ear that Radisson escaped from the Mohawks, Jesuit
priests had gone among them. A still greater change that was to affect
his life more vitally had taken place in the Radisson family. The year
that Radisson had been captured, the outraged people of Three Rivers
had seized a Mohawk chief and burned him to death. In revenge, the
Mohawks murdered the governor of Three Rivers and a company of
Frenchmen. Among the slain was the husband of Radisson's sister,
Marguerite. 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.[3] The hardships of these pioneers form no
part of Radisson's life, and are, therefore, not set down here. Peace
not bought by a victory is an unstable foundation for Indian treaty.
The Mohawks were jealous that their confederates, the Onondagas, had
obtained the French settlement. In 1657, eighty Iroquois came to
Quebec to escort one hundred Huron refugees back to Onondaga for
adoption into the Confederacy. These Hurons were Christians, and the
two Jesuits, Paul Ragueneau and Fr