The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America (Bedford Series in History & Culture (Paperback))

As a 73-volume library, the original The Jesuit Relations has long been inaccessible to undergraduate students. Vitally important, the writings of seventeenth-century French Jesuits in Native North America tell the story of early American encounters. This new edition deftly binds them into a thematically arranged, 35-document sampler with a detailed introduction that provides background on these missionaries, the Indians, and their cohabitation in early North America. Colorful journal entries by such fathers as Paul LeJeune, Jean de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, and Jacques Marquette describe the Huron, Algonquin, Iroquois, and Montagnais peoples. Eleven images, two maps, a chronology, a bibliography, and questions for consideration supplement these firsthand accounts.