The Jesuits, 1534-1921

The Jesuit missions among these people were inaugurated as early as 1637 or 1638, by Father Castano, who had been trained in the Sonora district by Méndez, but the Pima section to which Kino betook himself was a new field. He called his first post Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, and it may be found on the map just north of Cucurpé at the source of the river called Horcasitas or San Miguel. From there he developed dependent stations, and before 1691, he had three at San Ignacio, Remedios, and San José, in each of which he built a fine church.

"The work which Father Kino did as a ranchman or stockman," says Bolton, "would alone stamp him as an unusual business man and make him worthy of remembrance. He was easily the cattle king of his day and region. The stock raising industry of nearly 20 places on the modern map owes its beginnings to this indefatigable man. And it must not be supposed that he did this for private gain for he did not own a single animal. It was to furnish a food supply for the Indians of the missions established and to be established and to give these missions a basis of economic prosperity and independence. Thus we find Saeta thanking him for the gift of 115 head of cattle, and as many sheep to begin a ranch at Caborca. In 1700 when San Xavier was founded, Kino rounded up 1400 head of cattle on the ranch of his own mission at Dolores, and dividing them into droves, sent one of them under his Indian overseer to San Xavier. In the same year he took 700 cattle from his own ranch, and sent them to Salvatierra, across the Gulf at Loreto – a transaction which was several times repeated."

Kino had often spoken to Salvatierra about the failure of the attempt to evangelize Lower California, to which his heart still clung, and he suggested to his companion that in his capacity of official visitor he might make another effort to redeem the unfortunate people who lived there. It was true, he admitted, that the country was so barren that it could not be self-sustaining, but he was convinced that it would be an easy matter to convey provisions from fertile Pimería to the starving Californians if a ship could be constructed to transport to the other side of the Gulf whatever the future missionaries and people might need. Salvatierra took fire at the idea, and, before they parted, ordered Kino to build the barque at any point he might select along the west coast of Mexico and assured him that he himself would further the project with all the power at his disposal.

It was not until 1694 that Kino attempted to build the ship. He was then among the Sobas on the Gulf, and with him were Father Campo and Captain Manje, the latter of whom has left a diary of that journey. He began to cut his timber on March 16, 1694, but he was informed that Lower California was not an island, but a peninsula, and he then inaugurated a series of amazing overland journeys to reach the head of the Gulf. His companion Captain Manje had told him of the wonderful structures on the Gila River and thither he directed his steps. He is said to have celebrated Mass in the largest of those ruined buildings, the famous Casa Grande. It was quadrilateral in form and four stories high. The rafters were of cedar and the walls of solid cement and masonry. It was divided into various compartments, some of them spacious enough for a considerable assembly. The tradition among the people was that Montezuma's predecessors built it on the way from the north to the southern countries where they ultimately settled.

At a distance of three leagues from this Casa and on the other side of the river are the ruins of another edifice, which appears to have been still more sumptuous. Indeed the ruins at that place would indicate that at one time there had been not merely a palace but a whole city, and the natives assured the missionaries that there were other buildings further north which were marvelous for their symmetry and arrangements. Among them was a labyrinth which appears to have been a pleasure house of some great king. Excavators have discovered in various places, sometimes leagues away from these great buildings, shapely and variously colored slabs, and two leagues from the Casa Grande there was found the basin of a reservoir large enough to supply a populous city and to irrigate the fertile plains around for great distances; while to the west was a lagoon which was emptied by a narrow sluice. The regularity of the circular form of this lagoon and its rather contracted dimensions would suggest that it was the work of men were it not for its extraordinary depth. Holes had been cut into the solid rock which subsequently were found large enough to be used as storehouses for provisions for troops.

These ruins, however, do not appear to have interested Kino to any great extent. There were other ruins that worried him about that time. His own missions seemed to be facing universal destruction. He himself was being denounced in Mexico as conveying false information to the government about his Indians; they were accused of being in secret alliance with the Apaches, who were destroying the country and defying the Spaniards. Kino again and again had denied the truth of these charges, but he was not only not believed but was held up as a deliberate liar.

On March 29, 1695, the Pimas of Tubutama burned the priest's house and church, profaned the sacred vessels and then, starting down the river to Caborca, had, after murdering Father Saeta and desecrating the church, killed four servants of the mission. An armed force was quickly sent after them and succeeded in killing a certain number in the battle that ensued. Fifty of them then gave themselves up on a promise of immunity, but on arriving in camp they were brutally murdered. The troops then hastened to Cocospera, fancying that they had restored peace, but they were no sooner out of sight than the Pimas laid waste the whole Tubutama Valley and destroyed every town on the San Ignacio River. Where was Kino all this time? Quietly waiting to be killed at Dolores. He had concealed the sacred vessels in a cave and was kneeling in prayer, expecting the tomahawk or a poisoned arrow. But no one came. He was too much beloved by all the Indians to be injured in the least, even in their wildest excess of fury.

Of course the Spaniards ultimately won. They ravaged the whole country and slaughtered the savages until the entire tribe was terror-stricken and forced by hunger or fear of annihilation to sue for peace. Through the influence of the missionaries, a general pardon was granted, and then the work of reconciling the red men to the terrible whites had to be begun all over again. When Kino returned to Dolores, he was received with the utmost enthusiasm by his people. Not only the Pimas, but the Sobas and Sobaipuris came out to welcome him. They loaded him with gifts and made all sorts of promises of future good behavior, and he then set himself to the task of rebuilding the devastated rancherias. Notwithstanding this return, however, to normal conditions and the great increase of his influence over the Indians, Kino still longed to devote himself to the regeneration of the degraded Californians, and he asked to be associated with Salvatierra, who had gone thither in 1697, but owing to the protest of the Pimas, the Mexican government positively refused to permit him to leave the district where his presence was so essential for peace.

After endless journeys up and down the country, providing for the material and spiritual wants of his own flock, but ever keeping in his mind the great project of reaching Lower California by land, Kino at last climbed the mountain of Santa Brigida and saw quite near to him the Gulf of California with a port or bay which, because it was in latitude about 31° 36' must have been what the old cosmographers called the Santa Clara range. "From its summit," says Kino himself, "I clearly descried the beach at the mouth of the Colorado, but as there was a fog on the sea I could not make out the California coast." On another occasion, however, namely in 1694, he and Juan Mates had seen the other side from Mt. Nazarene de Caborca, lower down the coast. A point of identification left by Kino was that the mountain on which he stood in 1698, had been once a volcano. The marks of it were all around him.

Kino could not then pursue his exploration to the mouth of the river. His guides and companions refused to go any farther, so he had to turn homeward. On the way back, however, he was consoled by discovering more than "4,000 souls," to use Alegre's expression, "in rancherias which were until then unknown to him. He baptized about four hundred babies and sent little presents to his Indian friends along the Colorado and Gila," or, as Kino spells it, Hila. After making arrangements for future explorations he set out for Dolores, which he reached on October 18 after a journey of three hundred leagues. In 1699 he was joined by his friend Captain Manje, and they resolved to reach the Colorado itself and go down the stream to the mouth. But they failed to find guides, for it was an unfriendly country, and so the disappointed men again returned to Dolores. Kino was seriously ill on his arrival, but was on his feet again in October when the visitor, Father Leal, wanted to inspect the country. The official got no farther than Bac, while Kino and Manje started west, but they did not succeed in going far, and were at the mission again in November.

On September 24, 1700, Kino attempted a new route. Striking the Gila east of the bend, he followed its course down to the Yuma country. After settling a quarrel between the Yumas and their neighbors, he climbed a high hill to explore, but saw only land. He then crossed to the north bank of the Gila with some Yumas and journeyed on to their principal rancheria, which he called San Dionisio, because he arrived there on the feast of that saint, October 9. There he ascended another mountain and this time he was rewarded. The sun was setting as he reached the summit, but he clearly saw the river running ten leagues west of San Dionisio and, after a course of twenty leagues south, emptying into the Gulf. From another hill to the south he saw before his eyes the sandy stretches of Lower California. The wonderful old man, however, was not yet satisfied. He would make one more attempt and with Father González, a new arrival in the missions, he set his face to the west, reaching San Dionisio by the way of Sonoito and from there went down to Santa Isabel. "From this point," says Bancroft (XV, p. 500), "they were in new territory. Going down the river they reached tide-water on March 5, 1702, and on the 7th, the very mouth of the river. Nothing but land could be seen on the south, west and north. Surely, they thought there can be no estrecho, and California is a part of America."

According to Clavigero these journeys totalled about twenty thousand miles. It is almost incredible, but Bolton tells us that "Kino's endurance in the saddle was worthy of a seasoned cowboy." Thus when he went to the City of Mexico in 1695, he travelled on that single journey no less than 1500 miles; and he accomplished it in fifty-three days. Two years later, when he reached the Gila on the north, he did seven or eight hundred miles in thirty days. In 1699, on his trip to and from the Gila he made seven hundred and twenty miles in thirty nine days; in 1700, a thousand miles in twenty-six days; and in 1701, eleven hundred miles in thirty-five days. He was then nearly sixty years of age.

Meantime, Salvatierra had been painfully establishing missions all along the barren peninsula, but was so woefully discouraged that he was on the point of returning to Mexico. At this juncture Father Juan Ugarte arrived on the scene. He had been Salvatierra's agent in Mexico for collecting funds, but when he heard of the threatening condition of things in California he had himself relieved of his rectorship in San Gregorio and became a missionary. It was really he who saved the whole enterprise from destruction. He was born in Honduras about the year 1660, and entered the Society at Tapozotclan. As soon as he set foot on the Peninsula, he began a reorganization of the whole economic system of the missions. With St. Paul, he believed that a man who did not work should not eat, and consequently that Salvatierra's benignant method of feeding every savage who would come to the "doctrina," or catechism, was psychologically, religiously and economically wrong. Hence, when he found himself fixed at San Javier, he taught the natives how to cultivate the land, to dig ditches for irrigation, to plant trees, to trim vines and to raise live stock.

Of course, the savages were surprised at the new system, but although Ugarte was very kind, he was very positive and his bodily strength astounded and appalled his neophytes. The result was that while other missions were starving, San Javier had fields of corn, rich pastures and great herds of cattle. It took a long time to make this system acceptable everywhere on the Peninsula; when it was adopted it was difficult to make it a success – even Ugarte's own fields were devastated and his cattle stolen. Indeed, conditions grew so desperate in 1701, that Salvatierra at last determined to abandon California and go back to Mexico. Ugarte stood out against it and protested that he would never give up until his superiors called him back. To show that he meant what he said, he went to the church and laid a vow to that effect on the altar.

Just when the sky was darkest, information came that Philip V had ordered 6000 pesos a year to be allotted to the missions. The first payment however, was made with extreme reluctance by the viceroy. But the royal example stimulated the piety of others, with the result that the Marquis of Villapuente gave an estate of 30,000 pesos for three missions; Ortega and his wife came forward with 10,000; and other friends hastened with their contributions. In 1704 Salvatierra went over to Mexico to collect the usual subsidy. He was rejoiced at being told on his arrival that not only would he receive the stipend, but that his majesty had ordered that the churches should be supplied with whatever was necessary for Divine services, that a seminary was to be founded in California, that a presidial force of thirty men was to be stationed on the coast to protect a galleon, a sort of mission ship for provisions and exploration, and that 7000 pesos a year were to be added to the former allowance. It was a splendid example of royal munificence; however, not only were none of these royal orders carried out, but even the original grant of 6000 pesos could not be collected. "It may be fairly stated," says Bancroft (XV, 432) "that the missions of California were from the first to the last founded and supported by private persons whose combined gifts formed what is known as the Pious Fund."

Salvatierra was absent from California for a little over two years while filling the office of provincial, "a flattering honor," says Bancroft, "that would be gladly accepted by most Jesuits." Before the end of his term, however, he hastened back to labor in the land of desolation to which he had consecrated his life. He lasted only a short time, and died in 1717 in Guadalajara. "His memory," says Bancroft, "needs no panegyric; his deeds speak for themselves, and in the light of these, the bitterest enemies of his religion or of his Order cannot deny the beauty of his character and the disinterestedness of his devotion to California. The whole city assembled at his funeral and his remains were deposited amidst ceremonies rarely seen at the burial of a Jesuit."

Meantime, Ugarte's methods were being followed elsewhere than in San Javier, and a new impetus was given to them when he succeeded Salvatierra as general superior. It must have been hard to keep the pace that he set; thus, for instance, he used 40,000 loads to make a road from San Javier to one of the out-lying missions; he built a reservoir there and carted to it 160,000 loads of earth to make a garden and executed many similar works. He was also very eager to carry out Salvatierra's purpose of exploring the coast, but he was not satisfied with the antiquated ships which had been in use up to that time – "worn out and rotten old hulks," he said, "only fit to drown Jesuits in." He determined to have a ship of his own built in California and after his own ideas. For that purpose he hired shipwrights from the other side of the Gulf, where also he proposed to get his timber. But hearing of some large trees thirty leagues above Mulege he went thither in 1718 to look them over. He found the trees, but they were in such inaccessible ravines that the shipbuilder declared it was impossible to get them.

Ugarte was not swayed from his purpose by this difficulty; he went down to Loretto and returned with three mechanics and all the Indians he could induce to follow him. After four months of hard work he not only had all the trees felled and shaped, but he had opened a road for thirty leagues over the mountains and with oxen and mules hauled his material to the coast. He built his "Triumph of the Cross," as he called it, in four months. The provincial was told meanwhile, that it was going to be used for pearl fishing, and sent the supposed culprit a very sharp letter in consequence. No doubt he made amends for this when he was disabused. The "Triumph of the Cross" was not to carry a cargo of pearls but was intended to explore the upper Gulf, so as to realize the dream of Kino and Salvatierra.

The good ship left Loretto on May 15, 1721, with twenty men, six of whom were Europeans, the captain being a William Stafford. It was followed by the "Santa Barbara," a large open boat carrying five Californians, two Chinese and a Yaqui. They made their first landing at Concepción Bay, and then, after creeping along the shore northward, crossed the Gulf to Santa Sabina and San Juan Bautista on the Seri coast. The sight of the cross on the bow-sprit delighted the natives and assured the travellers of a hearty welcome. Tiburon was the next stop, and while there Ugarte felt his strength giving out; but despite his sixty-one years he continued his voyage, and headed the "Triumph" for the mouth of the Colorado, while the "Santa Barbara" hugged the shore. Meantime, a few men were landed and made for the nearest mission. They found the trail to Caborca and soon the Jesuits of that place and of San Ignacio hurried down with provisions for the travellers.

While the "Santa Barbara" was being loaded, the "Triumph" was nearly stranded at the mouth of the river, so it was decided to cross to the other side, which they reached only after a hard three days' sail. There the "Santa Barbara" met them and both ships pointed north, crossing and recrossing the gulf until finally they anchored at the mouth of the river on the Pimería side. There was some talk of going up the stream, but the ship's position in the strong current was dangerous, the weather was threatening, and besides, Ugarte had achieved his purpose; he had seen the river from the Gulf and had added a convincing proof to Kino's assertion that California was a peninsula. On July 16 they started south; the storm they had feared broke over them and the sloop nearly went to the bottom. The sailors, who were nearly all sick of the scurvy, got confused in the Salsipuedes channel, and it was only on August 18 that they cleared that passage so aptly called "Get out if you can." But a triple rainbow in the sky that day comforted them, just as they had been cheered when the St. Elmo's fire played around the mast head during the gale. But they were not free yet. Another storm overtook them and they had great difficulty in dodging a waterspout, but they finally reached Loretto in the month of September.

Besides its original purpose, this voyage resulted in furnishing much valuable information about the shores, ports, islands and currents of the Upper Gulf. The original account of the journey with maps and a journal kept by Stafford was sent to the viceroy for the king, but Bancroft says they have not been traced. Ugarte lived only eight years after this eventful journey. Picolo, Salvatierra's first companion had preceded him to the grave, dying on February 22, 1729, at the age of 79, whereas Ugarte's life-work did not cease till the following December 29. Perhaps Lower California owes more to him than to the great Salvatierra.

A classic example of the influence of ignorance in the creation of many of the false statements of history is furnished by a publication about these missions in the "Montreal Gazette" of 1847, under the title of "Memories of Mgr. Blanchet." "The failure of the Jesuits in Lower California," he says, "must be attributed to their unwillingness to establish a hierarchy in that country. Had they been so disposed, they might have had a metropolitan and several suffragans on the Peninsula. They failed to do so, until at last, in 1767, word came from generous Spain to hand over their work to some one else." In the first place, "generous Spain" had not the slightest desire to establish a hierarchy on that barren neck of land when it expelled the Jesuits in 1767. Again as "generous Spain" appointed even the sacristans in its remotest colonies, the Society must be acquitted of all blame in not giving an entire hierarchy to Lower California. Finally, one hundred and fifty-one years have elapsed since the last Jesuits left both Mexico and Lower California and there is nothing there yet, but the little Vicariate Apostolic of La Paz down at the lower end of the Peninsula.

In describing the work of the Jesuits in Mexico, Bancroft (XI, 436) writes as follows: "Without discussing the merits of the charges preferred against them, it must be confessed that the service of God in their churches was reverent and dignified. They spread education among all classes, their libraries were open to all, and they incessantly taught the natives religion in its true spirit, as well as the mode of earning an honest living. Among the most notable in the support of this last assertion are those of Nayarit, Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and lower California, where their efforts in the conversion of the natives were marked by perseverance and disinterestedness, united with love for humanity and prayer. Had the Jesuits been left alone, it is doubtful whether the Spanish-American province would have revolted so soon, for they were devoted servants of the crown and had great influence with all classes – too great to suit royalty, but such as after all might have saved royalty in these parts." Indeed, when the Society was re-established in 1814, Spain had already lost nearly all of its American colonies. The punishment had rapidly followed the crime.

Although Mexico and the Philippines are geographically far apart, yet ecclesiastically one depended on the other. Legaspi, who took possession of the islands in 1571, built his fleet in Mexico, and also drafted his sailors there. Andrés de Urdaneta, the first apostle of the Philippines, was an Augustinian friar in Mexico who accompanied Legaspi as his chaplain. Twenty years after that expedition, the Jesuits built their first house in Manila, and Father Sánchez, who was, as we have said, one of the supervisors of the great tunnel, was sent as superior from Mexico to Manila. One of his companions, Sedeño, had been a missionary in Florida, and it was he who opened the first school in the Philippines and founded colleges at Manila and Cebú. He taught the Filipinos to cut stone and mix mortar, to weave cloth and make garments. He brought artists from China to teach them to draw and paint, and he erected the first stone building in the Philippines, namely the cathedral, dedicated in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. His religious superior, Father Sánchez had meanwhile acquired such influence in Manila as to be chosen in 1585, by a unanimous vote of all the colonists, to go to arrange the affairs of the colony with Philip II and the Pope. He brought with him to Europe a Filipino boy who, on his return to his native land, entered the Society, and became thus the first Filipino Jesuit.

The college and seminary of San José was established in Manila in 1595. It still exists, though it is no longer in the hands of the Society; being the oldest of the colleges of the Archipelago, it was given by royal decree precedence over all other educational institutions. During the first hundred years of its educational life, it counted among its alumni, eight bishops and thirty-nine Jesuits, of whom four became provincials. There were also on the benches eleven future Augustinians, eighteen Franciscans, three Dominicans, and thirty-nine of the secular clergy. The University of St. Ignatius, which opened its first classes in 1587, was confirmed as a pontifical university in 1621 and as a royal university in 1653. Besides these institutions, the Society had a residence at Mecato and a college at Cavite, and also the famous sanctuary of Antipole. They likewise established the parishes of Santa Cruz and San Miguel in Manila.

France began its colonization in North America by the settlement of Acadia in 1603. De Monts, who was in charge of it, was a Huguenot and, strange to say, had been commissioned to advance the interests of Catholicity in the colony. Half of the settlers were Calvinists, and the other half Catholics more or less infected with heresy. A priest named Josué Flesché was assigned to them; he baptized the Indians indiscriminately, letting them remain as fervent polygamists as they were before. The two Jesuit missionaries, Pierre Biard and Enemond Massé, who were finally forced on the colonists, had to withdraw, and they then betook themselves, in 1613, to what is now known as Mount Desert, in the state of Maine, but that settlement was almost immediately destroyed by an English pirate from Virginia. Two of the Jesuits were sentenced to be hanged in the English colony there, but thanks to a storm which drove them across the Atlantic, they were able, after a series of romantic adventures, to reach France, where they were accused of having prompted the English to destroy the French settlement of Acadia.

Meantime, Champlain, who had established himself at Quebec in 1608, brought over some Recollect Friars in 1615. It was not until 1625 that Father Massé, who had been in Acadia, came to Canada proper with Fathers de Brébeuf, Charles Lalemant, and two lay-brothers. With the exception of Brébeuf, they all remained in Quebec, while he with the Recollect La Roche d'Aillon went to the Huron country, in the region bordering on what is now Georgian Bay, north of the present city of Toronto. The Recollect returned home after a short stay, and Brébeuf remained there alone until the fall of Quebec in 1629. As the English were now in possession, all hope of pursuing their missionary work was abandoned, and the priests and brother returned to France. Canada, however, was restored to its original owners in 1632, and Le Jeune and Daniel, soon to be followed by Brébeuf and many others, made their way to the Huron country to evangelize the savages. The Hurons were chosen because they lived in villages and could be more easily evangelized, whereas the nomad Algonquins would be almost hopeless for the time being.

The Huron missions lasted for sixteen years. In 1649 the tribe was completely annihilated by their implacable foes, the Iroquois, a disaster which would have inevitably occurred, even if no missionary had ever visited them. The coming of the Jesuits at that particular time seemed to be for nothing else than to assist at the death agonies of the tribe. The terrible sufferings of those early missionaries have often been told by Protestant as well as Catholic writers. At one time, when expecting a general massacre, they sat in their cabin at night and wrote a farewell letter to their brethren; but, for some reason or other, the savages changed their minds, and the work of evangelization continued for a little space. Meantime, Brébeuf and Chaumonot had gone down as far as Lake Erie in mid-winter and, travelling all the distance from Niagara Falls to the Detroit River, had mapped out sites for future missions. Jogues and Raymbault, setting out in the other direction, had gone to Lake Superior to meet some thousands of Ojibways who had assembled there to hear about "the prayer."

The first great disaster occurred on August 3, 1642. Jogues was captured near Three Rivers, when on his way up from Quebec with supplies for the starving missionaries. He was horribly mutilated, and carried down to the Iroquois country, where he remained a prisoner for thirteen months, undergoing at every moment the most terrible spiritual and bodily suffering. His companion, Goupil was murdered, but Jogues finally made his escape by the help of the Dutch at Albany, and on reaching New York was sent across the ocean in mid-winter, and finally made his way to France. He returned, however, to Canada, and in 1644 was sent back as a commissioner of peace to his old place of captivity. It was on this journey that he gave the name of Lake of the Blessed Sacrament to what is called Lake George. In 1646 he returned again to the same place as a missionary, but he and his companion Lalande were slain; the reason of the murder being that Jogues was a manitou who brought disaster on the Mohawks. Two other Jesuits, Bressani and Poncet, were cruelly tortured at the very place where Jogues had been slain, but were released.

In 1649 the Iroquois came in great numbers to Georgian Bay to make an end of the Hurons. Daniel, Gamier and Chabanel were slain, and Brébeuf and Lalemant were led to the stake and slowly burned to death. During the torture, the Indians cut slices of flesh from the bodies of their victims, poured scalding water on their heads in mockery of baptism, cut the sign of the cross on their flesh, thrust red-hot rods into their throats, placed live coals in their eyes, tore out their hearts, and ate them, and then danced in glee around the charred remains. This double tragedy of Brébeuf and Lalemant occurred on the 16th and 17th of March, 1649. After that the Hurons were scattered everywhere through the country, and disappeared from history as a distinct tribe.

As early as 1650 there was question of a bishop for Quebec. The queen regent, Anne of Austria, the council of ecclesiastical affairs, and the Company of New France all wrote to the Vicar-General of the Society asking for the appointment of a Jesuit. The three Fathers most in evidence were Ragueneau, Charles Lalemant and Le Jeune. All three had refused the honor and Father Nickel wrote to the petitioners that it was contrary to the rules of the Order to accept such ecclesiastical dignities. The hackneyed accusation of the supposed Jesuit opposition to the establishment of an episcopacy was to the fore even then in America. The refutation is handled in a masterly fashion by Rochemonteix (Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle France, I, 191). Incidentally the prevailing suspicion that Jesuits are continually extolling each other will be dispelled by reading the author's text and notes upon the characteristics of the three nominees which unfitted them for the post. "Le Jeune," he says, "would be unfit because he was a converted Protestant who had never rid himself of the defects of his early education." It was not until 1658 that Laval was named.

Meantime in 1654, through the efforts of Father Le Moyne to whom a monument has been erected in the city of Syracuse, a line of missions was established in the very country of the Iroquois. It extended all along the Mohawk from the Hudson to Lake Erie. Many of the Iroquois were converted such as Garagontia, Hot Ashes and others, the most notable of whom was the Indian girl, Tegakwitha, who fled from the Mohawk to Caughnawaga, a settlement on the St. Lawrence opposite Lachine which the Fathers had established for the Iroquois converts. The record of her life gives evidence that she was the recipient of wonderful supernatural graces. These New York missions were finally ruined by the stupidity and treachery of two governors of Quebec, de la Barre and de Denonville, and also by the Protestant English who disputed the ownership of that territory with the French. By the year 1710 there were no longer any missionaries in New York, except an occasional one who stole in, disguised as an Indian, to visit his scattered flock. There were three Jesuits with Dongan, the English governor of New York during his short tenure of office, but they never left Manhattan Island in search of the Indians.

Attention was then turned to the Algonquins, and there are wonderful records of heroic missionary endeavor all along the St. Lawrence from the Gulf to Montreal, and up into the regions of the North. Albanel reached Hudson Bay, and Buteux was murdered at the head-waters of the St. Maurice above Three Rivers. The Ottawas in the West were also looked after, and Garreau was shot to death back of Montreal on his way to their country, which lay along the Ottawa and around Mackinac Island and in the region of Green Bay. The heroic old Ménard perished in the distant swamps of Wisconsin; Allouez and Dablon travelled everywhere along the shores of Lake Superior; a great mission station was established at Sault Ste. Marie, and Marquette with his companion Joliet went down the Mississippi to the Arkansas, and assured the world that the Great River emptied its waters in the Gulf of Mexico. A statue in the Capitol of Washington commemorates this achievement and has been duplicated elsewhere.

The beatification of Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Daniel, Gamier, Chabanel and the two donnés, Goupil and Lalande, is now under consideration at Rome. Their heroic lives as well as those of their associates have given rise to an extensive literature, even among Protestant writers, but the most elaborate tribute to them is furnished by the monumental work consisting of the letters sent by these apostles of the Faith to their superior at Quebec and known the world over as "The Jesuit Relations." It comprises seventy-three octavo volumes, the publication of which was undertaken by a Protestant company in Cleveland. (See Campbell, Pioneer Priests of North America.)

On March 25, 1634, the Jesuit Fathers White and Altham landed with Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore, on St. Clement's Island in Maryland. With them were twenty "gentlemen adventurers," all of whom, with possibly one exception, were Catholics. They brought with them two hundred and fifty mechanics, artisans and laborers who were in great part Protestants. It took them four months to come from Southampton and, on the way over, all religious discussions were prohibited. They were kindly received by the Indians, and the wigwam of the chief was assigned to the priests. A catechism in Patuxent was immediately begun by Father White, and many of the tribe were converted to the Faith in course of time, as were a number of the Protestant colonists. Beyond that, very little missionary work was accomplished, as all efforts in that direction were nullified by a certain Lewger, a former Protestant minister who was Calvert's chief adviser. The adjoining colony of Virginia, which was intensely bitter in its Protestantism, immediately began to cause trouble. In 1644 Ingle and Claiborne made a descent on the colony in a vessel, appropriately called the "Reformation." They captured and burned St. Mary's, plundered and destroyed the houses and chapels of the missionaries, and sent Father White in chains to England, where he was to be put to death, on the charge of being "a returned priest." As he was able to show that he had "returned" in spite of himself, he was discharged.

Calvert recovered his possessions later, and then dissensions began between him and the missionaries because of some land given to them by the Indians. In 1645 it was estimated that the colonists numbered between four and five thousand, three-fourths of whom were Catholics. They were cared for by four Jesuits. In 1649 the famous General Toleration Act was passed, ordaining that "no one believing in Jesus Christ should be molested in his or her religion." As the reverse of this obtained in Virginia, at that time, a number of Puritan recalcitrants from that colony availed themselves of the hospitality of Maryland, and almost immediately, namely in 1650, they repealed the Act and ordered that "no one who professed and exercised the Papistic, commonly known as the Roman Catholic religion, could be protected in the Province." Three of the Jesuits were, in consequence, compelled to flee to Virginia, where they kept in hiding for two or three years. In 1658 Lord Baltimore was again in control, and the Toleration Act was re-enacted. In 1671 the population had increased to 20,000, but in 1676 there was another Protestant uprising and the English penal laws were enforced against the Catholic population. In 1715 Charles, Lord Baltimore, died. Previous to that, his son Benedict had apostatized and was disinherited. He died a few months after his father. Benedict's son Charles, who was also a turncoat, was named lord proprietor by Queen Ann, and made the situation so intolerable for Catholics that they were seriously considering the advisability of abandoning Maryland and migrating in a body to the French colony of Louisiana. As a matter of fact many went West and established themselves in Kentucky.

Of the Jesuits and their flock in Maryland, Bancroft writes: "A convention of the associates for the defence of the Protestant religion assumed the government, and in an address to King William denounced the influence of the Jesuits, the prevalence of papist idolatry, the connivances of the previous government at murders of Protestants and the danger from plots with the French and Indians. The Roman Catholics in the land which they had chosen with Catholic liberality, not as their own asylum only, but as the asylum of every persecuted sect, long before Locke had pleaded for toleration, or Penn for religious freedom, were the sole victims of Protestant intolerance. Mass might not be said publicly. No Catholic priest or bishop might utter his faith in a voice of persuasion. No Catholic might teach the young. If the wayward child of a Catholic would become an apostate the law wrested for him from his parents a share of their property. The disfranchisement of the Proprietary related to his creed, not to his family. Such were the methods adopted to prevent the growth of Popery. Who shall say that the faith of the cultivated individual is firmer than the faith of the common people? Who shall say that the many are fickle; that the chief is firm? To recover the inheritance of authority Benedict, the son of the Proprietary, renounced the Catholic Church for that of England, but the persecution never crushed the faith of the humble colonists."

The extent of the Jesuit missions in what is now Canada and the United States may be appreciated by a glance at the remarkable map recently published by Frank F. Seaman of Cleveland, Ohio. On it is indicated every mission site beginning with the Spanish posts in Florida, Georgia and Virginia, as far back as 1566. The missions of the French Fathers are more numerous, and extend from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay, and west to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. Not only are the mission sites indicated, but the habitats of the various tribes, the portages and the farthest advances of the tomahawk are there also. Lines starting from Quebec show the source of all this stupendous labor.

CHAPTER XI

CULTURE

Colleges – Their Popularity – Revenues – Character of education: Classics; Science; Philosophy; Art – Distinguished Pupils – Poets: Southwell; Balde; Sarbievius; Strada; Von Spee; Gresset; Beschi. – Orators: Vieira; Segneri; Bourdaloue. – Writers: Isla; Ribadeneira; Skarga; Bouhours etc. – Historians – Publications – Scientists and Explorers – Philosophers – Theologians – Saints.

To obviate the suspicion of any desire of self-glorification in the account of what the Society has achieved in several fields of endeavor especially in that of science, literature and education it will be safer to quote from outside and especially from unfriendly sources. Fortunately plenty of material is at hand for that purpose. Böhmer-Monod, for instance, in "Les Jésuites" are surprisingly generous in enumerating the educational establishments possessed by the Society at one time all over Europe, though their explanation of the phenomenon leaves much to be desired. In 1540, they tell us, "the Order counted only ten regular members, and had no fixed residence. In 1556 it had already twelve provinces, 79 houses, and about 1,000 members. In 1574 the figures went up to seventeen provinces, 125 colleges, 11 novitiates, 35 other establishments of various kinds, and 4,000 members. In 1608 there were thirty-one provinces, 306 colleges, 40 novitiates, 21 professed houses, 65 residences and missions, and 10,640 members. Eight years afterwards, that is a year after the death of its illustrious General Aquaviva, the Society had thirty-two provinces, 372 colleges, 41 novitiates, 123 residences, 13,112 members. Ten years later, namely in 1626, there were thirty-six provinces, 2 vice-provinces, 446 colleges, 37 seminaries, 40 novitiates, 24 professed houses, about 230 missions, and 16,060 members. Finally in 1640 the statistics showed thirty-five provinces, 3 vice-provinces, 521 colleges, 49 seminaries, 54 novitiates, 24 professed houses, about 280 residences and missions and more than 16,000 members."

Before giving these "cold statistics," as they are described, the authors had conducted their readers through the various countries of Europe, where this educational influence was at work. "Italy," we are informed, "was the place in which the Society received its programme and its constitution, and from which it extended its influence abroad. Its success in that country was striking, and if the educated Italians returned to the practices and the Faith of the Church, if it was inspired with zeal for asceticism and the missions, if it set itself to compose devotional poetry and hymns of the Church, and to consecrate to the religious ideal, as if to repair the past, the brushes of its painters and the chisels of its sculptors, is it not the fruit of the education which the cultivated classes received from the Jesuits in the schools and the confessionals? Portugal was the second fatherland of the Society. There it was rapidly acclimated. Indeed, the country fell, at one stroke, into the hands of the Order; whereas Spain had to be won step by step. It met with the opposition of Spanish royalty, the higher clergy, the Dominicans. Charles V distrusted them; Philip II tried to make them a political machine, and some of the principal bishops were dangerous foes, but in the seventeenth century the Society had won over the upper classes and the court, and soon Spain had ninety-eight colleges and seminaries richly endowed, three professed houses, five novitiates, and four residences, although the population of the country at that time was scarcely 5,000,000.

"In France a few Jesuit scholars presented themselves at the university in the year 1540. They were frowned upon by the courts, the clergy, the parliament, and nearly all the learned societies. It was only in 1561, after the famous Colloque de Poissy, that the Society obtained legal recognition and was allowed to teach, and in 1564 it had already ten establishments, among them several colleges. One of the colleges, that of Clermont, became the rival of the University of Paris, and Maldonatus, who taught there, had a thousand pupils following his lectures. In 1610 there were five French provinces with a total of thirty-six colleges, five novitiates, one professed house, one mission, and 1400 members. La Flèche, founded by Henry IV, had 1,200 pupils. In 1640 the Society in France had sixty-five colleges, two academies, two seminaries, nine boarding-schools, seven novitiates, four professed houses, sixteen residences and 2050 members.

"In Germany Canisius founded a boarding school in Vienna, with free board for poor scholars, as early as 1554. In 1555 he opened a great college in Prague; in 1556, two others at Ingolstadt and Cologne respectively, and another at Munich in 1559. They were all founded by laymen, for, with the exception of Cardinal Truchsess of Augsburg, the whole episcopacy was at first antagonistic to the Order. In 1560 they found the Jesuits their best stand-by, and in 1567 the Fathers had thirteen richly endowed schools, seven of which were in university cities. The German College founded by Ignatius in Rome was meantime filling Germany with devoted and learned priests and bishops, and between 1580 and 1590 Protestantism disappeared from Treves, Mayence, Augsburg, Cologne, Paderborn, Münster and Hildesheim. Switzerland gave them Fribourg in 1580, while Louvain had its college twenty years earlier.

"In 1556 eight Fathers and twelve scholastics made their appearance at Ingolstadt in Bavaria. The poison of heresy was immediately ejected, and the old Church took on a new life. The transformation was so prodigious that it would seem rash to attribute it to these few strangers; but their strength was in inverse proportion to their number. They captured the heart and the head of the country, from the court and the local university down to the people; and for centuries they held that position. After Ingolstadt came Dillingen and Würzburg. Munich was founded in 1559, and in 1602 it had 900 pupils. The Jesuits succeeded in converting the court into a convent, and Munich into a German Rome. In 1597 they were entrusted with the superintendence of all the primary schools of the country, and they established new colleges at Altoetting and Mindelheim. In 1621 fifty of them went into the Upper Palatinate, which was entirely Protestant, and in ten years they had established four new colleges.

"In Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola there was scarcely a vestige of the old Church in 1571. In 1573 the Jesuits established a college at Grätz, and the number of communicants in that city rose immediately from 20 to 500. The college was transformed into a university twelve years later, and in 1602 and 1613 new colleges were opened at Klagenfurth and Leoben. In Bohemia and Moravia they had not all the secondary schools, but the twenty colleges and eleven seminaries which they controlled in 1679 proved that at least the higher education and the formation of ecclesiastics was altogether in their hands, and the seven establishments and colleges on the northern frontier overlooking Lutheran Saxony made it evident that they were determined to guard Bohemia against the poison of heresy." The writer complains that they even dared to dislodge "Saint John Huss" from his niche and put in his place St. John Nepomucene, "who was at most a poor victim, and by no means a saint." Böhmer's translator, Monod, adds a note here to inform his readers that the Jesuits invented the legend about St. John Nepomucene, and induced Benedict XIII to canonize him.

Finally, we reach Poland where, we are informed that "the Jesuits enjoyed an incredible popularity. In 1600 the college of Polotsk had 400 students, all of whom were nobles; Vilna had 800, mostly belonging to the Lithuanian nobility, and Kalisch had 500. Fifty years later, all the higher education was in the hands of the Order, and Ignatius became, literally, the preceptor Poloniæ, and Poland the classic land of the royal scholarship of the north, as Portugal was in the south.

"In India, there were nineteen colleges and two seminaries; in Mexico, fourteen colleges and two seminaries; in Brazil, thirteen colleges and two seminaries; in Paraguay, seven colleges," and the authors might have added, there was a college in Quebec, which antedated the famous Puritan establishment of Harvard in New England, and which was erected not "out of the profits of the fur trade," as Renaudot says in the Margry Collection, but out of the inheritance of a Jesuit scholastic.

After furnishing their readers with this splendid list of houses of education, the question is asked: "How can we explain this incredible success of the Order as a teaching body? If we are to believe the sworn enemies of the Jesuits, it is because they taught gratuitously, and thus starved out the legitimate successors of the Humanists. That might explain it somewhat, they say, especially in southern Italy, where the nobleman is always next door to the lazzarone, but it will by no means explain how so many princes and municipalities made such enormous outlays to support those schools; for there were other orders in Catholic countries as rigidly orthodox as the Jesuits. No; the great reason of their success must be attributed to the superiority of their methods. Read the pedagogical directions of Ignatius, the great scholastic ordinances of Aquaviva, and the testimony of contemporaries, and you will recognize the glory of Loyola as an educator. The expansion is truly amazing; from a modest association of students to a world-wide power which ended by becoming as universal as the Church for which it fought; but superior to it in cohesion and rapidity of action – a world power whose influence made itself felt not only throughout Europe, but in the New World, in India, China, Japan; a world power on whose service one sees at work, actuated by the same spirit, representatives of all races and all nations: Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Germans, English, Poles and Greeks, Arabians, Chinamen and Japanese and even red Indians; a world power which is something such as the world has never seen."