Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron for the rest of his life, except for a few years in France from 1629 to 1633. He learned their language and culture, writing extensively about each to aid other missionaries.
The Canadian Martyrs, also known as the North American Martyrs, were eight Jesuit missionaries from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. They were ritually tortured and killed on various dates in the mid-17th century in Canada, in what is now southern Ontario, and in upstate New York, during the warfare between the Iroquioan tribes the Mohawk and the Huron. They have subsequently been canonized and venerated as martyrs by the Catholic Church.
The Mohawk people are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern New York State, primarily around Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. As one of the five original members of the Iroquois League, the Mohawk are known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door – the traditional guardians of the Iroquois Confederation against invasions from the east.
Kateri Tekakwitha, given the name Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine, and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks, is a Catholic saint and virgin who was an Algonquin–Mohawk. Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, in present-day New York State, she contracted smallpox in an epidemic; her family died and her face was scarred. She converted to Catholicism at age nineteen. She took a vow of perpetual virginity, left her village, and moved for the remaining five years of her life to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, just south of Montreal. She was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 October 2012.
Charles Garnier, S.J., was a Jesuit missionary working in New France. He was killed by Iroquois in a Petun village on December 7, 1649.
Isaac Jogues, SJ was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, calling it Lac du Saint Sacrement. In 1646, Jogues was martyred by the Mohawk at their village of Ossernenon, near the Mohawk River.
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was a French Jesuit settlement in Huronia or Wendake, the land of the Wendat, near modern Midland, Ontario, from 1639 to 1649. It was the first European settlement in what is now the province of Ontario. Eight missionaries from Sainte-Marie were martyred, and were canonized by the Catholic Church in 1930. Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1920. A reconstruction of the mission now operates as a living museum.
René Goupil, S.J., was a French Jesuit lay missionary who became a lay brother of the Society of Jesus shortly before his death. He was the first of the eight North American Martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church to receive the crown of martyrdom and the first canonized Catholic martyr in North America.
Antoine Daniel was a French Jesuit missionary in North America, at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, and one of the eight Canadian Martyrs.
Jean de Lalande, SJ was a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and one of the eight North American Martyrs. He was killed at the Mohawk village of Ossernenon after being captured by warriors.
Gabriel Lalemant was a French Jesuit missionary in New France beginning in 1646. Caught up in warfare between the Huron and nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, he was killed in St. Ignace by Mohawk warriors and is one of the eight Canadian Martyrs.
Auriesville is a hamlet in the northern part of New York state and west of Albany. It was the site of Ossernenon, a Mohawk village where French Jesuits established a mission. This operated from 1667 until 1684, when the Mohawk destroyed it as part of continuing confrontations with French colonists. Auries is said to have been the name of the last Mohawk known to have lived there. Later settlers named the village after him.
Father Simon Le Moyne, S.J., sometimes spelled Simon Le Moine, was a French Jesuit priest who became involved with the mission to the Hurons and Iroquois in the Americas. Le Moyne had acquired sixteen years of education and experience through priesthood in France before his arrival in New France in 1638. During that same year, he headed out to his mission in Huron country. The destruction of the Huron nation by the Iroquois brought him back east to what is modern day Quebec in 1650.
The Jesuit Relations, also known as Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France , are chronicles of the Jesuit missions in New France. The works were written annually and printed beginning in 1632 and ending in 1673.
Guillaume Couture was a citizen of New France. During his life he was a lay missionary with the Jesuits, a survivor of torture, a member of an Iroquois council, a translator, a diplomat, a militia captain, and a lay leader among the colonists of the Pointe-Lévy in the Seigneury of Lauzon, a district of New France located on the South Side of Quebec City.
Fathers and Crows is a 1992 historical novel by the American author William T. Vollmann. It is the second book in the seven-book series Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes.
Jacques Frémin was a French Jesuit missionary to New France (Canada).
Camp Ondessonk is an outdoor, Catholic residential youth camp run by the Diocese of Belleville. It is located in the Shawnee National Forest of Southern Illinois, near Ozark, Illinois. The mission of the camp is "Exceptional outdoor and spiritual adventures empowering kids of all ages." Camp Ondessonk is accredited by the American Camp Association.
Eustache Ahatsistari was a Huron warrior. He is famous for his conversion to Catholicism and his death at the hands of the Iroquois. Ahatsistari was captured alongside St. Isaac Jogues and several other Huron prisoners in 1642 and was tortured and executed. He is notable for his conversion to Christianity and his role in the lives of early French missionaries in the Americas.
