USA > Michigan > Mackinac County > Two missionary priests at Mackinac: a lecture delivered at the village of Mackinac for the benefit of St. Anne's Mission in August, 1888 ; The parish register of the Mission of Michilimackinac : a paper read before the Chicago Literary Club in March, 1889 > Part 4
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Of course in speaking of these records as throwing light upon the dissolute character of the settlement, I am not refer- ring to any of the acts which were happily numerous, where in the absence of the priest, marriages perfectly valid both under the civil and ecclesiastical law were contracted in the absence of the priest, the religious ceremony alone being supplied when the priest came to the settlement. In these unions there was of course nothing immoral or censurable, and I think it is hardly realized to-day how carefully the Catholic church teaches that the sacrament of marriage absolutely requires neither priest
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nor witness. The essence of the sacrament is in the consent of parties. So teach all the theologians. But how perfectly this was understood by the instructed catholics at Mackinac, there are some curious entries to attest. One particular case from which I will hereafter quote, that of Charles Gauthier de Vierville, could have hardly been better expressed had it been drawn by a doctor of the Sorbonne. There is another matter to which I think the register bears interesting testimony. It has been a too common opinion, springing from prejudice against the Church, that the Catholic missionaries' apparent success among the Indians arose from their taking them into the church without sufficiently instructing them. I think Park- man even allows himself somewhere to speak of the Catholic missionary contenting himself with sprinkling a few drops. of water upon the forehead of his savage proselyte, while the Pro- testants tried to win him from his barbarism and prepare his sav- age heart for the truths of christianity. There is absolutely no truth in this, and no evidence has ever been cited for it. And this register, like all the missionary registers, is affirmative proof of its falsity. There is hardly a case in which an Indian of adult age, or even above the age of reason is certified to have been baptized in this record, where special allusion is not made to his or her previous instruction. " Sufficiently instructed and ardently desiring baptism " is the certificate of these men who' were not either in formal or in informal utterances, liars. Even in times of emergency and danger there is shown a great anxiety upon the part of the priests that improper and merely formal baptisms should not be made.
Thus the register shows that in October, 1757, there was an outbreak of small-pox, to which the Indian settlements were
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always extremely liable, and that Father Lefranc was very active in baptizing the infants and small children, and those persons who were dangerously ill; but even under these cir- cumstances he almost apologizes for the want of preparation of his catechumens. Thus, in speaking of two Indians who were dangerously ill, and who afterwards died, he says " they de- manded baptism with great earnestness, and promised to be in- structed and to live as Christians." In this outbreak of the small-pox there are certificates by Father Lefranc of the bap- tism of at least thirty children, many of them infants, whom he says he found " abandoned and dangerously sick with the small-pox." It is evident that there was a great panic among the natives at the visitation of this terrible scourge, and that Father Lefranc, like all the Jesuit missionaries in a like case, went from cabin to cabin in the Indian village, seeking out the sick and dying. Although it does not exactly appear (at least not to me, who cannot tell the difference between Ojibway and Ottawa names), I think it is probable that this pestilence oc- curred in the Indian village nearest the fort-that of the Ojib- ways, upon the Island of Mackinac.
As I have suggested before, the thoroughness of the in- struction is evidenced by the character of many of the lay en- tries which were made during the long absence of the priests from the church. Here is a literal translation of the one most elaborate. It is of the marriage of a man of whom I shall have something more to say hereafter.
"In the year 1779, the first of January, before noon, we, the undersigned, on the part of Sieur Charles Gautier de Vier- ville, Lieutenant-Captain and interpreter of the King, son of Claude Germaine de Vierville and of Therese Villeneuve,
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his father and mother, deceased, and of Magdeleine Chevalier, daughter of the late Pascal Chevalier and of Madeline Darch Eveque, her mother; in order to confirm the alliance which a virtuous love mutually leads them to contract together, and to crown the fires that mutual tenderness has lighted in their hearts, before our Mother, the Holy Church, of which they are members, and in the bosom of which they wish to live and die, have gone to the house of Sieur Louis Chevalier, uncle of the future bride, to remove every obstacle to their desires, and to assure them, so far as in us lies, of days full of sweet- ness and of repose. There, in the presence of the future hus- band and wife, of their relations and of their friends, we have placed upon them the following conditions, namely: The said future husband, in the dispositions required by the Holy Roman Church, and according to the order which she has im- posed upon her children, promises to take for his wife and legitimate spouse Magdeline Chevalier, who, upon her part, receives him for her husband and legitimate consort, having the full and entire consent of all their relatives. In virtue of this, the husband (taking the wife with all her rights for the future in that part of her heritage which is due to her, and which must be delivered to her at the first requisition, to be held in common), in order to increase the property of his bride, and to show by it the extreme tenderness which he has for her, settles upon her the sum of a thousand crowns, taken from the goods which they shall acquire together-in order to provide for the necessities which the accidents of life may perhaps cause to arise. The future spouses, to assure for the alliance which they are contracting-peace, repose and the sweets of well-being to the last moment of their lives-will
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and consent, in order that they may taste without trouble the felicity that they look for, that their property should be pos- sessed by a full and entire title by the survivor after the death of one or the other, to be given alter the death of such sur- vivor to their children, if Heaven, favorable to their desires, accords them these worthy fruits of their mutual love; but if the survivor wishes to contract a new alliance, in that case the contracting party must account to inheriting children, and di- vide with them. If Heaven, deaf to their voice, shall refuse them a legitimate heir, the last survivor may dispose of all the goods according to his or her will and pleasure, without being molested by the relatives either of one or of the other. This, they declare, is their will while waiting to approve and ratify it before a notary, and to supplement the ceremonies of mar- riage by a priest, when they shall have the power to do it."
The provisions here concerning property disposition are ac- cording to the " custom of Paris," so-called, which governed in matters of municipal law these Canadian colonies.
There are many other marriage records, not so elaborate, but not less sufficient to prove the validity of the act, despite the absence of the priest.
Of course, it was one of the first matters impressed by the priest, both upon those who were of Christian descent and upon converts, that lay baptism was not only permissible but de- sirable in cases of emergency or danger, and it is not surpris- ing, therefore, to find that situated as these people were, the larger proportion of the baptisms of children, when they came to be performed by the priests, were conditional baptisms. That is, the priest supplied the ceremonies of baptism and baptized them on condition " that they had not already been baptized,"
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as in a very great number of cases they undoubtedly had been by their parents or friends. No very sufficient register of the numerous lay baptisms made when there was no priest at the mission was kept, but of course there are some recorded. A good many of them were either made by the commandant at the post, by a justice of the peace, or by a notary public, and certified to under his title, by the person administering the rite. I have no idea that this was from any feeling upon the part of the parishioners, simple minded though they were, that these official gentlemen were any better qualified to administer the sacrament than others, but because they reasoned that if a record was to be made at all it had best be made under the name and signature of those best able both to make it and to se- cure its preservation. Some of them read a little curiously. There are a few in English which form the only exception to the almost universal French in the record.
Upon page 73 appears this in French: "On the 30th day of August, 1781, was baptized Domitille, the legitimate daugh- ter of Sieur Charles Gautier and Madeline Pascal his legiti- mate wife, born the same day at noon. John Coates, Notary Public."
This is the child of the pair whose nuptials we noted above.
Then occurs this in English: "I certify you that according to the due and prescribed order of the church at noon on this day, and at the above place, before divers witnesses, I baptized this child Charlotte Cleves. Patrick Sinclair, Lieutenant Governor and Justice of the Peace. Witnesses: (Signed) William Grant, John McNamara, George Macbeth, D. McRay, George Meldrum."
I think, however, of the things shown by the record itself
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that which interested me most is the light which it throws upon the question of slavery, both of Indians and of negroes, in these north-western posts, during the last century and the beginning of the present.
I have not had the time to carry on such an investigation as I would like to make concerning its incidents and its character, but one thing is certain, it must have been a firmly established and cherished institution despite the boast to the contrary that has sometimes been made. The negro slaves belonging to various persons in the community are frequently spoken of in the register. Sometimes it is a child of two negro slaves who is baptized, sometimes it is two negro slaves who are married. Thus, in 1744, Father Coquarz certifies to " baptizing the daughter of Boncoeur, a negro, and of Margaret, a negress, belonging to a trader named Boutin, obliged to winter at Mackinac on his way to the Illinois."
Frequently the word " esclave " is used where it is impos- sible to determine whether the slave spoken of is red or black. I was much puzzled for a long time by the use of the words "Panis " and " Panise," evidently intended from their connec- tion to signify a male or a female servant of some kind, and as they were spoken of as " belonging" to various people, I inferred that they signified slaves. What sort of slaves I could not ascertain, for in no French dictionary, either of ancient or modern French, could I find any such word. The words did not seem to be used at all as the name of a tribe, or as a proper name, but rather as though they signified servants held as · slaves under some different sort of tenure from that denoted by the word " esclave," and this I thought at first must be so. I discovered finally their realsignification. They are corrupted or
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alternative forms of " Pawnee," and are evidently used to signify " Indian " slaves as distinguished from " negro " slaves.
A note which I have found in the Wisconsin Historical Col- lections, purporting to be taken from the memoir of one Bou- gainville, published in France, concerning the state of Canada, says, that " the Panis" (evidently Pawnee) "tribe in America is in the same position as that of the negroes in Europe." " The Panis tribe," the author says, " is a savage nation situated on the Missouri, estimated at about twelve thousand men. Other nations make war upon them and sell us their slaves: It is the only savage nation that can be thus treated."
Most of the Indian slaves who are mentioned in the register, were, at the time of such mention, which is generally that of their baptism, quite young children. I think that they were in most cases given or sold to the French or half-breed traders and voyageurs, by the Ottawas who had captured or bought them. Whether they were all Pawnees or not, I think very doubtful. I am inclined to think that as the word " slave " became generic because so many "Slavs " were sold, the word " Panis " among the Ottawas and Ojibways was applied indiscriminately to any slave of any tribe because the majority of such slaves were Pawnees. However, this is all conject- ure on my part.
There are two interesting entries in the register concerning slaves belonging to the church.
On page 29 of the baptismal register appears this certificate : " To-day, upon the 16th of April, the Feast of the Annuncia- tion of the Blessed Virgin, in the year 1750, I have solemnly baptized in the Church of this Mission, Jean Francois Regis, a young slave of about seven years, given through gratitude to
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this mission last summer by M. Le Chevalier, upon his safe return from the extreme West, the said infant being well in- structed and asking baptism. His godfather was Sieur Etienne Chenier and his godmother Charlotte Parent. Done at Michilimackinac the day and year aforesaid. P. Du Jaunay."
Upon page 59 occurs the following: " To-day, Holy Satur- day, the 10th day of April, in the year 1762, I have solemnly baptized a young negro about 20 years of age, belonging be- fore yesterday to this mission; sufficiently instructed even to serve the Holy Mass. After which he made his first com- munion. In baptism the name of Pierre was given to him. His godfather was Jean Baptiste called Noyer, voyageur, and his godmother Mdlle. Martha Cheboyer. Done at Michili- mackinac the day and year aforesaid." This was signed by Father De Jaunay. It was a gracious act to give the poor negro his freedom before baptism.
A monograph upon the subject of slavery in these trading posts of Mackinac, Detroit, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien and Chicago, its origin, rise, decline and extinction, and its character and incidents, it seems to me would be extremely interesting.
One matter of which I would like to ascertain the date is that of the extinction of Indian slavery. The allusions to the Pawnee slaves become more and more infrequent, and finally before the close of the book cease altogether. Father Rich- ard states of an Indian whom he baptized that he was " au service " of Charles de Langlade, but he never uses the word " slave."
Morgan L. Martin in a historical address at Madison some years ago said that he saw in 1827 a Pawnee woman at Green Bay, who within a few days of that time had been a slave,. but that she then was free.
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One other thing I think of, which as a suggestion springing from this register occurs to me might be worked up in an in- teresting manner, and that is, a discussion of the methods and course in which the administration of justice was continued from the French dominion through the English occupation into the time when the United States took possession of the coun- try. I do not think that this register throws any particular light upon it, although there is one, Adhamer St. Martin, whose entries appear as a justice of the peace during all three of these periods. He subscribed himself as one of the " Justices of the Peace of his Majesty " in March, 1796, the American troops not having then arrived at the post, although it had been long before distinctly agreed that the United States should have jurisdiction over Mackinac. After that for a time he calls himself " Justice of the Peace of this district," and then, still later, in 1797, he says he is a "Justice of the Peace of the United States." It may very well be that he received a renewal of his commission, but the records and the traditions of Green Bay are very clear to the fact that there some at least of the officers commissioned by the English Government did not cease to exercise their functions, nor did the inhabitants care to question their jurisdiction although they received no accession of authority. It may have been so also at Mackinac.
So far as the mere contents of the register go, I will call your attention to but one other matter, and that is to two or three allusions which are contained in it to Chicago. It was not till after the close of the entries in this register that Chicago became any thing to the people of Michilimackinac, but an out- post known as the Chicago portage, but now that this great city is here, it naturally becomes interesting to find the refer-
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ences to it in such a record as this. The first that I noticed is in the abridgment from the preceding record, with which this register opens.
For upon the 19th of April, 1735, it appears that there was baptized Louis, slave of Monsieur de Chignaucourt, aged twenty years. Beneath the entry, in bitterness of heart, the priest has written at another time, " Rocambole, presentement apostat et sauvagisé a Chikago," which may be translated " a humbug, at present an apostate, and relapsed into savagery at Chicago." Thus it will be seen that at a very early time Chicago was getting a bad name at other places as the resort of the criminal classes.
In June, 1846, Father de Jaunay certifies that he baptized " Louis, the legitimate son of Amiot and of Marianne his wife of this post; the said infant having been born at the river Aux plains, near to Chikago, early in October last. The godfather was Mr. Louis de Lecorn, captain commanding for the king in this post. The godmother was Madame Marie Catherine de Laplante, wife of Monsieur Bourassa."
This was a white child; for Amiot appears to have been a French trader. Does it not settle the question as to the "first white native of Chicago" ?"
So far I have confined myself to the records themselves, that is, to what they by and in themselves may be considered to show or suggest. Pardon me if for a few moments I now consider them with reference to the interest which they have for us when viewed in the light of knowledge derived from other sources concerning the men who figure in this book, and whose handwriting again and again appears through it. So considered, there will be no lack of interest in them to
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those to whom this sort of historical research affords pleasure. There is always something fascinating in contemporaneous records and signatures of persons who were pioneers in this western country, and whose names and deeds were part of our early history, and I think that this is especially the case where the records are those of their births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths.
It is not particularly to the priests who have signed the cer- tificates in these registers, to whom I am referring, but yet before I speak of other names more interesting still, let me call your attention to something that may be said of them.
For instance, we know that Father de Lamorinie, who makes the first contemporaneous entry in this register in 1741, was afterwards at the mission on St. Joseph river and, being driven from there by the vicissitudes of the French and Indian war, went to minister to the settlers at the mission of St. Gene- vieve, not far from the present site of St. Louis.
By virtue of an infamous decree of the Superior Council of Louisiana, an insignificant body of provincial officers, who un- dertook in 1763, to condemn the Society of Jesus, and to sup- press the order within Louisiana, he was seized, although upon British soil, and with other priests from Kaskaskia and Vin- cennes, taken to New Orleans, and sent from there to France, with orders to present himself to the Duc de Choiseul. This was his reward for the zeal and assiduity and devotion which he had manifested in his mission.
Father Lefranc and Father Du Jaunay were then left alone as the last Jesuit missionaries in this western country.
Father Du Jaunay was at Mackinac at the time of Pontiac's conspiracy. On the 2d of June, 1763, the Indians attacked
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Fort Mackinac, massacring most of the garrison, and making prisoners of the officers, all of which is graphically described in Parkman's History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac. By Father du Jaunay, the captured Captain Etherington sent a letter shortly afterwards to Major Gladwyn, who was then be- sieged by Pontiac himself in the fort at Detroit, asking for assistance which, however, Gladwyn was powerless to give. Du Jaunay went, and of course through his influence with the Indians was enabled to carry the note into the fort. Captain Ether- ington says of him in his letter: " I have been very much obliged to the Jesuit for the many good offices he has done on this occasion. He seems inclined to go down to your post for a day or two, which I am very glad of, as he is a very good man, and has a great deal to say with the savages hereabout, who will believe everything he tells them on his return." He begs him to send the priest back as soon as possi- ble, as they will be in great need of him. In a diary of the siege of Detroit, published in the Michigan historical collec- tions, it appears that Father Du Jaunay left Detroit upon his return upon the 20th of June, 1763. The following is the entry in the diary: " This morning the commandant gave to the Jesuit a memorandum of what he should say to the Indians and French at Michilimackinac, as also to Captain Ethering- ton, seeing that he did not choose to carry a letter, saying that if he did and were asked by the Indians if he had one, he should be obliged to say yes, as he had never told a lie in his life." After Father Du Jaunay left the mission at Mackinac, he became superior of the mission at St. Joseph, and remained in the west until 1774, and then returned to France to die.
In 1825 a missionary visiting the Indian congregation es-
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tablished at Arbre Croche, remarked that the memory of Father Du Jaunay was religously preserved among all the tribes, and the place was pointed out to him where the priest used to walk while saying his breviary.
In 1822 the chiefs of the Ottawas petitioned the Congress of the United States to send them Jesuit priests to take the place, they said, " of Father Du Jaunay, who lived with us in our village of Arbre Croche, and cultivated a field in our territory in order to teach us the principles of agriculture and Christianity."
Father Gibault, whose entries as vicar-general of Louisiana and Illinois I have referred to, was in Kaskaskia as a resident priest in 1778, and undertook then a mission to Vincennes on behalf of George Rogers Clark, and succeeded in inducing its inhabitants to declare for the Americans.
Gabriel Richard was a most remarkable man in very many ways. Coming from France, a Sulpician priest, in 1792, he was sent by Bishop Carroll of Baltimore, to the settlements in the Illinois for two purposes. First, that as being of the same race and language, he might give regular pastoral care to the French and Canadians and their half-breed descendants, who had, since the English occupation, fallen into such sad need of it; and, secondly, that he might develop and encourage in this western country a new growth of the Catholic Church from roots that should strike more deeply than the old French missions could into the newly-born American life and national character. In 1798, after labors which had became more and more fruitful as the years went on, he was withdrawn from Illinois, and went to Detroit, and at Detroit, from 1794 until 1832, his aim and main work lay. To-day his statue upon
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the noble facade of the city hall of Detroit preserves for its inhabitants his memory as one of the first and most impor- tant pioneers of Michigan.
He found time as these records show to make pastoral visits to the almost abandoned Indians and half-breeds, French voy- ageurs and traders in all the Indian missions about. But, as I have said, his main work was at Detroit. He was there given a free hand. He enlarged and improved all the paro- chial and mission schools; he opened an academy of a very high class for the higher education of women; he instituted and ` carried on a theological seminary; he supplied his schools with chemical and astronomical apparatus, no easy task at the time in which he did it. In 1807, realizing that English and the English tongue were always to be in the ascendency in Amer- ica, he established a series of English sermons to be given every Sunday in the council house of the then newly established Territory of Michigan.
In 1802 he imported from Europe for his church in Detroit the first organ that was ever brought to the Northwest.
During the war and after the surrender of Detroit, the Eng- lish imprisoned him upon the ground that he was instigator and exciter of anti-English feeling.
In 1821, as we have seen, he was at Mackinac and he also went to Green Bay. I do not know, but I cannot help con- jecturing that he was a passenger in the second trip ever made by a steamboat upon Lake Michigan or Lake Huron. It is certain that the pioneer steamer, Walk-in-Water, left Detroit for Mackinac upon July 31, 1821, and that Father Richard appears to have reached Mackinac just about the time the steamer did, in the early days of August. It certainly would be
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