Jesuit Place Names in the United States

Abstract

PLACE NAMES OF RELIGIOUS ORIGIN in the United States are common enough to cause no wonderment. Missionaries or religiousminded pioneers of many faiths were strongly inclined to attach religious or biblical names to their missions and settlements. Among the earliest explorers were the Spanish and the French, who were nearly always accompanied by padres intent on Christianizing the natives. Whatever their national origin, these missionaries belonged to religious orders or congregations which are not always sufficiently differentiated in historical accounts. It is the purpose of this study to single out the names of places for which European Jesuit missionaries are in some way responsible. Although less successful as name givers than Franciscan and Dominican missionaries in areas once held by Spain, Jesuits nonetheless have a respectable number of names to their credit, particularly in the Great Lakes region and in the Mississippivalley. The Society of Jesus was founded in Paris in 1540 by the Basque ex-soldier, Ignatius of Loyola. Motivated by Counter-Refornlation zeal, it grew rapidly as an institute devoted chiefly to missionary and educational pursuits. Francis Xavier, a Spaniard closely associated with Ignatius, went out to the Orient. Other members of the Society bearing the nickname of Jesuits set out for the New World. Unlike many other missionaries, they tended to operate somewhat independently of civil authorities. Before the end of the seventeenth century Jesuits from western Europe explored large areas of the North American continent and founded hundreds of missions, to which they gave commemorative religious names.l Many of these missions disappeared as the Indians were pushed to the west, but a significant number survived and gave their names to