BtfLL. 80] 



MISSIONS 



885 



the final result in Illinois was the same as 

 elsewhere. The Natchez and Chickasaw 

 wars interrupted the mission work for 

 some years, antl gave opportunity for 

 invasion by hostile northern tribes. The 

 dissipations consequent upon the prox- 

 imity of garrison posts completed the 

 demoralization, and l>y 1750 the former 

 powerful Illinois nation was reduced to 

 some 1,000 souls, with apparently but one 

 mission. The Indiana missions at St 

 Joseph (Potawatomi and Miami), Vin- 

 cennes (? Piankashaw), and on the 

 Waltash (Miami) continued to flourish 

 until the decree of expulsion, when the 

 mission property was confiscated by the 

 French government, although the Jesuits 

 generally chose to remain as secular 

 priests until their death. Their successors 

 continued to minister to Indians as well 

 as to whites until the disruption and 

 removal of the tribes to the W., between 

 1820 and 1840, when the work was taken 

 up in their new homes by missionaries 

 already on the ground. The majority of 

 the Indians of Miciiigan and Wisconsin 

 remained in their old homes at missions 

 in those states, kept in existence either 

 as regular establishments or as visiting 

 stations served by secular priests. The 

 most distinguished of these later mission- 

 aries was the noted author and philolo- 

 gist. Bishop Frederick Baraga, of the 

 imperial house of Haps1)urg, who, after 

 having voluntarily forfeited his estates to 

 devote his life to the Indians, came to 

 America in 1830, and for 36 years there- 

 after until his death labored with success, 

 first among the Ottawa at Arbre C'roche 

 in lower Michigan, and afterward at St 

 Joseph, Green Bay, Lapointe, and other 

 stations along the upper lakes, more par- 

 ticularly at the Chippewa village of 

 L'Anse, on Keweenaw bay, which he 

 converted into a prosperous Christian 

 settlement. Even when past 60 years of 

 age, this scion of Austrian nobility slept 

 upon the ground and sometimes walked 

 40 m. a day on snowshoes to minister to 

 his Indians. Besides numerous devo- 

 tional works in Ottawa and Chippewa, as 

 well as other volumes in (xerman and 

 Slavonic, he is the author of the great 

 Grammar and Dictionary of the Chip- 

 l)ewa Language, which after half a cen- 

 tury still remains the standard authority, 

 having passed through three editions. 



In 1818 was begun, near Pembina, on 

 Red r., just inside the U. S. boundary, 

 the Chippewa mission, afterward known 

 as Assumption, which became the cen- 

 tral station for work among the Chippewa 

 of Minnesota and the Mandan and others 

 of the upper Missouri. The most noted 

 name in this connection is that of Rev. 

 G. A. Belcourt, author of a dictionary of 

 tlie Chippewa language, second in im- 



portance only to that of Baraga. In 1837 

 Father Augustin Ravoux estal)lished a 

 mission among the Santee Sioux at Fari- 

 bault's trading post in E. Minnesota, learn- 

 ing the language and ministering to the 

 eastern bands for a numl)er of years. In 

 1843 (or 1844) he published a devotional 

 work in that dialect, which has ]mssed 

 through two editions. The first regular 

 mission station among the Menominee of 

 Wisconsin was established in 1844, and 

 among the Winnebago, then at Long 

 Prairie, Minn., in 1850. For 20 years 

 earlier missionary work had been done 

 among them, notably by Father Samuel 

 Mazzuchelli, whose Winnebago Prayer 

 Book, published in 1833, is mentioned by 

 Pilling as "the first publication, so far as 

 I know, of a text in any of the dialects in 

 the Siouan family." In the farther W. 

 work was carried on among all of the im- 

 migrant, and the principal of the native, 

 tribes, the chief laborers again being the 

 Jesuits, whose order had been restored to 

 full privilege in 1814. As the whole coun- 

 try was now explored and organized on a 

 permanent governmental basis, and the 

 Indian day was rapidly waning, these 

 later missions have not the same historic 

 interest that attaches to those of the co- 

 lonial period, and may be passed over 

 with briefer notice. Chief among them 

 were the Potawatomi missions of St Stan- 

 islaus and St Mary, in Kansas, founded 

 in 1836 by the Belgian Jesuits Von Quick- 

 enborne, Hoecken, Peter J. de Smet, and 

 others, working together, and the Osage 

 mission of St Francis Hieronymo, founded 

 about 1847 by Fathers Shoenmaker and 

 Bax. The girls of these two mission 

 schools were in charge respectively of the 

 Sisters of the Sacred Heart and the Sisters 

 of Loretto. Temporary missions were 

 also established in 1836 and 1847 respec- 

 tively among the Kickapoo and the 

 Miami. 



The remote Flatheads in the moun- 

 tains at the head of Missouri r. had heard 

 of Christianity and had been taught the 

 rudimentary doctrines by some adopted 

 Caughnawaga Indians, and in 1831 they 

 sent a delegation all the long and danger- 

 ous way to St Louis to ask of Indian 

 Superintendent Clark that missionaries 

 be sent among them. To do this was not 

 possible at the time, but with persevering 

 desire other delegations were sent on the 

 same errand, some of the envoys dying 

 on the road and others being murdered 

 by the Sioux, until the request met re- 

 sponse. In 18.34 the Methodist missionary, 

 Jason Lee, with several assistants, accom- 

 panied a trading expedition across the 

 mountains, but, changing his original ]nir- 

 pose, passed by without visiting the Flat- 

 heads and estaV)lished himself in the 

 vicinity of the trading post of Ft Van- 



