Isaac Jogues

Life events

1. Born — 1607

   Isaac Jogues was born on 10 January 1607 in Orléans, France, the fifth of nine children of Laurent Jogues and Françoise de Sainte-Mesmin, into a bourgeois family.

2. Educated — 1624

   In 1624, at age seventeen, Jogues entered the Jesuit novitiate at Rouen in northern France, where his master of novices was Louis Lallemant; he professed simple vows in 1626 and subsequently studied philosophy at the royal college of La Flèche.

3. Ordained — 1636

   Jogues was ordained a priest in 1636 at the Collège de Clermont in Paris, having been sent there in 1633 to pursue theology, and shortly after accepted service in the New France missions.

4. Pilgrimage — 1636

   Jogues sailed from France on 8 April 1636, arrived in Quebec City on 2 July, and joined Jean de Brébeuf at the Huron mission village of St-Joseph (Ihonatiria) on Lake Huron on 11 September, where he lived and worked for six years learning the Huron language and customs.

5. Imprisoned — 1642

   On 3 August 1642, Jogues, Guillaume Couture, René Goupil, and a group of Christian Hurons were captured by a Mohawk war party while returning from Quebec City; Jogues left his hiding place voluntarily to remain with the prisoners and was subjected to beatings, loss of fingernails, and the severing of a thumb, remaining a captive for roughly a year.

6. Other — 1643

   In autumn 1643, Arent van Curler helped Jogues escape from the Mohawk at Beverwijck; Reformed minister Johannes Megapolensis then accompanied Jogues to New Amsterdam, making Jogues the first Catholic priest to visit Manhattan Island, before he sailed for France.

7. Pilgrimage — 1646

   In spring 1646, Jogues returned to Iroquois territory with Jean de Lalande to serve as the French ambassador to the Mohawk, intending to maintain the tentative peace of 1645 among the Iroquois, French, Huron, and Algonquin peoples.

8. Martyred — 1646

   On 18 October 1646, Mohawk at the village of Ossernenon killed Jogues with a tomahawk; Jean de Lalande was killed the following day, and both bodies were thrown into the Mohawk River — the killings appear to have been the work of an anti-French faction within the Mohawk community.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Pope Urban VIII called Jogues a 'living martyr' and granted him dispensation to celebrate Mass despite the loss of two fingers — canon law restricted Eucharistic touch to the thumb and forefinger. (certain)
• Jogues was the first European to name Lake George, calling it Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake of the Blessed Sacrament); he is also said to have been the first European to see Saratoga Lake while being taken into captivity. (likely)
• Jogues was canonized on 29 June 1930 by Pope Pius XI together with seven other North American Martyrs; their feast is 19 October in the General Roman Calendar and 26 September in Canada. (certain)
• The Mohawk name given to Jogues was Ondessonk, commemorated in Camp Ondessonk, a Catholic youth camp in Ozark, Illinois, named in his honor. (likely)
• The Mohawk man who killed Jogues was later captured by French-allied natives, condemned to death, and baptized while awaiting execution — given the Christian name Isaac Jogues, an episode contemporaries read as a secondary martyrdom. (plausible)