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The Onondagas were more sincere; and when
Chaumonot, an Italian priest, long a missionary
among the Hurons, left
Quebec for their territory, he was accompanied by
Claude Dablon, a missionary,
who had recently arrived from
France.
They were
Dablon hospitably welcomed at
Onondaga, the principal village of the tribe.
A general convention was held, by
their desire; and, before the multitudinous assembly
of the chiefs and the whole people, gathered under the open sky, among the primeval forests, the presents were delivered; and the
Italian Jesuit, with much gesture, after the
Italian manner, discoursed so eloquently to the crowd, that it seemed to
Dablon as if the word of God had been preached to all the nations of that land.
On the next day, the chiefs and others
crowded round the Jesuits, with their songs of welcome.
‘Happy land!’
they sang; ‘happy land!
in which the
French are to dwell;’ and the chief led the chorus, ‘Glad tidings!
glad tidings!
it is well that we have spoken together; it is well that we have a heavenly message.’
At once, a chapel sprung into
existence, and, by the zeal of the natives, was finished in a day. ‘For marbles and precious metals,’ writes
Dablon, ‘we employed only bark; but the path to heaven is as open through a roof of bark as through arched ceilings of
silver and
gold.’
The savages showed themselves susceptible of the excitements of religious ecstasy; and there, in the heart of New York, the solemn services of the Roman church were chanted as securely as in any part of Christendom.
The charter of the hundred associates included the basin of every tributary of the
St. Lawrence.
The
Onondagas dwelt exclusively on the
Oswego and its tributary waters: their land was, therefore, a part of
