Jacques Buteux

Jacques Buteux (11 April 1600 – 10 May 1652) was a French-born Jesuit who became a missionary in Canada.

Biography

Jacques Buteux was born 11 April 1600 in Abbeville, Picardy, the son of a tanner.

On 2 October 1620 he entered the Society of Jesus at Rouen. From 1622 to 1625 he studied philosophy at the Collège in La Flèche, where the revered Acadian missioner Énemond Massé was in residence prior to his second trip to New France. Buteux was ordained priest in 1633. After his course of theology in la Flèche (1629–33), he became prefect at the College of Clermont.

Buteux arrived in Quebec on 24 June 1634 and his superior, Paul Le Jeune assigned him to the trading post at Trois-Rivières, under command of the Sieur de Laviolette. The post was still under construction when he arrived on 8 Sept. 1634. Trois-Rivières was favored at that time by the Montagnais, Algonquin and Huron as a location for trading with the French. As the congregation grew there had to be a separate Mass in French, as the small chapel could not hold everyone. In 1641 Jean de Quen and Joseph Poncet were sent to assist him.

An effort to establish a native settlement at the Cap de Trois-Rivières, on the left bank of the St. Maurice River having failed, French settlers were recruited. In 1649, fourteen land-grants were issued. This is the origin of the present town of Cap-de-la-Madeleine.

In 1642 he was at Sillery. He visited the post of Tadoussac, from 1644 to 1647. On April 4, 1651, Buteux left to go serve the mission of Saint-Pierre, north of Trois-Rivières, accompanied by a young Frenchman and a young Huron named Tsondoutannen. The three were ambushed by a party of Iroquois, who seized Tsondoutannen. Buteux fell, struck by two bullets in the chest. A third musket ball shattered his right arm. A young French soldier, Pierre Fontarabie, was also killed. Their bodies were thrown into the St. Maurice River. Tsondoutannen managed to escape and brought word back to Trois-Rivières.

Buteux had left letters and many documents in the parish registers giving historians a good profile of his time in Canada.

Legacy

A school is named in his honor both in Trois-Rivières and La Tuque. A street is named after him in La Tuque.

A National Trail section bearing the name of Jacques-Buteux connects the rest stop of highway 155 of Grandes-Piles on the road 159. The section is 12.9 km.

The microbrewery Le Trou du Diable in Shawinigan created a type of abbey beer in his honor.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Jacques Buteux — French missionary in Canada. Born at Abbeville, in Picardy, 11 April, 1600; slain by the Iroquois savages, 10 May, 1652. He entered the Society of Jesus in October, 1620, studied at La Flèche (1622-25), was an instructor at Caen (1625-29), and after his course of theology in la Flèche (1629-33) became prefect at the College of Clermont. In 1634 he went to Canada and was sent to the new settlement of Three Rivers, where he remained for eighteen years, ministering with extraordinary zeal to the Montagnais and the Algonquin tribes. though of frail and delicate physique, his soul was fired with an ardent desire for suffering, which nothing could satisfy. It was this trait in his character which most distinguished him from the other heroic men who had devoted their lives to the same work. In truth, no peril, however great, ever blanched his cheek or stayed his hand when there was a question of serving God or saving a soul. He was endowed with a very special grace for instilling sentiments of piety into the hearts of the Indians, and those under his care were recognized by a tenderness of devotion and a spirit of faith which were lasting and altogether remarkable. Buteux himself has drawn a vivid picture of one of his apostolic journeys through a Canadian wilderness at the end of winter, of traversing almost pathless forests, crossing mountains, lakes, and rivers, wading knee deep in melting snow, and being unable on account of all these difficulties to carry enough food for more than "warding off death, rather than supporting life." his death occurred on one of his journeys to the Attikamègues, a Montagnais tribe dwelling on the upper St. Maurice River. A troop of Iroquois lying in ambush riddled his upper right arm and breast with bullets, while the blows of their tomahawks completed the sacrifice. Mother Mary of the Incarnation writes that "his death was an incredible loss to the mission." Father Buteux has left, besides other documents, an interesting account of the captivity of Father Isaac Jogues.

ROCHEMONTEIX, Les Jesuites et la Nouvelle-France au XVII^e siècle (Paris, 1896), I, 294, 265; THWAITES, Jesuit Relations, VI, 326. IX, 307; XXXVII, 9, 19-67; LXXII, 114-115; SOMMERVOGEL, Bibliographie des éscrevains de la compagnie de Jésus, II, 471; VII, 1953.