Mission improbable

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was a short-lived attempt to establish a first French mission-settlement in Wendake (“a land apart”), the ancestral land of the Huron-Wendat People, in what is now Ontario. From 1639 to 1649, Sainte-Marie was a thriving French community. When the mission failed after a decade, it was abandoned and burnt to the ground.

The site remained forgotten for two centuries. In 1920, the Government of Canada recognized it as a National Historic Site and the buildings were reconstructed in 1964. Today, Sainte-Marie among the Hurons tells its fascinating story to all who take the time to visit it in Midland, a two-hour drive north of Toronto, on the shores of Georgian Bay. 

There are widely varying estimates of the number of Indigenous peoples living on their traditional homelands in the Americas at the time of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. However, there is agreement that they had lived there for thousands of years.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, French, English, Spanish and Dutch explorers were sent by their respective sovereigns to map the “new” world, with the goals of finding the elusive passage to India, trading in desirable goods, and gaining new territories for their respective crowns. At the same time, the Catholic Church wished to increase the reach of Christianity by converting Indigenous peoples. The two objectives were not considered incompatible.

Given the harsh living conditions, colonization would not have been possible without the help of the Indigenous peoples. In colonial New France, Indigenous-French relations were complex and interdependent. The French hoped that the evangelization and cultural assimilation of the Huron-Wendat would enhance their foothold in the beaver pelt trade. The colonists were, in turn, influenced culturally by their Indigenous hosts.

Following in the footsteps of the French explorer Samuel de Champlain who had ventured twice in what is now Ontario, in search of the Northern Sea, French Jesuit missionaries established a mission in Wendake in 1639. The Huron-Wendat people were non-nomadic farmers and skilled traders. The Jesuits visited their villages, learned their language and customs, and converted many. Père Jean de Brébeuf, who is buried on the site, mastered the Wyandot language and taught it to other missionaries.

The Sainte-Marie mission consisted of a fortified wooden precinct along the river Wye, with several buildings used for lodging, worship, crop and animal husbandry, storage, cooking, workshops and caring for the sick. The settlement also included a Christian and a non-Christian long house, a canal, and a cemetery. According to historical data, by 1648, Sainte-Marie was home to 66 French men (priests, lay brothers, laics, tradesmen, and soldiers) – which represented one-fifth of the entire European population of New France.

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons is a very extensive and impressive living historical site, to which is attached a most informative museum. The short video below takes you on a tour of the site.

The video’s music score is a version of the well-known Huron Carol, a Christmas song composed by Père Jean de Brébeuf in the language of the Huron-Wendat (Estennialon de tsonue Jesus ahatonhia), set to a French folk tune of the 16th century. The words evoke a reality that his converts could identify with. The carol, titled ‘Twas in the Moon of Winter Time in English, was translated by J.E. Middleton.

“The first full moon of wintertime is not so round and fair, As was the ring of glory on The helpless infant there. The chiefs from far before him knelt, With gifts of fox and beaver pelt”. (4th verse)

The mission in a broader context

During the short life of the mission, competition to dominate the beaver trade accentuated frictions between fur trading Indigenous nations. The British and the Dutch provided firearms to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nations in exchange for pelts and that upped the ante significantly, leading to deadly conflicts. The French settlements were under constant threat, as the presence of missionaries was not universally welcomed. In addition, the Huron-Wendat were decimated by infectious diseases brought by the Europeans for which they had no immunity (especially smallpox).

In 1649, the Haudenosaunee were successful at dislodging the French-allied Huron-Wendat from their homeland. Two of the Jesuits were martyred along with native converts and are buried in Sainte-Marie. The Jesuits, the French lay people and the native converts retreated to nearby Christian Island to build a new settlement, but the territory was inhospitable, and conflicts continued. The following year, the French community and three hundred Huron-Wendat people moved east to Quebec. To this day, the Huron-Wendat nation lives just north of Quebec City, in two urban reserves named Wendake.

Epilogue

We had started work on this story when the Vatican announced on March 30, 2023, that it was repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, which is articulated in three papal bulls from the 15th century. Although the Vatican denies that these bulls were intended to give European explorers and colonizers a religious justification for the “discovery” of Indigenous lands in the Americas and Africa, some historians and researchers contend that it is exactly how they were used.

Because Indigenous peoples where not Christians, the Doctrine of Discovery maintained that their territories did not belong to any “master” hence were, “terra nullius.” Conversion of Indigenous peoples to Christianity was part of the colonization strategy set out in the Doctrine.

The report of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report and list of 94 Calls-to-Action, published in 2015, pleaded for the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery and the concept of “terra nullius”. This demand was made in person when representatives of Canada’s First Nations met Pope Francis in Rome in March 2022 and when he visited Canada in July of the same year.