history jesuit priests

If by New France you mean the French settlements in Canada/Northern America, there’s a lot available on the net.

At http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1145.html you find that they unknowingly introduced European diseases otherwise unknown in those terrritories

Some quotes from that site: ‘The Jesuit influence in northern North America was significant. The first French missionaries arrived in 1625, and a steady stream followed in later years. Known to native peoples as the Black Robes, the Jesuits concentrated their efforts on the dominant Huron, who probably numbered more than 30,000 at the time. Lesser attention was paid to the Iroquois.

‘The Jesuits lived with the tribes in their villages and were willing to probe deep into the interior; some traveled as far as present-day Oregon. Despite such diligent efforts, the number of actual converts remained small.

‘Tensions between the Jesuits and other Frenchmen in the area developed quickly. The root of the problem was the missionaries’ criticism of the use of alcohol in trade with the Indians. The natives quickly developed a dependence on the libation, making the task of conversion all the harder. Jesuit protests achieved their aim in 1662, when the French government outlawed the use of alcohol in the North American fur trade. The rule was hard to enforce; nevertheless, it embittered the majority of traders and trappers.

‘While the alcohol issue was being contested, another factor entered the picture — disease. The Jesuits brought with them such European maladies as influenza, smallpox, and measles; the Indians had no natural immunities to those diseases and began dying by the hundreds, later by the thousands. By 1650, the Huron numbers had been so drastically depleted that they were nearly wiped out by their weaker traditional enemy, the Iroquois. The Jesuits were blamed for the spread of disease and many were tortured and killed.

‘The record of the Jesuits in New France was mixed at best. The introduction of fatal diseases was, of course, unintended, but the effort to enforce an alien religion upon the natives was appreciated by very few. The missionaries were impervious to criticism on this score, believing that any inconvenience on the Indians’ part, was a small price to pay for salvation.’

See also www.chroniclesofamerica.com/french/jesuit_priests_in_new_france.htm and nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/settlement/text2/JesuitRelationsIndex.pdf -