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IRREGULARITY


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IRREGULARITY


largely due the final fall of Canada. Through contra- band trade with the Dutch at Albany, after 1615, the Iroquois quickly supplictl themselves with guns, and at once inaugurated a systematic war of conquest or extermination against all the surrounding tribes, par- ticularly those in the French interest. In 1642 the heroic Jesuit missionary Jogues, while on his way to the Hurons, was taken by a Mohawk war party and cruelly tortured until rescued by the Dutch. The same capture and torture, and the same kindly rescue, befell the Jesuit Bressani, in 1644. In 1646, on the conclusion of an uncertain peace with the savages. Father Jogues again offered himself for the Mohawk mission, but shortly after his arrival was condemned and tortured to death on the charge of being the cause of a pestilence and a plague upon the crops.

In the meantime the Irocjuois were making constant raids upon the Huron missions about Georgian Bay, as also upon the partly missionized tribes of the lower St. Lawrence. In 164S, a grand army of invasion of at least 1500 Iroquois warriors, largely armed with guns, swept over the Huron country, and within a few months had practically destroyed the tribe, burn- ing the towns and missions, slaughtering hundreds upon hundreds of their people, carrying off 700 cap- tives in one body and whole town populations later, and killing the missionaries, Daniel, Gamier, Lalle- mant, and the great Brt'beuf. Between then and 1675 they wiped out in the same way the Tionontati (1650), Neutrals (1651), Erie (1655) and at last after a long and hard conflict the Conestoga (1675), all of their own kindred stock, those left alive being incorporated into the Iroquois towns. At the same time they were carrying on almost equally desolating warfare with the Mohican on the east, the Algonq^uin and Ottawa in the North, the Illinois in the far distant West, and the Cherokee, Tutelo, and Catawba in the South, while keeping the whole French colony of Canada under a constant terror. They were careful, however, to maintain friendship with the Dutch and the later English, from whom they obtained their war supplies. A careful estimate by Greenhalgh in 1677 gave them then about 2150 warriors — perhaps 8000 souls^of whom, according to Jesuit authorities, nearly one-half were incorporated captives. In 1G56, during a brief truce with Canada, a Jesuit mission colony was estab- lished among the Onondaga at their own request, with Father Le Mercier as superior, but two years later, upon the discovery of an intended massacre and gen- eral descent upon Canada, the mission was secretly abandoned. Another truce, consequent upon a suc- cessful expedif ion by De Tracy, gave brief opportunity for re-establishment, and in 1668 there were three mis- sions in the Iroquois country.

Notwithstanding the hostile attitude of the league, a large number in each tribe, including the incorpor- ated captives from the old missions, was now Christian and disposed to friendslu|) with tlie French. Accord- ingly it was decided to attempt to draw out these Christians from the tribes and colonize them into mis- sion towns in the neighbourhood of the French, to be a nucleus of conversion and an additional strength against the Iroquois enemy. One reason for this con- clusion was the hostile attitude assumed toward the French missionaries by the new English government of New York. Asa cunsc(|ucnci' of the colonizing policy, mission settlements of Christian Iroquois were estab- lished at Quint(5 Bay, Ontario (Sulpician, 1668; Recol- lect, 1678-c. 1687); Laprairie, near Montreal, a?i'as St. Francois Xavier des Prds (Jesuit, 1669; removed to Sault St. Louis and renamed St. Fran(,'ois Xavier du Sault, 1676, now Cuughniiwaga); the Mountain, near Montreal (Sulpician, 1676; transferred to Sault an Recollet, c. 1704, and to Lake of Two Mountains alias Oka 1720). In 1087 the French governor, Denonville, invaded the western Iroc|U()is territory with an army of nearly 1800 French and 600 Indians,


including a detachment of the mission warriors, de- stroying towns and cornfields, but without bringing the enemy to an important engagement. In 1689 the Iroquois retaliated by landing 1500 warriors at Mon- treal, ravaging the whole country and butchering 200 men, women, and children, carrying off over a hundred more to be tortured in their towns. In the subse- quent King William's War, they joined forces with the English against the French, suffering such losses that in 1698 the league numbered only 1230 warriors, not counting those now permanently identified with the French interest.

Largely through the effort of Sir William Johnson, the resident British superinteinlent, they, as a nation, held to the English interest throughout the French and Indian Wars of 1744-48 and 1754-63. Within this period was established the Sulpician mission of the Pre- sentation, at Oswegatchi, now Ogdensburg, N. Y., by Father Francis Picquet, which flourished until the transfer of dominion to England. About 1755 the present mission settlement of St. Regis (St. Francis Regis), now bisected by the international boundary line, was established by emigrants from Caughnawaga. Under Johnson's encouragement Episcopalian mis- sionaries worked with success among the Mohawk, for whom the "Book of Common Prayer" was trans- lated into their language. Unsuccessful efforts were also made by the Moravians, but later work by Con- gregationalists and Methodists has had more result. On the breaking out of the Revolution, about one half of the New York Iroquois fled to Canada, where they enlisted in the British service. The hostiles who re- mained behind, particularly the Seneca, were humbled by an expedition under command of General John Sullivan, in 1779. The refugees were subsequently assigned lands by the British Government, near Brantford, Ontario, on which they still reside, keeping up their old tribal forms and, to a considerable extent, their old native religion. Those remaining in New York, now largely Protestant, have gradually reduced their territorial holdings by successive treaty cessions. About 1845 the larger part of the Oneida removed to Wisconsin. The whole body of the Iroquois in 1908 was distributed as follows: United States — New York, 5455; Wisconsin (Oneida), 2204; Oklahoma (Seneca), 389; Pennsylvania (Seneca), 120; Canada — Ontario, Six Nations on Grand River, 4286; Mo- hawk of Quinti5, 1327; Oneida of the Thames, 777; Iroquois of Ciibson, about 140; Quebec, Caughna- waga, 2175; St. Regis (Canadian portion), 1449; Lake of Two Mountains, 403. Total about 18,725.

Charlevoix, Histoire et. description genirale de la Nouvelle France, tr. Shea (New York, 1886-72); Golden, History of the Five Indian Nations, ed. Shea (New York, 1866); Anniuil Re- ports of Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Washington); CtooK, Journals of the Military Expedition of M ajor-General John Sulli- van (AIb.iny, 1887); Donaldson, The Six Nations of New York; Extra Census Bulletin (Washington, 1892); Hewitt, Iroquois Cosmogony in Twenty-first Report Bureau Am. Ethnology (Wash- ington, 1903); Idem, Cosmogonic Gods of the Iroquois in Proc. Am, Asn. Adv. Science, XLIV (Salem, 1896): Morgan, League of the Hodenosaunee or Iroquois (Rochester, 1851); Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, ed. O'Callaohan, Istseries (11 vols., Albany, 1856-61); Parkman, The Jesuits in North America (Boston, 1867); Idem, The Old Regime in Canada (Boston, 1874); Idem, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis -Y/V (Boston. 1878); Idem, Montcalm and Wolfe (2 vols., Boston, 1884); Filling. Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages; Bull. Bur. Am. Ethn. (Washington, 1888); Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois (New Y'ork, 1846); Shea, Hist, of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States (New York, 1855); Stone, Life and Times of Sir William Johnson, Bart. (2 vols., Albany. 1865); The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, ed. Thwaite (73 vols., Cleveland. 1896-1901), volumes on /roguois: Hurons, etc. James Moonby.

Irregularity (Lat. in, not, and regula, rule, i. e. not according to rule), a canonical impediment di- rectly impi'ding the reception of tonsure and Holy orders or pri'vciiting the exercise of orders already re- ceived. It is called a ciuioiilciit impediment because introduced liy ecclesiastical law, for the canons pre-