Istoriile colonizării Americii de Nord

Secolul al XIX-lea deschide autoritar seria de lucrări istorice despre primele momente ale colonizării Americii de Nord. Pentru o vreme scrierile lui George Bancroft, Francis Parkman, John Fiske, împreună cu ale altora, au fost considerate ca fiind referinţe în domeniu. Timpul a adus la cunoştinţa cercetătorilor o serie de documente care au fost abordate altfel, ochii care le-au citit au avut alte perspective.

Privitor la noua Franţă istoricul american Rueben Gold Thwaites afirma convingător: „[t]he story of the rise and fall of New France is the most dramatic chapter in American history”[1].

Unul dintre cele mai importante lucruri privitoare la Lumea Nouă este impactul cultural. Europenii care au ajuns în America, dar la fel este şi în cazul altor descoperiri geografice, au adus cu ei cultura europeană, astfel că fiecare naţiune şi-a pus amprenta culturală pe spaţiul pe care l-au găsit. Aici intervine problema nativilor şi a culturii lor. Lucrurile acestea au fost încă de la momentul descoperirilor geografice au avut parte de o constantă preocupare. Momentul incipient al impactului a fost acela în care s-a început evanghelizarea/creştinarea nativilor de către misionarii trimişi special pentru acest lucru. Religia a avut în acest context o dublă misiune. Pe de o parte, evanghelizarea a fost privită ca o salvare a sufletului nativului, iar pe de altă parte, cel puţin în cazul iezuiţilor din Noua Franţă, religia venea prin intermediul misionarului în întâmpinarea apropierii relaţiilor politice dintre colonişti şi nativi.

Istoricul E. P. Cheyney considera pe bună dreptate că: „[b]efore the fifteenth century events were only distantly preparing the way; after the seventeenth the centre of gravity of American history was transferred to America itself”[2].

Unul dintre motivele pentru care coloniştii alegeau să emigreze în Lumea nouă era şi cel religios[3]. Factorul religios a fost unul deosebit de important atunci când s-a pus problema populării coloniilor engleze şi a rămas aşa pentru mai mult de un secol[4].

Acum privind lucrurile aşa cum au apărul ele dinspre America de Sud aflăm de la E. G. Bourne că: „[t]he transmission of the heritage of European culture to the New World and its inhabitants, the great work of the colonial epoch, was the task undertaken by the church”[5].

Thwaites a identificat două motive care au dus la apariţia Noii Franţe: „[v]arious motives contributed to the establishment and maintenance of New France. The king very naturally was moved by a passion for territorial expansion; the church was eager to convert the heathen savages of the New World […]”[6]. În acest caz avem şi o detaliere importantă a problemei conversiunii la creştinism: „[f]rom the first, the court, largely influenced by the church, was much concerned with the conversion of the Indians. The Calvinist De Monts had been allowed to take out Huguenot ministers for those of his companions who wished them; but missions to the natives must be conducted solely by Catholic clergy. Jesuits had been ordered to New France by King Henry IV as early as 1610; but their experiences were not happy, for at Port Royal Poutrincourt’s son opposed them, and we have seen that at Mount Desert English sea-rovers from Virginia demolished their settlement (1613). In 1615 Champlain introduced to Quebec four members of the fraternity of Recollects, the most austere of the three Franciscan orders. For ten years these gray friars practiced the rites of the church in the Canadian woods, all the way from the fishing and trading-post of Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, to the western lake of Nipissings, on the road to Lake Huron”[7].

Momentul implicării iezuiţilor în noua Franţă are şi alte dimensiuni: „[e]cclesiastical affairs occupied a large share of popular attention in New France. The bishop and his priests ruled not only in matters spiritual, but in most of those temporal concerns that came nearest to the daily life of the people, being, indeed, ‘fathers’ to their flocks. No community, whether of fishers, habitants, fur-traders, or soldiers was without either its secular priest or its missionary friar. The chapel or the church was the nucleus of every village”[8].

Benjamin Sulte privitor la implementarea misiunilor creştine în Canada afirmă: „Champlain took the first step towards a mission to the Indians by offering the field of Canada to the Recollets, a branch of the order of Saint Francis. In 1615, four members of the order reached Quebec: Father Denis Jamay, Father Joseph le Caron, Father Jean d’Olbeau, and a lay brother, Pacifique du Plessis”[9].

Motivele pentru care iezuiţii au venit în Canada ar fi fost următoarele: „According to Father Sagard, the Recollets appealed to the Society of Jesus in the hope that this order would come to their assistance by sharing the evangelization of the savages. Such a plan accorded only too well with the wishes of the viceroy, at that time the Duc of Ventadour. Both in spirit, for they were born of the devotion of the Counter-Reformation, and in means, for they were not hampered by vows of poverty, the Jesuit Fathers were pre-eminently qualified for the work in Canada”[10].

Mai mult decât atât lucrurile au mers bine pentru iezuiţi: „With the exclusion of the Recollets, in 1632, after the occupation of Quebec by Kirke, the Jesuits alone had the spiritual direction of the colony. The Superior of the Jesuits was the ranking ecclesiastic, and his influence was certainly not less than that of the governor. In fact, the Jesuit Fathers understood the needs of the colony more intimately, and much more disinterestedly, than governors”[11].

O opinie importantă a secolului al XIX-lea este şi cea lui Francis Parkman. Acesta în lucrările sale de istorie narativă oferă câteva idei majore privitoare la începuturile istoriei Americii de Nord. Astfel, pentru Parkman povestea noii Franţe este una de război: „The story of New France is, from the first, a story of war. of war – for so her founders believed – with the adversary of mankind himself; war with savage tribes and potent forest – commonwealths; war with the encroaching powers of Heresy and of England”[12].

Istoricul nu vorbeşte prea pozitiv despre demersurile similare ale Spaniei, chiar spune: „In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe”[13]. Sau, mergând mai departe, spune: „The monk, the inquisitor, the Jesuit, these were the lords of Spain, - sovereign of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse”[14]. Numai că atunci când vorbeşte despre noua Franţă afirmă: „In New France, spiritual and temporal interests were inseparably blended, and, as will hereafter appear, the conversion of the Indians became vital to commercial and political growth”[15].

Imaginea lui Parkman despre credinţele religioase ale indienilor nord-americani „seems, on a first view, anomalous and contradictory”[16]; interesantă este descrierea unei credinţe a nativilor pe care o face în continuare: „[m]en and animals are closely akin. Each species of animal has its great archetype, its progenitor or king, who is supposed to exist somewhere, prodigious in size, though in shape and nature like his subjects”[17].

Comunitatea nativilor este descrisă de Parkman după cum urmează: „[a]n Indian community swarmed with sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners, whose functions were often united in the same person. The sorcerer, by charms, magic songs, magic feasts, and the beating of his drum, had power over the spirits and those occult influences inherent in animals and inanimate things”[18].

Imaginea negativă pe care o avea nativul american în secolul al XIX-lea este vizibilă în textul lui Parkman: „[i]t is obvious that the Indian mind has never seriously occupied itself with any of the higher themes of thought”[19].

Parkman spunea că „[t]he foundations of French dominion were to be laid deep in the heart and conscience of the savage”[20]. În alt loc Parkman afirma „[t]he complete conversion of the Iroquois meant their estrangement from the heretic English and Dutch, and their firm alliance with the French. It meant safety for Canada, and it insured for her the fur-trade of the interior freed from English rivalry. Hence the importance of these missions, and hence their double character. While the Jesuit toiled to convert his savages hosts, he watched them at the same time with the eye of a shrewd political agent; reported at Quebec the result of his observations, and by every means in his power sought to alienate them from England, and attach them to France”[21].