DE SMET, Peter John, American Jesuit missionary to the Indians: b. Dendermonde (now Termonde), Belgium, 31 Dec. 1801; d. Saint Louis, Mo., 23 May 1873. In 1822, being yet only a scholastic in the order, he was sent by his superiors to join the Jesuit mission in the United States and at the suggestion of the government became an instructor in the Indian school at Florissant, Mo.; later (1828) he be came instructor in the university newly founded at Saint Louis. After this, having been ordained priest, in 1838 he entered on his destined field of labor as missionary to the aborigines, trav ersing on foot or in canoes or with whatever means of conveyance was possible, regions inhabited by the Pottawatomies, Sioux, Black feet, Flatheads, Pend' Oreilles and other tribes in the valleys of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Platte and Columbia and on both sides of the Rocky Mountains.
On many occasions he was a commissioner on behalf of the United States government in pacifying the redmen when, provoked to fury by the wrongs done them, they went on the war path, United States officials reporting that Father De Smet alone of the entire white race could penetrate to these cruel savages and re turn safe and sound. In his journeys he wan
dered over 180,000 miles in those wildernesses in the course of his labors of 40 years. But in the meantime he made visits to Europe repeat edly, to collect funds for support of the mis-.
sions and to enlist young men for labor in the same field. His collections in Europe amounted to 1,000,000 francs.
He wrote several narratives of his ex perience in the western wilds, among them : 'Letters and Sketches of a Residence in the Rocky Mountains' (1843) ; 'Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains' (1847) ; 'Western Missions' (1863) ; 'New Indian Sketches> (1868).