Gabriel Lalemant

Gabriel Lalemant (; 3 October 1610 – 17 March 1649) was a French Jesuit missionary in New France beginning in 1646. Caught up in warfare between the Huron and nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, he was killed in St. Ignace by Mohawk warriors and is one of the eight Canadian Martyrs.

Life Gabriel Lalemant was born in Paris, 3 October 1610, the son of a French lawyer and his wife.

In 1630 Lalemant joined the Jesuits, and in 1632 he took the vow to devote himself to foreign missions. He taught at the Collège in Moulins from 1632 to 1635. He was at Bourges from 1635 to 1639 studying theology

In September 1646 Gabriel arrived in Quebec, where he spent the first few months studying the Huron language and customs. François-Joseph Bressani, a fellow missionary in New France, referred to him as a man of extremely frail constitution. For the first two years Gabriel worked in and around Quebec and the trading center of Trois Rivières (Three Rivers). In September 1648 he was sent to Wendake, the land of the Wyandot (Huron), as an assistant to Jean de Brébeuf, and posted to the mission at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. In February 1649 he replaced Noël Chabanel at the mission of Saint Louis.

In March 1649, while most of the Huron warriors were away, 1,200 Iroquois attacked the settlement of Saint Ignace. A few survivors escaped to warn the village of St. Louis. Its eighty warriors fought to delay the attackers, trying to enable the elderly, women, and children to flee. Lalemant and Brébeuf remained with the warriors and were captured and taken to the nearby mission at Saint Ignace. Both were tortured before being killed: Jean Brebeuf died on 16 March 1649, and Gabriel Lalemant died on 17 March 1649.

His surname may be spelled either Lallemant or Lalemant by different references.

Gallery