James Axtell (23), in his analysis of the conflict of cultures in colonial North America, argues that the initial role played by the French Jesuits (known as ôBlack Robesö) in the early sixteenth century was less focused on the religious conversion of Native Americans than on fostering the economic exploitation of a resource-rich New World. By the middle of the sixteenth century, however, and into the seventeenth, Axtell (23-24) states that the focus of Jesuit activity in the New World in general and in New France in particular did focus more generally upon the conversion of Native Americans to Roman Catholicism. This transformation occurred, according to Michael R. Welton (2), in large measure because of the JesuitÆs pedagogical style and the OrderÆs mystical enthusiasm to revive the ardor of the Primitive Church.
Given this general background, an important question in historiography that addresses the European settlement of the North American continent focuses upon the motivations of different groups of colonizers and/or explorers. Gary B. Nash (41) has noted that most of the European colonists and conquerors who approached the New World were driven by the desire for profit or what Nash (41) calls ôNew World gold.ö This ôgoldö consisted variously of timber, fish and other foodstuffs, fur, and valuable minerals.
From the perspective of the early French colonials, conversion of the Native Americans was at least initially a secondary concern. This secondary concern gradually achieved heightened significance as the Jesuits became an established presence in New France and elsewhere in North America. This essay will consider various explanations offered for the transformation of Jesuit missionary activity as that activity shifted from providing for the religious needs of French explorers and settlers to engaging Native Americans in Roman Catholicism. It will be argued, for example, that the missionary and conv...