Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Louis-Joseph Le Loutre

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes

A missionary to the Micmac Indians and Vicar-General of Acadia under the Bishop of Quebec, b. in France about 1690; d. there about 1770. He was a conspicuous figure in Nova Scotia in the middle of the eighteenth centuary, and his portrait as drawn by some writers lends colour to the charge that history is often a conspiracy against truth. Anxious to justify the memorable deportation of the Acadians in 1755, partisan annalists and chroniclers of the period represent Le Loutre as the evil genius and tyrant of the Acadians, the sworn enemy of the English, and a pastor who threatened with excommunication and with massacre by his Indians all who favoured measures of reconciliation with the English Government. Better accredited historians, however, such as Haliburton, acknowledge that this picture of the abbé is more caricature than portrait. The truth appears to be that Le Loutre was a typical French missionary of forceful character and initiative, with a natural desire, so long as the matter was in dispute, to hold the Acadians to their allegiance to France ; that he showed himself more than once an excellent friend of individual Englishmen in their time of need; and that his accompanying the Micmacs on several expeditions against the English, expeditions which he had done his best to prevent, was for the sole purpose of restraining the cruelty and vengeance of his Indian flock. A letter sent in 1757 by the Bishop of Quebec to the Abbé of l'Isle-Dieu proclaims Le Loutre to have been "irreproachable in every respect, both in the functions of his sacred ministry and in the part he took in the temporal affairs of the colony". Captured by the English while on the way to France, Le Loutre was held prisoner by them for some years in the Isle of Jersey; on his release he returned to France, where a few years later he died.

Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Prayer of the Day logo
Saint of the Day logo

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.