Mission of the Guardian Angel

Mission of the Guardian Angel

The Mission of the Guardian Angel was a 17th century Jesuit mission in the vicinity of what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was established in 1696 by Father François Pinet, a French Jesuit priest.[1] The mission was abandoned by 1700; its exact location remains unknown.

Contents

Background

In the 17th century the Chicago area was inhabited by a number of Algonquian peoples, including the Mascouten and Miami tribes, who had migrated into northern Illinois and Wisconsin as a result of the Beaver Wars. Jesuit missionaries exploring the Great Lakes region had first encountered these tribes in the 1650s.[2] The Miami had established some villages on the Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers in the mid-17th century, but these were abandoned in the 1650s as they moved west of the Mississippi and then to Wisconsin.[3] Father Jacques Marquette on his first encounter with the Miami at a large village near what is now Portage, Wisconsin during his expedition with Louis Jolliet to the Mississippi River in 1673 described them as "the most civil, the most liberal, and the most shapely [of the three nations that occupied the village]."[4] In the 1690s the Miami returned to the Chicago area, establishing two villages; one at the mouth of the Chicago River, and another about 3 miles (4.8 km) upstream on the north branch of the river.[3]

Pinet's Mission

Pierre François Pinet was born at Périgueux in France on November 11, 1660, and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Bordeaux in 1682.[5] He travelled to Canada in 1694, arriving first in Quebec then travelling to Montreal, Ville-Marie, and Michillimackinac.[6] In 1696 Pinet established the Mission of the Guardian Angel at Chicago,[7] but he was soon forced to abandon the mission by Louis de Buade de Frontenac, the Governor General of New France.[8] An appeal was made to François de Laval, bishop of New France, and the mission was re-established in 1698. Sometime after 1700, the Miamis started to move to the Maumee and Wabash valleys in Indiana,[3] and the mission was permanently abandoned.[7] After the closing of the Mission of the Guardian Angel at Chicago, Pinet moved to work amongst the Illiniwek tribes living at Cahokia. He then moved with the Illiniwek to join the Kaskaskia tribe on the north bank of the River des Peres in what is now St. Louis, Missouri. A letter by Father Bergier dated March 1, 1703 states that Pinet died at River des Peres on August 1, 1702.[9]

Location

The exact location of the Mission of the Guardian Angel in unknown but various historians have proposed a number of sites in the Chicago area.[1] The only contemporary source that gives any clues as to the location is a letter, dated January 2, 1699, from Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme to François de Laval in which he relates a visit to the mission.[10] John Gilmary Shea published an English translation of the letter in 1861;[11] however, Chicago historian Milton Milo Quaife, writing in 1913, noted that Shea's translation "frequently departs from the original manuscript" and that differences in translation may account for some of the different sites proposed.[10]

Describing his visit to the Mission of the Guardian Angel, St. Cosme wrote:

We remained five days at Kipikaoui, leaving on the 17th and after being windbound on the 18th and 19th we camped on the 20th at a place five leagues[12] from Chikagou. We should have arrived there early on the 21st but the wind which suddenly arose on the lake compelled us to land half a league from Chikagou.[13] We had considerable difficulty in landing and in saving our canoes; we all had to jump into the water. One must be very careful along the lakes, and especially Lake Mixcigan, whose shores are very low, to take to the land as soon as possible when the waves rise on the lake, for the rollers become so high in so short a time that one runs the risk of breaking his canoe and of losing all it contains. Many travellers have already been wrecked there. We, Monsieur de Montigny, Davion, and myself, went by land to the house of the Reverend Jesuit Fathers while our people remained behind. We found there Reverend Father Pinet and Reverend Father Binneteau, who had recently arrived from the Illinois country and was slightly ill.I cannot describe to you, my lord, with what cordiality and manifestations of friendship these Reverend Fathers received and embraced us while we had the consolation of residing with them. Their house is built on the bank of a small river, with the lake on one side and a fine and vast prairie on the other. The village of the savages contains over a hundred and fifty cabins, and a league up the river is still another village almost as large. They are all Miamis. Reverend Father Pinet usually resides there except in winter, when the savages are all engaged in hunting, and then he goes to the Illinois. We saw no savages there; they had already started for their hunt. If one may judge of the future from the short time that Reverend Father Pinet has passed in this mission, we may believe that if God will bless the labors and the zeal of that holy missionary there will be a great number of good and fervent Christians. It is true that but slight results are obtained with reference to the older persons, who are hardened in profligacy, but all the children are baptized, and the jugglers even, who are the most opposed to Christianity, allow their children to be baptized. They are also very glad to let them be instructed. Several girls of a certain age and also many young boys have already been and are being instructed, so that we may hope that when the old stock dies off, they will be a new and entirely Christian people.[14]

In 1907 Frank Reed Grover, used Shea's translation to propose that the mission had not actually been located at Chicago, but rather further north on the north branch of the Chicago River, near Skokie, Illinois.[15] Quaife, working from a duplicate of the original manuscript concluded that the mission was built on the banks of the main stem of the Chicago River, somewhere between the forks and its mouth in what is now downtown Chicago.[16] Other locations proposed include Lake Calumet and a location near Goose Island.[1][17]

Other locations suggested have been Evanston by the Evanston Historical Society, Lake Calumet by Hurlbut, Churchill Woods by V. P. Web, Winnetka by the Saints Faith Hope and Charity Parish Winnetka, the Merchandise Mart by Swenson, Highland Park by Bower and Dooley, the area around LUMA (a Loyola University campus) by Loyola University Chicago, Gross Point by Grover, and Wilmette.

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c Briggs, Briggs (2005). "Mission of the Guardian Angel". The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1729.html. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
  2. ^ Anson, Bert (2001). The Miami Indians. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 0806131977. 
  3. ^ a b c Edmunds, R. David (2005). "Chicago in the Middle Ground". The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/300129.html. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
  4. ^ Thwaites, Reuben Gold (1908). Father Marquette. D. Appleton & Company. p. 180. http://books.google.com/books?id=eVsOAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
  5. ^ Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed (1900). The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Volume LXIV. The Burrows Brothers. p. 278. http://books.google.com/books?id=XEn5_fAsC0MC&pg=278. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
  6. ^ Grover (1907), pp. 159–164
  7. ^ a b Quaife (1913), p. 39
  8. ^ Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed (1900). "Letters by Father Jacques Gravier to Monseigneur de Laval". The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Volume LXV. The Burrows Brothers. pp. 53–57. http://books.google.com/books?id=2xAVAAAAYAAJ&pg=53. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
  9. ^ Garraghan (1921), p. 20-21
  10. ^ a b Quaife (1913) p. 40
  11. ^ Shea (1861), pp. 45–75
  12. ^ One league (lieue) is equal to about 2.5 miles (4.0 km). See French units of measurement
  13. ^ Shea (1861), p. 52, has this word as Apkaw, which he suggests may be a transcriber's blunder for cette place (that place); later translations use Chikagou.
  14. ^ Kellogg (1917), pp. 346–347
  15. ^ Grover (1907), p. 156
  16. ^ Quaife (1913), p. 42
  17. ^ Garraghan (1921), p. 14

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Church of the Guardian Angel (Manhattan) — The Church of the Guardian Angel General information Architectural style Southern Sicilian Romanesque (for 1930 church) Town or ci …   Wikipedia

  • Guardian angel — A guardian angel is an angel who protects and guides a particular person. The concept of tutelary angels and their hierarchy was extensively developed in Christianity in the 5th century by Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. The theology of angels,… …   Wikipedia

  • Guardian Angels Church — Guardian Angels Catholic Church [ [http://www.gachaska.org/info.htm Guardian Angels Parish] ] is a historic church located in Chaska, Minnesota founded in 1858. A Roman Catholic church, Guardian Angels is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of …   Wikipedia

  • Christianity in the 17th century — The first page of Genesis from the 1611 first edition of the Authorized King James Version. The KJV is an Early Modern English translation of the Bible by the Church of England that was begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.[1] See also …   Wikipedia

  • Guardian Angels — • The lowest orders of angels are sent to men Catholic Encyclopedia. Kevin Knight. 2006. Guardian Angels     Guardian Angel     † …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Church —     The Church     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Church     The term church (Anglo Saxon, cirice, circe; Modern German, Kirche; Sw., Kyrka) is the name employed in the Teutonic languages to render the Greek ekklesia (ecclesia), the term by which… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Church in China —     The Church in China     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Church in China     Ancient Christians     The introduction of Christianity into China has been ascribed not only to the Apostle of India, St. Thomas, but also to St. Bartholomew. In the… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Irish (in Countries Other Than Ireland) —     The Irish (in countries other than Ireland)     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Irish (in countries other than Ireland)     I. IN THE UNITED STATES     Who were the first Irish to land on the American continent and the time of their arrival are …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Angel Levine — is 1970 U.S. film directed by Jan Kadar and based on a short story by Bernard Malamud. The film is about an impoverished New York City tailor (played by Zero Mostel) who is unable to work due to health problems, which creates a financial strain… …   Wikipedia

  • The Go-ongers — The nihongo|Go ongers|ゴーオンジャー|Gōonjā are the fictional eponymous protagonists of the Japanese Super Sentai series Engine Sentai Go onger . They are chosen by fictional sentient vehicles known as Engines to battle the evil Barbaric Machine Clan… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”