CANADO-AMERICAN MARTYRS. — They form a group of eight Jesuit martyrs, six Fathers and two lay brothers, missionaries among the North American Indians of the Huron tribe in Canada, martyred by the Iroquois Indians between 1642 and 1649. They were beatified and canonized by Pius XI on 21 June 1925 and 29 June 1930, respectively.
I. ST. JEAN DE BRÉBEUF, b. at Condé-sur-Vire (Normandy), 25 March 1593; from 1625 in Canada among the Algonquins and later among the Hurons on the shores of the lake of the same name. Returning to Quebec, he was taken prisoner by English pirates and carried off to England. After the peace between France and England, he was able to return to the mission in 1633, where with Fr. G. Lallement he founded many stations among the Hurons, which promised a flourishing future. But the new war between the two nations also stirred up a fratricidal struggle between Christian Hurons and pagan Iroquois, which led to the extermination of the former and the total ruin of the mission. Fr. Brébeuf was cruelly martyred in the village of St. Louis on 16 March 1649.
II. ST. GABRIEL LALLEMANT, b. in Paris on 10 October 1610. From 1646 in Canada, after remaining two years at Quebec, he had only been at the station of Fr. Brébeuf for six months when he was taken with him by the Iroquois and, even more cruelly, martyred with him, dying on 17 March.
III. ST. ISAAC JOGUES, b. at Orléans on 10 January 1607. In Canada from 1636. During a journey to Quebec (1642), he was captured by the Iroquois together with his entire caravan, composed of Hurons and the lay brother R. Goupil. He was led in derision through various villages and tortured, but managed to escape and reach France. Two years later, he was back at his former field of work (1644). But the Iroquois, for whom he had pleaded for peace at Quebec, turned against him and martyred him in the village of Ossernenon (now Auriesville, in the United States, where a shrine stands in his honor, as well as that of St. René Goupil and St. J. de la Lande) on 18 October 1646.
IV. ST. ANTOINE DANIEL, b. at Dieppe on 27 May 1598; from 1633 in Canada, where he labored greatly among the Hurons. Attacked in the village of Ihonatria by a band of Iroquois, he was killed by arrows and axes, and his body was cast into the flames of his burning chapel (4 July 1648).
V. ST. NOËL CHABANEL, b. at Mende (southern France) on 2 February 1616; in Canada among the Algonquins and Hurons with Fr. C. Garnier; until 8 December 1649, when he was treacherously killed by an apostate Huron. The great difficulty of learning Indian dialects and adapting to that life among savages, so repugnant to his nature, led him to make the heroic vow never to leave the mission voluntarily.
VI. ST. CHARLES GARNIER, b. in Paris on 28 May 1606; in Canada from 1636, where he worked fruitfully among the Tobacco Nation. He was martyred during the fratricidal struggle between Hurons and Iroquois in the village of St. John on 7 December 1649.
VII. ST. RENÉ GOUPIL, b. at Angers in 1607. Lay brother; accompanying Fr. Jogues on the journey to Quebec (1642), he too was seized and tortured by the Iroquois, and then killed by one of them in the village of Ossernenon for having been seen making the sign of the cross on the forehead of a child (29 September 1642).
VIII. ST. JEAN DE LA LANDE, b. at Dieppe. Nothing else is known about him except that, as an Oblate accompanying Fr. Jogues on his second journey among the Iroquois (1646), he was captured with him and killed by a blow of an axe on 19 October 1646.
Feast: the Canadian group: de Brébeuf, Lallement, Daniel, Garnier, Chabanel, 16 March; the American group: Jogues, Goupil, de la Lande, 18 October.