described by Fr. Middleton
as it appeared in 2019.

And now having referred to the fact of Indian visits to the Hill, we come to their place of meeting on the Wissahickon, at Council Rock, about midway between the mansion of Chancellor C. English and the creek. The writer remembers when a boy visiting that famous shrine of Indian veneration, then apparently changed little from its primeval form and appearance. Projecting from under the hollowed front of this rock, that by art, or (as seems more probably) by nature, I know not which, had been scooped out like some rudely fashioned tiny chapel apse, was a ledge or shelf-like stone—something that might have served for a seat, or throne, for aboriginal chieftains, or may be as an altar of worship. All over the inner face of this cave, easily distinguishable then, were marks, symbolic signs, of odd-looking shape, of strokes and curves, or crooked lines, drawn in what seemed to be red and blue paints, which the writer remembers he was told, were inscriptions in Indian sign-language. These symbols, plain enough to view in the ‘50s, at the time of his earliest visits thither, are now no longer to be seen.

In those days, Council Rock was sheltered in the woods, and by the very fact of its solitude guarded from profanation. Trees and thick undergrowth of bushes and vines, which covered the Wissahickon hills, cut off all view of the Rock from around, while the very existence of the spot was known to but a few persons, and honored by still fewer.

There was no easy way of approach to the Rock—in fact, but few people seemed to know of it—some by the woodpaths, rough at best and unenticing, that winding snake-like among the trees led thither. At that time too along the creek, there was no drive, nor any Chestnut avenue running back (as now) from Thomas’ Mill road to within a short distance from the Rock. So that with the place little known, and the traditions centering around it in keeping of only a few persons, there was no mutilation of the shrine; no defacing the lines of it, no scratching out the symbols on it. Now the seat-like shape of this inner shelf in the cave has disappeared in large part—chipped away by relic-hunter, or thoughtless visitor….”

Also intriguing is Fr. Middleton’s further account describing the first image Teedyuscung which was placed on the spot to honor the Delaware chief. In fact, he had a personal connection to this wooden effigy erected in 1856. In the same article as above, he says: 

“The writer of these lines was witness too of the erection on the summit of Council Rock, mainly by the energy of his father, of the first image (in wood) of the venerable Tedyuscung, chief of the Delawares, and remembers moreover the many researches made in old books, and many discussions held by the parties of interest, to determine just how to guide the artist that was to paint the wooden icon of the departed Leni-Lenape brave and adorn him with colors proper to his race and tribe."

Fr. Middleton goes on to record the costs associated with erecting this first statue in detail. In a footnote below this passage, Fr. Middleton adds: “From the Germantown Telegraph I learn that the figure of Tedyuscung standing on the rock was placed in position on July 18, (Friday) 1856, “in commemoration of (his) last visit to the spot, which happened just one hundred years ago.” 

Fr. Middleton’s article may be read in its entirety here as part of a collection compiled by the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia ~ Some Memoirs of Our Lady’s Shrine at Chestnut Hill, PA. AD 1855-1900. 

I found all of this to be fascinating and very compelling. 

Council Rock in the Wissahickon valley has a long and storied history, mostly unknown these days to those of us who grew up in the region. And if it must be pointed out that the statue on the Rock is not strictly accurate as to the figure’s dress, I say, “So what?” The concept of artistic license and symbolism is a long honored practice. If we start quibbling over the historical accuracy of works of art, then Joan of Arc on the Parkway will have to be replaced with a figure wearing more accurate 15th century French armor and the St. Gaudens Diana in the Art Museum atrium will have to come down because her hair-style is too 19th century for a supposed Roman goddess. Sadly, I have little doubt that the neo-ignorati who wish to dismount "Teedyuscung" at Council Rock would likely approve these innovations as well. Beauty and tradition are words that seem positively anathema to them.

By way of epilogue to this already overly-long article, allow me to add another interesting tid-bit from Fr. Middleton’s article about a fixture that should be immediately recognizable to anyone who frequents Forbidden Drive:

The Pro Bono Publico fountain as it appears
today.

Here on a quarter acre of land purchased by Mr. Cooke for this purpose and subsequently donated by him to the city of Philadelphia, was erected this granite fountain, on the design of one he had chanced upon in his travels in Europe. The writer remembers well the several phases in the genesis of this work of beneficence—the hewing of the granite in his father’s quarry, where the fountain was made, the chisellings and inscriptions on it by the hand of Richard Hunt, a stone-cutter; its erection on the spot it now adorns; and finally the fact that when connection had been made with the springs—there was a whole nest of them—at the rear of the monument on the hill-side, he was witness of the jubilee of the builders in their hailing the fountain as a boon to the public—PRO BONO PUBLICO—for the public good—being one of the inscriptions on it. ESTO PERPETUA—be thou everlasting—the other. And drinking therefrom, men and beasts straightway went their road refreshed and enlivened. (Middleton, page 26) 

Lamentably, it seems that the builders of yesteryear may have been overly optimistic in hopes that the works of their hands would remain in perpetuity. The facade mentioned above may still be seen on Forbidden Drive, but the fountain itself was sealed up in the 1950s because the water had become tainted. 

Our own age seems to be polluted with a foreign ideology that favors vandalism and destruction over inspiration and creativity. Too many of our young people were never taught to treasure and enhance their unique local heritage and have instead been fooled into a deleterious mindset reminiscent of students during the Cultural Revolution in China: that the past must be relentlessly swept away in the mindless pursuit of ephemeral material gains and counterproductive political changes.

Who Was Christopher Columbus? ~ Hero or Villain? Criminal or Crusader?

Statue of Christopher Columbus near the Cooper River, New Jersey.
In January of 2018, vandals threw paint on this statue.

Each year, the media narrative assures us, more Americans are ditching the archaic holiday known as Columbus Day. After all, they claim, what's the point of celebrating a man who brought destruction to the noble and advanced indigenous civilizations of the Americas that lived in harmonious symbiosis with nature? Why glorify a man who introduced the slave trade and who actually didn't discover anything except a brilliant civilization that was already thriving?

Rather than celebrate Columbus, many would now prefer to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. I assume this would be a new holiday created by modern-day myth-builders of the Liz Warren variety—that is, goofy individuals of European descent who identify as native because it is considered "woke." Sadly, as Catholics can see from the ridiculous antics going on before our eyes at the Amazon Synod, many within the Church have drunk the fire-water and some graying relics of the flower-child generation are now quite open about their preference for the naked state of nature as opposed to the awful, rigid, moralistic confines of Christendom.

However, before the rest of us benighted, non-woke Catholics meekly go along with such brazen script-flipping, we should take a fresh look at the history absent the jaundiced eye of Howard-Zinn-style intellectual dishonesty.

Were there aspects of indigenous pre-Columbian culture that are worth celebrating? Sure. However, the overall human condition in the Americas prior to Columbus's arrival is not something that anyone in their right mind wants to revive. Frankly, when one delves into the primary source material, it’s hard to argue that the perpetual warfare, slavery, torture, cannibalism and other atrocities that existed among the tribes before the arrival of the Europeans was anything other than repulsive. Even at a distance of four hundred years, it's difficult to read such accounts and not lose your lunch.

But let's start with Columbus himself and his motivations. To begin, I think all can agree that Christopher Columbus had many flaws. Though an outspoken and zealous Catholic, Columbus's greatest flaw seems to have been that he was a worldly man of his time. He saw gold everywhere and the desire that his mission be a financial success drove him ever onward. He was fixated on monetary gain largely because he wished to demonstrate to the sovereigns who had put their trust in him—King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain—that they would benefit from his bold venture and that their trust in him had not been misplaced.

That said, one should not assume that Columbus’s eagerness for wealth had anything to do with a desire to live like a an oriental potentate or accrue political power to himself. His own personal comfort and exaltation were often the farthest things from his mind. Instead, he wished to use the wealth he garnered from his discoveries to launch an even greater expedition: a new Crusade to liberate the Holy Land from from Islamic captivity. In this excerpt from a letter written by Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella on March 4, 1493, we can see Columbus's idealistic intentions clearly in the form of a vow which, in hindsight, seems ridiculously optimistic:

I conclude here: that through the divine grace of He who is the origin of all good and virtuous things, who favors and gives victory to all those who walk in His path, that in seven years from today I will be able to pay Your Highnesses for five thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot soldiers for the war and conquest of Jerusalem, for which purpose this enterprise was undertaken. And in another five years another five thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot soldiers, which will total ten thousand cavalry and one hundred thousand foot soldiers. [Taken from Letter to the Sovereigns of 4 March 1493]

If you read more of Columbus's writings, they are littered with similar outbursts of unrestrained enthusiasm for a new crusade against Islam.

When studying any historical figure, context is of the utmost importance. It is worth remembering that in AD 1453, forty years before Columbus's voyage and two years after his birth, Constantinople—that great capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire—was conquered by the Turks. This event sent shock-waves across a Christian Europe which trembled in fear as the Ottomans gathered their strength for additional thrusts to the west. It is within this civilizational context that Columbus's desire for a new crusade funded by riches gained from his discoveries should be understood.

One of the other common criticisms of Columbus is that he attempted to impose slavery upon the peoples he discovered. While this is certainly true, we should remember that in Columbus's day, slavery was practiced throughout the world—in Europe certainly, but with considerably greater vigor and ubiquity in the Islamic east, China, Africa, and, yes, among the native tribes of the Americas themselves. Thus, what Columbus did was in no way novel. If Columbus proposed to the sovereigns of Spain that a slave trade of the warlike Carib Indians could be established in order to offset some of the expenses involved in colonization, his fault may be mitigated somewhat by the brutal practicalities of his age. Similar suggestions, no doubt, could have come from the mouths of courtiers serving the Ottoman Empire, Ming China, Mughal India, Ivan the Great's Russia, or anywhere else at the time. To their credit, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain rejected the idea.

Much is also made of Columbus's ill treatment of the Tainos, the natives of present-day Hispanola. But a reading of his journals shows a much more complicated situation than most quick-history websites will permit. An excellent, primary-source-focused overview of the four voyages of Columbus may be found in an old book edited by Julius E. Olson entitled: The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot [published in 1906]. When perusing the sources provided in this book, the reader will see that even as early as 1493—a year after the discovery—relations between the Spaniards and the native tribes in the Caribbean had already devolved to suspicion and murder. Below, I present a summary of how events occurred soon after Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, complete with excerpts from eyewitness accounts.

It is certainly worth reading these passages before passing judgment on Columbus.

When Columbus's flagship, the Santa Maria, ran aground on Christmas day 1492 off the coast of modern-day Haiti, the admiral was surprised to find ready assistance from a local chief named Guacanagari who helped him offload men and cargo from the stricken ship. So impressed was Columbus with his reception, that he recorded the following initial impression of the Taino in his usual effusive style:

The king (Guacanagari) and all his people wept. They are a loving people, without coventousness, and fit for anything; and I assure your Highnesses that there is no better land or people. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their speech is the sweetest and gentlest in the world, and always with a smile. Men and women go as naked as when their mothers bore them. Your Highnesses should believe that they have very good customs among themselves. The king is a man of remarkable presence, and with a certain self-contained manner that is a pleasure to see. They have good memories, wish to see everything, and ask the use of what they see. [The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, page 201]

After the loss of his flagship, Columbus did not have enough space or provisions to sail back to Spain with all his men. He therefore made a virtue of necessity and decided to leave 44 volunteers behind with the Tainos. To house them, he caused a fort to be constructed which he named La Navidad. Though the Tainos appeared friendly and harmless, Columbus and his comrades were taking no chances. To demonstrate that the Spaniards would be able to help the Tainos defend against their hated enemies, the Caribs, Columbus conducted a military drill in which arquebuses and canon were discharged, much to the shock of the natives. The editor of Columbus's journal summarizes the admiral's concerns and practical rationale as follows: “All this was done that the King (Guacanagari) might look upon the men who were left behind as friends, and that he might also have a proper fear of them.” [The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, page 209]

However, such precautions turned out to be insufficient. Some time after Columbus's departure, the settlement at La Navidad was annihilated. How or why this happened remains a mystery to this day, but when Columbus returned a year later with a much larger expedition, he met with a puzzling welcome. While approaching the site of La Navidad, the Spaniards discovered several dead bodies ashore, at least a few of which were judged to be European due to the presence of a heavy beard. When Columbus's fleet entered the bay where La Navidad had been planted, one of Guacanagari's cousins came out to meet him. Columbus inquired regarding the welfare of the Spanish who had been left in their care, and he received the following response, as taken from the letter of an eyewitness, Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca:

Guacanagari’s cousin replied that those who remained were all well, but that some of them had died of disease, and others had been killed in quarrels that had arisen among them; and that Guacanagari was at some distance, lying ill of a wound in his leg. [The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, page 300]

If this report relieved Columbus, the relief was not to last. As his ship approached the site of La Navidad, Columbus discharged two cannon as a signal, hoping for a reply from the men at the fort. He was met with silence. Landing near the site, his worst fears were realized: the fort had been burnt and leveled to the ground with no sign of survivors. The few Tainos they encountered seemed reticent and fled at the approach of the Spanish. This was a sharp contrast to the warm welcome Columbus had received the previous year. Eventually, the Spanish were able to coax a few Tainos into conversation, and the full extent of the disaster was revealed. Dr. Chanca relates:

When they were asked concerning the Spaniards, they replied that all of them were dead…The king of Caonabo and Mayreni had made an attack upon them and burnt the buildings on the spot, that many were wounded in the affray, and among them Guacanagari, who had received a wound in his thigh, and had retired to some distance. [The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, page 301]

When Columbus himself arrived on shore, new details began to emerge. Dr. Chanca continues:

We also learned that they had shown where the bodies of eleven of the dead Spaniards were laid, which were already covered with grass that had grown over them; and they all with one voice asserted that Caonabo and Mayreni had killed them; but notwithstanding all this, we began to hear complaints that one of the Spaniards had taken three women to himself, and another four; from whence we drew the inference that jealousy was the cause of the misfortune which had occurred.

For his part, Guacanagari was finally located and he welcomed Columbus with tears, explaining that some of the Spaniards had gone off with Caonabo (another Taino chief) in search of gold and had been slain. Later, Caonabo returned and burned La Navidad as well as Guacanagari's own village. Dr. Chanca tells us that there was much evidence that just such an attack had occurred. However, Dr. Chanca and many of the other Spanish remained suspicious because the wound in Guacanagari's thigh which had supposedly hobbled him, was shown to be completely healed when the Spanish physician removed the bandage and examined it. For what it's worth Guacanagari remained a faithful collaborator with Columbus for the few remaining years of his life, to the point where he was eventually forced to flee to the hills by the other Taino chiefs.

For the Spanish, however, the charred remains of La Navidad spelled the end of any illusions they harbored that the Tainos were a peaceful, loving people. And whereas Columbus had previously portrayed life among them as little short of Eden in his journal entries during his first voyage, suspicion is evident in Dr. Chanca's letter, and the enmity generated by this encounter would later lead to a full-scale war between the Spanish and the Tainos. As a result of this war, subsequent famines, and waves of European diseases that washed over them for which they had no immunity, the Tainos would be almost completely wiped over the next 30 years.

But if the Taino failed to live up to the modern Euro-inspired mythology of native peoples as peace-loving, nature-children innocents, their culture nonetheless compared very favorably to their more savage neighbors, the Caribs. Indeed, it was the Caribs who harassed and preyed upon the Tainos prior to the arrival of the Spanish with a ferocity that can scarcely be imagined. Dr. Chanca, writing during Columbus's second voyage in 1493, describes the interactions between the Caribs and the Tainos as follows:

The habits of these Caribbees are brutal….In their attacks upon the neighboring islands, these people capture as many of the women as they can, especially those who are young and beautiful, and keep them for servants and as concubines. And so great a number do they carry off, that in fifty houses, no men were to be seen, and out of the number of the captives, more than twenty were young girls. These women also say that the Caribbees use them with such cruelty as would scarcely be believed, and that they eat the children which they bear to them, and only bring up those which they have with their native wives. Such of their male enemies as they can take alive, they bring to their houses to slaughter them, and those who are killed, they devour at once. They say that man’s flesh is so good, that there is nothing like it in the world; and this is pretty evident, for of the bones which we found in their houses, they had gnawed everything that could be gnawed, so that nothing remained of them, but what from its great hardness could not be eaten. In one of the houses we found the neck of a man, cooking in a pot.

When they take any boys prisoners, they cut off their member and make use of them as servants until they grow up to manhood, and then when they wish to make a feast, they kill and eat them; for they say that the flesh of boys and women is not good to eat. Three of these boys came fleeing to us thus mutilated. [The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, page 290]

It should be remembered that it was the Caribs—not the Tainos—that Columbus first attempted to enslave.

None of this is to exculpate the later actions of the Spanish regarding the conquest of the native tribes of the Caribbean. However, by reading some of the eyewitness accounts taken from that time, we are able to get a clearer picture of the cultures Columbus and the first Spanish explorers encountered and their impressions of them. Rather than Eden, the account above of the Caribs and the practices encountered on the islands they inhabited sounds more like a vision of Hell on earth. We should pause before blindly celebrating such cultures, or accepting the false modern stereotype of the native person living in peace and harmony with all creatures and caring for the environment. If the Europeans of those times had deep and abiding flaws, certainly the indigenous cultures did as well.

As for Columbus, the records of his time reveal that he was a man who possessed many of the warts common to Europeans of his time—a harsh worldliness, a lust for wealth, and a tunnel-vision focus on his own goals. But beyond these flaws, Columbus rose well above his contemporaries as a man of unique vision, leadership, perseverance, abnegation, and courage even in the face of death.

It is for these latter attributes that the European discoverer of the Americas ought to be remembered.

We may also celebrate the advent of Christianity in the New World which did much to mitigate the more brutal aspects of both the European and the indigenous American civilizations as they collided in the 16th century. It was Christianity that created an environment in which a humble man like Saint Juan Diego could emerge from the bloodthirsty Mexica peoples and a beautiful lily like Saint Kateri Tekakwitha could bloom among the harsh woodlands of pre-colonial New York State.

As for those modern-day vandals who have no achievements of their own to celebrate but choose instead to tear down the monuments of their ancestors, or to pretend to be descended from native peoples to enhance their own resumes—their words and behaviors should inspire in us nothing but contempt.

"Without morals a republic can not subsist." ~ Charles Carroll, the only Catholic Signatory of the Declaration of Independence

Click here to share this image on Facebook.

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
—Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence

In anticipation of Independence Day, here is another quote in a continuing series on the Founding Fathers of the American Republic. This one, from Charles Carroll, demonstrates the commonly held view that the propagation of Christian concepts of morality is absolutely vital for the maintenance of liberty. This particular quote is taken from a letter of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, as written to James McHenry on November 4, 1800.

Following is some context. In the letter, Carroll sounds a prophetic warning of the dangers posed by the rational atheism of revolutionary France which, far from enshrining liberty for the French people, instead served as a prelude to despotism:

"If the people of this country were united, it would have nothing to fear from foreign powers; but unhappily this is not the case; many of the opposers of ye present administration, I suspect want change of the federal constitution; if that should be altered, or weakened so as to be rendered a dead letter, it will not answer the purposes of its formation and will expire from mere inanity: other confederacies will start up & ye scene of ye Grecian States, after an interval of more than two thousand years, will be renewed on this continent, & some British or Buonaparte will melt the whole of them into one mass of despotism. 

"These events will be hastened by the pretended Philosophy of France: divine revelation has been scoffed at by the Philosophers of the present day, the immortality of the soul treated as the dreams of fools, or the invention of knaves, & death has been declared by public authority an eternal sleep: these opinions are gaining ground among us, & silently sapping the foundations of a religion the encouragement of ye good, the terror of evil doers, and the consolation of the poor, the miserable, and the distressed. Remove the hope and dread of future rewards & punishments, the most powerful restraint on wicked actions, & ye strongest inducement to virtuous ones is done away. Virtue may be said is its own reward; I believe it to be so and even in this life the only source of happiness; and this intimate & necessary connection between virtue & happiness here and between vice and misery is to my mind one of the surest pledges of happiness or misery in a future state of existence. 

"But how few practice virtue for its own reward! Some of happy disposition & temperament, calm reflecting men, exempt in a great degree from the turbulence of passions may be virtuous for virtue's sake: small, however, is the number who are guided by reason alone, & who can always subject their passions to its dictates? He, who can thus act, may be said to be virtuous; but reason is often inlisted on the side of the passions, or at best, when most wanted, is weakest — Hence the necessity of a superior motive for acting virtuously; now, what motive can be stronger than ye belief, founded on revelation, that a virtuous life will be rewarded by a happy immortality? 

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time. They therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, who denounces against the wicked eternal misery, & insures to the good eternal happiness are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.

"If there be force in this reasoning, what judgment ought we to form of our pretended republicans, who admire & applaud the proceedings of revolutionary France! 

"These declaimers in favor of freedom & equality act in such a questionable shape that I cannot help suspecting their sincerity." 

As to this last sentence, I have often asked myself this same question regarding those who profess to the common libertarian viewpoints—who find talk of virtue tedious, but never tire of demanding that the law be loosened as regards to common vices of the most destructive sort.

Click here to read Charles Carroll's whole letter in The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, Secretary of War under Washington and Adams by Bernard Christian Steiner.

Charles Huault de Montmagny - The Great Mountain of New France

"Onontio - Great Mountain."
Charles Huault de Montmagny
(AD 1599-1654)

The conventional mythology propagated in many modern, politically-sensitive works of history claims that the first European settlers of North America intruded upon a pristine wilderness and brutalized a peaceful native population. But anyone who has studied the primary-source history of the early colonial period knows this to be a gross misrepresentation. Perhaps nowhere was this absurd notion less true than in New France, a vast region roughly equivalent to eastern Canada.
     When the French planted their first firm settlement on the St. Lawrence River at Quebec in 1608, they could not have known that the century to come would be one of blood and fire. Within a year of their arrival, the tiny colony, led by the fearless explorer Samuel de Champlain, was already entangled in the endless cycle of war and vengeance raiding that plagued the native tribes of the region. Immediately befriended by the Algonquin, Montagnais, and Huron nations that routinely traded along the St. Lawrence, the French were cajoled into assisting these tribes against their traditional enemies, the Iroquois Confederacy. With the aid of a few French musketeers, the allied tribes were quickly able to win two stunning but ultimately fruitless victories over Iroquois war parties.
      When Champlain died at Quebec on Christmas Day 1635, his fledgling colonies along the St. Lawrence were in a precarious condition. Trade with the Dutch colonies along the Hudson River had given the Iroquois access to European-style arms and they soon learned to wield the musket or arquebus with deadly precision. Emboldened by their new weaponry and enflamed by their insatiable desire for revenge, the Iroquois raided up and down the St. Lawrence, destroying the villages of their enemies, killing and capturing innumerable Algonquins, Montagnais, Hurons, and French.
      Charles Huault de Montmagny was the man chosen to succeed Champlain as governor of New France during this time of tumult. Born in Paris in 1599, Montmagny was educated by the Jesuits and studied law at the Universite d’Orleans. He joined the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1622, thus gaining his knowledge of things martial from no lesser masters than those who trained him in religion and the law.
      When he arrived in New France in 1636, Montmagny was faced with an imminent and growing menace posed by the Iroquois as well as a brilliant opportunity to propagate the Catholic faith among the tribes. As a Montagnais chief explained to the new governor:

“We have two powerful enemies who are destroying us, one is ignorance of God, which is killing our souls; the other is the Iroquois, who are slaughtering our bodies.”

Montmagny was determined to protect the Indian allies to the utmost of his ability and to make certain that those who wished to be initiated into the Catholic faith could be instructed under the auspices of the valiant Jesuit missionaries.
      His first test was not long in coming. In August of 1637, an Iroquois war party some 500 strong began ambushing Huron canoes in the vicinity of the new French settlement at Three Rivers. To put the size of this force into perspective, it is well to remember that the entire French population in the whole vast expanse of Canada at the time amounted to only a few hundred. As it happened, Montmagny was present at Three Rivers at the time of this raid and quickly moved to put the place on a secure defensive footing. Expecting an attack, he gathered the terrified allied Indians within the redoubt and armed them with swords, poles, and knives. Though well-trained in European-style warfare, Montmagny did not disdain the rudimentary techniques of the Iroquois. Nor did he underestimate their ability to wage war via guile. When a lone Iroquois canoe appeared in the middle of the river, seemingly taunting the defenders of the redoubt, Montmagny restrained his few men and the Indian allies, correctly discerning an ambush. He dispatched a bark to reconnoiter and a skillful shot from a brass cannon caused the Iroquois hiding along the bank to withdraw. Wrote Fr. Paul le Jeune:

“He put everything in so good order, among both the French and the Savages that there was cause to praise our Lord for the method and resoluteness existing on both sides.”

      Over the next few years, the Iroquois focused their attacks on softer targets and Montmagny was able to spend more of his time and energy propagating the faith among the Indians. A Jesuit seminary was founded to educate the Huron and Algonquin children, and Montmagny did everything in his power to assist the missionaries in their work. Father le Jeune deemed him a “very remarkable example of piety,” leading by personal example. He attended the catechism classes held by the Jesuits, performed innumerable corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and acted as godfather for at least a dozen Indian neophytes.
      When several of the Montagnais who settled near the French contracted a deadly illness, Montmagny did not shrink from visiting their sick. When the son of convert Noël Nagabamat died from the illness, the bereaved chief said to Fr. le Jeune:

“Nikanis, thou shalt say to our Captain, that I thank him for having visited my son during his illness. Assure him that my heart is quite free and that I remember well the promise that I have given to God, to serve Him all my life.” 

 Fr. le Jeune reports that these words greatly affected Montmagny, whom he calls on this occasion, “the Knight of the Holy Spirit, so ready do I find him to perform saintly and courageous deeds and actions replete with the spirit of God.”
      Montmagny was also zealous in defending the newly converted Indians from those who objected to their Christian practices. When a pagan youth found his explicit advances rebuffed by a Christian Montagnais girl, his father entered the village and threatened death to those who believed in the Christian God. When the man refused to be appeased by the elders, he was brought before Montmagny who told him in no uncertain terms that he himself was a man who believed in Jesus Christ and loved prayer. Furthermore, he warned that any attack upon the Christian Indians was an attack upon him personally. Fr. Barthèlemy Vimont adds, “Such a sermon, preached in a Fort armed with cannon, had its effect.”

Map of the St. Lawrence Valley by Sanson, ca. 1650.

      The torture of prisoners among the tribes was a grim reality and Montmagny did all in his power to liberate captives whenever possible. When his allies the Algonquins captured an Iroquois after a sharp encounter, Montmagny ransomed the poor soul mere hours before his horrible death by fire. The grateful prisoner, realizing that he had been saved, repeated the word “Onontio” several times. This was the Indian appellation that Montmagny had gained, meaning “Great Mountain,” a literal translation of his name from the French and an apparent reference to his imposing stature.
      It wasn’t long before renewed Iroquois raiding forced Montmagny to again concentrate on defense. In 1641, a large Iroquois war party appeared near Three Rivers bearing two French prisoners. The Iroquois claimed that their mission was a peaceful one—to trade the French prisoners and forge a treaty—but their true motives were soon laid bare. The alliance they sought was a separate peace with the French, leaving the Iroquois a free hand to ravage their traditional enemies, the Hurons, Montagnais, and Algonquins. Discerning this, Montmagny nonetheless refused to abandon his allies. However, he was not so quick to cast aside even a tenuous chance at peace. He gave presents of knives, blankets, mats, robes, and hatchets to the Iroquois chiefs, respecting the traditional practice of the country, and offered a comprehensive peace that included the allies of the French. This partially placated the Iroquois, but it soon became evident that they were holding out for an even greater prize—a gift of arquebuses. Doubting their good faith, Montmagny refused to grant this request. In response, the Iroquois war party raised an Algonquin scalp above their camp signifying war and began firing upon the French boats that had come out to parley. They raged that Onontio had not given them arquebuses to eat, meaning that he had not given them the requested present. Fr. Vimont reported:

“Their insolence made Monsieur the Governor resolve to give them arquebuses to eat, but not in the way that they asked.”

      Commanding from a bark in the river, Montmagny ordered the French vessels to discharge their cannon upon the Iroquois fort. The Iroquois, however, had contrived a clever strategem to escape the barrage. Hidden in the woods behind their encampment, they had constructed another fort to which they had retreated during the bombardment. When the French ships approached afterwards to inspect the damage, they were met by a hail of shot from Iroquois arquebusiers firing from behind trees on the shoreline. Montmagny’s own ship was hit by numerous balls, but not seriously damaged. When night fell, the Iroquois escaped into the forest.
      After this encounter, Montmagny sought to better secure the settlements against Iroquois raiders by fortifying the mouth of the Richelieu River, the main thoroughfare which carried Iroquois canoes to the St. Lawrence. This project had barely commenced when an Iroquois raiding party descended upon the workers and few soldiers garrisoning the place. Montmagny, who had been aboard ship, rushed to shore and entered the incomplete redoubt to command the defense. The Iroquois attacked with vigor, charging right up to the incomplete palisade wall and firing through the loopholes at the defenders inside. After a protracted struggle, the French were able to repulse the attack, but according to Fr. Vimont:

“Had not Monsieur the Governor been present, all the workmen would have been cut to pieces.”

      This small victory was immediately superseded by a disaster—the capture of Fr. Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, and several other French and Huron converts by the Iroquois. These were brought to Iroquoia where they suffered the torments common to most prisoners captured in the wars of the eastern woodlands. At the spot where these poor souls were delivered to an earthly hell, Montmagny caused a high cross to be erected on the day of the exaltation of the Holy Cross.
      Sadly, the French still lacked the manpower to launch any sort of reprisal. The fort at the mouth of the Richelieu River proved only a temporary deterrent which the Iroquois raiders soon found ways to skirt. Throughout the mid-1640s, Montmagny consistently sought a way to achieve a true peace and in the summer of 1645, it appeared he had achieved it. During an exchange of prisoners, a freed Iroquois captive said:

“Onontio, it must be admitted that thou art good and that we are wicked, but our anger has departed; I no longer have any ardor except for peace and joy.”

Read more about this
fascinating era in history
in Iroqouis Wars I and II.

      But as with most peace treaties in the eastern woodlands, this one proved short-lived. Within a year, the Iroquois attacked the Algonquins, Hurons, and French with renewed ferocity, driving deep into the country of the Hurons and scattering the Algonquin and Montagnais tribes near Quebec. Yet by this time, Montmagny’s third term as governor had come to a close and he was recalled to France. With his departure, New France was left without a strong hand on the tiller during a time of acute crisis. Disaster quickly followed as the Indian allies of the French, along with many of their resident Jesuit missionaries, were almost completely annihilated by Iroquois attacks. But Montmagny witnessed none of this. Having returned to France, he later ventured to the West Indies, where he died in 1654.
      Montmagny’s foresight, diligence, personal courage, zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith, and the reputation he forged among the Indians, had been crucial to the survival of the French colonies in Canada. Indeed, even after his departure in 1647, his successors continued to be called “Onontio,” a testament to the personal impact Montmagny had upon the Indians. In his ten plus years as governor of New France, he had shown himself to be a model Catholic executive, who guarded well those under his protection while greatly respecting the law and giving noteworthy attention to the spreading of the Gospel. Indeed, Charles Huault de Montmagny is an excellent exemplar of a Catholic office-holder and member of “the Church militant.”

I wrote this biographical article on Montmagny several years ago for the sadly departed periodical, Catholic Men's Quarterly. As historical pieces never go out of style, I figured I would reproduce it here.