Gabriel Lalemant (3 October 1610 – 17 March 1649) was a French
Jesuit missionary in
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...
beginning in 1646. Caught up in warfare between the
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
and nations of the
Iroquois Confederacy, he was killed in St. Ignace by
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
* Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
* Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
warriors and is one of the eight
Canadian Martyrs.
Life
Gabriel Lalemant was born in Paris, 3 October 1610, the son of a French lawyer and his wife.
[ He was the third of six children, five of whom entered religious life. Two of Gabriel's uncles served the Jesuits in New France: Charles Lalemant as the first Superior of the Jesuit missions in Canada, and ]Jérôme Lalemant
Jérôme Lalemant, S.J. (Paris, April 27, 1593 – Quebec City, January 26, 1673) was a French Jesuit priest who was a leader of the Jesuit mission in New France.
Life
Lalemant entered the Jesuit novitiate in Paris on 20 October 1610, after whi ...
as the Vicar-General of Quebec.[Campbell, T.J., ''Pioneer priests of North America, 1642–1710'', Vol. 2, Fordham University Press, 1910, p. 176]
/ref>
In 1630 Lalemant joined the Jesuits, and in 1632 he took the vow to devote himself to foreign missions. He taught at the Collège in Moulins from 1632 to 1635. He was at Bourges from 1635 to 1639 studying theology [ and was ordained there in 1638. He taught at three different schools, being professor of philosophy at Moulins. His repeated requests to go to New France were declined by his superiors, partly because of his poor health. Eventually, his uncle Jérôme, head of the Canadian mission, intervened on his behalf.]
In September 1646 Gabriel arrived in Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,[MacDougall, Angus. "Gabriel Lalemont"]
Wyandot official website where he spent the first few months studying the Huron language and customs. François-Joseph Bressani
François-Joseph Bressani, (Francesco-Giuseppe), (6 May 1612 – 9 September 1672), was an Italian-born Jesuit priest who served as a missionary in New France between 1642 and 1650. At one point, he was captured by the Mohawk people and ritua ...
, a fellow missionary in New France, referred to him as a man of extremely frail constitution. For the first two years Gabriel worked in and around Quebec and the trading center of Trois Rivières (Three Rivers). In September 1648 he was sent to Wendake, the land of the Wyandot
Wyandot may refer to:
Native American ethnography
* Wyandot people, also known as the Huron
* Wyandot language
Wyandot (sometimes spelled Wandat) is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known variously as Wyandot or Wya ...
(Huron), as an assistant to Jean de Brébeuf
Jean de Brébeuf () (25 March 1593 16 March 1649) was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron (Wyandot people) for the rest of his life, except for a few years in Franc ...
, and posted to the mission at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons (french: Sainte-Marie-au-pays-des-Hurons) was a French Jesuit settlement in Wendake, the land of the Wendat, near modern Midland, Ontario, from 1639 to 1649. It was the first European settlement in what is now the ...
. In February 1649 he replaced Noël Chabanel
Noël Chabanel (February 2, 1613 – December 8, 1649) was a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, and one of the Canadian Martyrs.
Biography
Chabanel entered the Jesuit novitiate at Toulouse at the age of seventeen, and was ...
at the mission of Saint Louis.
In March 1649, while most of the Huron warriors were away, 1,200 Iroquois attacked the settlement of Saint Ignace. A few survivors escaped to warn the village of St. Louis. Its eighty warriors fought to delay the attackers, trying to enable the elderly, women, and children to flee. Lalemant and Brébeuf remained with the warriors and were captured and taken to the nearby mission at Saint Ignace. Both were tortured before being killed: Jean Brebeuf died on 16 March 1649, and Gabriel Lalemant died on 17 March 1649.[
After the withdrawal of the Iroquois war party from the area on 19 March, seven Frenchmen went to St. Ignace to retrieve the bodies of the Jesuits and Huron. They returned them to Sainte-Marie where they were buried.][ Their relics are now housed at the ]Martyrs' Shrine
The Martyrs' Shrine, also known as Shrine of the Canadian Martyrs (french: Sanctuaire des martyrs canadiens)is a Roman Catholic church in Midland, Ontario, Canada, which is consecrated to the memory of the Canadian Martyrs, six Jesuit Martyrs an ...
in Midland, Ontario.
Lalemant was canonized
Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...
by Pope Pius XI on 29 June 1930.
His surname may be spelled either Lallemant or Lalemant by different references.
Gallery
File:North American Martyrs.jpg, North American Martyrs
File:Jesuit map NF.jpg, Bressani map of 1657 depicts the martyrdom of Jean de Brébeuf
Jean de Brébeuf () (25 March 1593 16 March 1649) was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron (Wyandot people) for the rest of his life, except for a few years in Franc ...
and Gabriel Lalemant
File:Sainte-Marie among the Hurons Brebeuf and Lalement grave site.JPG, Grave site
See also
*Blessed Julian Maunoir
Julien Maunoir (1 October 1606 – 28 January 1683) (also Julian; br, Juluan Maner), was a French-born Jesuit priest known as the "Apostle of Brittany". He was beatified in 1951 by Pope Pius XII and is commemorated by the Catholic Church on 29 ...
References
Further reading
"The Excavation of the Indian Church at Ste Marie", by Rev.Denis A. Hegarty, S.J. "Martyrs' Shrine Midland Ontario
External links
Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lallemant, Gabriel
1610 births
1649 deaths
Canadian Roman Catholic saints
Jesuit saints
Jesuit martyrs
Jesuit missionaries in New France
French Roman Catholic missionaries
17th-century French Jesuits
French Roman Catholic saints
Martyred Roman Catholic priests
17th-century Christian saints
17th-century Roman Catholic martyrs