Pierre Millet

Pierre Millet (Milet) (19 November, 1635 at Bourges – December 31, 1708 at Quebec) was a French Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois people in the area that is now New York State.

Life Having graduated Master of Arts, he entered the Society of Jesus at Paris on 3 October 1655, studied philosophy at La Fleche (1657-58), taught various classes there (1658–61) and at Compiegne (1661-63), and then returned to La Fleche for a second year of philosophy (1663-64). He then had a four-year course in theology at the College of Louis-le-Grand in Paris (1664-68).

Millet was ordained in 1668, and sent from to Canada with a number of missionaries. He was assigned to the Mission of St. John the Baptist at Onondaga. They called him Teahronhiagannra, that is "The Looker-up to Heaven". In 1671 he made his solemn profession as a Jesuit.

By 1675 had converted the primary Oneida chief to Christianity, allowing him to build a sizeable congregation. In February 1684, the Seneca plundered a number of French traders. Millet participated in an Iroquois council and was sent, with Father Jacques de Lamberville, to treat with Governor Joseph-Antoine de La Barre. When it was abandoned by the French later that year, he returned to Fort Frontenac where he continued his work as an interpreter and liaison between the French and Iroquois.

Fort Frontenac was attacked by Iroquois forces in 1689, and the Indians requested Millet's presence among their dying men. Members of the Onondaga tribe captured him and eventually turned him over to the Oneidas, who gave him the name Genherontatie, i.e., "The Dead (or Dying) Man who walks".