The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 27
" RELATIONS," 1674 - 1679.

sickness and death had been more frequent than before.    *      *     As for the eleven adults whom I baptized, they are all dead, inasmuch as I no longer baptize any who are not in danger of immediate death, apart from which I find none who are susceptible of all the dispositions necessary to baptism. License in marrying and unmarrying at their option, the spirit of murder and human respect prevent their becoming docile to instruction. Of the children baptized, eighteen are dead, who, added to the adults, make in all twenty-nine.

The " Relations " of 1674-'5 are mainly confined to a description of de Carheil's missionary instruction and their results, similar in character to those already quoted.

The " Relations " of 1676-'7 are quite brief in respect to the Cayuga mission. A noticeable change of opinion in reference to the Senecas and Cayugas is expressed. Le Moyne, it will have been noticed, gave as a reason for visiting the Cayugas, that they were " more tractable and affectionate" yet here we have the opposite opinion given, thus : " The upper Iroquois, that is to say those that are the most remote from us, as the Sonowtowans, (Senecas,) and the Ouoguens, (Cayugas,) are the most haughty and the most insolent, running after the missionaries with ax in hand, chasing and pelting them with stones, throwing down their chapels, and their little cabins, and, in a thousand other ways treating them with indignity."

But the apostolic zeal of the fathers supports and consoles them ; "knowing well that the apostles did not plant the faith in the world otherwise than by persecution and suffering." They say they had baptized within the year three hundred and fifty Iroquois, and that the spiritual gain among the Cayugas was fifty persons.

The notice of the mission of 1677-'8 is also very brief and of the same general tone ; "Father de Carheil, who had experienced most of the effects of Iroquois fury, and who for the last two years had been in aproximate danger of death, had not failed to administer at Ouoguen, (Cayuga,) baptism to fifty persons, and to send to heaven more than forty children who had died with baptismal grace."

Father Dablon thus sums up the condition of the several Iroquois missions, for the six years, from 1673 to 1679:

"By all that we have related, it may be judged that the Iroquois mission render great glory to God, and contribute largely to the salvation of souls. This encourages the missionaries, amid the evident danger of death in which they have lived constantly for three years, that the Iroquois speak of making war .upon us ; so that they have not been willing to leave their missions, although they were urged by their friends, who warned them of the evil designs formed against their persons. They accordingly persevere in laboring for the conversion of these peoples ; and, we learn that God has rewarded their constancy by a little calm, which he has given them, and by more than three hundred baptisms which they have conferred this last year to which I add that the preceding year they had baptized three hundred and fifty Iroquois.. The year before Father Garnier had baptized fifty-five in one of the towns of the Sonowtowans ; Father de Carheil as many at Ouoguen ; Father Milet forty-five at Onelout, (Oneida) ; Father jean de Lamberville more than thirty at one of the towns of Agnie, (Mohawk), and Father Bruyas, in another, eighty; Father Jacques de Lamberville, seventy-two at Onnontage, and Father Pierron ninety at Sonowtowan. It is estimated that they have placed in heaven more than two hundred souls of children and sick adults, all dead, after baptism."

Nothing further is now accessible bearing upon the Jesuit missions among the Cayugas, resident in New York. A colony of this nation had located in Canada, at the western extremity of Quinte Bay, in fear of the Andastes, and among them missions were established ; but it is not within the scope of this work to trace their operations there, and we close this subject with the following succinct, able and eloquent summary of the causes of the failure of the Jesuits

" The cause of the failure of the Jesuits is obvious. The guns and tomahawks of the Iroquois were the ruin of their hopes. Could they have curbed or converted these ferocious bands, it is little less than certain that their dream would have become a reality. Savages tamed, not civilized, for that was scarcely possible, would have been distributed through the valleys of the great lakes and the Mississippi, ruled by priests in the interests of Catholicity and of France. Their habits of agriculture would have been developed and the instincts of mutual slaughter repressed. The swift decline of the Indian population would have been arrested, and it would have been made through the fur trade, a source of prosperity to New France. Unmolested by Indian enemies and fed by a rich commerce, she would have put forth a vigorous growth. True to her far-reaching and adventurous genius, she would have occupied the West with traders, settlers and garrisons and cut up the virgin wilderness into fiefs, while as yet

Return to the Index of The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 by Elliott Storke
Return to the Cayuga County NYGenWeb Project Home Page