Their work would be interrupted in 1629, when the English took possession of Quebec and forced the clerics back home; but in 1633, the Jesuits returned, more determined than ever to convert the heathen Canadians.
The Jesuit success was slow, but they go on to say that ...some young men offered themselves to us of their own accord, with many evidences of good will. However, we shall not hasten their baptism, because this would render it almost impossible for them to find wives, since there are, as yet, no good Christian girls here. Until we have a village that is entirely devoted to God, the marriages of our new Christians will occasion us difficulty. A young Canadian man is quoted in the Relations as saying: 'If we take a wife, at the first whim that seizes her, she will at once leave us; and then we are reduced to a wretched life seeing that it is the women in our country who sow, plant, and cultivate the land, and prepare food for their husbands'.
Naturally, the women were not to eager to upset the status quo. They rather enjoyed their position and immediately rejected the concepts of Christianity, which offered a bleak future for their gender. Christian marriages required the obedience and subjugation of women, and they were not raised to be subjugated. The rules set down by the Jesuits, should a woman wish to join their flock were clear. Not only were they expected to refuse the advances of men, but were never to make any themselves.
Finally, under the pressures of war with the Iroqouis, European disease, which hit them hard in their close living quarters, and the fledging fur trade; some began to 'see the light'. But as Christianity began to sweep through the various villages, tensions rose and clan structure disinegrated. More young men and women now had "an appropriate sense of shame about sex", the ultimate goal of the missionaries.
In vain, those wishing to hold onto old traditions, tried to exploit the sexual vulnerability of the young Christian converts by inciting girls to seduce Christian men. One account in the Jesuit Relations, in particular, describes this suppressing of sexual desires: Our Huron snows have been whitened, this winter, by the chastity of a young Christian, who feeling in his body a fire, of which he had more horror than of that Hell, and temptations so powerful that it seemed to him that all the Demons of impurity possessed him. Transported with a holy despair, he ran into a neighboring wood, stripped himself quite naked, threw himself into the snows, and rolled in them a long time— bathing them with his tears and uttering his prayers to Heaven with so much fervor, having lost nearly all feeling, those infernal flames became entirely quenched, and left his soul as vigorous, after this victory, as he found his body dejected. He had passed the test. Sex was no longer a pleasure, but a duty; the mark of a good Christian.
They had mistakenly driven the Mohawk from the St. Lawrence several years before, who had since been enjoying active trade with the Dutch on the Hudson River. In 1615 and from 1624-28, battles with the Iroquois would result in their loss of that market and the Iroquois would now be the main suppliers to the Dutch immigrants, so instead of supplying guns to the Mohawk, the Dutch were making them available to the victors.
Unfortunately, the Iroquois homeland did not have many beaver, and before long they were without these coveted pelts. They had only eliminated the Mohawk as a rival, but this did not give them the product they needed. They approached the Huron council with a plea to renegotiate their trade alliance or at least allow them to hunt outside their homeland, but the Huron flatly refused.
Vulnerable during the three years of British rule in Kebec, they were glad to see Champlain again in 1632, but by then the Iroqious had accumulated quite an arsenal. The French immediatley began to arm the Huron, and the British and Dutch countered by giving more guns to their enemies. The arms race was on.
In 1635, major epidemics of influenza, measles and smallpox, resulted in a wave of conversion as protection against sickness. And as further protection, the priests even used their influence to secure firearms for those who accepted baptism, which spelled disaster for Huron unity. The new religion frequently divided Huron communities into Christian and traditional factions at the very time they needed to unite against the Iroquois. It was so bad that at times, Christian and non-Christian, refused to join the same war party.
European diseases had claimed the lives of experienced military leaders and had reduced the Huron population to less than 10,000. All the while, the Jesuits were fighting the French commercial interests, hoping to isolate them from "the social corruption of the fur trade". As a result, the government of Kebec treated the Hurons as a neutral, so refused to offer aid in their increasingly serious war with the Iroquois. They had dug themselves a hole and were left without a prayer.
As a first offensive, the Iroquois further isolated the Huron by attacking their allies, driving the Algonkin deep into the upper Ottawa Valley and forcing the Montagnais to retreat east towards Quebec. In 1639, they overran the Wenro on the Erie and they were forced to abandon their villages and 600 of the refugees, joined the Huron people, but not nearly enough to give them military strength.
A major escalation in the level of violence occurred in 1640, when British traders from New England attempted to break the Dutch trade monopoly with the Mohawk by offering firearms. To counter this, the Dutch began to supply guns and ammunition to the Iroquois in unlimited quantities. Suddenly much better armed than anyone else, including the French; the Iroquois offensive increased dramatically. The French issued more guns to their allies, but these were generally inferior to Dutch weapons, and given only to Christian converts. The Algonkin and Montagnais were driven completely from the upper St. Lawrence Valley in 1641 by the Mohawk and Oneida, while in the west the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga concentrated their attacks on the Huron.
Father De Brebeuf had his legs, thighs and arms stripped of flesh to the very bone. I saw and touched a large number of great blisters, which he had on several places on his body from the boiling water which these barbarians had poured over him in mockery of Holy Baptism. I saw and touched the wound from a belt of bark, full of pitch and resin, which roasted his whole body I saw and touched the marks of burns from the collar of hatchets placed on his shoulders and stomach. I saw and touched his two lips because he spoke constantly of God while they made him suffer.
I saw and touched all parts of his body, which had received more than 200 blows from a stick. I saw and touched the top of his scalped head, I saw and touched the opening which these barbarians had made to tear out his heart.....
And several decades later, from June to September, 1692; nineteen men and women were burned at the stake for suspected witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, and one man, well into his eighties, was pressed to death under a huge stone for refusing to stand trial. I'd like to say it was a different time, but the jury's still out that one.
