The Fall of Troy in Old Huronia: The Letters of Paul Ragueneau on the Destruction of Wendake, 1649–1651
- Book Title:
- Brill's Companion to Classics in the Early Americas
- Book Editor:
- Format:
- Book Chapter
- Year:
- 2021
- Publisher:
- Brill
- Place published:
- Leiden
- Language:
- Abstract:
Paul Ragueneau recounts the burning of the Jesuit mission village at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and remarks: “We watched our labours of nearly ten years consumed in a moment”. Faced with the relentless incursions of the Haudenosaunee, the Jesuit missionaries and their Wendat allies resolved that they would themselves put their village to flame and flee across the waters to the island Gahoendoe, off the shore of Georgian Bay. In the face of ruin, the Wendat, and the Jesuits among them, chose exile. On Gahoendoe, called Ile Saint-Joseph by the French, the Wendat endured a year of famine. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died between the spring of 1649 and the spring of 1650, when a few hundred of those Wendat who remained on the island chose to abandon their new settlement. With their traditional territory lost to them, these Wendat, alongside the Jesuits who served their community, set out on a journey of exile that would take them – only after months of travel over land and river – to the French settlement at Quebec.
- Who (Jesuits):
- What (Subjects):
- Where (Locations):
- When (Centuries):
- Worldcat URL:
- Publisher URL:
- Page Range:
- 398–423
- ISBN:
- 97890044685739789004468658
- DOI:
- Comment:
- Series: Brill's Companions to Classical Reception, v. 21