American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The purpose of this paper is to explore interactional processes between the Iroquoian peoples of the Northeast and French Jesuit missionaries who lived and worked among them in the seventeenth century. The analysis will focus on two interrelated aspects of Iroquoian-Jesuit contact. One is the Jesuits' attempts to bring about specific changes in Iroquoian culture. The other is the reactions of the native societies to these attempted changes. This paper will therefore contribute not only to an understanding of the results of intercultural contact but also to an appreciation of the dynamics of influence, reaction, and resistance. In its general form, the Jesuit program of change was directed primarily toward altering the social ideology of the Iroquoians, including norms of personal interaction and responsibility. The underlying goal of the missionaries was the Indians’ conversion to Catholicism, but they well understood that new religious beliefs could not be successfully forced upon a people. They were astute enough observers to realize that Iroquoian ideologies of the social order provided and expressed a world view very different from the one contained in Christianity. These beliefs, therefore, became their main focus of change. The Indians, however, had an equally insightful appreciation of the conflict between their own cultural ideals and those which the Jesuits were introducing. This understanding formed the basis of their opposition to Christian teachings. A focus on the ideological clash between the Iroquoians and the Jesuits does not in any way negate or minimize the importance of economic and political conflict, which existed simultaneously. Together all of these factors contributed to the social and historical reality.