A new interpretation of the Jesuit mission to New France is here proposed by using, for comparison and contrast, the earlier Jesuit experience in Japan. In order to present revisionist perspectives of the Jesuit missions based on a broader international framework beyond North America, the existing historical paradigms of the Jesuit missionary activity to Amerindians based on the limited regional history of New France are re-examined.

Travel back in time to the early days of Jesuit missions in North America, with this fascinating compilation of letters and notes from the French Jesuits who first ventured into the New World. Compiled and translated by William Ingraham Kip, this book offers a vivid and authentic portrayal of the challenges and triumphs of these pioneering missionaries, and sheds light on their impact on the indigenous peoples they encountered. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

From Eusebio Kino to Daniel Berrigan, and from colonial New England to contemporary Seattle, Jesuits have built and disrupted institutions in ways that have fundamentally shaped the Catholic Church and American society. As Catherine O'Donnell demonstrates, Jesuits in French, Spanish, and British colonies were both evangelists and agents of empire. John Carroll envisioned an American church integrated with Protestant neighbors during the early years of the republic; nineteenth-century Jesuits, many of them immigrants, rejected Carroll's ethos and created a distinct Catholic infrastructure of schools, colleges, and allegiances. The twentieth century involved Jesuits first in American war efforts and papal critiques of modernity, and then (in accord with the leadership of John Courtney Murray and Pedro Arrupe) in a rethinking of their relationship to modernity, to other faiths, and to earthly injustice. O'Donnell's narrative concludes with a brief discussion of Jesuits' declining numbers, as well as their response to their slaveholding past and involvement in clerical sexual abuse.00Also available in Open Access.