Gannentaha: The 17th Century French Jesuit Mission Ste. Marie among the Iroquois Haudenosaunee at Onondaga Lake

By Jonathan Anderson

Seventeenth-century North America was truly a new world for both the European and indigenous First Nations native cultures that interfaced upon that spectacular wilderness theater. For both the native people and the European, this stage forged new understandings from all things thought familiar to previous generations. Throughout this historical period were episodes that defined the era, episodes that captured the essence of the human spirit, and episodes that abase a work of fiction.

One such episode that proved an epoch of the era was the 1656 French Jesuit mission embassy among the Haudenosaunee-Iroquois. This was the mission Ste. Marie established in the heart of Iroquoia, at a place known and revered by the Iroquois for its spiritual and political significance--Gannentaha.

The Ste. Marie mission proved as a captivating geopolitical choke point of its era. Its story remains an intriguing historical human drama, a hallmark cultural interface event, an inspirational faith journey story, and an audacious act of perseverance and courage within a larger historical saga.

The Ste. Marie de Gannentaha episode is an enduring story to be told and remembered beyond the generation of those who lived it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886548303

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Gannentaha

The 17th Century French Jesuit Mission Ste. Marie among the Iroquois Haudenosaunee at Onondaga Lake

Jonathan Anderson

Copyright © 2023 Jonathan Anderson

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88654-829-7 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88654-830-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Anamnesis

Introduction: A Mission amidst the New World

The New World Theater

Fr. Simon LeMoyne's, S.J., Trek

Mission Prelude: Fr. Joseph Chaumonot, S.J., and Fr. Claude Dablon, S.J.

The Finger of God: The Ordeal of Fr. Claude Dablon

The Entourage

The Journey to Gannentaha

Gannentaha

The Mission Ste. Marie

The Council Fire of 1656

The Fever

The Meeting of Two Worlds

For the Faith

The Tempest

Escape from Gannentaha

An Abandoned Mission

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Author Biography

About the Author

Anamnesis

In 1933, an Onondaga County (New York) government works project led to the construction of a historic park site on the southeast shore of Onondaga Lake to commemorate the seventeenth century French-Jesuit mission settlement Ste. Marie. Although the presumed location of the original mission was known, the reconstruction site was built several hundred feet north of the speculated original seventeenth-century site. This was partly because of the aesthetic nature of the chosen reconstruction location. As such, the historic park site was reasonably placed on the grounds that immediately surrounded the original mission, only not on the precise palisade compound ground.

Although seventeenth century French colonial building and palisade styles were known, the 1933 reconstruction was inaccurate in its construction style. It seemed that the authorities of that project were unable to escape the romanticized vision of a fortified frontier settlement. Subsequently, a log cabin quasi-eighteenth-nineteenth century structure prevailed. It became a local landmark known as The French Fort.

With little interpretive support, the site's history was left to the imagination of its visitors.

Arguably, the site's lack of accurate presentation storied more fiction than historical accuracy. Whatever story the site told, it was hardly the story of the Ste. Marie mission.

In the late1970s and early 1980s, the Onondaga County's Museums Office initiated an ambitious plan to bring recognition and attention to the site's proper history. In a very real sense, one could say that the project had a mission, literally and figuratively. The initiative met with rewarding success. The 1933 reconstruction site was torn down in 1988 and a more accurate reconstruction of the seventeeth century mission compound was built (1988–1991) with an adjacent exhibit visitor center. The new site initiated a living history interpretive program that encouraged experience and expression in the telling of the Ste. Marie mission story.

Under the collaborative stewardship of Onondaga County Parks Department and the Friends of Historic Onondaga Lake, the reconstructed site, "Ste. Marie Among the Iroquois," experienced first-person and third-person interpretive approaches between 1991 to 2011. These interpretive strategies were engaging, innovative, and inspired an awakening in diversity in telling the story surrounding the site's history.

In 2013, the site experienced a requickening of sorts, when a conjoined stewardship of the site was realized with Onondaga County Parks Department, Onondaga Historical Association, and the Haudenosaunee-Onondaga Nation. The site was reopened in 2015 as the Ska-nonh Great Law of Peace Center—a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Heritage Center, celebrating the native people of central New York.

This book is intended to compliment those efforts, those visions, and that mission of sharing the epic story of Ste. Marie de Gannentaha.

Introduction:

A Mission amidst the New World

Seventeenth-century North America was, in a very real sense, truly a new world for both the European and indigenous First Nations native cultures who interfaced upon this spectacular wilderness theater. For both the native people and the European, this era and stage offered every promise of adventure in an unyielding frontier, new social norms, economic opportunities, spiritual freedom, and new understandings and idealisms from all things once thought familiar to previous generations. Upon this stage was enacted an epic human drama that abase a work of fiction.

Throughout this historical epic drama are episodes that define the moment—episodes that captured the essence of the human spirit, awareness, conscience, inspiration, defeat, accomplishment, purpose, hope, and faith. Ste. Marie de Gannentaha is such an episode.

In March of 1658, New France, in the country of the Upper Iroquois, the Onondaga Nation, a group of Frenchmen, about fifty in number, made their way to the little lake below their just-abandoned mission-embassy settlement. With them, two years of hard labor, committed political negotiations, and devoted Christianization efforts were also abandoned.

During a dreadful late March freeze, they chopped and toiled to break their way across the frozen lake, hoping for the swiftness of the rivers to carry them to the safety and security of the French settlements to the north, Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec. The escape itself would last five weeks over frozen waterways, deep snows, icy winds, and against all the unforgiving elements of a defiant winter refusing to surrender to spring. It would claim the lives of three members, and nearly all, of this brave and desperate group of adventurers.

Who were these men, and what exploits have they endured? These were the men of vision, of pioneering spirit, of strong moral and physical character, and of perseverance. But above all this, these were men of faith, first of all. Their story is the story of the seventeenth-century French-Jesuit mission-embassy Ste. Marie de Gannentaha among the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee.

Participants to this story recorded their witness in several primary source accounts, two of which remain as the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents and the Memoirs of Pierre Esprit Radisson.

The Jesuit missionaries were very astute at recording their experiences in the New World.

Those accounts, known as the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, are passionate, informative, and often dramatic. The Relations are a series of annual reports of the Jesuit missions in New France, extending from 1632 through 1673. The documents include narratives from individual missionaries, summations from their superiors, and additions from the Jesuit order in France. The Relations served as a political manifesto, a record for prosperity, and as a chronicle to recruit financial and talent support for the New World mission field. Edited versions complemented the historical accounts.

During the period of the Gannentaha mission, several mishaps occurred that disrupted the written accounts and resulted in some incompleteness to the record.

A Relation, dated twenty-first of September 1654 from Fr. Francois LeMercier S. J. to the Reverend Father Nicolas Royon, Provincial of the Society of Jesus in the Province of France, reported that a vessel set sail from Quebec for France late in 1653. But its cargo and correspondences were lost when it fell into the hands of the English in the channel.¹ The Relation of 1655 was nearly entirely lost when its dispatch was attacked by highwaymen between La Rochelle and Paris. Only fragments of the collection were recovered and published.²

A 1657 letter to the Provincial from Fr. Le Jeune S. J., Procurator in France for the Canadian missions, reported that misfortune befell a ship en route to France when it was captured by the Spaniards. All the letters on board were thrown into the sea. The subsequent Relations were compiled from what remnants were recovered from and correspondences that arrived in France after that unfortunate encounter.³

Although shaded by the contemporaneousness of its writers, the surviving correspondences reveal informative and compelling firsthand historical accounts of the Ste. Marie de Gannentaha mission story.

The life of Pierre Esprit Radisson was a fascinating saga. A native of France, Pierre immigrated to New France during his mid-late teen years in May 1651 and settled at Three Rivers (Trois Rivieres). The following year, he was captured by a marauding band of Mohawk Iroquois and adopted among that canton. Jesuit Father, Joseph Poncet, during his captivity among the Mohawk, mentioned in his Relation that he met the young Frenchman at Fort Orange, 1653. Radisson escaped the Mohawk and, with the aid of the Dutch, was transported to New Amsterdam. He arrived in Holland on January of 1654. He was returned to France the following May and returned to Three Rivers, New France. In his absence, the Iroquois and French came to peace terms.

In the summer of 1657, Radisson was among a French resupply party to the Gannentaha mission. He witnessed the events as hostilities reignited and he participated in the abandonment of the mission in the spring of 1658. Afterwards, he ventured to the Lake Superior region. Upon returning to New France, along the Ottawa River, May 1660, he came upon the scene of a French defeat at the Long Sault, only days after the battle. Incidentally, a Frenchman who had previously escaped the Gannentaha mission with Radisson was captured at the Long Sault defeat. This unfortunate captive was subsequently put to death at the Onondaga's capital, Onnontague, near the site of the abandoned mission.

In early 1665, subsequent to a dispute with the governance of New France, Radisson turned over to the English in New England. His memoirs were written in England circa 1668 or 1669 while he was in his late twenties or early thirties in age. During this time, he was securing a patent for the Hudson Bay Company, founded May 2, 1670. The original memoir manuscript was lost, but an English translation survived and is currently maintained in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, England.

Written in imperfect English, reliant upon memory and perhaps influenced by a measure of self propaganda, the reliability of Radisson's memoirs as a historical source may be debatable. But its value as a period piece remains deserving of recognition and appreciation. Radisson's memoirs of his second voyage made in the upper country of the Iroquois reveals an intriguing glimpse upon the Ste. Marie de Gannentaha story.

It should be noted that for clarity, consistency, and modernizing writing style, some minor liberty was taken with regard to the editing of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation in presenting some of the primary source material throughout this book.

The Ste. Marie mission story is an episode that defines a moment of the New World adventure. It is a moment that whispers from the echoes of yesterday, Remember us. It remains an intriguing historical drama, a captivating act of the larger historical saga, and a faith journey worthy of audience.

Chapter 1

The New World Theater

The Native Arena, European Arena, Interface Arenas

Events Leading to the Gannentaha Mission

Mid-Seventeenth-Century Northeast Woodland America

During the period of the Ste. Marie mission, among the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee, northeast woodland America was host to a number of different First-Nation people. These Amerindians interacted in a complex weave that would provide the fabric for the historical tapestry of the European-First Nations contact. As varied, individual, and identifiable that each of these nations were, scholars have categorized them into two recognizable cultural patterns—Iroquoian and Algonquian (Algonkin).

These two cultural groups are distinguishable by language and fundamental lifestyle patterns. In dialect, the grammatical structure and vocabularies differed between the two groups. In lifestyle, the Algonquian culture depended largely upon foraging, fishing, and hunting and concentrated in mobile groups. The Iroquoian cultures centered more upon agriculture, hunting, and fishing, and concentrated in larger and more stationary communities.

Geographically speaking, the Algonquian groups were situated to the northeast and southeast of Lake Ontario, along the St. Lawrence River region, southern New England, and Hudson River Region. The Iroquoian groups were situated to the north, south, and west of the Lake Ontario (The Great Lake of the Iroquois). Among the Iroquoian culture, two great confederacies were in conflict with each other during this period—the Huron located north and west of Lake Ontario and the Five Nations Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) situated to the south of Lake Ontario and across what is today New York State.⁴

The Huron-Wendat League

During the early seventeenth century, the Huron-Wendat empire was a confederacy of several Iroquoian culture group cantons, Arendarhonons (People of the Rock), Attignawantans (People of the Bear), Attigneenongnahacs (People of the Barking Dogs), Tahontaeniats (People of the Deer), and Ataronchronon (People of the Marshes). The name Huron was said to have originated from the French Huron (ruffian, rustic) or from hure (boar's head) on account that the bristly hairstyle of those native warriors resembled the tuft of the wild boar.⁵ The Huron referred to themselves as the Ouendat (in the separated land).⁶ The Huron-Wendat would also be known as the Wyandot.

Throughout the seventeenth century, the Huron remained allies to the French and staunch enemy of the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee League. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Huron were dispersed by disease, famine, and war with the Iroquois. By the later part of the century, they would emerge in the Lake Superior region as the Wyandot/Wendat, "Dwellers of the Peninsula or Islanders,"—an assimilation of the earlier Huron Confederacy and a people known by the French as the Neutrals, Tobacco, and Petun nations.⁷

The Iroquois-Haudenosaunee League

The Iroquois-Haudenosaunee League consisted of five Iroquoian cantons extending from east to west: Mohawk (People at the Great Flint), Oneida (People at the Projecting Stone), Onondaga (People at the Hill), Cayuga (People at the Mucky Land), and the Seneca (People at the Great Hill).⁸ This confederacy referred to themselves as the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse; People of the Whole House)⁹ Hotinnonchiende (The Completed Cabin).¹⁰

The Haudenosaunee collectively have come to be known through history as the Iroquois Confederacy or League. Samuel de Champlain has been credited as being the first European to publish the term "Iroquois" in 1603. The eighteenth-century Jesuit historian, Pierre-Francois-Xavier de Charlevoix, stated that the name Iroquois was purely French.¹¹ However, a trade language speech between the French and native Algonquian had well established the term by the time of Champlain's arrival in the New World. The term likely emerged from a shared French (Basque) and Algonquian language merger.¹²

The Jesuit missionary Relations referred to the Iroquois as the Upper and Lower Iroquois. The Upper Iroquois—the Oneidas (Onneiouthronnons), Onondaga (Onontagehronnons), Cayuga (Oiogoenhronnons), and Seneca (Sonnontouaehronnons)—were accessible to the St. Lawrence Valley by way of Lake Ontario. The Lower Iroquois—Mohawk (Anniehronnons)—were accessible by way of the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain.¹³

Throughout the seventeenth century, the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee remained a formidable military league and existed in a state of intermittent warfare with the French and various native nations including the Huron, Algonquian, Erie, and Susquehannock. During the early-mid century, they interacted as trade allies with the Dutch of the Hudson River region. During the later part of the century, the Iroquois continued a trade alliance with the English, following the Dutch displacement.¹⁴

The Susquehannocks (People of the Muddy Water—English)

The Susquehannock were a people of the Iroquoian cultural group. They inhabited what is today Pennsylvania, Maryland, southern New York State, and along the river that today is named for them. They interfaced in trade with the English in the Chesapeake Bay area and allied themselves militarily with the Huron against the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee. They were known to the Dutch as the Minquas¹⁵ and known to the French as Andastoehronons/Andaste.¹⁶

The Erie or Cat Nation

The Eries were an Iroquoian culture group that resided in the region south of Lake Erie and the Ohio River basin. The name Erie was a native reference to "cat."¹⁷ The Jesuit Relations referred to them as the Cat people on account of the large beautiful cats found in their country.¹⁸ This reference might possibly refer to the raccoon as this nation would later be referred to as the Raccoon People.

During the downfall of the Huron Confederacy and subsequent defeat by the Iroquois League in the late 1640s, many Huron refugees were adopted among the Erie. This fueled hostilities with the Iroquois during the time of the Ste. Marie mission episode. Having few European firearms, the Erie were at a military disadvantage in their war with the Iroquois, who possessed firearms and ammunitions through the Dutch trade. The Eries were defeated in 1655 to 1656 by the Iroquois. The Erie nation disbanded and was absorbed among various other nations.¹⁹

The Neutral Nations

This league of Iroquoian people occupied the region, north of Lake Erie, the Niagara River, and parts of today's Ontario Province and western New York State. The relations referred to the Neutral league as the Attiwandarons.²⁰ The Huron knew these people as the Attiwandaronk (People of a Slightly Different Language).²¹ Other period references referred to this confederacy as comprising of the Tobacco or Petun Nation, Onguiarahronon Nation (People of the Ongniarah [Niagara] River), Wenrohronon or Wenroes Nation, and Aondironon nation.²²

This confederacy earned the Neutral moniker from the French on account of their aloofness and neutrality in the early conflict between the Iroquois and Huron.²³ However, they would eventually earn the wrath of the Iroquois for their practice of adopting Huron refugees. Eventually, many of the Neutrals were defeated by conflicts with the Iroquois during the era of the Ste. Marie de Gannentaha mission.²⁴

The Algonquian Nations

Algonquian nations ranged over extensive regions: Virginia, New England, lower St. Lawrence Valley, Hudson Valley, Hudson Bay territory, Ohio River, Mississippi River, and Great Lake regions. Familiar Algonquian groups noted in seventeenth-century references included the Abenakis, Adirondacks, Chippewas, Delawares (Loups/French), Fox, Illinoies, Mascoutens, Micmacs (Arcadia), Mohicans, Montagnais (St. Lawrence), Narragansetts, Ottawa, Penobscots (Maine), Pequots, Pottawattomies, and Sacs among others.²⁵ During the Ste. Marie mission episode, the Algonquian allied themselves with the French and Huron in long standing rivalry against the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee.

The European Arena

The Mid-Seventeenth Century New-World Colonies

New France

In 1524, the Italian navigator, Giovanni de Verrazzano (John Verazani),²⁶ explored the Atlantic coast of North America, dubbing it Francesca, in honor of King Francis I of France. In 1534, French explorer, Jacques Cartier, followed to further explore the enchanted New World coast. French-fishing fleets also ventured along the coastal region, establishing trade introductions with the native people of Acadia and what is today, Canada. Trading companies emerged in the interest of exploiting the New World natural resources, predominantly in furs, most valued being the beaver.

Like many incipient European colonial efforts, early seventeenth-century French settlements suffered considerable hardships of weather, disease, and lack of provisioning. But such hardships forged a resilience and fortitude that would prevail under the ambitions of private companies chartered under the King's authority to develop trade and colonization interests.

Samuel de Champlain is perhaps the most noted of the early seventeenth-century French explorers of the St. Lawrence River region. Champlain established trading relationships with the Algonquian and Huron. As this trade relationship developed, the Huron assumed the lucrative middlemen positional role between the French and the western Amerindian people. This role would become increasingly important as the beaver supply became increasingly exploited in Huronia throughout the 1630s and 1640s.

From 1609–1615 Champlain, commanding several other Frenchmen, participated in a series of Huron-Algonquian expeditions against various Iroquois cantons. These actions served immediate fur trade interests and firmly allied the French with the Huron league. Adversely, that posturing established a predominant hostile relationship between the French colonists and the Iroquois that would later prove detrimental to the Jesuit mission fields, the security of the French colony, and the Huron league.²⁷

In 1608, Champlain founded Quebec under the sponsorship of King Henry IV of France. Although Quebec struggled, it served as an anchor for further development of the St. Lawrence River region. In 1627, under the reign of King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu (French Secretary of State) founded the Company of One Hundred Associates (Compagnie des Cent-Asocies) for the purpose of investing in the New France Colony. The French Catholic Church proved a dominant factor in the colony's development. The church advanced Recollet, Jesuit, and Sulpician order missionary activity in the region.

As New France ebbed its way through its second decade of the seventeenth century, English incursion from the more populous and wealthy New England colonies threatened the security of the maturing French Colony. In 1628 to 1629, Port Royal and Quebec fell to an English raid. However, being that the hostility took place during a time of peace between the two nations, the settlements and region were returned to French control in 1632, subsequent to international negotiations and the treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Once again, in French control and settlement of the St. Lawrence region gravitated south. Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers) was founded in 1634. It was so named on account that the Saint Maurice River has three mouths at the confluence with the Saint Lawrence River. The palisade mission site (initially St. Joseph) Sillery was established above Quebec in 1637. It was named for its financier, Noel Brulart de Sillery, a Knight of Malta and catholic priest. A Montreal mission was established in 1641.²⁸ The city of Montreal was founded in 1642.

The earliest missionaries to New France were Calvinist Huguenots who catered to the colonists ministries. In 1611, two Catholic Society of Jesus (Jesuits) priests entered the country to seed the native mission field. In 1615, the Recollect Fraternity—a catholic order of the Franciscans—entered the scene. The Jesuits reinforced their native missionary efforts in 1625. Despite the English 1628–29 interruption, by 1632 the Jesuits had emerged as the predominant missionary presence throughout the colony.

These Jesuit missionaries, black robes, a native moniker, served as ambassadors to the Amerindian people, advancing the interests of the King, namely peace, trade, and the ideals of their Christian faith. Throughout the 1630s to '40s, the mission fields spread quickly throughout Huronia. These devoted and courageous missionaries suffered considerable persecutions and arduous hardships in their work. As Christian soldiers, eight of the Order suffered martyrdom as a consequence of hostilities with the Iroquois during the decade of the 1640s. This story is celebrated at the Shrines for the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York State, US, and Midland Ontario, Canada.

The establishment of the Ste. Marie de Gannentaha (Onondaga Lake) mission in the territory of the upper Iroquois, Onondaga Canton, was in direct response to the circumstances surrounding the Iroquois threat.

Religious authority within the colony was upset during the Gannentaha mission episode in the summer of 1657. On July 29, 1657, the Abbe' De Queylus of the Sulpician order (Society of the Priests of Sainte Sulpice[PSS]), accompanied by three Sulpician clergy, arrived in New France. Under authority of the archbishop of Rouen in France, De Queylus, P.S.S., claimed ecclesiastical authority over the operations of the Catholic church in the colony. That authority had previously been awarded to the Jesuit order by the previous archbishop in 1649. Unfortunately, no clarification was made regarding either order superseding the other on that matter of authority. Initially, the Jesuit superior, Jean De Quen, agreed that the Jesuits would take no action in De Queylus's capacity as vicar-general, inasmuch as the matter remained unclear. The Jesuits maintained the parish at Quebec, and De Queylus relocated the Sulpicians to Montreal. With no clear line of authority, as might be expected, a series of Jesuit-Sulpician controversies followed.

One controversy occurred in 1657 when De Queylus, P.S.S., ordered Fr. Joseph-Antoine Poncet, S.J., at Quebec to publicly read a papal letter of indulgence granted by Pope Alexander VII. Fr. Poncet proceeded as directed. Jesuit superior, De Quen, took offense of this action being that his subordinate Fr. Poncet acted without his authority. Fr. Poncet was subsequently removed as pastor of