The Jesuit Relations A Biography

The Jesuit Relations, a series of annual reports produced between 1632 and 1673 detailing the experiences of Society of Jesus missionaries in what is now Eastern Canada, have long been an influential source on the history of New France and encounters between European settlers and Indigenous Peoples. The question of what exactly the Relations are, and who had a hand in composing the versions that circulated, has been given far less attention. The Jesuit "Relations" challenges conventional descriptions of these annual reports as narratives crafted solely by Jesuit missionaries. Micah True demonstrates that they were in fact shaped by a diverse array of contributors, including Indigenous people, lay settlers, nuns, editors in Paris, and readers in France. The Relations were also the product of contextual factors, he explains, such as the longstanding Jesuit epistolary tradition, the annual rhythms of the shipping schedule, and the Parisian book trade, and he details the connections between the published Relations and other texts written at the time.