When Radisson returned, he found that his widowed sister
had married Medard Chouart Groseillers, a famous fur trader of New
France, who had passed his youth as a lay helper to the Jesuit missions
of Lake Huron.[2] Radisson was now doubly bound to the Jesuits by
gratitude and family ties. Never did pagan heart hear an evangel more
gladly than the Mohawks heard the Jesuits. The priests were welcomed
with acclaim, led to the Council Lodge, and presented with belts of
wampum. Not a suspicion of foul play seems to have entered the
Jesuits' mind. When the Iroquois proposed to incorporate into the
Confederacy the remnants of the Hurons, the Jesuits discerned nothing
in the plan but the most excellent means to convert pagan Iroquois by
Christian Hurons. Having gained an inch, the Iroquois demanded the
proverbial ell. They asked that a French settlement be made in the
Iroquois country. The Indians wanted a supply of firearms to war
against all enemies; and with a French settlement miles away from help,
the Iroquois could wage what war they pleased against the Algonquins
without fear of reprisals from Quebec--the settlement of white men
among hostiles would be hostage of generous treatment from New France.
Of these designs, neither priests nor governor had the slightest
suspicion. The Jesuits were thinking only of the Iroquois' soul; the
French, of peace with the Iroquois at any cost.
In 1656 Major Dupuis and fifty Frenchmen had established a French
colony among the Iroquois.
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