he came to find out that they were iroquois indians but the iroquois indians are from the jesuit area of new france, they're from the st. lawrence river. so, what happened was, when fur trade companies moved across the map of canada, they more or less leap-frogged across each other. in other words, the hudson bay company would trap out a certain area, and the competing company, the northwest company, would leap-frog over them to areas that hadn't been trapped out. and their paddlers, the paddlers for the northwest company, were recruited from the jesuit schools in the st. lawrence valley, and when they reached the pacific in canada, then they were relieved from their job ask they went south and they found a home among the pacific northwest indians. and so it was these iroquois indians who told the indians of the pacific northwest that there is a new world out there, there is a master of life and there are these men who can teach you about the master of life and the new set of ideas. and so these they were essential for the -- those they said if you don't believe me, we'll go to where

but the iroquois indians had oversold the idea. so the native people of the pacific northwest, the interior northwest, they had a higher expectation that there would not just be to learn the story of a master of life that they had not known before. but they came to extrapolate what the iroquois had told them into believing that perhaps they could now be great warriors because they would have a spiritual dimension that if not make them bullet-proof, and they didn't believe that, but it would make them superior warriors. so the truth of the matter is whu read the l-- when you -- red the letters after only a few years before they had been here even five years, they were writing that there was troublesome indications that the native people were taking their christian teachings and believing it had made them so superior in fact they were becoming troublesome to their neighbors. they were not negotiating the differences between hunting privileges between say the flat head and the crows. now they were taking an arbitrary 4th right positio

and so it was these iroquois indians who told indians of the pacific northwest that there is a new world out there. there is a master of life and there are these men who can teach you about the master of life and a new set of ideas. and so these iroquois were central to the bringing of christianity to the tribes of the pacific northwest. and at a certain point, those iroquois said, well, if you don't believe me, we will go to where the jesuits are and we will ask them to come to us. and so that is how those native people, primarily the flatheads, but also we blew there were others in the group, that's how they were on the missouri river on their way to st. louis, to knock on the door of the jesuits at st. louis university. and father de smet met him, found out what their goal was. he followed them in a couple of weeks, and then he said to his superior, i can take that assignment. i would be good at that assignment. i've had experience with the pottawattamie's. i am not a full-fledged jesuit priest. i'm ready to take this assignment. what each tribe hoped to gain by having a missionary is