Francis Parkman

The state of international relations in the sixteenth century is hardly conceivable at this day. The Puritans of England and the Huguenots of France regarded Spain as their natural enemy, and on the high seas and in the British Channel they joined hands with godless freebooters to rifle her ships, kill her sailors, or throw them alive into the sea. Spain on her side seized English Protestant sailors who ventured into her ports, and burned them as heretics, or consigned them to a living death in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view, anomalous and contradictory. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand, to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity, a Great Spirit, omniscient and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato. On the other hand, we find a chaos of degrading, ridiculous, and incoherent superstitions.

 DAUVERSIERE AND THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN. - ABBE OLIER. - THEIR SCHEMES. - 
 THE SOCIETY OF NOTRE-DAME DE MONTREAL. - MAISONNEUVE. - DEVOUT LADIES. - 
 MADEMOISELLE MANCE. - MARGUERITE BOURGEOIS. - THE MONTREALISTS AT QUEBEC. - 
 JEALOUSY. - QUARRELS. - ROMANCE AND DEVOTION. - EMBARKATION. - 
 FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.

 FAMINE AND THE TOMAHAWK. - A NEW ASYLUM. - 
 VOYAGE OF THE REFUGEES TO QUEBEC. - MEETING WITH BRESSANI. - 
 DESPERATE COURAGE OF THE IROQUOIS. - INROADS AND BATTLES. - 
 DEATH OF BUTEUX.

 THE IROQUOIS WAR. - JOGUES. - HIS CAPTURE. - HIS JOURNEY TO THE MOHAWKS. - 
 LAKE GEORGE. - THE MOHAWK TOWNS. - THE MISSIONARY TORTURED. - 
 DEATH OF GOUPIL. - MISERY OF JOGUES. - THE MOHAWK "BABYLON." - 
 FORT ORANGE. - ESCAPE OF JOGUES. - MANHATTAN. - THE VOYAGE TO FRANCE. - 
 JOGUES AMONG HIS BRETHREN. - HE RETURNS TO CANADA.

 FATE OF THE VANQUISHED. - 
 THE REFUGEES OF ST. JEAN BAPTISTE AND ST. MICHEL. - 
 THE TOBACCO NATION AND ITS WANDERINGS. - THE MODERN WYANDOTS. - 
 THE BITER BIT. - THE HURONS AT QUEBEC. - NOTRE-DAME DE LORETTE.

 QUEBEC IN 1634. - FATHER LE JEUNE. - THE MISSION-HOUSE. - 
 ITS DOMESTIC ECONOMY. - THE JESUITS AND THEIR DESIGNS.

 WAR. - DISTRESS AND TERROR. - RICHELIEU. - BATTLE. - RUIN OF INDIAN TRIBES. - 
 MUTUAL DESTRUCTION. - IROQUOIS AND ALGONQUIN. - ATROCITIES. - 
 FRIGHTFUL POSITION OF THE FRENCH. - JOSEPH BRESSANI. - HIS CAPTURE. - 
 HIS TREATMENT. - HIS ESCAPE. - ANNE DE NOUE. - HIS NOCTURNAL JOURNEY. - 
 HIS DEATH.

 IROQUOIS AMBITION. - ITS VICTIMS. - THE FATE OF THE NEUTRALS. - 
 THE FATE OF THE ERIES. - THE WAR WITH THE ANDASTES. - 
 SUPREMACY OF THE IROQUOIS.