Harvest of Souls: The Jesuit Missions and Colonialism in North America, 1632-1650

190 Pages·2004·13.478 MB·English

by  Carole Blackburn

Harvest of Souls
The Jesuit Missions
and Colonialism in North America, 1632-1650
In Harvest of Souls Carole Blackburn uses the Jesuit Relations to shed
light on the dialogue between Jesuit missionaries and the Native
peoples of northeastern North America, providing a historical anthro-
pology of two cultures attempting to understand, contend with, and
accommodate each other in the new world.
In i632 Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune, newly arrived at the fort
of Quebec, wrote the first of the Relations to his superior in Paris,
initiating a series of mission reports that came to be known as the Jesuit
Relations. Blackburn presents a contemporary interpretation of the
i632-i65O Relations, arguing that they are colonizing texts in which
the Jesuits use language, imagery, and forms of knowledge to legitimize
relations of inequality with the Huron and Montagnais.
By combining textual analysis with an ethnographic study of the
Jesuits, Blackburn is able to reveal the gap between the domineering
language of the Relations and the limited authority that the Jesuits were
able to exercise over Native people, who actively challenged much of
what the Jesuits tried to do and say. She highlights the struggle between
the Jesuits and Natives over the meaning of Christianity. The Jesuits
attempted to convey their Christian message through Native languages
and cultural idioms. Blackburn shows that this resulted in the displace-
ment of much of the content of the message and demonstrates that the
Native people's acts of resistance took up and transformed aspects of
the Jesuits' teachings in ways that subverted their authority.
Harvest of Souls is essential for all those interested in new approaches
to historical and contemporary relations between Europeans and
Native peoples in North America.
CAROLE BLACKBURN is a doctoral student in anthropology at Stanford
University.
MCGILL-QUEEN'S NATIVE AND NORTHERN SERIES
BRUCE G. TRIGGER, EDITOR
i When the Whalers Were 8 In Business for Ourselves
Up North Northern Entrepreneurs
Inuit Memories from the Wanda A. Wuttunee
Eastern Arctic
9 For an Amerindian Autohistory
Dorothy Harley Eber
An Essay on the Foundations
2. The Challenge of Arctic of a Social Ethic
Shipping Georges E. Sioui
Science, Environmental
10 Strangers Among Us
Assessment, and Human Values
David Woodman
David L. VanderZwaag and
11 When the North Was Red
Cynthia Lamson, Editors
Aboriginal Education in Soviet
3 Lost Harvests
Siberia
Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers
Dennis A. Bartels and
and Government Policy
Alice L. Bartels
Sarah Carter
12, From Talking Chiefs to a
4 Native Liberty, Crown
Native Corporate Elite
Sovereignty
The Birth of Class and
The Existing Aboriginal Right
Nationalism among Canadian
of Self-Government in Canada
Inuit
Bruce Clark
Marybelle Mitchell
5 Unravelling the Franklin
13 Cold Comfort
Mystery
My Love Affair with the
Inuit Testimony
Arctic
David C. Woodman
Graham W. Rowley
6 Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and
14 The True Spirit and Original
China Goods
Intent of Treaty 7
The Maritime Fur Trade of the
Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal
Northwest Coast,
Council with Walter
1785-1841
Hildebrandt, Dorothy First
James R. Gibson
Rider, and Sarah Carter
7 From Wooden Ploughs to
15 This Distant and Unsurveyed
Welfare
Country
The Story of the Western
A Woman's Winter at Baffin
Reserves
Island, 1857-1858
Helen Buckley
W. Gillies Ross
16 Images of Justice 20 Justice in Paradise
Dorothy Harley Eber Bruce Clark
17 Capturing Women 21 Aboriginal Rights and
The Manipulation of Cultural Self-Government
Imagery in Canada's The Canadian and Mexican
Prairie West Experience in North American
Sarah A. Carter Perspective
Edited by Curtis Cook and
18 Social and Environmental
Juan D. Lindau
Impacts of the James Bay
Hydroelectric Project 22 Harvest of Souls
Edited by The Jesuit Missions
James F. Hornig and Colonialism in North
America, 1632-1650
19 Saqiyuq
Carole Blackburn
Stories from the Lives of
Three Inuit Women
Nancy Wachowich in
collaboration with Apphia
Agalakti Awa, Rhoda Kaukjak
Katsak, and Sandra Pikujak
Katsak
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Harvest of Souls
The Jesuit Missions
and Colonialism
in North America,
1632-1650
Carole Blackburn
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press 2000
ISBN 0-7735-2.047-3
Legal deposit second quarter 2000
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program (BPIDP) for its activities. We also
acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for
the Arts for our publishing program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Blackburn, Carole, 1963-
Harvest of souls : the Jesuit missions and colonialism
in North America, 1632-1650
(McGill-Queen's native and northern series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-2047-3
i. Jesuits - Missions - Canada - History - i7th
century. 2. Indians of North America - Canada -
Missions - History - i7th century. I. Title.
FC3I5.B63 2000 266'.271 099-901345-9
FIO3O.7.B63 2OOO
Typeset in Sabon 10.5/13
by Caractera inc., Quebec City
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Illustrations xi
I Introduction 3
2, Jesuit Beginnings in New France 2,1
3 The Wilderness 42,
4 Law and Order 70
5 Conversion and Conquest 105
Conclusion 12,9
Notes 141
References 157
Index i69
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support and
encouragement of a number of people. I am indebted to Bruce
Trigger for first encouraging me to develop this manuscript out of
my master's thesis, as well as for his insightful comments on the
text and terminology. This book is a considerably reworked and
expanded version of that thesis, and I have learned as much during
the process of expanding it as I did during its first writing. I would
like to thank Toby Morantz again for her guidance and generosity
during the years she was my thesis director at McGill University. I
also thank Ken Little, Colin Scott, and Carmen Lambert for their
contributions to the original thesis, as well as my student friends
and colleagues during my years in Montreal. Jane Collier, Nicholas
De Genova, and Blair Rutherford provided valuable suggestions on
the revised and expanded text as well as encouragement. I am also
grateful to the three anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful com-
ments and criticisms helped me improve the manuscript. Miyako
Inoue also gave valuable comments on a shorter version of some
of the arguments presented here, when I developed them in the
context of her graduate seminar on language and political economy
at Stanford. For insights into life and publishing, I am indebted to
Dara Culhane. Any errors and deficiencies in the present work are
of course mine alone.
At McGill-Queen's University Press, Aurele Parisien offered
encouragement and helpful comments on the book from the very
beginning. I would also like to thank Joan McGilvray for guiding
the manuscript through production and Carlotta Lemieux for her