archaeological and textual records - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell ...

experienced such a receptive audience (JR 55:77). In 1672 Julien Garnier affirmed the
particular allure Christianity had to the downtrodden:
But of all the means that God most employees in these three villages of Saint
Michel, Saint Jacques, and La Conception...that which most effectively
converts the Savages is the misery and abandonment of creatures. None are
better disposed to listen to the instructions, and readier to obey the movements
of grace than poor slaves, or other persons deprived of all succor and
abandoned by everyone. It is they who give most consolation to the Father, and
who, amid their temporal miseries, most willingly receive the good news of
their eternal happiness. This year the Father baptized some of this class, and
they all live as true Christians. (JR 58:231-235)
While Garnier does not specify any tribal affiliations of the “slaves” and
“abandoned people” in the above passage, the account from Father Raffeix at La
Conception in the same volume may provide some clues:
That which gives prayer additional influence is the example of the [Huron]
elders, who are the first to come and pray to God. The Chief of the Hurons
never allows an opportunity to pass without exhorting [all the people, but]
especially the old men, to embrace the faith in earnest; and were it not for their
persistence in having recourse to superstitious remedies in their sicknesses,
This Church would receive a notable increase in a short time. The Neutrals and
the Onnontioga, two nations who form part of this village [St. Michel], have at
last followed the example of the Hurons, and now generally come to prayers,
as do the latter, to the Chapel, to pray, and to receive the instructions that we
give them. (JR 57:191)
Raffeix wrote again the next summer from La Conception, but oddly enough,
this time he insisted that “the great number of superstitions that have gathered here
with the tribes, who have come hither for refuge, after the destruction of their own
country, is a considerable impediment to the propagation of the Gospel [in the Seneca
mission]” (JR 58:235). He also cites the lack of contact with the French as being a
reason why the Senecas found Catholic teachings so bizarre: “they have hardly ever
seen anyone who believed and practices these teachings” (JR 58:235).
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