Jesuits

What was the Jesuit's significance to history?

As disease took away their loved ones, Hurons began to look to Jesuits for wisdom and answers as to why so many of their people were dying while the English remained unharmed. The Jesuits told them it was because they lived in sin. But the Jesuits contributed to the collapse of the Huronia by undermining the Hurons' stabilizing traditions, advocating social revolution, and promotion factionalism. Jesuits claimed to enter America to study the various cultures, but in reality wished to change them rather than study them.

Who are the Jesuits?

Jesuits are a congregation of the Catholic Church. The Jesuit order had a long record of missionary work, and their North American venture was launched with characteristic zeal.

What did the Jesuits do to achieve their goals?

They learned Native languages, committed their lives to their work, and risked martydom in their efforts to save people they regarded as heathens. At first, the Jesuits, like earlier Recollect missionaries in New France and Puritan ministers in New England, tried to coerce their Indian converts to abandon traditional ways. In time, they tempered their approach, realizing that Indian people were more likely to accept a new religion if they did not have to give up being Indian in order to become Christian. Jesuits adopted Indian words and ways to get their message across. Conversion in the early years was unsuccessful. Jesuits criticized Huron sexual practices, gender relations, child rearing, and festivals. But after disease wreaked havoc on the Huron population in the 1630s, baptisms became more common.

Where did the Jesuits do their work?

They worked mostly with the Hurons, who were located in modern day Canada, on the north eastern side of Lake Huron.