Andre Richard (Jesuit)

See also: Andre Richard

André Richard (- 1696) is a Canadian Jesuit who was the first to describe the country of the Naskapi.

Present in Quebec as of the year 1635 it went the following year to the residence of Holy-Anne of Cape-Breton the, with the father of Endemare, and, in 1643, it made the mission of the island of Miscou, with the Père of Lyonne It studied with much zeal and success the language of the savages of this country, and it testified to them as well to good will, as they took it in affection.

In the port of Nipisiguit, it threw the bases of a dwelling to help the savages there. The relations of 1646 make the account of a great danger which this father ran. The first day of May, is there it says, the father André Richard had started from Nipisiguit, in a launch, accompanied by two French and a family of savages. The good weather and the prompt departure of the ices had made believe that the coast would be free, as indeed it found to the entry of the harbor of Miscou, than it saw closed of a large bench of ices.

To turn over, there was not average; the violence of the wind of the North-West stopped the Chaloupe and surrounded it by an infinity of ices, against which it was continuously necessary to fight. The night occurred, on top an obvious danger to lose the life. One of the savages who was not baptized yet, though sufficient informed, required the baptism; the father granted to him; then all of a common assent have recourse to God via Notre-Dame, to which they make wish fast and communier in his honor, if they escape this danger.

Joseph Nepsuget takes again courage on top, reduces the launch, throws some barrels of vivres on the floating ice floes, and, jumping on the ices, fact of the weighings with the mast, under the launch; the wind increases and presses so well the ices which they seem enough sure to save with ground; they entrust their lives to it, leaving the remainder to the abandonment; then, with the favor of the moon and their oars, which to sometimes are used them as bridge, they walk on approximately a mile, and arrive at the point of the day, the island of Miscou to thank God and his very-holy mother there for the received favor.

The Richard father made, in 1657, a mission with Holy-Anne-of-Bowsprit. He left his missions of the gulf in 1662, to pass to France, where he led a wild child which he had torn off with the cruelty of the Gaspésiens. Of return to Canada in 1669, it went to the residence Three-Rivers, of which it became higher in 1674. He died the December 15th 1696.

References

general Repertory of the Canadian clergy, by chronological order since the foundation of the colony until our days, by Mgr Cyprien Tanguay, Montreal: Eusèbe Senécal & wire, printers and publishers, 1893.

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