Antoine Daniel

Saint Antoine Daniel
Jesusit, Missionary, Martyr
Born	(1601-05-27)May 27, 1601 Dieppe, Normandy, France
Died	July 4, 1648(1648-07-04) (aged 47) Hillsdale, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
Canonized	June 29, 1930 by Pope Pius XI
Feast	October 19, September 26

Saint Antoine Daniel (27 May 1601 – 4 July, 1648) was a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, and one of the eight Canadian Martyrs.

Daniel was born at Dieppe, in Normandy. After two years' study of philosophy and one year of law, Daniel entered the Society of Jesus in Rouen on 1 October, 1621. He was sent as a missionary to Canada. He was slain by the Iroquois at Teanaostae, near what is now Hillsdale, Simcoe County, Ontario.

Daniel travelled to New France in 1633 and studied the Wendat (Huron) language. He was first stationed at Cape Breton (in what is now Nova Scotia), where his brother Captain Daniel had established a French fort in 1629. In 1634 he travelled to Wendake with Frs. Brébeuf and Daoust. For two years, in what is now Quebec, he had charge of a school for Indian boys, but with the exception of this period, he was connected with the mission at Ihonatiria, in Huron country, from July 1634, until his death fourteen years later.

In 1637, he was posted to Georgian Bay, and ministered there for ten years.

He returned to Teanaostaye in 1648. Shortly thereafter, the Iroquois made a sudden attack on the mission while most of the Huron braves were away.

On his return to Teanaostaye in July of 1648, the village came under attack by Iroquois forces. Father Daniel did all in his power to aid his people. Before the palisades had been scaled he hurried to the chapel where the women, children, and old men were gathered, gave them general absolution and baptized the catechumens. Daniel himself made no attempt to escape, but is reported to have calmly advanced to meet the enemy.

Fr. Daniel, in an effort to cause a diversion, took up a cross and walked towards the advancing Iroquois. Seized with amazement the Iroquois halted for a moment, then recovering themselves they fired on him. "The victim to the heroism of charity", writes Bancroft, "died, the name of Jesus on his lips, the wilderness gave him a grave; the Huron nation were his mourners" (vol. II, ch. xxxii). Here Bancroft is in error. Daniel's lifeless body was actually flung into the burning chapel and both were consumed. The majority of the Huron did escape during this incident.

Daniel was the second to be martyred among the Jesuits sent to New France, and the first of the missionaries to the Hurons. Father Ragueneau, his superior, speaks of him in a letter to the Superior General of the Jesuits as "a truly remarkable man, humble, obedient, united with God, of never failing patience and indomitable courage in adversity" (Thwaites, tr. Relations, XXXIII, 253-269).

Daniel was canonized by Pope Pius XI on 29 June, 1930.

References

• Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online