Document Number: |
AJ-047 |
Author: |
Allouez, Jean Claude, 1620-1690? |
Title: |
Father Allouez¿s Journey to Lake Superior, 1665-1667 |
Source: |
Kellogg, Louise P. (editor). Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917). Pages 95-137. |
Pages/Illustrations: |
45 / 0 |
Citable URL: |
www.americanjourneys.org/aj-047/ |
Author Note
The Jesuit priest Jean Claude Allouez (1620-1689) was
ordained in 1655 and spent seven years in the Canadian
settlements on the lower St. Lawrence before undertaking the
journey described here. In the early years of the seventeen century
the French had established trading posts and Jesuit missions
among the Algonquian-speaking nations of the eastern Great
Lakes. During the 1640s, wars with the Iroquois drove those
tribes west from their traditional homelands to the forests
surrounding Lake Superior, in what today is Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and western Ontario. For two decades the French in
Montreal and Quebec had little or no contact with their former
allies. This 1665-67 journey by Father Allouez was one of the
first successful trips through hostile Iroquois territory to
re-establish relations between the French and the exiled Indian
nations. After completing this journey, Father Allouez stayed
only two days in Quebec before heading west again, on the trip
described in AJ-048. He spent most of the next decade in
missions at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and present-day Green Bay,
Wisconsin, before taking over the Illinois mission of Father
Jacques Marquette in 1675. Allouez died in 1689 at the mission
to the Miami nation on St. Joseph River in southwestern
Michigan, having baptized more than 10,000 Indian converts to
Christianity during his twenty-four years in the wilderness.
Father Allouez’s Journey to Lake Superior, 1665-1667
Father Allouez left Trois Riviéres, Quebec, August 8, 1665,
with six Frenchmen and nearly four hundred Indians of different
nations who had recently completed trading furs for French
goods. They traveled the Prairie River to the Ottawa and then
crossed Lake Nipissing to its outlet on Lake Huron’s Georgian
Bay. They arrived at Sault Ste. Marie in September. Allouez
describes the clarity of Lake Superior and the abundance of
copper nodules on the lake bottom. They sailed the southern
shore in September and in October established a camp on
Chequamegon Bay, near modern Bayfield, Wisconsin. He describes
the conflict between the Woodland Dakota (Sioux) and the
Chippewa, who were contesting for access to the wild rice lakes
of Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Throughout his journey,
Allouez describes his attempts to convert members of various
Indian tribes to Christianity and describes the religious
practices of several Native American tribes. During his two-year
mission on Lake Superior he traveled to Ontario and continued
attempts to convert the tribes to Christianity. Allouez also
traveled to Lake Michigan where he continued his mission to
convert the Potawotamie and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) at Green Bay.
He returned to Sault Ste. Marie on June 3, 1667, en route to
Quebec.
Allouez’s reports give some of the earliest accounts of the
interior of the continent, particularly of the life and customs
of the Sioux and other Indian peoples on the eastern and
northern Plains. His descriptions of the landscape and natural
environments are also especially detailed. But perhaps his most
important contribution was an unconscious one, since his texts
reveal the values, beliefs, assumptions and motives of the
seventeen century. Jesuit missionaries.
Document Origins
Allouez’s account of his missionary voyage was first
published in 1668 in François Le Mercier’s Relation de ce qui
s’est passé de plus remarquable aux missions des peres de la
Compagnie de Jesus, en la Nouvelle France, les années mil six
cens soixante six, & mil six cens soixante sept (Paris: Chez
Sebastien Cramoisy, et Sebast. Mabre-Cramoisy, 1668). The
English translation reproduced here is from Louise P. Kellogg’s
Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699. (N.Y.,
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917)
Other Internet and Reference Sources
For another eyewitness account of the Lake Superior region,
written a few years later, see AJ-054, Duluth’s Memoir on the
Sioux Country, 1678-1682.
While there is no modern full-length biography of Allouez,
the most comprehensive is:
Verwyst, Chrysostom. Missionary labors of fathers
Marquette, Menard and Allouez, in the Lake Superior region.
(Chicago: Hoffman Brothers, 1886)
Students may find a useful introduction in the pamphlet:
Clark, James I.. Father Claude Allouez, Missionary.
(Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1957)
Additional background can be found at the Virtual Museum of
New France:
http://www.civilization.ca/vmnf/vmnfe.asp
Other contemporary primary sources are available at Early
Canadiana Online:
http://www.canadiana.org/eco/english/
Translations of Allouez’s accounts are in volume L (50).The
Jesuit relations and allied documents..., 1610-1791...
edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites. (Cleveland: Burrows Bros. Co.,
1896-1901). This has been reproduced (English pages only) online
at:
http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/ |
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