BREBEUF, bre-bef, Jean de, French pioneer missionary in North America : b. Conde sur-Vire, Normandy, 25 March 1593; d. near Georgian Bay, Canada, 16 March 1649. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1617 and in 1625 arrived in Quebec. He at once took up his abode in the Indian wigwams and has left us an account of a winter's experience with the aborigines. In the spring of 1626 he set out with the Indians on a canoe journey to Lake Huron, accompanied by Father de Nofie. He established his first mission at Ihonatiria, near Georgian Bay, but his efforts met with little success and in 1628 he was recalled to Quebec because of the dangers which then threatened to exterminate the colony. On the surrender to the English in July 1629, Brebeuf returned to France, but returned after the res toration of the colony to France in 1633. The next 16 years of labor among the savages were a series of privations and sufferings. In 1640 he set out with Chaumonot to evangelize the Neutres, a tribe that lived north of Lake Erie, but his labors there during a terrible winter brought no success. In 1642 he was given the
care of the Indians at the Sillery Reservation. During the Huron-Iroquois War Brebeuf suc ceeded in reaching the Huron country after Bressani and Jogues had failed. In 1648 dis aster after disaster befell the missionaries — their establishments were burned and the mis sionaries slaughtered. During the attack on Saint Louis, Brebeuf and Lallemant, who had remained when they might have escaped, were seized and dragged to Saint Ignace. Brebeuf had scalding water poured on his head in mock ery of baptism, and other unspeakable tortures were inflicted upon him while tied to a stake with a fire lighted under him. His head is still kept as a relic at the Hotel-Dieu, Quebec. Con sult Bancroft, 'History of the United (Boston 1853) ; Charlevoix, (Histoire de la Nouvelle France' (Eng. trans. by Shea, New York 1871) ; Rochemonteix, 'Les Jesuites et la Nouvelle France' (Paris 1896).