Historical Sources for the Beginnings of Redemptorist Ministry with Native Americans, 1832–1837

Abstract The article explores the fraught early experience of Redemptorist missionaries to America. The standards set by this order’s rule often came into conflict with the realities on the ground. Supported by the Leopoldine Society, the first five years of the mission divided and impoverished the six pioneer missionaries from Vienna, bringing them to the brink of starvation, affecting relations with local bishops, as well as with the people they encountered. This article chronicles some of their exploits among the Mamaceqtaw near Green Bay and points to some underutilized resources to help reconstruct their early history. An understanding of early North American Redemptorist missionaries is useful not only for Church history, insofar as we can hope to understand the insertion of Roman Catholicism into the Great Lakes region in the 1830s, but also the way these men assisted Indigenous communities.