Black Robe Historical Analysis Essay Example

1649 at the hands of Iroquois Native Americans.

Undoubtedly, the tribe with whom Father La Forgue has the most contact throughout the film Black Robe is the Algonquian tribe. The Algonquians were historically a nomadic tribe, making their role as guides for Father La Forgue credible. Consequently, their migratory lifestyle also presented the Jesuit missionaries with unique challenges in converting the Algonquians to Christianity, also suiting them to be the perfect group of Native Americans to be set in opposition to Father La Forgue’s beliefs in the film.

Interestingly, although the Algonquians oppose Father La Forgue in religious beliefs, they are depicted throughout the film as the “good” tribe of Native Americans, leading to the theory that Native Americans who submitted to European control of American land and resources are typically coded as “good”, while those who resisted European settlement are coded as “bad”. Further, the film is believed by some critics to further the theme from classic western films in which the old stereotype of the lone hero (Father La Forgue) and the inferior or menacing “injun” is perpetuated.

Another tribe with whom Father La Forgue had regular contact in the film Black Robe was the Montagnais, a faction of the Algonquian tribe who were also migratory. The portions of the film about the Montagnais drew heavily from documented history. The Jesuit priests’ efforts to convert the Montagnais in the seventeenth century included the argument (as La Forgue did with Daniel in the film) that Christianity was simply more sensible than the Algonquian ideas of religion.

The sorcerer in the film, Mestagoit, was based on a real Montagnais tribesman described

in Father Paul Le Jeune’s portion of the Jesuit Relations. Father Le Jeune tells of a winter he spent with the Montagnais as a guest of the chief whose brother was the sorcerer, Mestagoit. All through this winter, Father Le Jeune and Mestagoit clashed. The two men competed over their beliefs about religion, the true afterlife, and how their beliefs were reflected among the other Native Americans in the tribe.

He also outlines the smoke-filled sleeping tents and the gluttonous eating habits of the Montagnais tribesmen. Many of these same characteristics appear in the film Black Robe, although as those of the Algonquian tribe, with Mestagoit being the only Montagnais who appears with regularity in the film. The fictional sorcerer subjects Father La Forgue to the same historical treatment that the actual Mestagoit applied to Father Le Jeune in 1634.

Mestagoit tries to scare the “demon Black Robe” with loud noises, tells the Algonquians that they should kill La Forgue, and chastises the Algonquians for accepting the French’s gifts of flints, pots, and axes. A large inaccuracy in the film was the depiction of the Algonqians’ language. In Black Robe, the act of learning the native language of the Algonquians’ is portrayed as a commonality to many of the French. In reality, the native language was extensive and had extremely complicated vocabularies, with many variations, especially among the various tribes.

Where the Algonquian and Montagnais depiction was based mostly upon historical accuracies, the Iroquois depiction in the film Black Robe was based largely upon gross inaccuracies. While the Iroquois were known historically for their brutality, the “running of the gauntlet” that the

Frenchmen and Algonquian Chief Chomina had to complete was one of the only true Iroquois practices depicted in the film. The Iroquois in the film then deviate from history further to demonstrate “puzzling behavior” in the scenes within their encampment.

Traditionally, the Iroquois take young men captives and give them to someone in the tribe that has lost a loved one in order to replace the hole that had been left when their relative died. In the movie, the Iroquois kill Chief Chomina’s young son in front of him—a practice the Iroquois would not have endorsed. Further, the behavior of the Iroquois guards was inaccurate—they never would have had sex with a female prisoner or been posted outside at night on a watchtower in the dead of winter.

Probably the most glaring inaccuracy was that Iroquois tribes were generally led by female elders—none of whom are even seen in the film, much less consulted about the treatment of the prisoners. The final tribe encountered in Black Robe is the Huron tribe at the mission 1,500 miles from Samuel du Champlain’s fur trading outpost where Father La Forgue’s journey began. The Hurons were particularly suited to conversion because they were a more stationary tribe who relied on agriculture—a fact that made the very construction of a permanent mission possible.

In Black Robe, the Hurons were represented somewhat as “savages”; they were not true Christian converts, but had heard that the Christian “water sorcery” (baptism) could save their sick tribe members. At their own urging, they asked that Father La Forgue baptize them and become Christian converts, just as they had done in history.

The most historically accurate event is outlined in the final title at the end of the film—the ultimate destruction of the Huron mission by the Iroquois in 1649. The character of Father La Forgue is based upon many Jesuit missionaries from the seventeenth century.

Father La Forgue’s trip from Champlain’s fur trading outpost to the Huron mission is based upon Father Jean de Brebeuf’s similar trip outlined in the writings in the Jesuit Relations. Father Brebeuf had two French companions on his 1634 trek who were named Daniel and Davost, which interestingly formed the name of Father La Forgue’s companion in the film Black Robe. Father Le Jeune, another French Jesuit, wrote in the Jesuit Relations of his dislike for the Montagnais ways of life (smoke-filled tents, ill-mannered eating habits) that Father La Forgue also expresses during his journey.

Father Le Jeune, through all of his distaste for the Montagnais lifestyle, writes that it is for “the greater glory of God” to continue to spend time converting the Native Americans to Christianity, just as Father La Forgue does in the film Black Robe. The fictional Father La Forgue shares commonalities with another French Jestuit, Noel Chabanel, one of the Catholic martyrs of North America. Chabanel arrived at the Huron mission in 1643 and vowed to stay “with the Hurons until death,” much as Father La Forgue does near the end of the film with tears streaming down his face.

Chabanel’s vow (as well as Father La Forgue) is fulfilled when the seeming success of the Huron mission is decimated by the Iroquois in 1649. Ultimately, the film Black Robe provides a basic

historically accurate depiction of the French, Jesuits, Algonquian, Montagnais and Huron tribes, with a more loosely based presentation of the Iroquois tribe. Unfortunately, one of the largest shortcomings of the film is the exclusion of the fact that acceptance of Christianity was often a condition for a Native American tribe to have trading rights with the French.

More specifically for the film, Black Robe, this was often a condition for fur trading rights with Samuel du Champlain. The viewer’s ignorance of this fact when seeing the film leads one to view the brutality of the Iroquois towards the Algonquians and Hurons appear as “mindless and barbaric. ” In reality, the fur trade was a very lucrative business and a strong motivator for the Iroquois to attempt to interfere with the French/Algonquian and French/Huron alliances.