ALLOUEZ, CLAUDE JEAN (1622-1689), French Jesuit missionary to the Indians of North America, was born in St. Didier, France, on June 6, 1622. At the age of 17 he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Toulouse and, upon completion of student life at Rodez in 1656, he was appointed preacher. In 1658.he went to Canada and devoted the remainder of his life to work among the Indians. He was one of the early French Jesuits who visited the Great Lakes region. At first he served at Three Rivers and other settlements on the St. Lawrence river. In 1665 he began work among the Ottawas of Lake Superior, building in that year the first mission established among the Indians of Wisconsin. Later he founded missions among the Illinois Indians. About 1675 he settled in the Indian village of Kaskaskia and developed the mission started there by Marquette (q.v.). In 1679, on the approach of La Salle (q.v.), who was unfriendly to the Jesuits, Allouez withdrew from Kaskaskia. Thereafter he laboured chiefly among the Miamis of the St. Joseph river in south-eastern Mich igan. He died in one of the Ottawa missions near the site of the present town of Niles, Mich., on Aug. 27, 1689.
See J. D. G. Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (1853) ; The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland, O., 1894-1901) ; Joseph Stephen La Boule, "Allouez, The Apostle of the Ottawas," Parkman Club Publications, No. 17 (1897) ; "Allouez, and His Relations with La Salle," Hist. Soc. Wis., Proc., p. 168-182 (1899) ; Charles Wesley Mann, Manners and Customs of the Western Indians (1906).