CANADIAN-AMERICAN MARTYRS. - They form a group of eight Jesuit martyrs, six Fathers and two Coadjutor Brothers, missionaries among the redskins of the Huron tribe, in Canada, martyred by the Iroquois redskins, between 1642 and 1649. They were beatified and canonized by Pius XI, respectively on June 21, 1925 and June 29, 1930.
I. ST. JEAN de BRÉBEUF, b. at Condé-sur-Vire (Normandy), on March 25, 1593; from 1625 in Canada, among the Algonquins and then among the Hurons on the shores of the lake of the same name. Having returned to Québec, he fell prisoner of the English pirates and was transported to England. Once peace was made between France and England, he was able to set out again for the mission in 1633, where with Fr. G. Lallemant he founded many stations among the Hurons, which promised a fine flowering. But the new war between the two nations also stirred up a fratricidal struggle between the Christian Hurons and the 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 March 16, 1649.
II. ST. GABRIEL LALLEMANT, b. in Paris on Oct. 10, 1610. In Canada from 1646. Having remained two years at Québec, he had been at Fr. Brébeuf's station barely six months when he was taken by the Iroquois along with him and, also more cruelly than he, martyred, expiring on March 17.
III. ST. ISAAC JOGUES, b. at Orléans on Jan. 10, 1607. In Canada from 1636. During a journey to Québec (1642), he was captured by the Iroquois, together with his whole caravan, composed of Hurons and of the Coadjutor Brother R. Goupil. He was led about in mockery through the various villages and tortured, but he managed to escape and crossed over to France. Two years later, he was again on the old field of labor (1644). But the Iroquois, for whom he had pleaded peace at Québec, turned against him and martyred him in the village of Ossernenon (today Auricsville, in the United States, where a sanctuary stands in honor of him, of St. René Goupil and of St. G. de la Lande) on Oct. 18, 1646.
IV. ST. ANTOINE DANIEL, b. at Dieppe on May 27, 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 hatchet blows and his corpse thrown into the flames of his burned chapel (July 4, 1648).
V. ST. NOËL CHABANEL, b. at Mende (southern France) on Feb. 2, 1616; in Canada among the Algonquins and the Hurons with Fr. C. Garnier; until on Dec. 8, 1649 he was treacherously killed by an apostate Huron. The very grave difficulty of learning the Indian dialects and of adapting to that life among the savages, so repugnant to his nature, induced him to make the heroic vow not to leave that mission voluntarily.
VI. ST. CHARLES GARNIER, b. in Paris on May 28, 1606; in Canada from 1636, where he labored fruitfully among the Tobacco tribe. He was martyred, during the fratricidal struggle between Hurons and Iroquois, in the village of St. John, on Dec. 7, 1649.
VII. ST. RÉNÉ GOUPIL, b. at Angers in 1607. Coadjutor Brother; accompanying Fr. Jogues on the journey to Québec (1642), he too was taken and tortured by the Iroquois, then killed by one of them, in the village of Ossernenon, because he was caught tracing the sign of the cross on a child's forehead (Sept. 29, 1642).
VIII. ST. JEAN de la LANDE, b. at Dieppe. Nothing else is known, except that, accompanying Fr. Jogues as an Oblate on his second journey to the Iroquois (1646), he was captured with him and killed by a hatchet blow on Oct. 19, 1646.
Feast: the Canadian group: de Brébeuf, Lallemant, Daniel, Garnier, Chabanel, March 16; the United States group: Jogues, Goupil, de la Lande, Oct. 18.
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