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Sick with an unspecified malady in 1654, the Wendat Armand-Jean Andehoua travelled from his home in the Wendat colony of l’Île d’Orléans to the nearby French community of Québec to request aid at the Hôtel-Dieu. Baptized in his youth at the Jesuit seminary at Notre-Dame-des-Anges, he “had never been untrue to his baptismal promises” and now sought absolution from his Christian family.[1] While his instructors and fellow students at the seminary were all long gone, Andehoua had maintained the relationship he developed with the Jesuits almost twenty years prior.

Andehoua’s seminary operated for a brief, six-year period, but only three of those years were nominally productive. Indeed, Andehoua was the school’s only lasting Wendat convert. In their annual reports, the Jesuit Relations, the priests initially were very optimistic about the school, as the seminarians’ seemingly rapid conversion and zealous adherence to Christian principles indicated the school would be an effective tool for the missionizing process.[2] However, as the years went by the priests witnessed the gradual dissolution of the school project due to religious backsliding, as the students rapidly abandoned the Catholic faith upon returning home to Wendake. The Jesuits had hoped the school would result in the conversion of the next generation of Wendat leadership, who would in turn lead their people to Christianity; they would be disappointed.

The seminary was not solely a means of converting Indigenous peoples. In 1636 the French met with Wendat representatives to discuss the possibility of a seminary, and the Wendat responded in hopes of forming a friendly, long-term relationship with the French. To the Wendat, religious education was a way for their youth to facilitate just such a relationship. As the boys immersed themselves in French culture at the seminary and committed to practicing the principles of Christianity, they believed they were joining the French community, mirroring Iroquoian adoption practices. The Wendat considered adoption, or creating a fictive kinship bond, to be a diplomatic act. They saw the relationship between the boys and the priests at the seminary as a key part of a larger political undertaking in constructing French-Wendat diplomacy.

Historians examining the seminary have traditionally taken the Jesuits’ point of view and interpreted the school as a vehicle for failed conversion or education.[3] However, discussion of the seminary in terms of a binary, success or failure, does not do justice to the complex motivations for all involved with the school. This paper examines the creation, organization, and eventual dissolution of the seminary project as it was likely understood by the Wendat participants, as a diplomatic venture rather than one of religious conversion. I assess the seminary through its first students, focusing on the initial two years of the school’s six-year existence. The seminarians’ words were rarely recorded in the Jesuit Relations, but careful reading provides some insight into their thoughts and motivations, and indicates that the boys were active participants in their (re)education. The core arguments of this paper are thus explored through examination of three students: Satouta’s silent diplomacy, Teouatirhon’s difficult adoption, and Andehoua’s willing conversion.

Satouta’s actions (and inaction) illuminate the school’s political nature. Aware of his people’s desire for alliance with the French, and understanding its value, Satouta volunteered to attend the school and initiated the students’ involvement. His engagement with key elements of Wendat diplomatic culture — feasting, gifting, and promotion of social status — was crucial support for the seminary and made Satouta a key figure in the Jesuits’ plans.

On arrival at the seminary, the school’s diplomatic purpose would be enacted through conversion. All of the boys appeared to convert wholeheartedly to Christianity, and they all carefully mimicked the French in appearance and behaviour. However, as Teouatirhon demonstrated, the overall pattern of reverting to traditional practices upon return home suggests becoming Catholic was not the boys’ long-term goal. The principles of Wendat adoption culture help explain the boys’ reactions at the seminary, including their tenuous Frenchification and conversion. The rituals of Iroquoian adoption and Catholic conversion were similar enough that the boys would have associated the two and thus considered their seminary education as part of an elaborate means of incorporation into the French family. What the Jesuits considered Teouatirhon’s lack of conviction was excusable and even expected to Wendat looking through the lens of Iroquoian adoption culture. Adoption, or willing assimilation, was the method of diplomacy at the seminary.

Unlike Teouatirhon, Andehoua seemed to truly convert to Christianity. His story indicates the seminary experiment had complex and varying results that, in Andehoua’s case, met the religious goals of the Jesuits as well as the Wendats’ diplomatic aspirations. Andehoua had the same education as the other boys, but he appeared to take the message of faith to heart, and his connection with the French Jesuits lasted until his death in 1654. Practically, Andehoua finished the process that Satouta started; Andehoua’s willing assimilation into French-Catholic culture at the seminary, his fictive adoption into the French clan, could make him an effective long-term intermediary.

Satouta and the Councils at Trois-Rivières

The French had established a permanent presence in New France by 1608, but after the English briefly forced the French from the area in 1629, the returning French had to re-establish their position amongst the local Indigenous nations of Innu, Anishinaabek, and Wendat.[4] French Jesuits arrived back in New France by 1632 and, as part of their overall goal of missionizing the peoples of the New World, they immediately planned to re-establish contact with Wendake, the home of the Wendat nations.[5] The pious dream of the Jesuit Superior Paul Le Jeune, and others like him, was to save the souls of the country.[6] Successful conversion of the Wendat was assumed to not only fulfil missionary goals, but also help foster a stronger political and economic relationship between the two peoples.

The Jesuits had a number of obstacles to overcome first. The Wendat language was radically different from European languages, and the Jesuits reported the difficulty in communication as one of the major barriers to spreading their Catholic message. Christian concepts in particular were difficult to translate.[7] To learn the language and culture of their prospective converts, the Jesuits sent representatives to live full-time in Wendake, including the famous Jean de Brébeuf, who became a skilled speaker of the language and was instrumental in providing the Jesuits with a foothold among the Wendat.[8]

The Wendat were generally uninterested in the French way of life, and especially in the Jesuits’ religion; while Wendat etiquette required that they listen politely when the priests spoke, in these early years most felt no need to become exclusively Christian as the Jesuits had hoped.[9] Even when the Jesuits could convince sympathetic Wendat to convert to Catholicism, without constant pressure many quickly reverted to traditional practices. Indeed, most adult baptisms prior to 1637 were performed at the death-bed.[10] So, while the priests did not abandon their efforts to teach adults, they decided to also target children.

The seminary was not the first strategy the Jesuits used to convert Indigenous youth. Past efforts entailed sending children to France for a religious education, including the ill-fated Innu boy Pastedechouan.[11] However, while some children continued to be sent to France, the risky voyage, high cost, and mixed results made it an unfeasible long-term plan.[12] A local school was more practical; it could provide the basics of a French education in reading and writing, perhaps a grounding in European farming and other crafts, and, most importantly, extensive instruction in Catholic values, beliefs, and practices that the boys could then spread through their homeland.[13] The Jesuits hoped the youths’ adaptability and quick-learning would accelerate the process of conversion, and by keeping them separate from their parents the priests thought they could prevent the religious backsliding that so frustrated their efforts elsewhere. Likewise, children learned new languages more quickly than adults, meaning they could be interpreters and cultural brokers, and they could serve as hostages against the good behaviour of their parents to prevent the outbreak of war.[14] For their seminary, the Jesuits specifically requested children of important Wendat men, particularly of war chiefs and skilled orators, in the hopes of educating and converting the next generation of Wendat leadership — a factor especially important in the Jesuits’ long-term plans to convert the entirety of the Wendat Confederacy.[15] With these goals in mind the Jesuits planned their seminary.[16]

Despite Le Jeune’s suggestion of a Jesuit seminary in 1632, the project developed slowly. Although several priests lived among the Wendat — including Antoine Daniel, who would run the seminary — they were unable to convince Wendat families to part with their children. When Daniel finally convinced a dozen youths to attend, the women of the community became an unsurmountable obstacle, as “the mothers, and above all the grandmothers, would not allow their children to go away for a distance of three hundred leagues, and to live with Strangers, quite different from them in their habits and customs.”[17] Those who left for Québec were reclaimed by “fathers … [who] drew back and sought a thousand excuses,” leaving Daniel “a shepherd without sheep.”[18]

Jesuit patience was rewarded in the summer of 1636, when the political atmosphere changed. The Wendat’s longstanding conflict with their Haudenosaunee enemies had restarted, and the Wendat were looking for allies among the French.[19] Wary of committing to a military alliance, the French deflected. As reported by Le Jeune, who was present at the council, the French response was one of calculated offense:

… if they should fill the house with Beavers, we would not undertake the war for the sake of their presents; that we helped our friends, not in the hope of any reward, but for the sake of their friendship. That, besides, we had not brought any men for them, not knowing that they were carrying on war; that those whom they saw with us did not all bear arms, and those that did bear them were not satisfied because the Savages were not yet allied with the French by any marriage; and that it could easily be seen that they did not care to be one People with us, giving their children here and there to their allied Nations, and not to the French [emphasis is mine].[20]

The language of friendship and alliance was carefully couched in metaphors of kinship — that the French and the Wendat could not be “one people” until there was marriage between adults, or Wendat children living with the French. With Le Jeune’s demands for children, the French were hinting that participation at the seminary was a prerequisite to any military assistance.[21]

Great Lakes diplomatic custom traditionally endorsed person exchanges, so the French demands for children were not entirely unexpected. However, these were normally exchanges, and as one man protested, “there are little boys there and little girls [living with the French] — what more do you want? … You are continually asking us for our children, and you do not give yours.”[22] The one-sided demand offended Wendat ideas of reciprocity; claiming children for the seminary without giving any children to the Wendat in return seemed suspiciously like a demand for hostages rather than a true alliance.

Even if the Wendat were willing to send children to the seminary, Iroquoians placed a higher premium on individual agency than the French. While the councillors could agree to send children with the Jesuits, they had no power to enforce their promise. The councillors refused to demand unwilling participants to leave home and live with distant strangers, and they could not force parents to give up their children. Participation had to be voluntary, and despite Daniel’s best efforts, his prospective students reneged on their promises. The Wendat representatives were unwilling and unable to force the issue with their people, even though they wanted the alliance.[23]

The stalemate might have continued indefinitely if not for Satouta. Satouta was the grandson of Tsondechaouanouan, a Attignawantan Wendat council chief and diplomat, and Satouta was training to eventually take his grandfather’s place.[24] Satouta was certainly aware of the possibility for military aid if the alliance succeeded, as well as the long-term economic advantages of a close relationship with the European newcomers. By living with the Jesuits Satouta could learn the French language and customs, and bring that knowledge back to his family and his clan for their benefit. Personal prestige was likely also a factor in his decision to join the seminary: with success at the school, Satouta could prove that he had the skills and political savvy to assume his grandfather’s name and position.

Satouta travelled to Trois-Rivières, promising to stay with Father Daniel even when the other volunteers turned back. French Commandant Marc-Antoine Bras-de-fer de Châteaufort publicly thanked Satouta for his faithfulness and supplied the youth with food and gifts with instructions to host a feast in support of their friendship.[25] To the Wendat, who expected people of prominence to give back through community-wide feasts, Satouta’s hosting a feast supplied and paid for by the French demonstrated not only Satouta’s own political competence, but also the importance and value of his friendship with the French.[26] Satouta was invited to attend the next French council meeting, where his presence was a silent but clear indicator of his support for the seminary project. Seated between Fathers Daniel and Le Jeune, Satouta was publically praised by the Commandant, who claimed that he “loves [Satouta] as his own brother … he should want for nothing [at the seminary].”[27] These words spoke volumes, targeting Wendat values of generosity and kinship: the promise to care for Satouta demonstrated French generosity, and the kinship terms indicated that their friendship was meant to be lasting.

The Jesuit Relations do not indicate if Satouta spoke at the council. Wendat diplomacy usually required an oratory component, but Satouta was young and his words may not have been taken as seriously as those of an adult.[28] With the Commandant making speeches on his behalf, however, Satouta did not need to speak, and contrary to appearances, his silence was not necessarily indicative of passivity. The French had claimed him as their brother, indicating that they saw him as an equal; the Commandant’s authority conferred his status and respectability upon Satouta. While Satouta appeared to be a passive participant, he used the Frenchman’s status and money to elevate his own stature. His presence at the council and his tacit approval of the seminary plan “spoke” volumes to his people. His silence was as effective as words and his apparent inaction was itself a political move.

The council politicking was successful. After another long meeting, one Wendat elder suggested Satouta go “on trial, as it were — that we should treat him well, and that upon his report the following year would depend our having their children.”[29] Almost immediately, the visiting chiefs of another Wendat village[30] also came forward, saying “they ought to be ashamed to show less affection for the French than did the Nation of the Bear.”[31] One chief asked his nephew Tsiko and a companion to stay with the French, with the words: “[you are] going with good people [and will] want for nothing with them … above all, obey those who wear the black gowns.”[32] These boys, like Satouta, were nearly adults and from equally important families, but they were also from a different nation than Satouta, indicating the potential importance of the seminary for diplomacy with the Wendat Confederacy. Not merely a single clan or family, but rather multiple nations would contribute to an alliance.[33]

A second group of Wendat arrived at Trois-Rivières shortly after the boys departed for Notre-Dame-des-Anges. Upon learning of the agreement, this second Wendat group also sent three boys to the seminary, Teouatirhon, Andehoua, and Aiandacé, bringing the count up to six boys, from at least three different Wendat nations. The seminary could now begin.

Life at the Seminary: Diplomatic Adoption

The seminary was established in 1636 at Notre-Dame-des-Anges, just outside of the still-small community of Québec. The first students were all Wendat, and in the first year the six boys were the only students.[34] The school’s population fluctuated greatly throughout its existence, and its internal demography shifted constantly; within two years the school seems to have switched to mostly Innu and Anishinaabek students, of varying ages and dispositions, and by 1639 a few French youths attended the school as well.[35] At least in the first few years, it would seem the Wendat students did not interact much with youth of other nations while at the seminary.[36]

While the councils established that diplomacy was the Wendat’s goal with the seminary, it was up to the boys to ensure its execution. They represented their people’s wishes not through speeches, but through active engagement with the seminary’s education and educators. According to descriptions in the Jesuit Relations, this first group of Wendat boys committed wholeheartedly to the French-Catholic lifestyle at the school. Indeed, Le Jeune claimed to be “astonished to see how wild young men, accustomed to follow their own caprices, place themselves under subjection, with so much meekness, that there seems to be nothing so pliant as a Huron Seminarist.”[37] Despite this “meekness,” compliance with French expectations at the seminary was not a passive act, but rather part of the larger process of silent diplomacy rooted in identity performance. The boys understood their cooperative conduct at the seminary as the proper behaviour of adopted persons, making the Jesuits fictive kin.

Kinship connections lay at the heart of Wendat interactions with others, and strangers had to be incorporated into families through marriage or adoption.[38] In theory, adoption rewrote one’s identity as a member of a new family and clan. When an outsider was adopted, the ritual gave the adoptee an extended network of allies and kinsmen to call on in times of difficulty. It also conferred responsibilities on the newcomer to fulfill the role for which he or she was adopted. Adoption created a relationship of obligatory reciprocity through the bonds of kinship. Outsider adoptions were most famously made in conjunction with mourning warfare, whereby captives were forcibly incorporated into bereaved families; but outsider adoptions did not have to be coercive, and occasionally people integrated willingly.[39] Even large populations could be incorporated in this manner, as in 1651 when Seneca adopted refugees from the Wendat dispersal to create a multicultural community at Gandougare.[40] Sometimes, people within the clan were “requickened” to replace a deceased individual, especially in the case of important leaders; Satouta expected to be requickened as Tsondechaouanouan, his grandfather.

The process of adoption could be subtle too, and it is unclear whether the Jesuits realized they were effectively “adopting” Wendat boys; the seminary’s curriculum coincidentally fulfilled many of the principles of adoption culture. The boys were immersed in the French world, much as adoptees were immersed in their new clan, and they were expected to mimic the French in every way. Assimilation implied adoption. However, the adoption did not have to be — and indeed was never intended to be — permanent. The boys knew they would eventually return home with all the knowledge they had acquired, and they could call on newly-made allies bound to them by familial obligation — fictive family or otherwise. The boys were performing Frenchness at the seminary, and the Jesuits’ instruction seemed to indicate that the priests also understood the boys’ integration as a temporary, but hopefully fruitful, adoption.

The use of kin terms at the seminary indicated the boys’ willingness to become family with the French, and provided the boys with evidence of the French acceptance of the adoptive connection. For example, the boys were taught to refer to the priests as “Father,” which in the Wendat language was also a word for “uncle.”[41] Wendat took kinship terms very seriously, and as John Steckley explains, logic dictated “someone would only call a Jesuit father if he were adopted into the clan of that person’s father.”[42] Thus, when Teouatirhon claimed “we look upon Father Daniel here as our Father,” he meant precisely that.[43] The very use of the kin term was indicative of adoption. Moreover, the Jesuits seemed to behave like maternal uncles, and the boys may have considered them as such.[44] Uncles were expected to teach their family’s same-sex youth how to survive in Wendat society, which meant that a man taught his nephews how to provide for himself and for others, how to speak convincingly in council or at home, and how to communicate with the spirit world.[45] Similarly, the Jesuits taught the boys how to farm, how to communicate in French, and how to speak to and worship the Catholic God.[46] Thus, the Jesuits seemed to conduct themselves appropriately for their assumed kin term, teaching the boys how to survive among the French.

The perception of transformation from Wendat into French was only enhanced by the regimented schedule at the seminary. The Jesuits observed Wendat child-rearing and educational practices disapprovingly and, in the words of Bruce Trigger, believed that Wendat youth received “no formal training” and were permitted complete freedom.[47] European-style education, on the other hand, was regulated by the clock and comparatively strict — the Jesuits hoped this would “tame” the boys’ supposedly wild impulses. Though optimistic, the Jesuits were nonetheless surprised when the boys followed the strict schedule without complaint, despite the fundamental differences in education styles. From a Wendat point of view, the boys owed their Jesuit “fathers” respect and, as willing adoptees hoping to please their new allies, obedience was an asset. Thus, the boys made a concerted effort to fulfill and exceed the Jesuits’ expectations. Since the early mornings were devoted to prayer and chapel, the boys were careful to be “so punctual that, as soon as the Mass assigned to them [was] rung, they [were] usually the first ones there,” much to the embarrassment of the less dutiful French attendees.[48] After Mass and breakfast the boys sat down to lessons in reading and writing, after which they were taught the Catechism for a more in-depth education in the Catholic faith. After lunch the boys received further religious and linguistic training, then a little free time before their evening meal and bed.[49] The boys supported one another in these endeavours and pushed one another to do better. Indeed, as Le Jeune gleefully relates, “they pride themselves on living in the French way; and, if one of them commits some act of rudeness, they call him ‘Huron,’ and ask him how long it is since he came from that country.”[50] Peer pressure was a powerful motivator to do well.

If there were any doubts about their new “Frenchness,” the boys’ ideological education was reinforced by visible markers of their new identities. The most obvious indicator was clothing, which determined belonging for both the French and the Wendat.[51] Historian Sophie White, in her study of colonial Louisiana, observes that the French understood that by changing one’s clothing, one could also change identity.[52] The Wendat understood clothing in a similar manner, as evidenced by the importance of stripping captives prior to adoption, or in the use of stylistic choices of clothing or tattooing to indicate status or belonging.[53] Clothing was used likewise at the seminary to create clear distinctions between the boys’ Wendat culture of birth and the French culture they were expected to adopt at the school, something that both the boys and the Jesuits understood implicitly as part of identity politics. So when Le Jeune explained, “when [they] give you their children, they give them as naked as the hand — that is, as soon as you get them you must have them dressed, and give their robes back to their parents,” he was describing the physical elements of adoption.[54] Moreover, the priests repeatedly complained about the expense of having to clothe their students, which no doubt was part of the point. To the Wendat, the boys were now the Jesuits’ responsibility as adoptees — to feed, to clothe, to shelter, and to teach. If the Wendat were going to give their youth to the Jesuits for education, they expected their children to be well cared-for until they were returned home.

But clothing had greater cultural significance than the Jesuits appeared to realize. Clothing was part of the larger complex of gift-giving, which itself was a crucial aspect of diplomatic protocol. Gifts were exchanged between persons in almost every kind of social encounter, and involved a degree of compulsion — one had to participate in the gift-giving culture, or risk exclusion from future social engagements.[55] Moreover, certain kinds of gifts were tied to specific actions: the more extravagant the gift, the more significant the associated action. European cloth, for example, was considered extremely valuable, and was arguably the most important product of Indigenous-European trade in the seventeenth century.[56] In political meetings, Europeans often gave Indigenous leaders a full set of clothing to acknowledge prestige.[57] Given the way the French treated Satouta at the council, the compulsive giving of clothing — an expensive gift, especially if it included a complete set of French attire — may have appeared to be a declaration of esteem.

The boys’ religious education was at the heart of their experience at the seminary, with the primary goal of Catholic conversion. To the Jesuits, conversion meant abandoning an old religious practice and embracing a new one, a concept with direct parallels to adoption culture. From the Wendat perspective, the religious education meant the boys were learning to think and behave as Frenchmen, as everything from patriarchy to conceptions of good and evil were contained in the religious dogma. Going through the physical motions of prayer on their knees with hands clasped in front of them was part of a visible marker of their new identity as French adoptees. Engaging with the Catholic ideology — learning the Catechism and Biblical stories, and punctual attendance at Mass — meant that they were performing as good Catholics should. The practice of Catholicism to the exclusion of Wendat spiritual customs also echoed the expectations of war captives to devote themselves entirely to their new community’s practices.[58] This process would be complete with baptism and the assumption of a Christian name, something the boys repeatedly requested of their priests.[59] Christian renaming was reminiscent of how adoptees would be given new names upon requickening — even the concept behind the rituals was similar. Requickening recreated a person, bringing the dead to live in the body of the captive, and erasing the old self; baptism washed away one’s sinful past, making him fit for Heaven. Assigning a godparent at baptism made clear the new family relationship and offered the boys a familial guide to help them maintain their Christianity, much as a family instructed their adoptee in proper behaviour. The new Christian name also suggested belonging to specific families or clans, especially given the Jesuits’ habit of naming baptized persons after saints or other important figures.[60] All of these features would have been familiar to the Wendat boys as an essential part of their adoption culture. Baptism therefore not only made the boys kindred to the French, but also established a code of conduct for the new “adoptees.” Whether the Jesuits realized the similarities remains unclear, but the ideological underpinnings of adoption resonated with the expectations of conversion.

While the adoption-like characteristics of the Jesuits’ seminary curriculum certainly helped encourage Frenchification and conversion, the close parallel with adoption culture also had unfortunate drawbacks. Adoption created fictive kinship bonds, which were nebulous and highly interpretive. The assimilative effect of adoption, moreover, was rarely internalized. While at the seminary, the boys were obligated to perform Frenchness, which included adherence to Catholic mores, but many of these obligations were abandoned when the boys left the seminary. Without a substantial Jesuit presence in Wendake, the boys felt very little pressure to adhere to foreign practices, and faced increasing pressure from their peers to return to a Wendat lifestyle.[61] The majority of the boys abandoned their Catholicism upon return home, despite their fictive kinship connection with the Jesuits. The priests were working at a disadvantage at the seminary because the Jesuits did not realize that the boys’ Frenchness had not been internalized.

Life at the seminary affected each of the boys in different ways. Satouta and Tsiko seemed to convert quickly, as did Andehoua, but the other boys found it difficult and did not maintain any part of their new faith at home. Aiandacé, apparently missing his mother, returned to Wendake after less than a year at the seminary, and Tsiko’s unnamed companion left almost as soon as he arrived, claiming he could not get along with the others.[62] But it was Teouatirhon who seemed to have the most difficulty at the school.

Teouatirhon, originally from the village of Saint-Ignace, seemed ambivalent about being at the seminary.[63] The Jesuits reported him as being “a little duller” than Andehoua, perhaps because he did not take to Christianity as quickly as his companion, and while he attended the same lessons as his companions, he seemed more independent.[64] Reportedly fond of hunting and fishing, and seemingly a restless spirit, Teouatirhon was occasionally confrontational with the Jesuits and his fellow students, and responded poorly to the pressures to conform. Indeed, after an unspecified incident, Teouatirhon told Father Daniel that “he had indeed become very angry, imagining that they wanted to make him believe in God by threats and by force; and, to show that his heart would not let itself be affected by fear, he had committed a wilful act.”[65] Teouatirhon was likely responding to the rigid scheduling that dictated how his every waking moment should be spent, and to the threat of corporal punishment to curb disobedience to his Jesuit instructors.[66] As expected of any other Wendat, Teouatirhon’s pride and self-respect discouraged passive capitulation, and as often occurred with captive adoptees, Teouatirhon resisted the forced cultural changes that would mark his adoption.

Eventually, Teouatirhon’s unhappiness culminated in his decision to leave the seminary to rejoin his family. His opportunity came with the visit of his uncle Taratouan, a long-time Jesuit supporter. Taratouan, disappointed with Teouatirhon’s decision, reportedly asked his nephew why he wanted to leave “the French, who have treated you so well,” but nonetheless agreed to help his nephew, who said only that “he was ready to return whence he had come.”[67] Teouatirhon’s motivations are hard to interpret here; perhaps he felt he had done enough for diplomacy already, or perhaps he could no longer cope with the alienating experience at the seminary. Regardless, he intended to go home.

Unfortunately for Teouatirhon, Haudenosaunee attacked his party on the return trip to Wendake. While Teouatirhon escaped, his uncle Taratouan was captured, ritually tortured, and executed. After hiding for several days in the woods, almost naked and unarmed, Teouatirhon was forced to return to the seminary for safety, where he was welcomed back … with Le Jeune’s comment that Teouatirhon “will be severely chastised if he does not recognize the hand of God in this guidance.” One can only imagine his frustration at yet again being forced to perform belief in the Catholic God.[68]

After his return Teouatirhon renewed his efforts at the seminary. Again, his motivations are unclear, but may have been personal, likely some combination of gratitude for Jesuit aid or some form of survivor’s guilt, and simple pragmatism. The seminary was over 600 kilometres from home, and much of the journey would be through enemy territory — as his experience demonstrated, leaving the seminary could be dangerous. Wendat spirituality indicated that angry spirits could bring foul luck; perhaps Teouatirhon was also unwilling to risk angering God a second time.[69] Whatever his reasoning, while he eventually returned home, it was with the Jesuits as their convert.

The Jesuit Relations document Teouatirhon’s turnabout as he diligently prepared for his baptism with extensive fasting, “diminishing the pleasures of the chase, to which he is strongly inclined,” and “meditating for several weeks upon the Commandments of God.”[70] According to Le Jeune, “[s]ince he has been made a child of the Church, there has been observed in him quite a new docility, a modesty and outward refinement … together with a submission of his will to the guidance of the holy Ghost, and to the direction of his superiors.”[71]

However, Joseph Teouatirhon’s newfound piety did not last. Much to the Jesuits’ frustration, upon his return home after two years at the seminary, Teouatirhon was quickly “drawn into the vices which [in Wendake] are accounted virtues,” indicating that his conversion was not about conviction, but rather about performance.[72] As with adoption culture, performance of the adoptive identity was critical. Particularly in the case of captive adoptions — which Teouatirhon’s “forced” conversion seems to closely parallel — the adoptee was not necessarily expected to forget about his or her past life, but he or she was expected to act as if they did not remember, and were starting their new lives with a blank slate.[73] His attempted escape from the seminary having failed, Teouatirhon’s performance of Catholicism gave him the support he needed from the Jesuits, but required only a temporary sacrifice of identity.

Converts in the Seminary, Diplomats for Wendake

The assimilative education at the seminary paralleled the policies of adoption culture while serving a clear diplomatic purpose. The fictive kinship connection theoretically created allies among the French, who, because of the Wendat principle of reciprocal aid for family members, could be called upon in times of need. The language training the boys underwent at the school meant that they could serve as translators, and could assist in diplomatic negotiations. Their new clothes displayed their alliance with the French, and demonstrated the wealth that could be gained from the generosity of the French. The boys’ Catholic training also taught them how the French understood the world, and their Christian names told the French that they were persons to be respected. Whether the Jesuits acknowledged that they had adopted the boys, the benefits of that adoption could be felt by both peoples.

Notwithstanding the parallels with adoption culture, or perhaps because of them, the priests had a difficult time keeping students. The pattern of runaway students continued throughout the school’s existence. On one memorable occasion, three new seminarians stayed long enough to gain a reputation for bad behaviour, culminating in their successful plan to steal a canoe, load it with supplies, and make the journey back to Wendake early one morning.[74] Even when their students stayed, the Jesuits were frustrated by their “converts’” reversion to traditional practices upon return home, as occurred with Teouatirhon.

The first signs of trouble were the mysterious deaths of Satouta and Tsiko shortly after their arrival at the school. Tsiko, the first to die, seemed to have inherited his uncle Ouanda Koca’s “very rare natural eloquence,” which would have served him well in future political endeavours.[75] Father Daniel also spoke highly of the boy’s “happy disposition” and “interest he had shown in our Belief,” clarifying why his death was such a loss for the seminary.[76] But Satouta’s death was particularly devastating. More devout than Tsiko, Satouta was also the political lynchpin of the seminary as the first volunteer and the boy sent on trial to test the French-Jesuit alliance. Without him, the Jesuits were no doubt anxious for the future of the seminary.

Afraid of incurring Wendat retribution for the deaths, the Jesuits took care to show that these losses were also intensely personal. According to the Jesuit Relations, Father Daniel was especially devastated by the deaths; he had stayed with both boys as their health declined, praying and tending to them night and day, until he himself fell ill.[77] And in an especially telling gesture, the Jesuits also recorded Satouta’s death scene in the Jesuit Relations, hinting at their affection for him and his value as a pious convert.[78] While in the midst of fever, Satouta reportedly addressed the hallucinations tormenting him with a declaration of faith: “Go, evil ones … go away from me, I hold you in horror. I do not know any other Master than he who has made heaven and earth, and who has taken me for his child … My Captain, you have paid for me, I am yours….”[79] Satouta’s declaration of faith was also one of kinship, as Satouta clearly aligned himself with the Christian God. He died feverish and in agony, but he also died proclaiming gratitude for his Jesuit caretakers in the proper conduct of a good Christian death.[80] Both Satouta and Tsiko were baptized shortly before they died, making them official Christian converts — and, to Wendat eyes, kindred with the Jesuits.

This kinship connection likely protected the Jesuits from retribution. In the Wendat worldview few deaths were truly accidental, and as the boys had been in Jesuit care, the priests feared they would be blamed for the fatalities.[81] Instead, the Wendat accepted the priests’ story of death by overeating, and Tsiko’s father even offered to give another son to the seminary.[82] Reportedly, he proclaimed: “… they say my son is dead; if the younger is dead, I will give you his elder brother. I would not be cast down if all my children were to die in your hands, for I know well that you are very careful of them.”[83]

While seemingly a naïve offer on the part of the Wendat, offering a replacement child actually followed Iroquoian protocols for the situation if the Wendat accepted the Jesuits were now kindred. As described by historian Barbara Alice Mann, Iroquoian clan mothers occasionally distributed “spare” or orphan children among childless relatives to ensure they were cared for.[84] Moreover, mourning was at the core of captive adoption culture, in which adoptees were given to families who were mourning the loss of one of their own.[85] The Jesuits had lost two of their most valued converts, and Father Daniel deeply grieved them. Wendat mourning culture dictated the rules for easing family members’ suffering when faced with deaths, and replacing the lost family member was one of the ways.

But the seminary never truly recovered from these deaths. New students came and left without any appreciable conversions, and it became harder to convince children to join the school. By 1639 they stopped taking new students, and by 1642 the school had closed entirely. At the time of closure, they had only one surviving convert among the Wendat seminarians: Andehoua.

Said to have “a good mind and vigorous judgement,” Andehoua seemed to take to Catholicism very quickly.[86] In one memorable incident, a number of Wendat arrived to visit the seminary, including a few individuals sick with an unspecified illness. Andehoua, commenting on their godlessness, launched into a speech praising the Christian Commandments and proclaiming that the Wendat might find themselves healthy if they stopped displeasing God. His kinsmen reportedly “looked at each other with astonishment, at seeing a young [man] of their nation become a Preacher of the law of the great God.”[87] Andehoua was diligent about keeping his prayers and going to confession, and he carefully adhered to religious fasts.[88] At one point, he nearly drowned in a canoeing accident because he was trying to save items for the chapel![89] Andehoua proved himself a steadfast Christian, remaining devout to his death in 1654.[90]

Besides his value as an individual convert, Andehoua’s preaching and his support of the Jesuits contributed to the future of the priests’ mission. He acted as a preacher on more than one occasion while he was under Jesuit care, and continued to speak for Christianity for the rest of his life. Perhaps an even more important battle on behalf of his new religion was recorded in the Jesuit Relations of 1638, when Andehoua — by then baptized as Armand-Jean — travelled with a few of the priests to the epidemic-ravaged Wendake. The Wendat had revived old rumours of Jesuit culpability, suggesting that the priests may have started the epidemic through witchcraft.[91] Andehoua defended the Jesuits,

proclaim[ing] everywhere that we [Jesuits] are the Fathers of all these peoples … he cannot endure to have them suspect us of having caused their sickness. The timidity natural to the young [men] before the old men is banished from his heart — the faith makes him as bold as a lion; his people listen to him, admire his speeches, and give up, little by little, the black thoughts they had conceived of us [emphasis is mine].[92]

Once again, the language of kinship was used to remind the Wendat of the relationship Andehoua had with the French and of the trust expected of such a relationship; Andehoua used the oratory skills respected by his people to convince the Wendat to support the Jesuits. Andehoua’s adoption, then, had a noticeable impact on the Wendat-Jesuit relationship.

Andehoua appears less often in the Jesuit Relations after 1639, but it seems he continued to serve the diplomatic purpose the Wendat expected of the seminary. In the late 1640s, in the years just prior to the Wendat dispersal, Andehoua served as an intermediary between the French and the Wendat. He worked directly with the French governor in at least one such meeting, presumably making use of his insider knowledge of both Wendat and French customs.[93] As the Jesuits had hoped when they first started the seminary, one of their seminarians became a diligent Catholic and a cultural broker. Indeed, Andehoua spoke of his desire to devote his life to Catholicism, and he joined the other Wendat at Québec after the 1649 dispersal, specifically so that he could live close to the Jesuits and continue his religious education. By then known primarily as “Armand,” Andehoua was accepted by the Jesuits and had been incorporated into their world.

By 1639, the seminary was struggling in earnest.[94] The original six boys were all either dead or returned home. The newest students came from different nations and peoples, but none seem to have become successful converts. The last Wendat student mentioned by name at the Jesuit seminary was not a youth at all, but a 50-year-old man who had argued his way into the school in 1639. Unlike the boys, however, Pierre Ateiachias had not come to the seminary on behalf of his fellow Wendat, but for a personal desire to learn Catholicism. Ateiachias rebuked the Jesuits for seeking children for the seminary, saying, “[you are] not right to prefer children to grown men. Young people are not listened to in our country; if they should relate wonders, they would not be believed. But men speak — they have solid understanding, and what they say is believed; hence I shall make a better report of your doctrine.”[95] Ateiachias pointed to the value of speech — an area in which the young had far less power — and took advantage of the Jesuits’ desire for evangelists. He does not mention that the boys had diplomatic rather than evangelical goals at the seminary, wisely appealing to the Jesuits’ conceptions of the seminary’s goals, rather than reiterating the intentions of the Wendat. Ironically, Ateiachias’ stay at the seminary culminated in his successful baptism, but he then drowned when he returned home to convert others, leaving Andehoua the only surviving convert.[96]

To boys like Satouta and Andehoua, the seminary provided an opportunity to help their communities. As Ateiachias pointed out, the youth were largely voiceless in councils; without experience to back them up, they had not earned the respect necessary to lead. However, they were not without agency. Satouta and the other boys volunteered to go to the seminary, they struggled with the lifestyle they had to adopt there, and they chose whether to stay. Ironically, their agency was mostly manifested through their apparently passive acceptance of new lifestyles at the seminary. They wore French clothes, ate French food, spoke and read in French, and prayed as French Catholics. They subsumed their own cultural identities as part of a diplomatic venture. The boys’ diplomacy was often silent, expressed in their performance of “Frenchness” and their apparent adoption by French Jesuits. Moreover, it seemed to have had some lasting effect. The Jesuits remained in Wendake until the Wendat dispersal in 1649, but the Jesuits and the Wendat maintained a close relationship even as they relocated. While I do not contend that the seminary was the sole reason for the lasting friendship between the Wendat and the French newcomers, I would suggest that incremental actions of quiet trust-building, such as living and learning at the seminary school, went a long way toward building the friendship between these peoples. This case study should not be understood in context of the success or failure of conversion, but rather how ideas of identity and personhood lent themselves to diplomacy, and how children, as informal adoptees, could serve as diplomats for their people.