Claude Chauchetière

Claude Chauchetière

Claude Chauchetière was responsible to perform masses, help out the poor and dying, write reports on his progress and take confessions. One of his main focuses lay with helping the many converts of Caughnawaga in the excessive use of self-flagellation. They would practice self-mortification as evidence of their faith, which Chauchetière found unnecessary. Another concern that Chauchetière dealt with is the influence of liquor among the Indians. Despite numerous teachings and lessons provided by him about the dangers of liquor, they still continued to drink excessively.

1677-1694

Person

Caughnawaga reserve

“Biography – Chauchetière, Claude – Volume II (1701-1740) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography.” Home – Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Accessed October 3, 2021. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/chauchetiere_claude_2E.html

1645

St-Porchaire-de-Poitiers, France

1709

Québec City, Québec, Canada

Jesuit missionary; mathematician; artist; mystic; author of Annual Narrative of the Mission of the Sault from Its Foundation Until the Year 1686

French; Huron

Claude Chauchetière was a devoted Jesuit from a young age. He chose to do missionary work in New France (Canada) at age 18 due to wanting to imitate the suffering and passion of Christ - New France being known as a place of struggle. Chauchetière studied the Huron language in order to work with the Hurons for his first year. He later was appointed to work in Caughnawaga by taking confession, visiting the sick, tending to the dying, writing reports and celebrating mass. Being a talented painter, Chauchetière would draw biblical illustrations and paintings in his evangelization work with the natives.He encountered Kateri Tekakwitha, an Algonquin-Mohawk Jesuit convert, while staying with the Caughnawaga . This encounter spiritually affected him and would work on having her canonized as a saint after her death. Chauchetière would go on to record about his mission work in his published work Annual Narrative of the Mission of the Sault from Its Foundation Until the Year 1686.

“Claude Chauchetière.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Accessed October 3, 2021. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/claude-chauchetiere
Hogue, Kellie Jean. "A Saint of Their Own: Native Petitions Supporting the Canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, 1884–1885." US Catholic Historian (2014): 25-44

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Conflict and Change in Early Canadian History (Carleton HIST 1301)

Arina Smirnyagina