Due: October 7
Length: 1500 words (approx. 5 double-spaced pages)
Primary Source Document:
The Jesuit Relations, or Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France, provide a rich source
material for studies in history, anthropology, Indigenous studies, religious studies, geography,
and other fields. These missionary reports from the field, written annually and printed in France
between 1632 and 1673, collectively chronicle the missions of the Jesuits (formally known as the
Society of Jesus) in New France. In the 1890s they were gathered, translated, and published
under the editorship of Reuben Gold Thwaites. This monumental project, involving a team of
editors and translators, resulted in a seventy-three-volume compilation that presented the reports
in a bilingual format, with original French and English translation facing each other on alternate
pages. Recently they have become even more accessible to scholars by being made available
online by Creighton University and Toronto Public Library.
A translation note: The most problematic term in Thwaites’s now hundred-and-thirty-year-old
translation is sauvage, which his team rendered as “savage.” In most appearances of this term in
the text its connotations differed from our own understanding of the term, except where the
Jesuits wanted to emphasize savagery. Finally, the names of two Indigenous nations who appear
in our selection, “Hurons” and “Hiroquois,” are more correctly understood today under their
endonyms, Wendat and Haudenoshaunee respectively.
Here is the full citation for the selected text you will be analyzing from the Relation of 1642-43:
Vimont, Barthélemy. “Of the Hurons who Wintered at Quebec and Sillery.” Chapter VII in The
Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit
Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791. Vol. XXIV. Lower Canada and Iroquois: 1642-
1643. Edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites. Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1898. 102-21.
Instructions:
Historians are only as good as their sources. In this assignment your job is to interpret a primary
source. We are looking for your sensitivity to the document, your ability to evaluate its purpose,
and your ability to understand how a historian would use it to interpret the pastThis is an exercise in close reading, observation, and critical historical thinking. After reading
the provided text, scrutinize the primary source and try to answer some of the following
questions:
What does this document tell us about the period in which it was
produced?
How does it add to our understanding of the past?
What was the purpose of it?
Who was writing the document?
What does the document tell us about the author? Is the author’s
perspective evident?
Who was the intended audience?
What are some of the strengths of this source?
What are some of the weaknesses? Remember that there are limits to
every source.
What biases might be inherent in it, and how should the historian address
those biases in using the document?
*Keep in mind that this is not a definitive list. Please feel free to ask your own questions of the
source.*
Part of the exercise, then, is simply to report on what the document “says” overtly about any
number of possible themes (for example, religious encounters, the nature of French-Indigenous
alliances, material exchanges, kinship relationships, etc.). Good description actually implies a
fair bit of analysis, however. Where Indigenous people are portrayed, are they depicted as
individuals with names, or as anonymous groups, or in some other fashion? What kind of
language is used (moral? religious? political?). To evaluate, or make sense of this overt content,
you will need to go a bit further. Why do you think the author presents things as he does? Does
the document give you any clues as to the author’s overall purpose?
You can do much of this kind of analysis simply by reading the document carefully and
searching for internal clues and patterns of meaning. It will help also, though, to do some
minimal reading up on the author and the source. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography and
The Canadian Encyclopedia (which exist in online versions) can be helpful here. You are
welcome to use such outside sources to help you try and figure out why the author says what he
says, though you are not obliged to do so. Be sure to fully cite all sources used.
Your analysis should be roughly 1500 words in length and written in proper scholarly format,
including notes and bibliography
