Distinguished by Francis Parkman’s pictorial style, The Jesuits in North America opens with the arrival of French missionaries in Canada in 1632. The stage is set for the aggravation of old rivalries between the Huron and the Iroquois Indians. The Jesuits try to ensure the loyalty of the Hurons, suppliers of fur to the French, but find them resistant to religious conversion. The Iroquois, even more resistant, add the French to their list of enemies. Other factions enlist on one side or the other—French soldiers and anti-Catholic English, for example—but the dramatic pulse of Parkman’s narrative is provided by the Jesuits earnestly matriculating among the Indians, undergoing great hardship and occasionally embracing martyrdom.
