Acculturation strategies: a policy of francization in a context of Jesuit mission in New France in first half of the XVII century

Abstract

Formation of the difficult and branched out network of the unions with the American Indian tribes, based on mutually advantageous economic and military-political relations was one of the main features of the French colonial regime in Canada of XVII century. As a result, in the first decades of XVII century the most outstanding representatives of secular and spiritual colonisation of New France (Champlain, Recollects and Jesuits) started working out the most effective strategy of Franco-Amerindian rapprochement and the cooperation, embodied in the program francization, i.e., ideas of acculturation and assimilation of the native population of Canada by Frenchmen as basic means of social and economic and political development of a colony. Catholic missionaries including members of a Jesuit order were interested in realisation of this program at the initial stage of development of new territories and formation of a colonial infrastructure, as material basis of their apostolate activity among the American Indian peoples. From this point of view, Civilisation of Indians on the French sample was considered priority in relation to Christianization. In the process of Jesuit mission network expansion among the cores of trading and military colony partners and the Jesuit missionary transformation into the main intermediary in Franco-Amerindian relations in the middle of XVII century, on the one hand, and growth of contradictions with the secular colonial power on a wide spectrum of problems (including trade in alcoholic drinks), Jesuits began to audit initial positions of the francization program, resulted in 2nd half of the century to full refusal of them and the statement of a primacy of the religious reference over the cultural.