The Shattered Cross : French Catholic Missionaries on the Mississippi River, 1698-1725

In The Shattered Cross, Linda Carol Jones explores the lives and work of five priests of the Seminaire de Quebec, the first French Catholic missionaries to serve along the Mississippi River between 1698 and 1725. Using an array of archival holdings in Quebec and France, Jones provides deep insight into the experiences of these pioneer priests and their interactions with regional Native peoples and cultures. Encounters between early French Catholic missionaries and Native peoples were always complex, often misunderstood, and typically fraught with an array of challenges. As Jones demonstrates, these priests faced a combination of environmental, personal, economic, and leadership difficulties that, along with cultural misunderstandings and poorly designed strategies, made their missionary work arduous. Nevertheless, their efforts led, in some instances, to assimilation of select Christian elements into Native cultures, albeit through creative, mutual adaptation, not solely through Catholic efforts. In describing the challenges the Seminaire priests faced in their Christianization efforts, Jones reveals patches of middle ground that served to transform both missionary and Native cultures when least expected. She relates the story of Father Marc Bergier, who took the openness and compassion he felt for the Native peoples he encountered in Quebec with him as he descended the Mississippi River and worked among the Tamarois. Bergier revealed a willingness to reject certain aspects of Catholic teaching in order to accept various Native traditions. Jones also investigates the case of Father Jean-Francois Buisson de Saint-Cosme, strongly suspected by church leaders of having an inappropriate interest in women while serving as a priest in Acadie, several years before his departure down the Mississippi. Jones suggests that Father Saint-Cosme's subsequent sexual relations with the sister of the Great Sun of the Natchez may have been an attempt to step into a middle ground with h