Jacques Gravier

Background

Jacques Gravier was born on 17 May 1651, at Moulins in central France.

Education

Educated in a Jesuit college, Gravier performed his novitiate at Paris (1670 - 72), after which he was sent as instructor to several provincial towns. In 1684, he returned to Paris for advanced studies, and the next year, was designated for the mission field in Canada.

Career

Gravier spent one year at the mission of Sillery and was then ordered to the western field, where during 1687-88, he was stationed at St. Ignace on the Straits of Mackinac. In the latter year, he was sent to aid Father Allouez among the Illinois.

After the death of Allouez in 1689, Gravier was made vicar general of the Illinois mission, then located among the Kaskaskia and Peoria tribes on the Illinois River.

During the first years, he ministered both to them and to the Miami, among whom Allouez had died. In 1693, the Illinois mission was established on Lake Peoria, whither the French fort was removed at this time.

The Peoria Indians were less easily influenced than the Kaskaskia; among the latter the great chief Rouensa became a Christian at the solicitation of his daughter, who had come under Father Gravier’s influence.

During nine months of 1693, the missionary baptized over two hundred Indians; the first baptism recorded was that of the child of Michel Aco, Hennepin’s companion on his Mississippi voyage, and the daughter of Rouensa.

The register of this baptism is still extant. When Gravier had been several years among the Illinois, he was removed to St. Ignace where for about three years he officiated as the Superior of the western missions.

The Illinois mission, however, held his heart and in 1699 or 1700, he was allowed to return thither.

Gravier found his neophytes, with all the tribe of the Kaskaskia, about to remove to the river that now bears their name, in order to be in communication with the French of Louisiana.

Father Gravier opposed the removal, but to no effect. He then resolved to visit in person the new colony at the mouth of the Mississippi and set forth from Peoria September 8, 1700, for the long perilous voyage down the great river.

His account of the tribes along the banks, as well as the flora and fauna of the lower Mississippi, is accurate and interesting. Arrived the last day of the year at Biloxi, he formed a friendship with Sieur de Bienville, and remained in the Louisiana colony until 1702.

In that year, having returned to his mission on Lake Peoria, he found the Indians averse to his ministrations, and hostile to all French occupation. In the summer of 1705, he was attacked by an enemy Indian and severely wounded.

The Jesuits at Kaskaskia sent a party to their comrade’s relief; this rescuing group was besieged in the mission house, but Gravier finally made an escape. Since his wounds did not heal, in 1706, he went to Louisiana for medical treatment, and after some months voyaged to Paris.

Later, thinking himself sufficiently healed he returned to America, but soon after his ocean voyage died from the effects of his wounds, at the French post of Mobile.

Achievements

• Gravier was notable for his compilation of the most extensive dictionary of Kaskaskia Illinois-French among those made by French missionaries. In 1705, he was appointed Superior of the mission. He reduced the language of the trihe to grammatical structure, and wrote an Illinois grammar now in Harvard University library.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Early voyages up and down the Mississippi

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Lettre ... le 23 Fevrier 1708, sur les affaires de la Louisiane. L.P. F.P.

    (Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)

  • Relation ou Journal du Voyage, de la Compagnie de Jésus, en 1700 depuis le pays des Illinois jusqu'à l'embouchure du Mississipi (French Edition)

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

Membership

Gravier was a fervent Jesuit and a devoted missionary, and is considered to be the true founder of the Illinois mission.