Jesuit missions in North America were attempted in the late 16th century, established early in the 17th century, faltered at the beginning of the 18th, disappeared during the suppression of the Society of Jesus around 1763, and returned around 1830 after the restoration of the Society. The missions were established as part of the colonial drive of France and Spain during the period, the "saving of souls" being an accompaniment of the constitution of Nouvelle-France and early colonial Mexico. The efforts of the Jesuits in North America were paralleled by their China missions on the other side of the world, and in South America. They left written documentation of their efforts, in the form of The Jesuit Relations.
Establishment of Nouvelle-France and first missions Toward the end of his reign, Henry IV of France started to look at the possibility of ventures abroad, with both North America and the Levant being among the possibilities.
In 1570, Spanish Jesuits moved northward from St. Augustine in Florida to establish a small mission in Virginia: the Ajacán Mission. On February 19, 1571, eight missionaries were killed by the local Indigenous.Jesuit Martyrs of Virginia The Martyrs have become Servants of God.National Catholic Register
In 1604, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain initiated the first important French involvement in Northern America. He founded Port Royal as the first permanent European settlement in North America north of Florida in 1605, and the first permanent French establishment at Quebec in 1608.
First Mission (1609)
The Jesuits established a mission on Penobscot Bay in 1609, which was part of the French colony of Acadia.
Second Mission (1611) The Jesuits wanted to participate in these forays into new lands. On October 25, 1604, the Jesuit Father Pierre Coton requested his General Superior Claudio Acquaviva to send two missionaries to Terre-Neuve. As a result, in 1611 the two first Jesuits, Pierre Biard and Enemond Massé, were able to leave for Port Royal in Acadia. The mission failed in 1613 following a raid by Virginians.
Third Mission (1613) A third mission was built on Mount Desert Island in 1613.
Fourth mission (1625) The Jesuits conceived plans to move their efforts to the shore of the St. Lawrence River. A fourth mission was established in 1625 by Fathers Charles Lalemant as Superior, Enemond Massé, St. Jean de Brébeuf, and assistants François Charton and Gilbert Buret. This mission failed following the occupation of Quebec by English forces in 1629.
The Jesuit establishment
Although the Jesuits tried to establish missions from present-day Florida in 1566 up to present-day Virginia in 1571, the Jesuit missions wouldn't gain a strong foothold in North America until 1632, with the arrival of the Jesuit Paul Le Jeune. Between 1632 and 1650, 46 French Jesuits arrived in North America to preach among the Indians.
Missions
Viceroyalty of New Spain
In the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain (colonial México), from 1683 to 1767 the Jesuits established the first twenty missions in Baja California, on the Baja California Peninsula of present-day Mexico.
Also, from 1687 to 1704 the Jesuits established twenty-three missions in the Sonoran Desert, in the Provincias Internas of New Spain, present day northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona.
The Suppression of the Society of Jesus by 1767 in the Spanish Empire led to their expulsion from the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Franciscans replaced them in supporting existing and establishing new missions from 1768 to 1822 in Spanish North America. In 1774, on the Baja California Peninsula only, the Dominicans replaced the Franciscans in establishing missions.
New France
In 1634, the Jesuits established a mission in Wendat (Huron) territory under the direction of Jean de Brébeuf. The Mission de Sainte-Marie was quite successful, and considered as "the jewel of the Jesuit mission in New France." More than a decade later it was destroyed by traditional Wendat enemies, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), first in 1648 and again in 1649. The Jesuits were killed along with the Wendat. Eight Jesuits—killed between 1642 and 1649—became known as the North American Martyrs.
In 1654, the Jesuits started establishing missions among the Haudenosaunee. In 1656 Sainte Marie among the Iroquois (originally known as Sainte-Marie-de-Ganentaa or St. Mary's of Ganantaa) was the first of these new missions to be established, located among the Onondagas under Father Simon Le Moyne. Within thirteen years, the Jesuits had missions among all five Haudenosaunee nations, in part imposed by French attacks against their villages in present-day New York state. However, as relations between the French and the Haudenosaunee were tense, the missions were all abandoned by 1708. Some converted Haudenosaunee and members of other nations migrated to Canada, where they joined the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake by 1718.
The Jesuit mission at Detroit was moved to Bois Blanc Island in 1742. The mission was later reestablished in the vicinity of present-day Windsor, closer to the defences at Detroit. The Wendat mission served both native and European residents, with the arrival of French settlers in the area. In 1767, the mission became the Parish of Assumption, the earliest Roman Catholic parish in present-day Ontario.Ontario Heritage Trust Jesuit Mission to the Hurons
In the late 1750s, leaders from Kahnawake led 30 families upriver to create a new settlement at Akwesasne, today the largest Mohawk settlement in Canada.
Seminaries In order to train young Indians to the Catholic faith, a seminary was opened near Quebec, at Notre-Dame-des-Anges in 1636. The first students were five young Wendat, who were followed by a dozen young Innu and Algonquins in 1638–1639. After first successes, the seminary failed as the young Indians proved reluctant to be educated, and died in great numbers due to infections brought by the Westerners. A second seminary was opened in Trois-Rivières but failed after one year.
Reductions A more successful endeavour was the establishment of "reductions", villages where local people were settled under the control of the Jesuits. The reductions in North America were inspired by the Jesuit Reductions of South America, especially those in Paraguay. Reductions were first established for the nomads of the St. Lawrence River valley, at Sillery near Québec and Conception near Trois-Rivières, and later among sedentary peoples such as the Huron-Wendat at Notre-Dame-de-Foy and later Lorette, and the Haudenosaunee at La Prairie de la Madeleine.
One of the most famous reductions was that of Sillery near Quebec, which was established with the financial help of Noël Brûlart de Sillery in 1637. In 1645, there were 167 aboriginal inhabitants in Sillery. The reduction was raided by the Haudenosaunee in 1646. In 1670, Sillery was hit by an epidemic of measles and the Montagnais and Algonquins left the territory. In 1698, the Jesuits abandoned their post there as missionaries and transferred the land to the parish of Notre-Dame-de-Sainte-Foy.
Conflict with the Haudenosaunee The efforts of the Jesuits in North America would be constantly hampered by the conflict of the French with the Haudenosaunee. The Wendat Confederacy was essentially destroyed by the effects of warfare with the Haudenosaunee following epidemic infectious diseases from 1634 to 1640. From 1642 to 1649, the Haudenosaunee killed eight Jesuit missionaries, each of whom are now recognized as martyrs by the Catholic Church. A few years later in 1655, while carrying out a reconnaissance mission near Quebec, Jean Ligeois, a lay member of the Jesuit Order was brutally decapitated and scalped. At last, in 1701, the "Grande Paix de Montréal" would end the conflict.
The Jesuits demanded that the Haudenosaunee who converted to the Christian faith also adopt a new approach to politics, thus causing the Haudenosaunee to stop compromising with those who had not converted. They viewed opposition to rituals that bound Haudenosaunee of different clans and nations together as a necessity, since these rituals seemed hopelessly laced with sin and superstition. These differences between the Haudenosaunee converts to Christianity and those that stuck to the traditionalist beliefs created conflicts between the two groups. These led to the traditionalist Haudenosaunee waging violent attacks on the Christian converts. When the Haudenosaunee spiritual value seemed to increase through war victories, this is what caused traditionalist shamans and headmen to win back disciples in the same way that priest had first won them. In the late 1670s, the wars with Susquehannocks and Mahicans ended, causing the Haudenosaunee to have a return to the perceptions of their own spiritual strength. The Jesuits therefore did not like it when they won these battles, with one Jesuit Father Etienne de Carheil writing that there was nothing more harmful to these missions than the Natives' victories over their enemies.
Views on French Imperialism In addition to converting Indigenous populations to Catholicism, Jesuits in New France worked to realize the imperial ambitions of the French Crown. While their primary focus was religious conversion, they viewed imperial expansion and economic prosperity as being inextricably linked to proselytization. As a consequence of these beliefs, the Jesuits’ activities in New France were often aligned with the imperial and economic interest of French elites. It should also be noted that the French Jesuits’ imperialist attitudes can be traced back to the early seventeenth century. In the year 1594, King Henry IV, who had been baptized Catholic but raised as Protestant, expelled the Society of Jesus from France following a failed assassination attempt by a student of the Jesuits in France. Nine years later, in 1603, Henry IV converted back to Catholicism and, to prove the sincerity of his conversion, allowed the Society back into France. However, before being allowed back into France, the Society had to accept two stipulations from Henry IV: 1) all Jesuits coming back into France had to be French-born or naturalized Frenchmen, and 2) had to swear an oath of loyalty to the French Crown. As a result, the French Jesuits coming back into France were incredibly homogenous, not only in nationality, but in loyalty to the French Crown as well. In fact, the historical record shows that throughout the early seventeenth century, French Jesuits began promoting Gallicanism, a belief which is rooted in the idea that the French monarch possesses a level of authority over the Catholic Church which rivals that of the Pope.