JESUIT RELATIONS

Relations des Jésuites was the name given to the annual report of the Mission of New France addressed by the superior of Quebec, Canada, to the provincial of Paris, who had it printed for public circulation.

Editions. The first Relation was that of 1632; the last, that of 1672. Thus the original collection is composed of 41 small volumes, duodecimo. Complete collections are rare today; there is one at Laval University, Quebec, and another at the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I.

In 1858 the Canadian government had the full text of all the Relations from 1632 to 1673 printed in three octavo volumes. Also included was the Relation of Rev. Pierre Biard of the Acadian mission (1616) as well as the letter (1626) sent by Rev. Charles Lalemant from Quebec to his brother Jérôme. The text of the Quebec edition was not annotated, but the third volume contained an alphabetical index, incomplete but quite useful.

In Cleveland, Ohio, in 1896 Reuben Gold Thwaites began the publication of the vast collection, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, in 73 volumes, which carry an English translation on the pages facing the original Latin or French. The Thwaites edition is superior to the Quebec edition because (1) it contains the Relations of 1673 to 1679, drafted in the 17th century by Rev. Claude dablon, but published after the Quebec edition under the title of Unpublished Relations (Relations inédites ); (2) its Allied Documents, the first of which is dated 1611 and the last dated 1791, provide a better understanding of the missionary work of the Jesuits in North America; and (3) its bibliographical notes, as well as its scholarly notes and detailed index, make it an important research tool.

Authors and contents. The Jesuit superior in Quebec was responsible for each Relation, and more often than not he drafted it himself. Among those who held this office were Paul Le Jeune, Barthélémy Vimont, Jérôme Lalemant, Paul Rageneau, François Le Mercier, and Claude Dablon, all of whom were eye-witnesses to the events that took place in the Quebec area. For the rest, they relied on the official reports addressed to them by their widely scattered missionaries.

The Relations are a source of information on the religion, the morals, the mechanics of government, and the tactics of warfare among the Native American nations of North America during the 17th century. Through these reports the forward movement of the Church through the vast forests of the country may be traced and an insight gained into the qualities of the colonists newly arrived from France. The Relations provide an account of the progress of the French colonies at Quebec, Trois-Rivières, and Montreal, as well as of the labors, sufferings, and successes of the missionaries throughout the region, especially in Huronia. They are an important source of information concerning the lives and deaths of the Jesuit martyrs.

Significance and value. As a means of arousing interest in France in the ministry of the Jesuits in America, the Relations were notably successful. They were, especially during their first years, an excellent medium of publicity, and they helped to populate New France by their descriptions of the beauty of the country, the fertility of the soil, the richness of its natural resources, and the peace and good fortune to be obtained by its inhabitants. They evoked fervent prayers, generous alms, and apostolic vocations. They were responsible for the origin of institutions that, 300 years later, were still serving the Church in Canada. It was in answer to an appeal of the Relations that the Ursulines and the Hospitalières disembarked at Quebec in 1639—the first time in the history of the Church that women's institutions were consecrated to a missionary ministry in a distant country. The Relations also exercised considerable influence in the founding of Montreal; its founder, M. Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière; its first governor, M. de Maisonneuve; and its first lay hospital nurse, Jeanne Mance, were all readers of the Relations.

The Relations should not be evaluated as a continuous history of the French colony or of the missionary work among the natives. The Jesuits were not and did not pretend to be formal and scientific historiographers. But if the Relations do not tell the whole story, they are worthy of belief in what they do recount. A specialist in the historical beginnings of the United States, Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan, wrote of them in 1847: "No historian can do a complete research job on the first settlements of this country without being acquainted with them, and those who pretend to be capable of doing this without having studied them in advance only give proof of their incapacity for this type of work."

Bibliography: e. b. o'callaghan, Jesuit Relations. Discoveries and Other Occurrences in Canada and the Northern and Western States of the Union (New York 1847), French tr. by f. martin (Montreal 1850). j. c. mccoy, Jesuit Relations, 1632–1673 (Paris 1937), a bibliog. Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, ed. r. g. thwaites, 73 v. (Cleveland, Ohio 1896–1901; New York 1959— ) 1:37–44, gen. intro. l. pouliot, Étude sur les Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France (1632–1672) (Montreal 1940).

[l. pouliot]