Pierre Jean De Smet

Pierre Jean De Smet , 1801-73, Jesuit missionary in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, b. Belgium. He emigrated to the United States in 1821, served his novitiate in Florissant, Mo., and was ordained in 1827. He began (1838) his long missionary career at a mission on the site of Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 1840 he went to Montana with two Salish who had come to St. Louis in search of a "black robe" (Jesuit), and he established missions in Montana and Idaho. Traveling widely across the Northwest from 1840 to 1846, he won the friendship of various tribes. Later he acted often as mediator between Native Americans and whites—notably in the council at Fort Laramie in 1851 and in the Yakima War of 1858-59. He is said to have advised Brigham Young as to a place for the Mormons to settle, and he was a pacifier in the Utah War . He undertook several peace missions to the Sioux. His books are excellent source material in Western history— Letters and Sketches (1843), Oregon Missions and Travels (1847), Western Missions and Missionaries (1859), and New Indian Sketches (1863).

Bibliography: See biography by J. U. Terrell (1964).

Smet, Pierre Jean De (1801–73),Jesuit missionary. Father Smet came to the U.S. from Belgium in 1821 and after training in Maryland and Missouri, was ordained at the latter place in 1827. He was missionary to various tribes from 1838 on and was known among them as “Blackrobe.” He wrote accounts of his ministry and mission‐foundings in Letters and Sketches, with a Narrative of a Year's Residence Among the Indian Tribes of the Rocky Mountains (1843), Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains (1847), and New Indian Sketches (1863).

De Smet, Pierre Jean (1801–73), Belgian Jesuit missionary among the Indians of the Northwest, erected many missions and won the confidence of his people, to whom he made many journeys. After the white immigration of the mid‐century made Indian relations difficult, he often acted as intermediary and arbitrator, and was chiefly responsible for the eventual peace between the Sioux and the Americans. His missionary work was supplemented by his books, Letters and Sketches (1843), Oregon Missions and Travels (1847), Western Missions and Missionaries (1859), and New Indian Sketches (1863).