Unaffected by the Gospel: Osage Resistance to the Christian Invasion, 1673-1906: A Cultural Victory

7. The Catholics Return: 1820–1870

h The Catholics Return: 1820–1870 It is impossible, the Bishop [Du Bourg] said, to describe the attention that these poor savages paid to him,and the emotion which they experienced when the interpreter repeated to them the words of the Bishop. They raised their eyes and their hands to heaven and then to the crucifix. All the spectators were moved by the scene. Before taking leave of the Bishop, Sans-Nerf said to him, through the interpreter, that if he wished to come and visit them in their homes he would be well received, that he could do a great deal of good, and that he could pour water on many heads.The bishop promised to do so,and presented each one with a little crucifix and also a medal which he hung around their necks with a ribbon, admonishing them to guard them carefully. They promised to do so, and have kept their word. Father Eugene Michaud, Annales de la Propagation de la Foi 1 In April 1847 Fathers Schoenmakers and John Bax, along with Brothers John De Bruyn, Thomas Coghlan, and John Sheehan, arrived at the Osage agency on Flatrock Creek to begin their work of converting the Osage to Roman Catholicism and civilization.This spring 1847 arrival was not the first contact the Osage had had with Roman Catholic missionaries, for Jesuits had been visiting the Osage since the seventeenth century. Early French explorers were accompanied by Roman Catholic priests, and French Jesuit Jacques Marquette, traveling with Louis Jolliet, was the first European to record Osage existence. 129 In1699,priestsfromtheSeminaryof QuebecestablishedtheCahokia Mission on the east bank of the Mississippi, just across from the future site of St. Louis. A Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel Marest, in 1700 followed a group of Kaskaskia Indians from Illinois, who established a village acrosstheriverfromCahokiaonthewestbankof theMississippi.Father Marest established a mission among those Kaskaskia near the mouth of a river that would be known as the Des Peres. French traders collected around the Cahokia and Kaskaskia missions, and Osage families who visited the trading posts at the mission sites to acquire hatchets, knives, awls,and other metal goods probably met with Father Marest. 2 The Des PeresMissionwasabandonedin1703,andtheKaskaskia,alongwiththeir Jesuitpriest,movedseventy-fivemilessouthandcrossedtotheeastbank of the Mississippi, where they reestablished Kaskaskia. In 1723, the French Company of the Indies sent Etienne de Véniard, sieur de Bourgmont, west to establish peace and trade with the plains tribes. Bourgmont brought one of the Cahokia priests, Father Jean Mercier, up the Missouri River on his way west. Before setting out for the plains, Bourgmont established a base named Fort d’Orléans just across from several Little Osage villages. 3 From this river outpost,Father Mercier and Bourgmont exchanged visits with the Osage. It is not clear whatimpactandimpressionMerciermadeontheOsage;however,when Boganienhin, the Osage chief who traveled to France with Bourgmont, was introduced to Louis XV, he asked him to send additional priests to them. 4 “Our lands have been yours for a long time; do not abandon them. Move Frenchmen there; protect us as your true soldiers and give us White Collars [Foreign Missionary priests], Chiefs of Prayer, to instruct us. Have pity on us here and everywhere.” 5 While it is unclear what Boganienhin was asking for with this request, it sounds very similartothelaterrequestsof Sans-Nerf,whowasclearlynotaskingforspiritual guidance. It is more likely that the eighteenth-century Osage chef was asking for French trade and assistance. Whatever he was asking for, he would not receive it, for The Company of the Indies that had helped fund Bourgmont’s expedition was unwilling to fund missionaries among the Osage and had already reneged on its promise to pay Father Mercier. When Fort d’Orléans was abandoned by the French in 1728, Father Mercier left his Osage charges and returned to Cahokia. 6 In 1686, Henry Tonty established a French trading post near the mouth of the Arkansas River. Although he promised the Jesuits he would establish and support a mission there, he never provided the 130 ❙ Chapter Seven funds nor support, and the outpost was abandoned in 1699. 7 In 1721, John Law’s Compagnie d’Occident established a colony near Tonty’s site, and a Jesuit priest, Father Paul Du Poisson, was sent to minister to the Quapaw people of the region. This small outpost on the Arkansas became an important trading center,and Osage hunters who visited the post throughout the eighteenth century...