The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked by religious zeal of the counter reformation. Catholic missionaries, including those of the Jesuit Order, spread out all over the globe, to convert others to Catholisism and stem the growing tide of Protestantism in places like North America. One of the most prominent Jesuit missionaries in New England was Father Sebastian Rasle (Father Râle), who lived among the Abneki people for a quarter of century, before being killed by the English.
Early Life of Father Rasle
Father Rasle was raised in Pontalier, France and joined the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1675. After finishing his theological education, Father Rasle volunteered to travel to the New World in America in 1689. He worked among the Abneki people near Quebec for the first year and then traveled west to work among the Native Americans in Illinois at Kaskaskia. At this time he began learning the Abneki language. Eventually he would compile a complete dictionary of the Abneki language, which is now housed at Harvard College.
Father Rasle Establishes a Mission in Norridgewock, Maine
In 1694, Father Rasle traveled south to work among the Abneki people along the Kennebec River, in Central Maine, at what is now the town of Norridgewock. Father Râle built a small church, from which he taught the Abneki people the tenants of Catholicism. English settlers in the area were not happy about the Frenchman in their midst. Unlike the Jesuits, who thought the Natives of the area capable of conversion to Christianity, most English settlers viewed them savages.
In 1705, during Queen Anne’s War, tensions escalated between the English settlers and Father Rasle and the Abneki. The English attached the Mission at Norridgewock and burned the church down. Luckily Father Rasle was informed of the impending attack and fled to safety in the woods along the Kennebec River. He returned to mission and rebuilt the chapel.
Legacy of Father Rasle
Continuing hostilities between the English and the Natives continued even after the end of Queen Anne’s War. A price was placed on father Rasle’s head, because of his French influence over the local natives, who served as a barrier between New England and New France. In August, 1724 Father Rasle was attacked by the English, scalped and killed. His congregation buried him in underneath the altar where had given mass in the Abneki tongue. What remained of Father Ralse’s flock, about 150 Abneki, turned north and relocated in what is now Canada.
Today there is little that remains of Father Rasle in Norridgewock, save a road named after him that hugs the same stretch of Kennebec where he built his mission and stone grave marker (which is technically in the town of Madison, Maine). Prayers and a catechism used by the Penobscot and Passomaquody tribes of Maine are attributed to the teachings of Father Râle. The death of Father Rasle marked the beginning of the end of Native peoples in Central Maine to English settlers.
Sources:
The Norridgewock Historical Society
