Sebastian Rale
Long ago, when the Abenaki roamed the
forests of Maine, there occurred in the Indian village of
Narrantsouk or Norridgewock, events so tragic that poet and
historian alike have told the tale for future generations. The
village, seventy-five miles from the mouth of the Kennebec, was
for the time and the race, rather pretentious. It consisted of a
square enclosure, 160 feet on each side, walled in by a palisade
of stout logs, nine feet in height. In the middle of each side
was a gate, and the two streets connecting these gates met in an
open square in the centre. Within this enclosure, on either side
of the two streets, were twenty-six wigwams, really huts, built
of round, hewn logs, "after the English manner." Outside, only a
few yards away, stood the chapel. It was of hewn timber,
surmounted by a cross. The bell of that ancient church is still
in existence, in the rooms of the Maine Historical Society,
Portland. Within, the rough chapel walls were hung with
pictures, among them the Crucifixion. The communion service was
of silver plate. We ask why so much of order and even of beauty
should be found in an Indian village in the forests of Maine.
But for thirty-four years, these Indians had been taught by
Father Sebastian Rale, a Jesuit priest. Whittier describes the
scene most effectively.
"On the brow of a hill which slopes to
meet
The flowing river and bathe its feet.
The bare-washed and drooping grass
And the creeping vine, as the waters pass,
A rude, unshapely chapel stands.
Built up in that wild by unskillful hands;
Yet the traveler knows it's a place of prayer,
For the holy sign of the cross is there;
And should he chance at that place to be,
Of a Sabbath morn or some hallowed day,
When prayers are made and masses said.
Some for the living and some for the dead,
Well might that traveler start to see
The tall, dark forms that take their way
From the birch canoe on the river shore
And the forest paths to that chapel door;
And marvel to mark the naked knees
And the dusky foreheads bending there,
And, stretching his long, thin arms over these
In blessing and in prayer.
Like a shrouded specter, pale and tall.
In his coarse white vesture. Father Rale.
To add to the effectiveness of the
service, a choir, gowned and trained, had been formed of forty
of the braves. At dawn and again for vespers, the bell rang to
summon these dusky worshipers to prayers.
Father Rale, pastor of this unusual
flock, was a Jesuit priest who had come to Canada with
Frontenac. He was of illustrious French family, and finely
educated; but he was content to give up all that he might have
enjoyed in France, and to suffer hardship unspeakable in order
to teach the precepts of religion to the Indians of the New
World.
|
Father Rale's Chapel
(By Courtesy of John Francis Sprague Author of Sebastian
Rale.) |
In the Abenaki village to which he was
finally assigned, all of Rale's various acquirements were of
use. He was carpenter, gardener, and physician, as well as
priest. Nor was he less the scholar. Ho prepared a vocabulary of
the Abenaki tongue that is now preserved in the Library of
Harvard College, and he was at work on an Indian dictionary at
the time of his tragic death.
But not all of Father Rale's activities
met the approval of his English neighbors. For one thing, the
French claimed the Kennebec as their western boundary, while the
English insisted on a river which we call the St. John, the
present boundary between Maine and the Dominion of Canada. They
declared that Rale and his Indians were trespassers on English
soil. But they accused Rale also of something worse than simple
trespass. They declared that he was guilty of inciting the
Indians to attack the English settlements. It was in that period
of bitter feeling known to us as the French and Indian Wars,
and, as we know, the Indians of Maine had been merciless in
their attacks, both with and without their allies, the French.
Small wonder that feeling in Massachusetts ran high and a price
was set upon Rale's head. Just how far these attacks were due to
Rale, history has not decided. Certain it is that the priest did
translate and forward to the Governor of Massachusetts the
Abenaki's declaration of their right, as first settlers, to the
land they dwelt upon and hunted over.
In 1723, matters came to a crisis. After
a series of blood-thirsty raids by the Indians, an expedition
under the leadership of Captain Moulton of York was sent to
Norridgewock to seize the hitherto elusive priest. This
expedition failed in making the capture. Though the English
surprised the Indian village, Rale escaped, and the only trophy
Moulton could bring back was the priest's strong box. This
contained, among other papers, correspondence with the Governor
of Canada that showed Rale to be to some extent responsible for
the outbreaks against the English. Doubtless Rale thought
himself justified, because of the possible peril to his mission
at the hands of the English Puritans.
In August, 1724, a second expedition,
commanded by Captains Moulton and Harmon, ascended the river. On
the way they saw three Indians and shot at them. One, who proved
to be the noted chieftain, Bombassen, was killed; the other two,
his wife and daughter, were taken prisoners.
''Bomazon from Tacconock
Has sent his runners to Norridgewock,
With tidings that Moulton and Harmon of York
Far up the river have come;
They have left their boats - they have entered the wood,
And filled the depths of the solitude
With the sound of the ranger's drum."
So wrote the poet Whittier of their
approach. But, in actual fact, so silent and swift was the
advance, due to information extorted from the captive wife of
Bombassen, that the Indian village was surrounded and surprised.
At the first volley, the Indians rushed
from their wigwams, fired, but too high, and fell in confusion
before the better aimed English bullets. No more than sixty
warriors were in the village at this time. These, in spite of
the odds, for the English force is variously estimated at from
two hundred and eighty to eleven hundred, did their best to the
last to cover the retreat of the old men, the women and
children. Many of these were caught in the river, as they
attempted to cross, and were slaughtered.
Rale fearlessly presented himself to his
assailants, hoping to gain some measure of protection for his
people, but in vain. He fell, shot through the head, and the few
braves who had endeavored to protect him shared his fate. Among
the slain was Mogg, an old and famous chieftain. The rangers
burned and plundered, then retreated down the valley with their
burden of scalps.
Father Rale's mutilated body was
tenderly buried by the remnant of his sorrowing people; but the
strength of the Norridgewocks was broken. The few survivors of
the tribe sought other hunting grounds, and Narrantsouk was left
desolate.
"No wigwam's smoke is curling there;
The very earth is scorched and bare,
They pass and listen to catch a sound
Of breathing life, but there comes not one,
Save the foxes' bark and the rabbit's bound."
In 1833, a monument was erected to the
memory of Father Rale on the site of the chapel where he had
ministered to his savage converts. It consists of a granite
shaft, eleven feet high, on a base five feet in height. The
whole is surmounted by an iron cross. On one side an inscription
is cut in Latin. Translated, it reads:
''Rev. Sebastian Rale, a French Jesuit
missionary, for many years the first evangelist among the
Illinois and Hurons, and afterwards for thirty-four years a true
apostle in the faith and love of Christ, among the Abenakis,
un-terrified by danger, and often by his pure excellent
character giving witness that he was prepared for death, this
most excellent pastor, on the 23d day of August, 1724, fell in
this place, at the time of the destruction and slaughter of the
town of Norridgewock, and the dangers to his church. To him, and
to his children, dead in Christ, Benedict Fenwick, Bishop at
Boston, has erected and dedicated this monument, this 23d day of
August, A.D. 1833.''
Henrietta Tozier Totman
|