The missions of the West do not record the bloody martyrdoms that marked those of the Huron and the Iroquois nations. The absence of any cruelties inflicted on the missionaries is evi dence that already Christianity, now in contact with the tribes for many years, had gained their respect and was beginning to soften their fierce natures. But here more than elsewhere the mis sionaries had to suffer from the rigor of the cli mate, the dangers of long voyages by water and land, the absence of the comforts of civilization as to food, dwelling, society ; and from the oppo sition and obstacles by which their work was impeded; opposition on the part of the Indians medicine-men and polygamy; on the part of the French traders—licentiousness and brandy. It is no wonder the success of the missionaries was slow. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that success is to be measured not so much by the number of baptisms at any one period as by the silent influence of Christian teaching on the In dian nature. It must also be remembered that the catechumens always outnumbered the bap tized. A few statistics from the Relations of the Jesuits gives some idea of the work done: In 1669, at La Pointe, Ashland Bay, two villages out of five were entirely Catholic; in 1677 there were t,800 Catholics at Mackinaw; in 1676 there were Soo Catholics at Green Bay; in 167.o. at Sault Ste. Marie Bruillettes baptized 120 children and 30o adults. Besides mission work the mission aries were occasionally engaged in discovery, and thus were immortalized the names of Marquette and Hennepin.
The foundation of Detroit by Cadillac, 1701, brought about great changes in the mission. Cadillac's plan was to gather around this new post all the western tribes cast of the Mississippi. His intention was to prevent their trade from going northward to the English in the Hudson Bay country, whither it was goaxed by better prices and cheaper brandy. The Jesuits opposed the policy of Cadillac, holding that the less con tact there was between the Indians and the whites the better for the Christianization and civiliza tion of the former. The missions dwindled while Detroit grew and drew the Indians to it. The suppression of the Jesuits by the French gov ernment and the surrender of New France to England put an end to the glorious work which the society had carried on in the Northwest for the period of one hundred years. To-day there are about twenty thousand Catholic Indians in our Western States, who are descendants of the tribes evangelized by the Jesuits during those one hundred years.
The Illinois country (Illinois and Indiana as far south as the Ohiol and Louisiana (the ter ritory south of the Ohio to tbe Gulf) were also the theater of missionary work by the Jesuits and secular priests from Quebec during the period of French supremacy. Little result among the In dians of Louisiana was obtained because the mis sionaries were almost entirely occupied in the white settlements. In the Illinois country much mission work was done among the Illinois and Miamis, whose population did not exceed eighteen thousand souls. The most successful period of the Illinois missions was from 1725 to 1750. The principal centers were Kaskaskia, Fort St. Louis, Cahokia, Peoria, St. Joseph at the head of Lake Michigan, Fort Chartres, Vincennes and in later times Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis.
From all this country the Indians have disap peared and the French settlers at the points named have become the nuclei of flourishing Catholic communities. To-day we find traces of the work of the early missionaries among our present Indians, who formerly lived in the East and the Northwest, in Florida and New Mexico, but none among the Indians from the lower Mis sissippi Valley, if we except a small band of Quapaws from Arkansas, now living in the Indian Territory. The blame must be laid to the misun derstanding between the Jesuits and the seculars; the Jesuits and the Capuchins of Louisiana; to the want of zeal in the government for the work of the missions, to the suppression of the society just at the time it was entering this field, and, finally, to the political jealousies and wars of the Euro pean nations fighting for the mastery of North America. It is a pity; for the Indians whose former home was in that section are the most civilized, cultivated and wealthy of the 248,340 still remaining in the United States, according to the calculations of the Indian Bureau.
Of this total it is hard to say how many are Catholics. Hoffman's Catholic Directory of 1894 says 97,850; Sadlier's Catholic Directory of 1894 says 58,750; the Independent of April 5, 1894, says 45,110; perhaps it will be safe for us to say 50, 000. At any rate, this may be said with certainty: That there was not a tribe in all the extent of the United States to which the gospel was not preached by Catholic missionaries from the year I52o down to the time of our War of Independ ence; and again, this, that the missionaries of the old church are now once more at work among the aborigines, parked in their reservations, to preserve the fruits of the labors of their prede cessors, and to reclaim to Christianity and civili 7-ition the sad remnants of a race once the master of this splendid domain.
(3) The English Missions. After an unsuc cessful attempt at the foundation of a colony in Newfoundland, Lord Baltimore secured from the English crown, 1632, a grant of land including the present states of Maryland and Delaware. He was to be the lord proprietary; that is to say, the viceroy of this territory, with all legislative and executive powers under the sovereignty of the crown. He could admit to his colony or could keep out of it whom he chose. That he, though a Catholic, admitted Christians of all de nominations and guaranteed to them religious equality, is a fact that entitles him to the credit of being the originator of religious liberty on this continent. Such was the policy of the Baltimores from the very beginning of their colonization, and the policy was enacted into a law in 1649. The colonists of Lord Baltimore landed from the Ark and the Dove at the mouth of the Po tomac, March 25, 1634. With them were two Jesuits, White and Altham. The work of the church from Virginia to Massachusetts remained exclusively in the hands of the Society of Jesus from 1624 to 1790, or the space of 156 years. Their labors extended into Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. and were concerned mostly with the Catholic settlers from Europe. With Indians they had very little to do, for the reason that the whites soon drove the aborigines from those states.