Jean de Lalande

          Not much is known of the early years of Jean de Lalande, including the date of his birth. A native of Dieppe, in Normandy, France, he arrived in New France in 1642 at the age of nineteen. Like his fellow North American Martyr, René Goupil, Lalande came to New France to serve in the missions with the Jesuits as a donné. Unique to the North American missions, donnés were laymen who, by contract, committed to serve the Jesuit missionaries. Life in the missions was difficult. Donnés worked to fish and hunt, prepare meals for the Jesuit priests, and assist them at Mass, among other things. They were also part of the evangelical effort, teaching converts, caring for the sick and helping construct the new mission posts.  The donnés were not paid compensation other than a promise to have their needs met by the Jesuits.   

         From 1642 to 1646, Jean de Lalande is believed to have been part of the Three Rivers mission.  Isaac Jogues, acting as an ambassador, had secured a fragile peace with the Mohawks and vowed to return to them to continue the work of bringing the Gospel to those in Iroquois lands.  Father Jerome Lalemant, the superior of the Jesuits in Quebec, selected Jean de Lalande to accompany Father Jogues.  Lalande accepted the assignment aware of the dangers.  In September 1646, Lalande, Jogues and some Hurons began the journey back to the Iroquois in Ossernenon.  Lalande had to handle the paddling for both him and Father Jogues, whose hands had been mutilated during the tortures he suffered in his prior imprisonment.  They had not made it too far south of Three Rivers, near the lower end of the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament, when they were captured by Mohawks.          

          Jean de Lalande and Isaac Jogues were held captive In Ossernenon. On October 18, 1646, Father Isaac ogues suffered his martyrdom, a tomahawk splitting open his skull. As many of the details we know of the North American Martyrs come from the letters of the Jesuits, including those of Isaac Jogues, we don’t know many of the details of what happened to Jean de Lalande after Jogues’ death. It seems fair to say that Lalande anticipated he would suffer the same fate. Accounts say, on October 19, 1646, Lalande was seized and killed. After their death, both Jogues and Lalande were beheaded, with their heads placed on pickets along the road leading to the village. Their bodies were dragged to the Mohawk River and have not been recovered. News of Laland’s death did not reach the New France colony for a year when some information from traders in the Dutch colonies and from a Mohawk prisoner. Today, pilgrims can visit the natural reliquary where Jean de Lalande (as well as Isaac Jogues and René Goupil) was martyred by taking a pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Martyrs Shrine in New York. Those grounds are also the birthplace of Kateri Tekakwitha, another of the saints featured on American Saints and Causes.