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Pierron, Raffeix, and Garnier, who are among the Upper Iroquois, because their chief
occupation is to suffer and, as it were, to die at every moment through the constant
threats and the insults that those barbarians heap upon them; and they, in spite of all
that, fail not to snatch many souls from the Demon” (JR 60:173). Yet political tensions
may not have been the only factor contributing to an apparent lapse in communication
in the historical record. Influenza, which still makes its terrifying rounds across the
world today, was one of many diseases affecting native populations in the Post-
Contact era. The last part of the 1676 letter describes a biological battle, as well as a
spiritual one:
In a village of Sonnontouans where Father Garnier is, 40 children and 14
adults who had been baptized have died within a year. As for Reverend Father
Raffeix, who is in another village of Sonnontouan, he writes that he has
derived great advantage from a general Influenza with which God has
chastised those barbarians, and which in one month Carried off more than 60
little children, for whose baptism he Spared himself no more than he did for
that of the adults whom God showed to be his in that prevalent disease. (JR
60:175)
The nearest historical source after the Relations for the Seneca mission period after
1676 are the Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York –
also known as New York Colonial Documents, and cited hereafter as the NYCD. The
New York Colonial Documents were compiled and translated by various authors,
mostly in the mid-nineteenth century; as a disclaimer, scholars should hence bear in
mind the substantial amount of time between the original authors’ writing and the
editors’ work.
Prior to Denonville’s punitive expedition of 1687 (which is covered in volume 63
of the Jesuit Relations), the Seneca missions were also, albeit temporarily, interrupted
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