Pierre-Jean De Smet

The Reverend Pierre-Jean De Smet SJ
c. 1860-65, by Mathew Brady
Born	30 January 1801 Dendermonde, French First Republic (now Belgium)
Died	23 May 1873 (aged 72) St. Louis, Missouri
Other name	Pieter-Jan De Smet
Education	White Marsh Novitiate, present-day Bowie, Maryland
Church	Catholic
Ordained	23 September 1827

Pierre-Jean De Smet, SJ (Dutch and French IPA: [də smɛt]; 30 January 1801 – 23 May 1873), also known as Pieter-Jan De Smet, was a Flemish Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He is known primarily for his widespread missionary work in the mid-19th century among the Native American peoples, in the midwestern and northwestern United States and western Canada.

His extensive travels as a missionary were said to total 180,000 miles (290,000 km). He was affectionately known as "Friend of Sitting Bull", as he persuaded the Sioux war chief to participate in negotiations with the American government for the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Native Americans gave him the affectionate nickname De Grote Zwartrok ("The Great Black Skirt").

Early life

De Smet was born in Dendermonde, in what is now Belgium in 1801, and entered the Petit Séminaire at Mechelen at the age of nineteen. De Smet first came to the United States with eleven other Belgian Jesuits in 1821, intending to become a missionary to Native Americans. He began his novitiate at White Marsh, a Jesuit estate near Baltimore, Maryland. Part of the complex survives today as Sacred Heart Church in Bowie.

In 1823, De Smet was transferred to Florissant, Missouri, just north of St. Louis, to complete his theological studies and to begin his studies of Native American languages. He brought with him six enslaved African Americans. He was ordained a priest on 23 September 1827.

De Smet and five other Belgian novices, led by Charles Van Quickenborne, moved to Florissant at the invitation of bishop Louis William Valentine DuBourg. They founded several academic institutions, among which was the St. Regis Seminary, where De Smet had his first contacts with indigenous students. He learned about various Indian tribal customs and languages while serving as a prefect at the seminary.

Around 1830, De Smet went to St. Louis to serve as treasurer at the College of St. Louis. On 23 September 1833, De Smet became a US citizen. He returned to Flanders that same year due to health problems and did not return to St. Louis until 1837.

Mission work in Iowa Territory

In 1838 and 1839, De Smet helped to establish St. Joseph's Mission in what is now Council Bluffs, Iowa, in Potawatomi territory along the Upper Missouri River. These people had moved west from what is now Illinois. Taking over the abandoned Council Bluffs Blockhouse at the former United States military fort, De Smet worked primarily with a Potawatomi band led by Billy Caldwell, also known as Sauganash. (Of Mohawk and Irish descent, Caldwell was born on what is now the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. He was fluent in English and Mohawk, and some other Indian languages.) Among the women responding to Smet's request to serve the Potawatomi people was Sister Rose Philippine Duchesne.

De Smet was appalled by the murders and brutality resulting from the whiskey trade, which caused much social disruption among the Indian people. During this time, he also assisted and supported Joseph Nicollet's efforts at mapping the Upper Midwest. De Smet used newly acquired mapping skills to produce the first detailed map of the upper Missouri River valley system, from below the Platte River to the Big Sioux River. His map shows the locations of Indian villages and other cultural features, including the wreck of the steamboat Pirate.

First missionary tour

After discussion with Iroquois fur trappers who had come from the Montreal area to the Pacific Northwest, the Salish Native Americans had gained a slight knowledge of Christianity. At a time when their people were afflicted by illnesses, they thought the new religion might help. Three times they sent delegations of their tribe more than 1,500 miles (2,400 km) to St. Louis to request "black-robes" from the Catholic Church to come to baptize their children, sick, and dying. The first two delegations reached St. Louis after being devastated by sickness, and although Bishop Joseph Rosati promised to send missionaries when funds were available, he never did. A third delegation was massacred by enemy Sioux. In 1839, a fourth delegation traveled down the Missouri River by canoe and stopped at Council Bluffs. There, they met De Smet.

De Smet saw his meeting with the Salish as the will of God. He joined the delegation on its journey to St. Louis and asked Bishop Rosati to send missionaries. Rosati assigned him to journey to Salish territory, to determine their nation, and to establish a mission among them. For safety and convenience De Smet traveled with an American Fur Company brigade. On 5 July 1840, De Smet offered the first Mass in Wyoming, a mile east of Daniel, a town in the west-central part of the present state. A monument to the event was later erected on this site. When De Smet arrived at Pierre's Hole, 1,600 Salish and Pend d'Oreilles greeted him. He baptized 350 people and then returned to the eastern United States to raise funds for the mission.

In 1841, De Smet returned to the Salish accompanied by two priests, Gregorio Mengarini and Nicholas Point, and three friars. They founded St. Mary's Mission in the Bitterroot Valley among the Salish, and worked with them for several years. The following spring De Smet visited François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers, missionaries at Fort Vancouver. He noted that the Protestant proselytizing of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions under Henry H. Spalding, based at Lapwai, had made the neighboring Nimíipuu (Nez Perce) nation wary of Catholicism.

He persuaded a band of Nimíipuu to reside at St. Mary's for a period of two months; all of the people had received baptism before they left. Near the end of his time with the Salish, De Smet sent out an appeal to the United States public for financial aid to bolster his missionary efforts. He thought the Salish habit of seasonal nomadic movement made it "impossible to do any solid and permanent good among these poor people..." He forwarded a plan proposing that the Salish "be assembled in villages—must be taught the art of agriculture, consequently must be supplied with implements, with cattle, with seed." He went back to France to recruit more workers, and returned to the Pacific Northwest via Cape Horn, reaching the Columbia River on 31 July 1844 with five additional Jesuits and a group of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

1845-1846 Rockies expedition

One of De Smet's longest explorations began in August 1845 in the region west of the Rockies that was jointly occupied by the Americans, who called it Oregon Country, and the British, who identified it as Columbia District. De Smet started from Lake Pend Oreille in present-day north Idaho and crossed into the Kootenay River Valley. He followed the Kootenay valley north, eventually crossing over to Columbia Lake, the source of the Columbia River at Canal Flats.

He followed the upper Columbia valley north to and past Lake Windermere. At Radium Hot Springs, he turned east and went over Sinclair Pass into the Kootenay River Valley. He recrossed the Kootenay and continued along the reverse of the route pioneered by the Sinclair expedition. He followed the Cross River upstream to its headwaters at Whiteman's Pass. The Cross River was named for the large wooden cross that De Smet erected at the top of the pass, where it could be seen from miles away.

On the other side of the Great Divide was the British territory of Rupert's Land. From the crest of the pass, streams lead to Spray Lakes above present-day Canmore, Alberta, and the Spray River, which joins the Bow River near modern-day Banff, Alberta. Once in the Bow Valley, De Smet headed upstream and in a north-westerly direction to its source Bow Lake. He traveled further north until he came to the North Saskatchewan River, which he followed downstream and east. It was October, and a long cold winter was looming, when he reached Rocky Mountain House. He had fulfilled one of his main goals; to meet with the Cree, Chippewa, and Blackfoot of the area. At the end of the month, De Smet traveled further to the east to search for other Natives. Fortunate to find his way back to Rocky Mountain House, Natives guided him to Fort Edmonton, where he spent the winter of 1845–1846.

During these years, he established St. Mary's Mission in present-day Stevensville, Montana, among the Flathead and Kootenay Indian tribes. He also established the mission that became the Sacred Heart Mission to the Coeur d'Alene in present-day Cataldo, Idaho. In the spring of 1846, De Smet began his return westward, following the established York Factory Express trade route to the Columbia District. He went west to Jasper House, and with considerable hardships completed the trek. He then crossed the Great Divide by Athabaska Pass, traveling to the Canoe River, the northernmost tributary of the Columbia River, and eventually on to Fort Vancouver, some thousand miles (1600 km) to the southwest. He eventually arrived at his mission at Sainte-Marie on the Bitterroot River.

His book Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains in 1845 to 1846 was published in 1847.

Later years and death

In 1854, De Smet helped establish the mission in St. Ignatius, Montana. It is located on the Flathead Indian Reservation. The current building was added to the National Register of Historic Places 100 years after his death. In his remaining years, De Smet was active in work related to the missions which he helped establish and fund. During his career, he sailed back to Europe eight times to raise money for the missions among supporters there. In 1868 he persuaded Sitting Bull to send a delegation to meet the U.S. peace commissioners, leading to the Treaty of Fort Laramie. De Smet returned to St. Louis and from there made several trips to the north country helping Indians and teaching Christianity. In 1850 he cruised from St. Louis to the Dakota territory aboard the steamboat Saint Agne, piloted by Joseph LaBarge. LaBarge was a close friend of De Smet, and always offered the services of his steamboat to the Catholic missionary effort. De Smet died in St. Louis on 23 May 1873. He was originally buried at St. Stanislaus Seminary near Florissant, as were some fellow early Jesuit explorers. In 2003, the remains in that cemetery were moved to Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, at the newer burial site for Jesuits of the Missouri Province.

Legacy

De Smet's papers, with accounts of his travels and missionary work with Native American nations, are held at two separate locations:

• Jesuit Archives - De Smetiana series in St. Louis, Missouri
• Pierre Jean De Smet Papers at the Washington State University archives in Pullman, Washington
• De Smet was featured as a major figure in the exhibition, Crossing the Divide: Jesuits on the Frontier (26 February - 27 June 2010), held at St. Louis University Museum of Art in St. Louis.
• The exhibit A Complex Vision: De Smet and the American Frontier (17 December 2014 – 2015), at St. Louis University Museum of Art, focused on him and his work.
• In 1968, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Namesake places

Several places are named in honor of De Smet, including:

• De Smet, Idaho, a populated place
• Tensed, Idaho, a populated place bordering De Smet, Idaho. The founders wanted to name their town De Smet, but when they discovered the name was taken, they chose to spell it backwards. A clerical error resulted in the "m" being changed to an "n."
• DeSmet, Montana, a populated place between Wye and the Missoula International Airport
• DeSmet Junction, near Wye, where U.S. 10, U.S. 93 and Montana Highway 200 met (and where I-90 meets them today)
• De Smet, South Dakota, the later childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder
• De Smet Jesuit High School in Creve Coeur, Missouri
• De Smet Range and Roche de Smet in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
• Lake Desmet, between Buffalo and Sheridan, Wyoming
• DeSmet Hall, the largest and oldest all-men's residence hall on the Gonzaga University campus in Spokane, Washington.
• DeSmet Hall, First Year residence hall at Regis University campus in Denver, Colorado

See also

• Red Fish, Oglala chief

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

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Pierre-Jean De Smet, missionary among the North American Indians, b. at Termonde (Dendermonde), Belgium, 30 Jan., 1801; d. at St. Louis, Missouri, U. S. A., 23 May, 1873. He emigrated to the United States in 1821 through a desire for missionary labours, and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Whitemarsh, Maryland. In 1823, however, at the suggestion of the United States Government a new Jesuit establishment was determined on and located at Florissant near St. Louis, Missouri, for work among the Indians. De Smet was among the pioneers and thus became one of the founders of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus.

Pierre-Jean De Smet

His first missionary tour among the red men was in 1838 when he founded St. Joseph's Mission at Council Bluffs for the Pottawatomies. At this time also he visited the Sioux to arrange a peace between them and the Pottawatomies, the first of his peace missions. What may be called his life work did not begin, however, until 1840 when he set out for the Flathead country in the Far North-west. As earlyas 1831, some Rocky Mountain Indians, influenced by Iroquois descendants of converts of one hundred and fifty years before, had made a trip to St. Louis begging for a "black-robe". Their request could not be complied with at the time. Curiously enough, the incident excited Protestant missionary enterprise, owing to the wide dissemination of a mythical speech of one of the delegation expressing the disappointment of the Indians at not finding the Bible in St. Louis. Four Indian delegations in succession were dispatched from the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis to beg for "blackrobes" and the last one, in 1839, composed of some Iroquois who dwelt among the Flatheads and Nez Perces, was successful. Father De Smet was assigned to the task and found his life-work.

He set out for the Rocky Mountain country in 1840 and his reception by the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles was an augury of the great power over the red men which was to characterize his career. Having imparted instruction, surveyed the field, and promised a permanent mission he returned to St. Louis; he visited the Crows, Gros Ventres, and other tribes on his way back, travelling in all 4814 miles. In the following year he returned to the Flatheads with Father Nicholas Point and established St. Mary's Mission on the Bitter Root river, some thirty miles north of Missoula, visiting also the Coeur-d'Alênes. Realizing the magnitude of the task before him, De Smet went to Europe in 1843 to solicit funds and workers, and in 1844 with new labourers for the missions, among them being six Sisters of Notre-Dame de Namur, he returned, rounding Cape Horn and casting anchor in the mouth of the Columbia River at Astoria. Two days after, De Smet went by canoe to Fort Vancouver to confer with Bishop Blanchet, and on his return founded St. Ignatius Mission among the Kalispels of the Bay, who dwelt on Clark's Fork of the Columbia river, forty miles above its mouth. Ten years later the mission was transferred to its present site in Missoula County, Montana.

As the Blackfeet were a constant menace to other Indians for whom De Smet was labouring, he determined to influence them personally. This he accomplished in 1846 in the Yellowstone valley, where after a battle with the Crows, the Blackfeet respectfully listened to the "black-robe". He accompanied them to Fort Lewis in their own country where he induced them to conclude peace with the other Indians to whom they were hostile, and he left Father Point to found a mission among this formidable tribe. His return to St. Louis after an absence of three years and six months marks the end of his residence among the Indians, not from his ow^l choice but by the arrangement of his religious superiors who deputed him to other work at St. Louis University. His coadjutors in his mission labours, Fathers Point, Mengarini, Nobili, Ravalli, De Vos, Adrian and Christian Hoecken, Joset and others, made De Smet's foundations permanent by dwelling among the converted tribes.

De Smet was now to enter upon a new phase of his career. Thus far his life might be called a private one, though crowded with stirring dangers from man and beast, from mountain and flood, and marked by the successful establishment of numerous stations over the Rocky Mountain region. But his almost inexplicable and seemingly instantaneous ascendancy over every tribe with which he came in contact, and his writings which had made him famous in both hemispheres, caused the United States Government to look to him for help in its difficulties with the red men, and to invest him with a public character. Henceforth he was to aid the Indians by pleading their cause before European nations and by becoming their intermediary at Washington. In 1851 owing to the influx of whites into California and Oregon, the Indians had grown restless and hostile. A general congress of tribes was determined on, and was held in Horse Creek Valley near Fort Laramie, and the Government requested De Smet's presence as pacificator. He made the long journey and his presence soothed the ten thousand Indians at the council and brought about a satisfactory understanding.

In 1858 he accompanied General Harney as a chaplain in his expedition against the Utah Mormons, at the close of which campaign the Government requested him to accompany the same officer to (Oregon and Washington Territories, where, it was feared, an uprising of the Indians would soon take place. Here again his presence had the desired effect, for the Indians loved him and trusted him implicitly. A visit to the Sioux country at the beginning of the Civil War convinced him that a serious situation confronted the Government. The Indians rose in rebellion in August, 1862, and at the request of the government De Smet made a tour of the North-west. When he found that a punitive expedition had been determined on, he refused to lend to it the sanction of his presence. The condition of affairs becoming more critical, the government again appealed to him in 1867 to go to the red men, who were enraged by white men's perfidy and cruelty, and "endeavour to bring them back to peace and submission, and prevent as far as possible the destruction of property and the murder of the whites." Accordingly he set out for the Upper Missouri, interviewing thousands of Indians on his way, and receiving delegations from the most hostile tribes, but before the Peace Commission could deal with them, he was obliged to return to St. Louis, where he was taken seriously ill.

In 1868, however, he again started on what Chittenden calls (Life, Letters and Travels of Pierre Jean De Smet, p. 92), "the most important mission of his whole career." He travelled with the Peace Commissioners for some time, but later determined to penetrate alone into the very camp of the hostile Sioux. General Stanley says (ibid.): "Father De Smet alone of the entire white race could penetrate to these cruel savages and return safe and sound." The missionary crossed the Bad Lands, and reached the main Sioux camp of some five thousand warriors under the leadership of Sitting Bull. He was received with extraordinary enthusiasm. His counsels were at once agreed to, and representatives sent to meet the Peace Commission. A treaty of peace was signed, 2 July, 1868, by all the chiefs. This result has been looked on as the most remarkable event in the history of the Indian wars. Once again, in 1870, he visited the Indians, to arrange for a mission among the Sioux. In such a crowded life allusion can be made only to the principal events. His strange adventures among the red men his conversions and plantings of missions, his explorations and scientific observations may be studied in detail in his writings. On behalf of the Indians he crossed the ocean nineteen times, visiting popes, kings, and presidents, and traversing almost every European land. By actual calculation he travelled 180,000 miles on his errands of charity.

His writings are numerous and vivid in descriptive power, rich in anecdote, and form an important contribution to our knowledge of Indian manners, customs, superstitions, and traditions. The general correctness of their geographical observations is testified to by later explorers, though scientific researches have since modified some minor details. Almost childlike in the cheerful buoyancy of his disposition, he preserved this characteristic to the end, though honoured by statesmen and made Chevalier of the Order of Leopold by the King of the Belgians. That he was not wanting in personal courage is evinced by many events in his wonderful career. Though he had frequent narrow escapes from death in his perilous travels, and often took his life in his hands when penetrating among hostile tribes, he never faltered. But his main title to fame is his extraordinary power over the Indians, a power no other man is said to have equalled. To give a list of the Indian tribes with whom he came in contact, and over whom he acquired an ascendancy, would be to enumerate almost all the tribes west of the Mississippi. Even Protestant writers declare him the sincerest friend the Indians ever had. The effects of his work for them were not permanent to the extent which he had planned, solely because the Indians have been swept away or engulfed by the white settlers of the North-west. If circumstances had allowed it, the reductions of Paraguay would have found a counterpart in North America. The archives of St. Louis University contain all the originals of De Smet's writings known to be extant. Among these is the "Linton Album", containing his itinerary from 1821 to the year of his death, also specimens of various Indian dialects. legends, poems, etc. The principal works of Father De Smet are: "Letters and Sketches, with a Narrative of a Year's Residence among the Indian Tribes of the Rocky Mountains" (Philadelphia, 1843), translated into French, German, Dutch, and Italian; "Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains in 1845-46" (New York, 1847), translated into French and Flemish; "Voyage au grand désert en 1851" (Brussells, 1853): "Western Missions and Missionaries" (New York, 1863), translated into French; "New Indian Sketches" (New York, 1865).

Chittenden and Richardson, Life, Letters and Travels of Pierre Jean De Smet, S. J. (New York. 190.5). It contains many hitherto unpublished letters and a map of De Smet's travels; Deynoodt. P. J. De Smet, missionaire Belge aux Etats-Unis(Brussels. 1878); Palladino. Indian and White in the Northwest (Baltimore, 1894); U. S. Cath. Hist. Soc., Hist. Records and Studies (New York, 1907), VII.

Bibliography

Sources

• Killoren, John J. Come, Blackrobe': De Smet and the Indian Tragedy, The Institute of Jesuit Sources (2003), reprint of the University of Oklahoma Press (1994); ISBN 1-880810-50-6
• ——; Richardson, Alfred Talbot; De Smet, Pierre-Jean (1905). Life, letters and travels of Father Pierre-Jean de Smet, S.J., 1801-1873, Volume II. New York: Francis P. Harper.

External links

• Works by Pierre-Jean De Smet at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

• Peter John De Smet, S.J. (1801 - 1873) ~ Life and times of a Blackrobe in the West
• The Apostle of the Rocky Mountains: Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
• Pierre-Jean De Smet at Find a Grave
• Pieter-Jan De Smet in ODIS - Online Database for Intermediary Structures Archived 28 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine