{
  "bookName": "HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS",
  "authorName": "BERNARD DE VAULX",
  "publisherName": "HAWTHORN BOOKS PUBLISHERS",
  "publicationYear": 2026,
  "chapterNumber": 14,
  "chapterName": "The American Missions",
  "pageFrom": 166,
  "pageTo": 175,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 166,
      "ocrText": "CHAPTER XIV\nTHE AMERICAN MISSIONS\nTHE UNITED STATES\nBy the beginning of the nineteenth century, paganism had\ndisappeared-officially at least from America, since the\nIndians and the Negro slaves had either been baptized, as in\nthe territories dependent on Spain and Portugal, or entered in\nthe registers of the Protestant ministers in those countries\nwhich had, or still were, possessions of the English Crown.\nIn actual fact, a very large number of them, for lack of in-\nstruction, practised a crude syncretism, a mixture of Indian\nor African cults and a form of Christianity reduced to a few\ndevotions in honour of the saints in the calendar. And again,\nfrom Mackenzie to Tierra del Fuego, there were still tribes\nliving in a savage state, pushed further and further back by\nthe brute force of European immigration, yet preparing them-\nselves to defend their soil with the energy of despair. The\nmissionaries (there were Protestants among them, such as\nRoger William) had often stood up in their defence during\nthe previous centuries and they were to continue to do so in\nthe nineteenth.\nThe evangelization of the North American Indians originated\nin the old Catholic centres established in the colonies with a\nEuropean population: Maryland, Louisiana and Canada. Help\nin the work came from religious, both men and women, who\nhad been dispersed by the Revolution and the wars of the\nEmpire. They sought refuge in the United States, especially\nin Maryland, where the Toleration Act of 1649 had given\nCatholicism the right of entry. One of the first to arrive in",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 167,
      "ocrText": "THE AMERICAN MISSIONS\n167\n1790, a Sulpician, was made the head of the seminary of Balti-\nmore by the vicar apostolic, John Carroll. He trained in it a\nclergy of truly apostolic spirit. In 1808, when Baltimore\nbecame an archbishopric with four suffragan sees-New York,\nPhiladelphia, Boston and Bardstown-Mgr Carroll's task\nbecame so onerous that the work of reviving the mission to the\nIndians was given to the bishop of New Orleans, Mgr Dubourg,\nwho was also a Sulpician. In the meantime, a delegation of\nIndians arrived from the prairies and asked for the \"Black\nRobes\" to come back to them.\nA vanguard, composed of Belgian Jesuits, came to Floris-\nsant, where they built an establishment of the sort used in\nCanada during the seventeenth century, with its mill, cattle-\nsheds and barns. While the novices were there completing\ntheir theological training, useful information came in regard-\ning the state of mind of the tribes. In the light of this, Fr Van\nQuickenborn decided to set out to meet them. He found little\nmore than remnants of the former tribes, sodden with alcohol,\nnomadic and forced to be constantly on the run westwards as\nthe wave of White immigration swept forward. All, or almost\nall, of them had heard of the \"Black Robes\", but, even among\nthose who had been baptized, many had gone over to Pro-\ntestantism. Two apostles set out to evangelize these unfortunate\npeople. One, Fr Hoecken, went among the Indians of the\nForest, the other, Fr de Smet, among those of the Prairie. The\nlatter, \"the man with the most influence over the Indian tribes\nin the whole of the North-West\", had few failures except with\nthe Sioux. His apostolate extended as far as the Rocky Moun-\ntains where he worked among the Flatheads who had appealed\nto him to come to them in 1840. He returned among them\ntwice, on the second occasion in 1844 with four Fathers, two\nbrothers and six nuns. These reinforcements made it possible\nto extend the apostolate to the majority of the tribes, so that\nby the middle of the century the Rocky Mountains mission\nnumbered some 3,400 converts.\nThe influence of Fr de Smet and his brethren was revealed",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 168,
      "ocrText": "168\nTHE AMERICAN MISSIONS\nin all its vast range when, in 1870, General Grant inaugurated\nhis policy of peace with the Indians. Those among them who,\nit was claimed, had joined Protestant bodies although they\nwere Catholics, sent delegates to Washington to ask, in the\nname of the liberty which was written into the Constitution,\nfor the return among them of the \"Black Robes\". They eventu-\nally obtained what they wanted, thanks to the American\nepiscopate and the Catholic missionary societies of the United\nStates.\nThe majority of the Negroes in the south, where they were\nso numerous, were practising Protestants or more or less in-\nfluenced by a Protestant tradition. The Catholic Church had\na duty to come to the help of those who were baptized and to\nattempt to convert the others. The Mill Hill priests devoted\nthemselves to this apostolate. After establishing parishes in\nthe south, they founded in 1892 the Society of St Joseph (the\nJosephites) the first missionary institute exclusively conse-\ncrated to the evangelization of the American Negroes.\nTHE EPIC OF THE OBLATES IN THE FAR NORTH\nThe Oblates of Mary Immaculate were responsible for the\napostolate among the Indians of Oregon and Columbia. Fr\nRicard came out as a pioneer with six religious in 1847 and\nfounded a mission on the southern point of Puget Bay on the\nspot where the town of Olympia was later to be built. The\nOblates next moved forward into the lower valley of the Fraser\nRiver, where they built the missions at Sainte-Marie, Fort\nHope, Fort Yale and New Westminster.\nBut the chief field in which the epic of the Oblates was to\nunfold was the Far North where, however, it profited by the\nadmirable preparatory work which had already been done by\nCanadians alone.\nThe point of departure was an appeal by Lord Selkirk, a\nshareholder in the Hudson Bay Company, to the bishop of\nQuebec, Mgr Plessis. He asked him for a zealous and intelli-",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 169,
      "ocrText": "THE AMERICAN MISSIONS\n169\ngent ecclesiastic to minister to the religious needs of the half-\ncaste trappers and various other workmen who were Catholics.\nThey lived in the extreme south of Winnipeg. The priest chosen\nfor the work, Fr Provencher, received such a promising wel-\ncome that the Holy See at once formed the project of using\nthis advance post as a base for the whole of North-west\nCanada. Fr Provencher became Mgr Plessis' coadjutor. At first\nhe exercised his ministry among the half-castes then, after\n1830, he sent some of his priests among the Indians.\nIn 1844, Mgr Provencher, then vicar apostolic of the whole\nof Canada, asked the bishop of Montreal, Mgr Bourget, to send\nhim some of the Oblates who had just gone forward with\nunheard-of daring, as far as the territories in the neighbour-\nhood of lakes Abitibi and Timiskaming where they had\nconverted a few fur hunters. The local superior considered\nthat this was a rash undertaking and informed Mgr de\nMazenod, the superior general of the Oblates, of his misgivings\nin the following terms: \"We are 2,000 miles from the Red\nRiver. Communications are extremely difficult. Our men will\nlead a lonely life full of all kinds of dangers.\" The answer\ncame and it was peremptory:\nI cannot understand how you can have been so strangely\nmistaken in the matter of the Red River missions. Yet it seems\nto me that I spoke clearly and precisely enough to let it be\nunderstood by you that this was not a mere suggestion to be\nexamined and discussed but a plan on which I had come to a\ndecision and whose execution I am entrusting to you.\nThis memorable summons opened the pages of the epic of\nthe Oblates, in which religious who wanted to obey their\nfounder hastened to play their part. Already during the\nsummer of 1846, two Oblates, one of them Fr Taché, a\nCanadian but of French stock, had set out; they spent the\nwinter at l'Ile-à-la-Crosse, 625 miles to the north-west of\nSt Boniface. The next year, a new leap forward took Fr Taché\nas far as lake Athabaska. He was the first Catholic priest to",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 170,
      "ocrText": "170\nTHE AMERICAN MISSIONS\nappear in these regions where he was welcomed by a few\nIndians with these words: \"We have long desired to see you\nface to face. Take pity on us and teach us how to become\ngood.\"\nAfter four months spent among these men of goodwill, he\nhad to return to l'Ile-à-la-Crosse, but other Oblates came, some\nto consolidate the first foundations, the others to push on\nfurther towards the polar circle. In 1856, Fr Faraud founded\nthe St Joseph mission in the neighbourhood of Fort Resolu-\ntion on the Great Slave Lake. In 1858, Fr Grollier founded\nthe Sacred Heart mission near Fort Simpson, after a journey\ndown the Mackenzie. The Oblates were beyond the sixtieth\nparallel north. One more forward leap and Fr Grollier reached\nthe edge of the Arctic circle at Fort Good Hope. There he\nlaid the foundations of the mission of Our Lady of Good\nHope and wrote on May 20th, 1860, to Mgr de Mazenod:\n\"Everyone here thinks that the winter this year has been mild.\nWe haven't had a temperature lower than 48° below zero\n(Fahrenheit 54-5 degrees of frost.-Trans.) Would they think\nthis was not much, at Marseilles?\"\nDuring the summer, he chose Fort Norman as the centre for\na new mission, St Teresa's, and then he went on beyond the\nArctic circle as far as Fort McPherson.\nFrom roughly the year 1860, came a period of settling in\nand consolidation. It was less spectacular than the daring\ninitial thrusts, but it probably called for greater sacrifices.\nThree prelates, among others, distinguished themselves. Their\ncombined episcopates cover almost a century. Mgr Taché\nhad guided Mgr Grandin in his early years; Mgr Grandin him-\nself was consecrated a bishop in 1859 at the age of twenty-nine.\nMgr Grouard was a pupil of his and he died on March 7th,\n1931, at Grouard, the chief town of the Grouard vicariate. It\nmust be noted indeed that these Oblates were such discoverers\nand builders that their memory is for ever engraved upon the\nmap. Between the Great Slave and the Great Bear Lakes, six",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 171,
      "ocrText": "THE AMERICAN MISSIONS\n171\nothers bear the name of six of these Oblates: Mazenod, Rey,\nSéguin, Clut, Grandin, Taché. And how many places could\nbe named whose \"patron\" is one or other of these pioneers\nwho discovered them?\nIt has been suggested that these were vocations awakened\nby the lure of journeys by dog-sledge through the blizzards.\nBut the truth is that in the accounts that have come down to\nus from these apostles of the snows (Mgr Grandin's in par-\nticular), we see men who often went hungry, who deprived\nthemselves so as to feed and clothe the Indians, who some-\ntimes coughed up their own lungs, but whose faces shone with\njoy when, at the meal served for the bishop on his rounds, they\ncould add a white partridge or a rice pudding seasoned with\nthat rarest of products which sugar then was.\nThey were never discouraged. In 1912, two Oblates of Kee-\nwatin, one of them Fr Turquetil, were about to set off for the\nspiritual conquest of the Eskimos. After four years of entirely\nunproductive work at Chesterfield, their vicar apostolic had\nrecalled them, when there was a mysterious change and con-\nversions that had been quite unexpected took place. The two\nreligious attributed this to the prayers they had made to a\nCarmelite nun who had died at Lisieux in 1897 and whose\nrenown as a wonder-worker had reached even their ears. From\nChesterfield the hand of grace touched Pand Inlet at Churchill,\nAzavick at Coppermine. This miracle, when it became known\nat Rome, was to contribute its share in the canonization of\nSt Teresa of the Child Jesus, patroness together with St Francis\nXavier of the missions and the missionaries of the whole\nworld.\nWhile the brutal and pitiless wave of European immigra-\ntion drove the half-castes and the Indians to the north and\nwest, the Oblates undertook the defence of these victims of\noppression. Mgr Grandin, again, endeavoured to \"keep them\non the path of obedience and duty and to see that they were\ntreated justly\".",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 172,
      "ocrText": "172\nTHE AMERICAN MISSIONS\nSOUTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES\nIn Mexico and South America, the history of the Missions\nin the nineteenth century is divided into two sections. The\nfirst, contemporary with the wars of independence which were\nto give birth to the South American Republics and put an\nend to the system of patronato, was marked by great upheavals\nand severe trials. Subsequently, new missions were set up on\nthe basis of concordats concluded between the Holy See and\nthe new States.\nOfficially, the missions to the Indians had disappeared in\nBolivia in 1815, in Chile in 1817, in Ecuador and Peru in\n1824 and in Mexico in 1833-4. But they had left behind a\nwhole mass of foundations which still arouse the admiration\nof tourists today. And they could also take pride in the fact\nthat they had improved the standard of living of the tribes\nby acclimatizing food-producing crops and domesticated\nanimals from the old world.\nNor were the missions entirely abandoned. If the apostolate\nto the Indians was able to continue for a time, the credit was\ndue to the Franciscans, Capuchins, Dominicans and Augus-\ntinians who stayed on the spot, and to the Missionary colleges\nof the Propagation of the Faith, founded in 1686, and re-\norganized in 1797. In them, masters of proved worth trained\na missionary élite in an atmosphere of deep spirituality and\ndid not neglect the study of the native languages.\nIn this transitory period, while nothing took the place\nofficially of the missions of the patronato, certain religious dis-\ntinguished themselves. An example is the Franciscan Andrew\nHerrero. In 1835, after launching an appeal to the whole Order\nof St Francis, he brought to Bolivia twelve Italian Franciscans.\nHe returned a little later with eighty-three missionaries who\nestablished colleges and restored mission work among the\nIndians in Peru, Chile and Bolivia. But they were not numer-\nous enough to keep the missions in being and quite soon they\nfound themselves obliged to confine their ministry to the",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 173,
      "ocrText": "THE AMERICAN MISSIONS\n173\nestablished Christian communities. In 1842, Colombia\nappealed for Jesuits, but expelled them eight years later. The\nDominicans returned to Peru as did a few Jesuits to Paraguay.\nThe place which South America acquired in the missionary\nmovement owed its importance, towards the middle of the\ncentury, to the fact that the Far East continued to be closed\nand the harbours on the Pacific coasts were ports of call for\nthe increasingly large numbers of missionaries on their way\nto Oceania.\nOn the debit side must be placed the political instability\nof the new States, the continual threat represented by their\nanti-clericalism and the uncertain status of the missions and\nthe missionaries, who were without an organization to replace\nthe patronato system.\nBoth Pius VIII and Gregory XVI had wished to avoid\nhumiliating these young republics, full of the memories of the\nfoundations made under the old monarchies, by imposing on\nthem a missionary code. Gradually, concordats came into\noperation under Pius IX. There was a paragraph guaranteeing\nState financial aid for the evangelization of the Indians which,\nas such, was to be organized by Propaganda. It was on this\nbasis and with varying fortunes that the apostolate to the\nIndians recommenced. And the Indians themselves had not\nfallen victims to former massacres in any great numbers, since\ntoday their descendants represent more than half the popula-\ntion of Ecuador, Central America and Bolivia (where they\nnumber 60 per cent).\nIn 1847, at the request of the Government of Chile, Pius IX\nsent twelve Italian Capuchins to evangelize the Indians of\nArauco. These missionaries were followed by Capuchins from\nBavaria. The mission is in a flourishing state today. During\nthe same pontificate, in 1855 and 1856, two parties of Fran-\nciscans arrived from Italy to undertake the same work among\nthe Indians of the Argentine.\nIn the West Indies, after the vicariates of Guadeloupe and\nMartinique had been attached as suffragan sees to the",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 174,
      "ocrText": "174\nTHE AMERICAN MISSIONS\nBordeaux diocese, and those of the Windward Islands to the\ndiocese of Port of Spain (Trinidad), only the Caribbean Sea\nmission depended on Propaganda, which entrusted British\nGuiana to the English Jesuits, and the missions in those areas\nof Guiana and the West Indies under Dutch administration\nto Dutch Redemptorists and Dominicans.\nIn Brazil, after 1860, the Franciscans evangelized the Indians\nof the interior, the Capuchins those on the coast, and the\nDominicans those of Upper Araguay from 1880 onward. The\nrevolution of 1889 restored their freedom to the religious Orders\nand some of Don Bosco's Salesians arrived in Matto Grosso\nin 1890 (in 1910, they were to settle on the Rio Negro), Holy\nGhost Fathers at Teffe in Amazonia (1897), Fathers of the\nDivine Word among the Coroados Indians and the Botokudi,\nGerman Franciscans (1903) at Santarem among the Mun-\ndurucu, Italian Capuchins among the Indians of Parana and\nSão Paolo, Belgian Benedictines on the Rio Branco, and in\n1911, French Dominicans at Conceiçao on the Paraguay river.\nIn Peru, three prefectures apostolic were founded in 1899:\nSaint-Leon of the Amazon, Ucayali, Urumbamba of the Mother\nof God. The first Augustinians arrived in 1900.\nSalesians arrived at the southern tip of South America in\n1879; Leo XIII sent them when the Argentine Government\nasked him for religious to instruct and pacify the Patagonians.\nThey were very unwelcome at first but subsequently their\nsuccess was sufficient to allow them to extend their work as\nfar as Tierra del Fuego. It was in this group of islands, separ-\nated from the mainland by the straits of Magellan, that Mgr\nCagliero devoted himself with exemplary charity to the\nFuegians whose race was well on the way to becoming extinct.\nAt the end of the nineteenth century, the north and centre\nof Patagonia became a vicariate and Tierra del Fuego a pre-\nfecture apostolic. And what a thankless task the Salesians have\nundertaken in this region!\nSince by the end of the nineteenth century the political\nsituation in Colombia had become stable, various institutes",
      "status": "completed"
    },
    {
      "pageNumber": 175,
      "ocrText": "THE AMERICAN MISSIONS\n175\nsettled there: Augustinians and Recollects in 1890, de Mont-\nfort Fathers in 1903, Vincentians in 1905, Claretians in 1908,\nCarmelites and Jesuits (the latter had been expelled in 1850) in\n1918 and priests from the Burgos seminary in 1920. These\napostles, most of them from Italy and Spain, were helped by\npriests trained in the seminary of the Foreign Missions at\nYarumal (Colombia), which was founded in 1927. In 1928,\nthe Colombian State granted an official status to the mission-\naries, on condition that they civilized scattered and backward\ngroups and made them fit to take their part in the life of the\nnation.",
      "status": "completed"
    }
  ]
}