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Jesuit missionaries established
the first French missions in North America in Maine
between 1611 and 1613. The French missionaries wanted
to convert the Wabanaki people to Catholicism. To
do that, they established mission villages where the
Natives could settle, grow crops and attend mass.
Some of the mission villages became places of refuge
for the Wabanaki when they were forced to flee their
homelands.
The French government encouraged missionaries because
it believed that having religious power in the New
World would strengthen New France during their struggles
with England. The English were less interested in
converting Native people to Christianity than in gaining
control of lands that could be settled by English
colonists. Therefore, the English saw the activities
of French missionaries as a sneaky way for the French
to win the loyalty of Native people and turn them
against the English.
British Attacks on French Missions
Father Pierre Biard came to
Acadia and established St. Sauveur mission somewhere
on the coast of Frenchman Bay in 1613. The English
destroyed that mission after only 13 weeks. Father
Biard was taken hostage and Brother du Thet was killed
in the skirmish. This began nearly 150 years of warfare
between the French and English in North America. The
Wabanaki were often caught in the middle of many wars
between the French in Acadia and English colonists
in New England as these European powers fought for
control of territories in North America.
In 1646, Jesuit priest Father Sebastian Rale arrived
in Maine and established the mission village at Norridgewock.
The Norridgewock village became very important as
a Wabanaki - French settlement on the eastern edge
of English territory. The English accused Rale of
inciting the Wabanaki to wage war against them. The
English attacked and burned the village in 1705 and
again in 1722, when a warrant for Rale’s arrest
was issued. During that same war, the English burned
the mission fort at Panawamske (Indian Island, the
Penobscot Nation’s home).
Finally, in August of 1724, an English, Massachusetts
and Mohawk raiding party attacked Norridgwock. Father
Rale and 26 Wabanaki were killed and scalped. Many
other Wabanaki were killed and the survivors fled
to French missions in Quebec.
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