Isaac Jogues was born January 10, 1607 in Orleans, France. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1624 and after having been professor of literature at Rouen, was sent as a missionary to Canada in 1636.
He was ordained to priesthood, July 2, 1636. In 1636 he was sent to Quebec, Canada, as a missionary to the Huron Indians. He was tortured and imprisoned by the Iroquois in 1642. The Dutch at fort Orange (Albany, New York) rescued him, and he returned to France in 1643. The following spring Isaac Jogues was entrusted with a peace mission to his torturers, and so he left France for Quebec. On September 24, 1646 (Auriesville, New York) Isaac was captured by a Mohawk war party. On October 18, 1646 his captors tomahawked him. He was with Garnier among the Petuns (one of the three huron Indians nations) , and he and Raymbault penetrated as far as Sault Ste Marie, and, “were the first missionaries,” says Bancroft (VII, 790, London, 1853), “to preach the gospel a thousand miles in the interior, five years before John Eliot…show more content… His plan was thwarted by his capture near three rivers returning from Quebec. There he remained for thirteen months in slavery, suffering apparently beyond the power of natural abundance. The Dutch Calvinists at Fort Orange (Albany) made constant efforts to free him, and at last, when he was about to be burnt to death, induced him to refuge in a sailing vessel which carried him to New Amsterdam (New York). His description of the colony as it was at that time has since been incorporated in the documentary history of the state. From New York he was sent; in mid-winter, across the ocean on a small sailing ship of only fifty tons burden and after a voyage of two months, landed Christmas morning, 1643, on the coast of Brittany, in a state of absolute destitution. From then on he found his way to the nearest college of the