USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > More chronicles of a pioneer school, from 1792 to 1833, being added history on the Litchfield Female Academy kept by Miss Sarah Pierce and her nephew, John Pierce Brace > Part 29
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As the tribe retire, he beckons to him one of the leaders whom his- tory mentions under the euphonious name of Bamazeen. "Warrior" said he, "what news from the land of the enemy?"
"Carabeset has been sent into the country of the heretics, to seek the alliances of the scattered tribes on the shore of the salt lake. His return will bring us intelligence."
" "Tis well. My friend here informs me that our father of France will continue to send us what we need for war, although the hatchet of contention between him and perfidious Albion has been buried. Our Canada father has sent my friend to instruct you in the art of war. He made the attempt to-day, as I am told. Did he succeed?"
A gleam of unwonted sportiness glanced over the face of the savage as he civilly replied :
"The redmen have ways of their own to fight. Old warriors cannot be taught new modes."
The old man nodded, and beckoning to the military gentleman who had stood in one corner of the rude chapel during the religious serv- ices, they both passed into the log hut which was the residence of the missionary.
Sebastian Rasles (or Ralle, as the name is spelt by the early his- torians of the English colonies) had been for the whole of the present century earnest in his endeavors to Christianize and civilize the sav- ages. In one of his pilgrimages among the Indians, he had seen the spot where he now resided and thought it admirably fitted for the pur- pose to which he had enthusiastically devoted his life. The forest with its game was in the rear; the river with its fish in its front. The confluence of the brook with the stream gave a dry site for his build- ings and the huts of the tribe, while the rich alluvial bottom land already denuded of its timber, furnished him a spot to raise his own vegetables for his own simple table, and to teach the arts of agriculture to his followers.
He soon induced the tribe to settle around him, and a large and powerful Indian village thus grew up in the forest.
He was a singular man. His facility in the acquisition of the native languages gave him at once an influence over the tribes of the red men, who made him their organ of communication with the French government in Canada. This influence was strengthened by the mildness of his manners and the arts which he taught them. He in- troduced his own religion and easily induced the Indians to acquiesce in its forms and ritual. Their senses were enthralled by the various appeals to the eye and the ear which Roman Catholic missionaries know so well how to employ. He was a good painter himself and adorned his chapel with pictures of his own limning to influence their devotion.
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He always made it a point, upon their first devotional offering at his chapel after their return from a successful expedition that their eyes should be gratified by some new picture of the saints or the Virgin and some new hymn of triumph sung by his youthful choir. Religion was therefore easily interwoven in the minds of these savages with their skill and success.
If they were defeated, the chapel was draped in mourning and the pictures turned with their faces to the wall, for while Father Sebastian was an enthusiast in religion, and for its success was willing to spend his life in the wilderness in their improvements, he was a Jesuit and acted upon the cardinal principles of that sect that the goodness of the end would justify the means employed to obtain it.
He never asked his converts how many scalps they had brought back. A glance of the eye on the row of returning warriors was suffi- cient. But these savages soon discovered that loud notes of triumph were sung when the scalps were many; and that they were louder still when the fair hair of the Saxon heretic was mingled with the long, straight locks of the Aborigines, and the new picture of the Virgin smiled even the more graciously.
He had a conscience, undoubtedly, but were not those English settlers the hereditary enemies of his country, and those Puritans the most implacable foes of his religion? Was it not strengthening the power of his nation to cut them off? Did not their heresy deserve extermination?
Though governed by religious motives to the very verge of en- thusiasm equal to that of Elliott or Brainard, and feeling that the propagation of Christianity in the wilderness was the first great, paramount object of his existence, yet he was a Frenchman, taught to consider the glory of the Grand Monarch an object next to religious duty. As a Jesuit, political aggrandisement was mixed up with reli- gious zeal in every instruction of his early training and was now a part of his very nature.
Besides, how could he repay the Governor of Canada for the muskets and ammunition, for the agricultural implements and mechanical assistances he received, better than by assisting his native country against their enemy in time of war, and by weakening that natural enemy all that laid in his power in time of peace? He looked to the future struggle for supremacy in the New World, which he foresaw must soon arise between two nations, and aimed, while he was making his converts good Catholics, to make them firm adherents to the French rule.
Father Rasles had no views of personal aggrandisement or selfish gratification. Few Jesuits have. They lose their individuality in their furtherance of the great schemes of their own order, and in their
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subserviency to Mother Church. The Christianizing and civilizing of his converts and the spread of the power of France occupied his mind to the exclusion of all personal cares. His habits were the most simple and ascetic. He ate no meat and drank no wine. His ordinary food was pounded samp mixed with water, the whole of which he pre- pared himself from digging the ground for the reception of the corn to the pounding of the ripened grain. He brought his own water from the fountain, and gathered and cut his own wood. He would never allow even the young savages to assist him in anything, lest an obligation thus incurred should weaken his influence over them. On a church feast day, while he encouraged those around him to eat and even showed them how to add zest to their cooked game, his own luxurious indulgence consisted only in a plate of boiled greens with vinegar. But he was never austere but to himself. He mingled in all the domestic arrangements of the natives, showed them how to add to their comforts, and labored for them and with them in the construction of their huts and in the preparation of their ground.
The savages looked up to him as a superior being. If they were in trouble, his advice was ready. He was their physician and nurse in sickness; supplied them with their simple remedies; held the crucifix to their eyes in the last moments of life; and buried them in the con- secrated ground of his chapel with the most imposing religious ceremonies.
He was never angry - never unreasonable. He met their own wild gushes of ungovernable rage with perfect coolness and quietness; looked them in the eye as he would a maniac, with his large, clear, cold, gray orbs, crossing himself as he did it, or holding his crucifix which was suspended from his neck - his only armor - before their furious faces. They were settled in a moment. There was no reproach afterwards - no allusion to the sudden ex- plosion - no humbling of the savage heart by the demand of penance.
He was never selfish nor grasping, showing to their savage minds that he sought not theirs but them. So upright was he in his own dealings with them, that they the more readily submitted to every decision he made in their disputes with each other.
Such was Father Sebastian Rasles, the Jesuit Missionary among the Abenaki Indians, who, for more than twenty years, had labored and prayed and suffered among these heathen to train them for heaven in the way he conceived to be right. Such is the man whose memory was cursed among the earlier settlers of Maine as the origin and cause of all the bloody reprisals which they suffered from their Indian enemies.
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CHAPTER XVI
"You will have to content yourself, Captain Joubert, with the plain fare of a forest anchorite. It is not the season for game and this salmon is all that I have to offer you, with some boiled greens and pounded samp for bread. I have no wine to give you. I use none myself and do not encourage the bringing of any description of eau de vie into the village, from its disastrous effects upon my poor dependents. It is the only topic upon which I have any dispute with my savage friends. But I have at length convinced the oldest and wisest among them of its necessity and I strengthen this view of theirs by my own habits."
This was spoken by Father Rasles to his military companion, Cap- tain Joubert whose elegant uniform was in strange contrast with the dark colored cloak of the worthy Jesuit.
Joubert looked a little dissatisfied. He missed his soup and his ragouts, and thought at least that a little wine might have graced the table, which without a covering held their simple meal.
"Well, I must make a virtue of necessity. A long journey through the forest has taught me what American forest fare is, and my mili- tary effort to teach your dear savages some real discipline have made me hungry enough not to be particular. But do you not eat anything yourself, Father Sebastian?"
"It is a fast day with me; and a simple draught of water must suffice."
"But do you not fear such numerous and absolute fasts will wear out your body?"
"My patroness, Our Lady of the Wilderness, will support me," meekly replied the Father, crossing himself, "or if she chooses other- wise, I am ready to wear out in my master's service, if, by so doing I can plant the true faith among these heathen in the wilderness, and by their aid circumscribe the extent and sway of heresy in this new world. I have two great objects before me in life which are not incompatible - the spread of the doctrines of the Cross and the support of the power of his Most Christian Majesty. The conversion of the Indians and the overthrow and destruction of the heretical English will accomplish these objects and they mutually support each other."
"You are spoken of in Quebec as having been an able auxiliary of the French arms, and it is by your influence over the savages that the Governor General expects to keep the perfidious enemy in check, now peace has been declared. It was for that purpose he sent me to your settlement, and especially to enquire whether the Abenakis will submit to the English now they are deprived of our open aid by the peace. Everything that can be done secretly in the way of supplies to you of arms and ammunition, will be done."
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"So I understand and you can inform the Governor General that scouting parties have been sent by our chiefs through all parts of the neighboring regions even to the lower Connecticut, to ascertain what assistance they can receive from their savage brethren in case of their open resistance to the new claims these Puritan English are making to their lands. The result I know not as yet, but I can conjecture it, and I trust that His Excellency will not be backward in his immediate supplies. You spoke of an attempt to teach my red children the ad- vantages of European discipline in arms. How was it? Bamazeen, in his dry way, spoke of it in a slightly contemptuous tone, as a failure."
A slight gleam of satire twinkled in the cold, gray eye of the Father at this question. Joubert slightly colored, but soon good naturedly replied:
"It was an entire failure. By the aid of a straight-backed Indian lad who officiated as interpreter I told them of the design of their Great Father on the Hills of Thunder, as they call our fortification at Quebec, that they should learn to charge in a battallion and fire regular volleys, and march and fight, shoulder to shoulder. The old chiefs smiled, but the young men seemed willing to try something new. I then arranged them as I wished - the men with the muskets forming a solid phalanx in the centre, and those armed with bows and arrows on the flanks, with a sufficient corps de reserve in its proper place. I got a kind of wooden drum, which some of their medicine men used, to strike a regular beat, and then directed them to march forward. This they did in pretty good order, but an old chief stated gravely to me by the interpreter, that such a march would leave too broad a trail. I replied proudly that true warriors only looked at what was before them, not at the tracks in the rear. When this was repeated to him, his only reply was 'Hugh!' I went on with the ex- planations of my manoeuvres. I told them of the manner of resisting an attack on either flank by an oblique movement. I explained to them by words how to repel an enemy in front by platoon firing as they advanced and by keeping a firm rank. Having finished my explanations, I told them I should now see how well they would apply them, and gave orders for the interpreter to announce that a body of the enemy was advancing through the forest, in front. What was my surprise to see every mother's son of them break up suddenly and run with a terrific scream, each to some tree in front, where they stood ready for their approaching enemy. I saw that it did no good to at- tempt teaching them anything, and laughing, gave it up."
"Each nation has its own mode of warfare as well as customs. I have never attempted to interfere with them and have therefore avoided any difficulty."
"But, Father Rasles, have you had no difficulty in dissuading them
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from scalping an enemy? That custom is very much talked against in Europe, and the encouragers of such barbaric customs frowned on at Court."
"I answer as I did before; each nation has its own customs, and if His Most Christian Majesty uses such instruments to increase or strengthen his territories in this wilderness, he must take them as they are. Notwithstanding this very courtly opinion, His Excellency, the Governor General has offered rewards for scalps, and I think pays rather higher for light-haired ones than for the straight Indian scalp-lock. It is a mode of warfare that strikes terror into the enemy. Besides, if such measures are not approved, why was Hertel Rouville sent here to make inroads into the English possessions?"
"I have heard of that terrible fellow. He was a man, I have under- stood, that was more bloody than these bloodthirsty savages."
"He did much execution among the heretical Puritans," was the rather sanctimonious reply.
"But he killed and scalped women and children who were non- combatant."
"Indians, and Hertell was one at heart, make no such distinctions. Young children are killed as snakes are, to prevent them from doing harm hereafter."
"It is infamous, barbarous, entirely contrary to the glory of the Great Monarch. Did you know Hertell?"
"I did."
"He has been here then?"
"Certainly," said Father Sebastian calmly, "Here was his place to rest his troops after a warfare in this part of New England. My warriors went with him, and Hertell came to me for absolution. The enemy was a nation of heretics and I readily granted it. I never counted his scalps nor marked the color of their hair, though I have seen among them the long tresses of females and the curls of children."
Joubert played with his sword knot for some time in moody silence. After a while, his eye cleared up and he said briskly :
"Well it is done and cannot be remedied now. Let us leave the subject. I shall talk about it to higher powers. In times of peace, do you never come in contact with these Anglo-Saxon? They seem to penetrate everywhere."
"Yes: their missionaries have been up in some of the Indian villages lower down the river, to convert them to their faith."
"With what success?"
"Their religion was too metaphysical and abstract to suit the Indian mind. They had no symbols - no external show to draw the atten- tion of the rude. They taught civilization and religion pretty much as you did military tactics and with about the same success. Some-
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thing external, calculated to strike the senses, is needed in the con- version of these heathen. Sensible of his failure, the Massachusetts missionary wished to show my children how vain were some of the doctrines and practises I inculcated. I would not permit it, but told him that my Christians believed but could not dispute. I pointed him to the civilizing effects of my teaching as the best argument in favor of its truth and efficacy. He said I taught damnable heresies and ought to be put down by the strong arm of the law. I told him that I thought the heresy was on his part, and that the antiquity of the true Church showed its superiority over such mushroom establishments."
"Human nature, I perceive, is pretty much the same whether it is Jesuit or Puritan. To extirpate error by force seems the acknowl- edged doctrine on all sides. I wish our religion had been one of peace and then it would have seemed more the offspring of the Deity than it now does to some of us French. However it is a good engine to keep the lower classes in subjection."
"Why should not error be weeded out of a community by force? Heresy begets for its believer eternal damnation." (Here Joubert shrugged his shoulders.) "Force is needed to prevent its deadly poison from spreading. The hot iron is used to cauterize the wound of the serpent. But if you believe in religion only as it is regarded by the scoffers at court, the argument is still the same. Force is needed to the nation's faith, lest, with their heresy they acquire those abomin- able doctrines of freedom and equality that these New England heretics profess."
"There spoke the true Jesuit," said Joubert with a sneer. "Come, come Father Rasles, confess that your religion is a mere matter of policy."
The white attenuated face of the Jesuit flushed as Joubert spoke. He swallowed some water, looked at the picture of the Virgin and crossed himself before he replied.
"Is it policy alone, do you think, that sends me to these wilds among this untutored race? - that places me in this gloomy pine forest away from the society of my equals? - that leads me to suffer, to wait, to endure, that I may finally present some of these pagan souls before the Virgin's throne in heaven as the children redeemed by my life- long efforts? Policy? For whom is this policy attempted? I am happy when my feeble exertions coincide with the aggrandizement of the monarch of my native land, but what do I gain personally by such efforts? Is there honor or emolument in this wasted frame, or in these log huts, or this simple food? No, no, Captain Joubert, I have, I trust, higher and holier motives for the toil of my life, for the labor of every faculty, - the conversion of these heathen."
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"The scalping knife is a strange instrument of conversion," said Joubert, piqued but not softened by this reply.
"We must make use of such instruments as circumstances place in our hands," said Father Sebastian, calmly. "I by no means ap- prove of the scalping-knife, abstractly, but our Holy Father, the Pope, has allowed me the use of any means to accomplish my great object. The end will sanctify them."
"Let us change the topic," said Joubert. "His Excellency, the Governor General, wished me particularly to enquire what measures you desire to have taken. He appears to place unlimited confidence in your judgement, and, although peace now exists between us and the English, he is still anxious to check as far as possible the growth of the English colonies, especially in New England. The Indians can act by themselves without involving us."
"That point has been attended to. My children, the Abenakis, have determined to resist the encroachments which the English are making. The treaty of Utrecht in the surrender of Acadia made no mention of the lands on the Kennebec, and a deputation has already been sent to the English settlements, demanding that no farther advances shall be made on their territory."
"Will the demand be heeded?"
"Probably not - but it takes some time before the Boston authori- ties can assist their Kennebec brethren, and a blow can be speedily struck. The answer to the demand will be that their claim to the country was obtained from France in the Utrecht treaty. To this the Abenakis will demur and war must commence. Tell this to the Gover- nor, and moreover tell him that we shall need arms and ammunition in this war, and that immediately. I shall send some warriors back with you to transport them hither. Vaudreuil may rest assured that the English power will be resisted, and the French authority preserved in this portion of the wilderness."
So saying, they both rose, and Joubert was conducted to his simple couch for the night, to be roused early in the morning and sent back to Quebec for the necessary means of attacking the English settlements.
CHAPTER XVII
Not long after Captain Joubert's visit to the Abenakis, the good Father was awakened early one morning from his sleep on the stone floor of his cell by the intelligence that Carabeset had returned from his tour down the Connecticut. He met the group of warriors in the chapel, and before he would hear a word of the result of their expedi- tion, mass was celebrated, and Our Lady of the Wilderness, as the
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Virgin Mary was here called, thanked for their prosperous return. These religious ceremonies were rendered the more effective to the late absent warriors by a new picture of the Virgin, and a new chant from the young Indian choir, and showed how minute was the knowl- edge of human nature which Father Rasles possessed, and of the skill he exhibited in mingling religious duties with the employments of the savages.
The result of the enterprise was then called for and Carabeset stated concisely that they had failed.
"The Red Men of the lower Connecticut have become the slaves of the Pale Faces," said Carabeset in his native tongue. "The hatchet of war has been buried too deep to be dug up by Red Men's hands. It has rusted where it lies. We found our brethren with the hoe in their hands instead of the spear. They were digging their fields like women, and bartering their baskets and their maple sugar with the white men for rum and tobacco. Can such men struggle for their release from bondage? Was it of any use to pour the hot words of a nation's wrongs into such ears? Let them put on the trailing garments of the squaws of the Pale Faces, and sit down to the distaff or the spin- ning wheel! We pity them not."
The orator folded his bear-skin cloak once more around him, that he had dropped from his shoulders when he addressed the Father.
"It is well," said Father Rasles. "We must depend then alone upon ourselves."
"We must," was the concise reply of Carabeset, echoed by the responsive "Hugh" of the whole assembly.
"Father Rawle," said Wissememet, "we have brought a prisoner with us"; and he led forward a little girl into the vacant space before the altar, whose naked feet and torn sun-bonnet and ragged habili- ments showed the rough journey she had performed.
Father Rasles frowned slightly and without looking at the child enquired in a hasty tone:
" Where is she from?"
"From the Yenghees, low down the Great River. She was wander- ing in the forest with a little brother. The brother we took care should never have the power hereafter of crowding the Red Man from his hunting grounds. The sister we have brought to you as a little hand- maiden for your service."
"I want no such hand-maids. I can perform my own services; least of all do I want one born and bred among heretics. You ought not to have brought her."
"Should we have sent her to accompany her brother?" said Cara- beset, a stern, vindictive looking savage. "It is not too late now."
"No, no, I did not say that-I do not advise that -" said Rasles,
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hurriedly - then, with more composure and dignity he added, "You know I never enquire whose the scalps are that adorn your scalp pole as you enter the village, or how or where you obtain them, and never desire to see prisoners, but I cannot advise or consent to death, after the battle is over. Let there be no violence now."
"None is intended," said Wissememet. "We have brought the little Violet Eyed as a votive offering to Our Lady of the Wilderness. Under your guidance she can be rescued from heresy and devoted to the 'Holy Mary'. Have I not said right, brethren?"
Another responsive "hugh" was uttered by the whole assembly.
The Father's countenance cleared and a flush of religious fervor passed over his pallid face as he uttered, "I accept the gift."
He then lifted his large grey eyes to the picture of the Virgin, re- mained in silent prayer for a while, and then spoke audibly in Latin, "'Oh purissima' I devote her to thee!"
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