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The European Indian: Jesuit Civilization Planning in New France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James P. Ronda
James P. Ronda
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of early American history in Youngstown State University, Ohio.
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Extract

Europeans who came to America from the sixteenth century on, came not to discover a new world but to re-create their own versions of Europe. Whether Spanish conquistador or Virginia planter, each hoped to make America and native Americans into the shape of idealized Europes and Europeans. Of all those who made such plans, it was the Society of Jesus that had sufficient authority and manpower to put its visions into practice. Jesuits who came to New France in the 1630s brought not only Christianity but a whole complex of European social and political values. To examine Jesuit “civilization planning” in New France is to see in microcosm a significant part of early European-Indian relations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 385 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1972

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References

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