Jesuit missionaries worked among the Huron (Wendat), an Iroquoian-speaking people who occupied territory in the Georgian Bay area of Central Ontario. (They were not part of the Iroquois Confederacy, initially made up of five tribes south and east of the Great Lakes.) The area of their traditional territory is called Huronia. The Huron in this area were farmers, fishermen and traders who lived in villages surrounded by defensive wooden palisades for protection.[7] Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was the headquarters for the French Jesuit Mission to the Huron Wendat people.[8]
By the late 1640s, the Jesuits believed they were making progress in their mission to the Huron, and claimed to have made many converts. But, the priests were not universally trusted. Many Huron considered them to be malevolent shamans who brought death and disease wherever they travelled; after European contact, the Huron had suffered high fatalities in epidemics after 1634 of smallpox and other Eurasian infectious diseases.
The nations of the Iroquois Confederacy considered the Jesuits legitimate targets of their raids and warfare, as the missionaries were nominally allies of the Huron and French fur traders. Retaliating for French colonial attacks against the Iroquois was also a reason for their raids against the Huron and Jesuits.
In 1642, the Mohawk captured René Goupil,[1] and Father Isaac Jogues,[2] bringing them back to their village of Ossernenon south of the Mohawk River. They ritually tortured both men and killed Goupil. After several months of captivity, Jogues was ransomed by Dutch traders and the minister Johannes Megapolensis from New Netherland (later Albany). He returned for a time to France, but then sailed back to Quebec. In 1646 he and Jean de Lalande were killed during a visit to Ossernenon intended to achieve peace between the French and the Mohawk.[3]
The martyrs were canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930.[10] They are collectively the secondary patron saints of Canada. St. René Goupil, St. Isaac Jogues, and St. Jean de Lalande are the first three U.S. saints, martyred at Ossernenon, 9 miles (14.5 km) west of the confluence of the Schoharie and Mohawk rivers. Their feast day is celebrated in the General Roman Calendar and in the United States on October 19 under the title of "John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs," and in Canada on September 26.
The Martyrs' Shrine in Midland, Ontario,[11] the site of the Jesuits' missionary work among the Huron, is the National Shrine to the Canadian Martyrs.
A National Shrine of the North American Martyrs has been constructed and dedicated in Auriesville, New York.[12] It is located south of the Mohawk River, near a Jesuit cemetery containing remains of missionaries who died in the area from 1669 to 1684, when the Jesuits had a local mission to the Mohawk.
Churches dedicated to the Canadian Martyrs
Churches dedicated to the martyrs include the following:
The Kaboni Catholic Church (St. Anthony Daniel Parish), located in Wiikwemkoong First Nation, Ontario.
Canadian Martyrs' Church in Hamilton, Ontario
St-Charles Garnier Church in Hamilton Ontario
St-Charles Garnier Church in Kelowna, British Columbia
The parishes of Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens in Montréal, in the City of Québec, in Victoriaville, in Trois-Rivières, and in Beauharnois (province of Québec, Canada).
Holy Martyrs of North America Catholic Church in Falmouth, Maine.
Schools dedicated to the Canadian Martyrs
Many schools also honour the martyrs, including the following:
Brebeuf College School, Jesuit (formerly) Catholic Secondary School in Willowdale (north Toronto) established in 1963, named after St. Jean de Brébeuf
Canadian Martyrs Elementary School (Grades Kindergarten to Grade 8) Ottawa, Ontario established by Oblates Of Mary Immaculate 1930-1983 [3][4]
Municipality named after the Canadian Martyrs
The parish municipality of Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens, in Quebec, Canada
The torture of the martyrs by the Iroquois is the subject depicted in the twelve-light World War I memorial window (1933) by Charles William Kelsey at the Loyola College (Montreal) chapel, at the Chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes on the campus of Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland, and a side shine at Madonna Della Strada Chapel on the campus of Loyola University Chicago. Fordham University additionally has named the Martyrs' Court residential complex in their collective honour, as well as individual halls in the complex being named for Jogues, Goupil and Lalande. The North American College in Rome has a crypt chapel dedicated to the North American Martyrs.
The martyrs are also honoured at Camp Ondessonk, a Catholic summer camp in Ozark, Illinois, where each unit of cabins is named after one of the martyrs, and also at the American Martyrs Retreat House in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
