CCHA, Historical Studies, 65 (1999),
107-124
North
America, 1610-58.
A
Comparative Assessment
Luca
Codignola
The idea of establishing missions in North
America was not foreign to the English Roman Catholic community and its clergy.
British historian David Beers Quinn has described some schemes that were
devised between 1581 and 1609 and that involved Catholic noblemen and
entrepreneurs.1 The
Jesuit Robert Parsons (1546-1610), perhaps the most influential ecclesiastic
behind the re-establishment of the mission in England in the late sixteenth
century, showed his enthusiasm towards the opportunities offered by the
conversion of the North American native peoples although he considered any such
enterprise to that effect “very prejudicial” to English Catholicism.2
The Discalced Carmelite Thomas Doughty (c.1576-1652, in religion Simon
Stock) did his utmost to convince the Holy See to support George Calvert, Baron
Baltimore (1580-1632), in his attempt to establish the Avalon colony in
Newfoundland, although he himself felt his presence was more useful at home.3
Yet practical initiatives were far and between. The Catholic community, which
represented about one per cent of the whole population,4
was not interested. According to English historian John Bossy, “it seems
exceptionally clear that English Catholics simply did not want to move out of
England.”5 As for their clergy, in
spite of the international exposure that had affected many who were obliged to
travel and reside abroad on account of religious persecution at home,6
very few manifested any wish to carry on their missionary activity in the new
North American environment. One must recall that, although the Crown had
unofficially recognized that Catholicism would not be eliminated by repression
and persecution alone, but rather by a policy of slow assimilation and
anglicization, in the early seventeenth century the practice of Catholicism was
illegal and priests could be jailed at any time and even sentenced to death.7
In this note I will examine the experience
of English North America during the years from 1610 to 1658. I will argue that
North America was indeed a low priority in the agenda of the Catholic
hierarchy, and that there was little agreement, if any, among the ecclesiastics
who were involved in missionary activity. Finally, I will show that, although
there is no evidence of any contact between the English and the French
missionary networks, their experiences in the New World differed in scope, but
followed exactly the same pattern.8
The first attempt to send Catholic
missionaries to English North America originated from the planting of the
Avalon settlement in Newfoundland. Ferryland was the centre of a colony
established in 1621 by the future Lord Baltimore, a member of the English Privy
Council who in 1624 had openly admitted his Catholicism. Just like the French
did in Acadia and Canada prior to 1632, in his colony Lord Baltimore
accommodated both Protestants and Catholics. This provided an opening for
Catholic missionaries, five of whom, three secular priests (or “seminary
priests,” as they were then known) and two Jesuits, did go to Ferryland, the
centre of the Avalon colony, between 1627 and 1629. In 1629 Calvert abandoned
Ferryland and set his eyes on Virginia, where his sons were able, some years
later, to establish the new colony of Maryland.
The overall number of the missionaries who
worked in Newfoundland between 1621 and 1629 is then minimal. In 1633, the
Catholic community in England was served by about 600 priests.9 A
detailed report compiled in 1637 by a careful observer, papal envoy
extraordinary Gregorio Panzani (c.1576-1662), reckoned there were in
England 500 secular priests, as many as 160 Jesuits and 100 Benedictines, 20
Franciscans, nine French Capuchins, seven Dominicans, five Discalced
Carmelites, two Minims, and one Carthusian monk.10
One must also concede, however, that the number of the Newfoundland
missionaries, if not their quality, sufficed for the colony’s sparse resident population,
not more than a few dozen at any given time, given the virtual absence of
contacts with the Beothuks.11
The origins and connections of the Avalon
missionaries were very diverse. Two of them, the secular priests Thomas
Longville (1598-after 1651) and Anthony Smith (c.1593-after 1629), were
rabid anti-Jesuits who, most likely, went to Newfoundland to escape troubles at
home. The former had been expelled from the Venerable English College in Rome,
while the latter was a former Jesuit who had been rejected by the order. Their
departure was probably due to their acquaintance with the Reverend John
Southcote (1588-1637), chaplain to Lady Aston, the wife of John Aston (d.1627),
who, a Catholic himself, was governor of Avalon during the winter 1625-6.12
Two others, on the contrary, were Jesuits, most probably Alexander Baker (c.1582-1638)
and the novice Henry Morley (1603-after 1648). There the influence of Tobie
Matthew (1577-1655), possibly a Jesuit in secret, could be discerned. Matthew
was a good friend of Lord Baltimore’s even before the latter’s conversion to
Catholicism, and was probably influential in convincing Lord Baltimore to side
with the Society of Jesus in its bitter dispute with the secular clergy led by
Richard Smith (1566-1655), the bishop in partibus of Chalcedon.13
In those years, the Catholic community was
indeed troubled not only by persecution from without, but also by dissent from
within. In fact, the regular orders and the secular priests fought violently on
the issue of whether the church was to be ruled in a traditional way, with a
bishop and his hierarchy, or as a mission territory, with each community acting
independently of the others. For a short time, between 1625 and 1627, Smith,
the newly-arrived ordinary, tried to impose his own rule upon the regular
orders, but to no avail. Disavowed by the Holy See, Smith left the country in
1631 and the communities were again left to their own means.14
Between 1624 and 1629 the Avalon colony
caught the imagination of Stock, an English Discalced Carmelite priest in his
late 40s active in the London-Canterbury area. Stock, a well-travelled priest
who had studied in Belgium and in Rome, knew many languages, and had written
several books, met and, according to his own version, converted Lord Baltimore
in 1624. Stock’s hope to send some of his confrères to Avalon met with the
opposition of the superiors of his order and of most of his confrères. For one
thing, they accused him of refusing to join the Avalon mission himself, and, to
make sure that Stock’s project was not picked up by somebody else, they
doctored a report on Newfoundland that they had received from one of Stock’s
companions in England, John Hiccocks (c.1588-1647, in religion Bede of
the Blessed Sacrament), so that the new garbled version would make Stock’s
project meaningless. Just as the Jesuit upper echelons regarded Canada and Acadia
as a waste of time, so did the Discalced Carmelites regard Avalon when this was
compared to the missionary effort to be made in their Middle East missions.15
In sum, the missionaries who were involved,
successfully or not, in the short-lived Avalon mission had very little in
common. One common element was their age, as, with one exception, their average
age at the time of departure was about 30. Another was the fact that most of
them had studied or worked in the Belgian colleges, some of them in Spain and
Italy. As mentioned above, this occurrence was quite common among English
ecclesiastics, given the religious persecution and the absence of seminaries or
schools at home. Yet the missionaries differed in everything else and showed
evidence of mutual distrust. Of those who went to Avalon, some belonged to the anti-Jesuit
party, some were Jesuits. None, in spite of his claims to the contrary, had any
connection with Stock, who did not convince any of his Discalced Carmelite
confrères to join the mission that he did not want to join himself. Lastly,
with regard to the spreading of information regarding the New World, we should
point out that Lord Baltimore’s tacit experiment in religious tolerance in
Newfoundland was an unknown entity to his contemporaries. Although much was
written on the island in the 1610s and early 1620s, his failure made the Avalon
colony fall into a well-deserved literary oblivion (see Table 1).
The second attempt to send Roman Catholic
missionaries to English North America is linked to the short-lived experiment
in Catholicism which took place in Maryland, a direct outcome of the failure of
the aborted Avalon colony. In 1629 Lord Baltimore abandoned Newfoundland and
set sail for Virginia, taking with him some forty settlers and most probably
his two Jesuits, Baker and Morley. Since on religious grounds he was refused
permission to reside there, Lord Baltimore returned to England, where he died
in 1632 before being able to return to North America. His son, Cecil Calvert
(1606-1675), inherited the title and the new colony that his father had been
granted north of the Potomac River, and sent there his brother Leonard Calvert
(1610/1-47) as governor in 1633. Maryland became the only colony in English
North America where, from 1634 to 1654, something similar to the contemporary
French Jesuit experiment among the Hurons of present-day Ontario took place. As
with their northern confrères, the Maryland Jesuits started off with the idea
of converting the local Indians,16
but after the Protestants first invaded the colony in 1645 and in 1654 made it
an offense to practice Catholicism, they contented themselves with the already
difficult task of keeping the faith among their few co-religionists. In fact,
after 1645 Maryland became a Protestant colony like all the others, but the
colony remained the core of American Catholicism until the age of the War of
American Independence, when the English province of the Society of Jesus’s
jurisdiction over all the continental British North America was terminated.17
In 1633 three Jesuits accompanied Leonard
Calvert to the newly-founded colony. In total, eighteen Jesuits (fourteen
priests and four lay brothers) were sent to Maryland and neighbouring Virginia
between 1633 and 1658. There were never more than five of them in the colony at
the same time (1638).18
Here again, the historian is struck by the paucity of the ecclesiastical
personnel, especially when conpared to the magnitude of the Society of Jesus,
which, founded in 1534 and approved in 1540, had missions all over Europe,
besides those in Asia (begun 1541) and in Iberian America (begun 1566).19 In
1638 the English province of the Society of Jesus, which enjoyed responsibility
over the Maryland-Virginia mission, had five of its members there, against an
overall membership at its disposal of 347 (237 priests and 44 lay brothers),
besides another 159 students at various levels.20
Yet these figures are not unreasonable, when placed in the proper North
Atlantic context. In fact, the proportion between the priests who were active
in English North America and their counterparts who had remained in England was
in line with the difference in population between the colonies and the mother
country. The overall population of the Upper South, where most of the
English-speaking Catholics resided, in 1660 had 24,000 residents of European
origin, whereas almost at the same time (1656) England had 5,470,000
inhabitants.21 Lastly, and similarly to
Newfoundland, there is no pattern in the lives and careers of these priests
that shows any kind of special departure point, except the usual stint in
foreign colleges and the average age of the priests at the time of arrival in
Maryland, which was in the upper 30s (see Table 2).
Information on their activities is almost
non-existent, and even within the order it was difficult to keep track of them.
Two small pamphlets were published, one in 1633, only a few months prior to the
three Jesuits’ departure for Maryland, and another in 1634. Some excerpts from
the eight-page Declaration of the Lord Baltemore’s Plantation in Mary-Land,
written by Andrew White (1579-1656), the first superior, and revised by Cecil
Calvert, were translated into Italian and reached Rome, where it had no visible
effect. The second pamphlet was White’s fourteen-page Relation of the
Successefull Beginnings of the Lord Baltemore’s Plantation in Maryland.22
One can easily conclude that there was no major difference between the French
Jesuit network in Canada and Acadia and the English Jesuit one in Maryland,
except for the former's celebrity, mainly due to the printing of their
relations. Maryland was indeed a very minor enterprise of the London province
of the Society of Jesus. We are not aware of any dissension among the Jesuits
who participated in the Maryland mission. Yet any evidence thereof would have
been unwarranted, as these priests were all under the jurisdiction of the same
province and probably shared their previous experiences. In total, then, the
ecclesiastics who between 1627 and 1658 were sent to the missions of English
North America were twenty-two, far from less than one a year (see Table 3).
We know of a third and last attempt to send
Catholic missionaries to English North America. This was apparently not
prompted by the superiors of the Jesuit mission, and might suggest a competing,
or at least uncoordinated, effort on the part of another group of
ecclesiastics. Sometime in early 1641 the Sacred Congregation “de Propaganda
Fide,” the department of the Holy See established in 1622 to plan and
co-ordinate missionary activities, received an unsigned petition which was
supported by an interested “English gentleman,” then in Rome. The petition
asked for English secular priests for the Maryland colony and mentioned Leonard
Calvert’s support. In the late summer the former nuncio in Brussels, Carlo
Rossetti (1614-1681), archbishop in partibus of Tarsus, who was in
charge of the English mission and had been asked to enquire, forwarded to Rome
a detailed report on Maryland and a list of fourteen priests, apparently not
members of the Society of Jesus, who were deemed “apter to withstand” the
difficulties of the new mission.23
Although they were, on average, somewhat older than the Maryland Jesuits, the
background of the five priests that I was able to identify is very similar to
the latter, as they had all studied in Spain or Belgium and came from different
regions of England (see Table 4).
In the end, however, none of the seminary
priests listed by Rossetti was sent to Maryland to join forces with or, more
likely, to compete with the local Jesuits. In fact, far from being an example
of sought co-operation, this occurrence is further evidence of the strained
relationship between Propaganda and the Society of Jesus. Disregarding the fact
that the Maryland mission had been entrusted, from its very beginning, to the
London Jesuits, the initial petition asked explicitly for secular priests.
Furthermore, the nuncio was entrusted with the selection of the missionaries,
and the assistance of the Spanish or Venetian embassies in London was
suggested. Neither the London province of the Society of Jesus nor the upper
echelons of the Society in Rome would be mentioned in the correspondence
between Rome and Rossetti, were it not in order to emphasize the declining
number and strength of the Maryland missionaries. This strained relationship
should not come as a surprise. In fact, we well know that, ever since the
establishment of Propaganda, the Society of Jesus had maintained a closed-door
policy towards the new co-ordinating missionary agency because the latter had
refused to extend to the New World the so-called missionary “privileges”
enjoyed by the Jesuits in the East Indies. Until the 1650s, when relations did
somewhat improve, even the exploits of the Canadian Jesuits were an unknown
entity to the officials of Propaganda.24
In a forthcoming article,25 I
have examined the geographical, family and educational background of the
ecclesiastics who left for French North America; the rationale behind their
departure; the length of their stay and the career of those who returned to
Europe; finally, the spreading of information regarding the New World. The
evidence shows, I pointed out, that only 179 to 182 male and 25 female
ecclesiastics, at all levels, 204 to 207 in total, left Europe for Canada and
Acadia between 1610 and 1658. On average, it was as if the ecclesiastics who
left the French ports for North America during almost half a century were just
over four a year. I concluded that North America was a rather low priority in
the overall aims of the active members of the Roman Catholic church, and that,
as a consequence, the networks of people who were involved in the
evangelization of French North America, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean,
were numerically very small. The age of these ecclesiastics, both male and
female, I also showed, had nothing extraordinary, and their regional provenance
confirmed that they came from a great variety of regions, just like the rest of
the emigrants. Yet the proportion between priests and nuns who were active in
French North America and their counterparts who had remained in France was
strikingly in line with the difference in population between the colonies and
the mother country. Thus, I argued, the above figures were not unreasonable,
when placed in the proper North Atlantic context. Finally, I showed that those
who were involved in the evangelization of French North America took for
granted their being part of God’s grand design, but differed in almost
everything else. The group allegiances of the missionaries (seculars priests,
Sulpicians, Jesuits, Recollets, Capuchins, Minims, Cordeliers, Ursulines,
Augustines Hospitalières) were much more significant, in practical terms, than
their common belonging to the Catholic church. In sum, between 1610 and 1658
there was little co-operation between the several Catholic networks, and
hostility within the church was almost as evident (see Table 5).
The evidence presented in this note seems
to point to the fact that the experiences of the English and French clergy in
North America followed exactly the same pattern, although they differed in
scope, given the larger number of missionaries employed by the latter and the
visibility of the printed Jesuit reports. The two experiences, however, did not
differ as far as the age and regional provenance of the missionaries was
concerned, and in both instances North America was a rather low priority.
Overall, the missionaries were quite few, 226 to 229 over a period of 49 years
(1610-58), that is, less than five a year (see Table 6). In the case of the
missionaries of English origin, these were 22 over a period of 32 years
(1627-58), that is, less than one a year. Yet the number of the missionaries
was in line with the difference in population between the colonies and their
mother countries. As for the absence of co-operation, if not outright
hostility, among missionaries, the short Avalon experience and Rossetti’s
attempt at intruding in Jesuit Maryland provide yet further evidence of such an
attitude. Projects were conceived and protected as secrets within individual
groups, and the few ecclesiastics who crossed the bridge between groups, such
as Stock, were banished. In these early years, even Propaganda was quite simply
a group among others, in spite of its representing the pope and the Holy See in
general, and its attempts to fulfill its co-ordinating role doomed to utter
failure. Quite clearly, there was no involvement of the Catholic church per se.
Rather, there were several initiatives, whose promoters or actors showed no
inclination to share with others.
TABLES
For
the sake of clarity, to calculate the years of residence of each missionary I
have computed all the calendar years between arrival and departure (or death).
This is a rather subjective exercise, as winters, not calendar years, should be
accounted for, were more accurate data available. Names listed in italics
indicate previous visits to North America (there is only one extant case, that
of Alexander Baker). In order to calculate the total number of missionaries,
these are entered only once, at the time of their first visit. Data have been
collated from a variety of archival and printed sources, all listed in the
article’s notes.
TABLE
1
Avalon
mission in Newfoundland 1627-9
|
name |
location |
status |
period |
years |
age,
origin |
|
?Baker, Alexander |
Ferryland |
SJ priest |
1629 |
1 |
Norfolk, c.1582-1638 |
|
Hacket, alias Anthony Whitehair? |
Ferryland |
secular |
1628-9? |
1+ |
Sussex, 1594-after 1653 |
|
Longville, Thomas |
Ferryland |
secular |
1627 |
1 |
near Stony Stratford, Bucks.,
1598-after 1651 |
|
?Morley, Henry, alias Lawrence Rigby |
Ferryland |
SJ novice |
1629 |
1 |
Bury, Lancashire, 1603-after 1648 |
|
Smith, Anthony, alias Pole or
Rivers |
Ferryland |
secular, SJ until 1622 or shortly
thereafter |
1627-9 |
3 |
London, c.1593-after 1629 |
Ecclesiastics 5 (4 priests, 1 novice).
Years 3, ecclesiastics per year 1.66
TABLE
2
Jesuits
priests in Maryland and Virginia
1633-58
|
names |
location |
period |
years |
origin,
age |
|
Baker, Alexander |
Virginia or Maryland |
1634-5 |
2 |
Norfolk, c.1582-1638 |
|
Bradford, Thomas |
Maryland |
1656 |
1 |
1612-68 |
|
Cooper, John |
Maryland Virginia |
1643-6 |
4 |
Hampshire, c.1610-46 |
|
Darby, Francis, alias
Fitzherbert |
Maryland Virginia |
1654-1661/2 |
8+ |
1613-87 |
|
Drury, John, aliasor vere Abington |
Virginia or Maryland |
1634-5 |
2 |
London, c.1605-63 |
|
Fisher, Philip, alias Thomas Copley |
Maryland (in London 1645) |
1637-45, 1648-52 |
14 |
Madrid, c.1596-1652 |
|
Gervase, Thomas |
Maryland |
1633-7 |
5 |
Derbyshire, c.1590-1637 |
|
Grosvenor, John, alias Gravener |
Maryland |
1633-40 |
8 |
Warwickshire, c.1589-1640 |
|
Hartwell, Bernard |
Maryland Virginia |
1643-6 |
4 |
Buckinghamshire, c.1607-46 |
|
Knowles, John |
Maryland |
1637 |
1 |
Staffordshire, c.1604-37 |
|
Morley, Walter |
Maryland |
1638-41 |
4 |
London, c.1589-1641 |
|
Payton, Thomas |
Maryland |
1658-60 |
3 |
1607-60 |
|
Poulton, Ferdinand, alias John Brooke, William
Brooks, &Ferdinand Palmer |
Maryland |
1638-41 |
4 |
Burton, Buckinghamshire, c.1602-41 |
|
Rigbie, Roger, alias or vere Knowles |
Maryland Virginia (in London 1645) |
1641-6 |
6 |
Lancashire, c.1608-46 |
|
Rogers, Francis |
Maryland |
1635-6 |
2 |
Norfolk, c.1599-1660 |
|
Sankey, Lawrence, alias Starkey |
Maryland Virginia |
1648-57 |
10 |
1606-57 |
|
White, Andrew |
Maryland (in London 1645) |
1633-45 |
13 |
London, c.1579-1656 |
|
Wood, John |
Maryland |
1635-6 |
2 |
Devon, c.1587-1664 |
Ecclesiastics
18 (14 priests, 4 lay brothers), of whom 17 newcomers (all except Baker)
Years
26, ecclesiastics per year 0.65
Grosvenor
seems to have replaced, at the last minute, Timothy Hays (c.1584-1646), from
Dorset or London, as the latter is in the 1633 catalogue, but not in the one of
the following year
TABLE
3
Summary:
ecclesiastics in English North America, 1610-58
|
status |
location |
period |
years |
number |
|
SJ |
Newfoundland Maryland |
1629-58 |
26 |
19 |
|
secular |
Newfoundland |
1627-9 |
3 |
3 |
|
total ecclesiastics |
Newfoundland Maryland |
1627-58 |
32 |
22 |
Years
32, ecclesiastics per year 0.68
TABLE
4
England,
list of prospective missionaries for Maryland 1641
|
names |
status |
varia |
origin,
age |
|
Biddulph, Andrew, alias Fitton |
secular |
studied in Belgium and Spain |
Staffordshire, 1605-61 |
|
Blacke, Thomas |
secular |
|
|
|
Britton |
secular? |
a doctor in theology |
|
|
Harrington, Mark, alias Drury
and Metham |
secular |
studied and taught in
Spain, Belgium, France, Portugal, a canon in 1641 |
Yorkshire, 1592-after 1653 |
|
Fitton |
secular? |
|
|
|
Harrison |
secular? |
|
|
|
Holden |
secular? |
|
|
|
Layborn |
secular? |
|
|
|
Nelson (?Olson) |
secular? |
|
|
|
Page (?Gage), George |
secular? |
|
|
|
Redman, William |
secular |
studied in Belgium and
Spain |
Yorkshire, 1581-after
1641 |
|
Strickland, Nicholas, alias
Middleton |
secular |
studied and taught in
Belgium |
Yorkshire or Westmorland,
1609-before 1645 |
|
Trollope |
secular |
|
|
|
Pettinger, John, alias John
Wentworth and Hidalgo |
secular |
studied in Spain |
fl.1624-41 |
Ecclesiastics
14 (these have not been computed in the overall number of missionaries)
TABLE
5
Summary:
male and female ecclesiastics in New France, 1610-58
|
status |
location |
period |
years |
number |
|
secular priests |
Acadia |
1610 |
1 |
1 |
|
SJ |
Acadia |
1611-3 |
3 |
4 |
|
OFM Rec |
Canada Acadia |
1615-29 |
15 |
22 |
|
SJ |
Canada Acadia |
1625-30 |
6 |
11 |
|
SJ |
Canada Acadia |
1632-58 |
27 |
62 |
|
PSS |
Canada |
1657-8 |
2 |
4 |
|
secular priests |
Canada Acadia |
1634-58 |
25 |
8 |
|
OFM Cor |
Acadia |
1651 |
1+ |
1 |
|
OFM Rec |
Cap-Sable, in Acadia |
1630-45 |
16 |
6+ |
|
OFM Cap |
La Hève, in Acadia |
1632-5? |
4 |
3/6 |
|
OFM Cap |
Acadia New England |
1639-56 |
18 |
57 |
|
OSU |
Canada |
1639-58 |
20 |
11 |
|
AMJ |
Canada |
1639-58 |
20 |
14 |
|
total ecclesiastics |
Canada Acadia New England |
1610-58 |
49 |
204/207 |
Years
49, ecclesiastics per year 4.16/4.22
AMJ=Augustines
Hospitalières de la Misericorde de Jésus, Cap=Capuchins, Cor=Cordeliers,
OFM=Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans), OSU=Order of Ste. Ursula (Ursulines),
PSS=Society of Priests of St. Sulpice (Sulpicians), Rec=Recollets, SJ=Society
of Jesus (Jesuits)
TABLE
6
Summary:
male and female ecclesiastics in
French
and English North America, 1610-58
|
status |
location |
years |
period |
number |
|
secular priests |
Acadia Canada
Newfoundland |
1610-58 |
49 |
12 |
|
SJ |
Acadia Canada Newfoundland
Maryland |
1611-58 |
48 |
96 |
|
OFM Rec |
Canada Acadia |
1615-45 |
31 |
28+ |
|
OFM Cap |
Acadia New England |
1632-56 |
25 |
60/63 |
|
OFM Cor |
Acadia |
1651 |
1+ |
1 |
|
PSS |
Canada |
1657-8 |
2 |
4 |
|
OSU |
Canada |
1639-58 |
20 |
11 |
|
AMJ |
Canada |
1639-58 |
20 |
14 |
|
Total |
Acadia
Canada Newfoundland Maryland
New England |
1610-58 |
49 |
226/229+ |
Years
49, ecclesiastics per year 4,61/4,67
1
David Beers Quinn, England and the Discovery of America 1471-1620. From the
Bristol Voyages of the Fifteenth Century to the Pilgrim Settlement at Plymouth:
The Exploration, Exploitation, and Trial-and-Error Colonization of North
America by the English (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973), 364-97.
2
Stonyhurst College Library, Ms Anglia III, no. 53, Robert Persons, SJ, to
Tristram Winslade, Rome, 18 March 1605; printed in Quinn et al., New
American World. A Documentary History of North America to 1612, III: The
Extension of Settlement in Florida, Virginia, and the Spanish Southwest
(New York: Arno Press and Hector Bye, 1979), 364-5; John Bossy, “Reluctant
Colonists: The English Catholics Confront the Atlantic,” in Quinn, ed., Early
Maryland in a Wider World (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982),
152-4.
3
Luca Codignola, The Coldest Harbour of the Land. Simon Stock and Lord
Baltimore’s Colony in Newfoundland, 1621-1649 (Kingston and Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988).
4 It
is rather difficult to calculate the number of Catholics in the British
continental colonies. The one per cent figure applies to the eve of the War of
American Independence and corresponds exactly to the same figure in England.
See Codignola, “The Policy of Rome towards the English-Speaking Catholics in
British North America, 1750-1830,” in Terrence Murphy and Gerald John Stortz,
eds., Creed and Culture. The Place of English-Speaking Catholics in Canadian
Society, 1750-1930 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press,
1993), 101. A 1641 report on Maryland mentions 400 inhabitants, of whom 100
were Catholic (Archives of the Sacred Congregation “de Propaganda Fide,”
Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali [hereafter APF,
SOCG], vol. 141, ff.348rv-349rv, [Carlo Rossetti], to [the Sacred Congregation
“de Propaganda Fide”], [Ghent, 7 September 1641]). Documents describing the end
of the Avalon colony in Newfoundland in 1629 mention some forty Catholic
settlers leaving for Virginia, others having already left for England, and some
thirty Protestant fishermen being left in the settlement (George Calvert, Baron
Baltimore, to Francis Cottington, Ferryland, 18/28 August 1629, in Lawrence C.
Wroth, “Tobacco or Codfish. Lord Baltimore Makes His Choice,” Bulletin of
the New York Public Library, 58 (1954), 527; Public Record Office, Colonial
Office 1, 5, 27, Lord Baltimore to
Charles I, Ferryland, 19/29 August 1629; APF, SOCG, vol. 100, ff.263rv, 266rv,
Stock, OCD, to [Propaganda], London, 1 January 1631; printed in Codignola, Coldest
Harbour, 122.
5 Bossy, “Reluctant Colonists,” 158.
6
Ibid., 154-5.
7
Ibid, 151. For a general overview of the English church, see Bossy, The
English Catholic Community 1570-1850 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1975). On the English secular priests, see Godfrey Anstruther, OP, The
Seminary Priests. A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales
1558-1800, Ware, Durham and Great Wakering: St. Edmund’s College, Ushaw
College and Mayhew-McCrummon, 1968-1977, II: Early Stuarts 1603-1659,
1975; and Dominic Aidan Bellenger, English and Welsh Priests 1558-1800,
(Bath: Downside Abbey, 1984). On the English Jesuits, see Thomas M. McCoog,
SJ, ed., Monumenta Angliae. English and Welsh Jesuits. Catalogues
(1555-1640) (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1992); and
Francis Edwards, SJ, The Jesuits in England. From 1580 to the Present Day
(Turnbridge Wells: Burn & Oates, 1985), 17-82. On the Benedictines, David
Lunn, The English Benedictines, 1540-1688. From Reformation to Revolution
(London: Burn & Oates, and New York: Barnes & Nobles, 1980).
8
Although the earliest English missionaries reached the North American soil only
in 1627, I have used the 1610-58 time frame in order to make it possible a
comparison with the French experience, that I have examined in Codignola,
“Competing Networks: The Roman Catholic Clergy in French North America,
1610-58,” The Canadian Historical Review (1999), forthcoming
9
Bossy, “Reluctant Colonists,” 149.
10
APF, SOCG, vol. 347, ff.487rv-517rv, Relazione Dello Stato della Religione
Cattolica in Inghilterra Data alla S[anti]ta di N[ostro] S[ignore] Vrbano VIII
da Gregorio Panzani nel suo ritorno da quel Regno hanno 1637. For a very good
statistical overview of the English clergy, see Bellenger, English and Welsh
Priests, 246-8.
11
One should recall that the Avalon mission was contemporary to the earliest
French Jesuit and Recollet attempts in Canada and Acadia. The French Jesuits
sent 12 priests or lay brothers there between 1625 and 1630, whereas the French
Recollets sent 22 priests and lay brothers between 1615 and 1629. See
Codignola, “Competing Networks.”
12
Codignola, Coldest Harbour, 43-4, 163.
13
APF, SOCG, vol. 347, ff.487rv-517rv, [Panzani], Relazione, f.511r; Bossy,
“Reluctant Colonists,” 162-3; Codignola, Coldest Harbour, 44, 53-4, 164,
169. McCoog, ed., Monumenta Angliae, curiously does not record any
Jesuit presence in Ferryland, although the book itself is an in-depth analysis
providing much needed background to both the Avalon and Maryland colonies.
Alexander Baker was the only Avalon priest who returned to North America. He
spent the winter of 1634-5 in Maryland.
14 On
the dispute between Bishop Smith and the regulars, see Codignola, Coldest
Harbour, 31, 41, 162; Philip Hughes, Rome and Counter-Reformation in
England (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1944), 347-77; Lunn, English
Catholic Community, 54-7; Bossy, “Reluctant Colonists,” 157.
15
Reports in Archivio Generale dell’Ordine dei Carmelitani Scalzi, Litterae,
Bede, 271.h, ff.3rv-4rv (original); APF, SOCG, vol. 189, ff.347rv-8rv
(doctored). See Codignola, Coldest Harbour, 26-9.
16 On
the general framework of the Indian missions, with information on the sparse pre-1610
activity, see Codignola, “The Holy See and the Conversion of the Indians in
French and British North America, 1486-1760,” in Karen Ordahl Kupperman, ed., America
in European Consciousness, 1493-1750 {Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1995), 195-242.
17
The most recent and best summary of the Jesuit mission is James L. Axtell,
“White Legend: The Jesuit Missions in Maryland,” Maryland Historical
Magazine, 81 (1986), 1-7; reprinted in Axtell, After Columbus. Essays in
the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1988), 73-85. See also the well-documented, but rather
confused account by Thomas Aloysius Hughes, SJ, History of the Society of
Jesus in North America Colonial and Federal. Text and Documents (London:
Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907-17), [I]: From the First Colonization Till
1645, 1907, 145-564. On the end of the Jesuit jurisdiction, see Codignola,
“Policy of Rome,” 101-02.
18
The French Jesuits sent 68 priests or lay brothers to Canada and Acadia between
1632 and 1658. See Codignola, “Competing Networks.”
19 L.
Szilas,”Les fondations des Jésuites en Europe jusqu’en 1615,” in Hubert Jedin,
Kenneth S. Latourette and Jochen Martin, eds., Atlas d’histoire de l’église.
Les églises chretiennes hier at aujourd’hui (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990 [1st
ed.: Atlas zur Kirghengeschichte. Die Christlichen Kirchen in Geschichte und
Gegenwart, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1970]), 58, 78; also 60-64, 84-85, 89-90.
Also John W. O’Malley, SJ, The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1993); and O’Malley, “The Society of Jesus,” in Richard L.
DeMolen, ed., Religious Orders of the Catholic Reformation. In Honor of John
C. Olin on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (New York: Fordham University Press,
1994), 138-63.
20
Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, Angl. 10, ff.190rv-197rv, Catalogus;
printed in McCoog, ed., Monumenta Angliae, II: 181-92. Biographical
information on the missionaries of the English province of the Society of Jesus
in McCoog, ed., Monumenta Angliae, 88-99, 117-28, 162-74, 181-92, 327-8,
340, 342, 534-5. McCoog’s Monumenta stops in 1640. For the following
period we still have to rely on a 1917 list which contains a very useful
catalogue, with biographical notices, of the 144 Jesuit missionaries who were
active in the British continental colonies between 1632 and the second half the
eighteenth century. See Hughes, History, [II]: From 1645 till 1773,
1917, 676-704.
21
John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British America,
1607-1789 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985),
136; R.A. Houston, “The Population History of Britain and Ireland 1500-1750,”
in Michael Anderson, ed., British Population History. From the Black Death
to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 118.
22 Andrew White, SJ, [and Cecil Calvert], A
Declaration of the Lord Baltemore’s Plantation in Mary-Land, nigh upon
Virginia: manifesting the Nature, Quality, Condition, and rich Vtilities it
contayneth (London: 1633); manuscript excerpts translated into Italian in
APF, SOCG, vol. 347, ff.376rv-377rv; White, A relation of The successefull
beginnings of the Lord Baltemore’s Plantation in Mary-land. Being an extract of
certaine Letters written from thence, by some of the Adventurers, to their
friends in England. To which is added, The Conditions of plantation propounded
by his Lordship for the second voyage intended this present yeere
([London:] 1634).
23
APF, SOCG, vol. 402, ff.112rv, 116rv, Catholics of Maryland to Propaganda,
[1641]; copy in APF, SOCG, vol. 402, ff.193rv, 209rv (notes appended to the
latter mention the interest of a “Gentilhuomo Inglese”); APF, Lettere, vol. 20,
f.169v, [Propaganda] to Rossetti, Rome, 13 July 1643; APF, Lettere, vol. 20,
f.188rv, [Propaganda] to Rossetti, Rome, 24 August 1641; APF, SOCG, vol. 141,
ff.346rv, 351rv, Rossetti to [Propaganda], Ghent, 7 September 1641 (“più idonei
a sustenere”); APF, SOCG, vol. 141, ff.347rv, 350rv, [Rossetti] to
[Propaganda], [Ghent, 7 September 1641] (list); copy of the latter in ASV,
Segreteria di Stato, Inghilterra, vol. 4, f.58rv; APF, SOCG, vol. 141,
ff.348rv-349rv, [Rossetti] to [Propaganda], [Ghent, 7 September 1641] (report).
24 A
general discussion of the relationship between Propaganda and the Society of
Jesus and the latter’s faculties over North America is in Lucien Campeau, SJ, L’évêché
de Québec (1674). Aux origines du premier diocèse érigé en Amérique française
(Québec: La Societé Historique de Québec, 1974), 33-49; in Codignola, Guide
to Documents Relating to French and British North America in the Archives of
the Sacred Congregation “de Propaganda Fide” in Rome, 1622-1799 (Ottawa:
National Archives of Canada, 1991), 7-8; and, most recently, in Matteo
Sanfilippo, “Tra curia di Roma e corte di Francia: la fondazione della diocesi
di Québec (1631-1674),” in Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta
Visceglia, eds., La corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento “Teatro” della
politica europea (Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 1998), 481-507. See also the
documents printed in Campeau, ed., Monumenta Novae Franciae (Rome,
Québec and Montréal: Monumenta Hist. Soc. Iesu, Institutum Historicum Soc.
Iesu, Les Presses de l’Université Laval and Les Éditions Bellarmin, 1967-1996 to date), II: Établissement à
Québec (1616-1634) (1979), 87-91, 279-80; III: Fondation de la mission
huronne (1635-1637) (1987), 482-4; IV: Les grandes épreuves (1638-1640)
(1989), 13-16, 57-61, 209-10, 250-2; V: La bonne nouvelle reçue (1641-1643)
(1990), 570-1, 591-2, 626-7; VI: Recherche de la paix (1644-1646)
(1992), 320-1, 438, 517-8, 537-8, 542; VII: Le témoignage du sang
(1647-1650) (1994), 233-7. To these, the following documents should be
added: APF, SOCG, vol. 74, ff.196rv, 201rv, Alessandro Bichi to Francesco
Barberini, Paris, 16 April 1632; APF, Lettere, vol. 19, f.48rv, [Propaganda] to
Le Jeune, Rome, 14 May 1639; APF, SOCG, vol. 417, ff.287rv, 290rv, [Jérôme
Lalemant] to Propaganda, [1647].
25
Codignola, “Competing Networks.”