But Isaac Jogues’s bold vision was not realized. He was taken captive in 1642 by Mohawks, members of the Iroquois Confederation. He was seized some forty miles from the Dutch settlement at Fort Orange, present-day Albany. Tortured and held in slavery for months, Jogues finally escaped. He made his way to New Amsterdam, where he was kindly treated by the Dutch. Making his way back to France, Jogues was treated as a virtual Lazarus, a man returned from the dead. He created a sensation in France. Despite the fact that several of his fingers had been eaten by his captors, he was allowed by the pope to celebrate Mass.

Disregarding his wounds, Father Jogues returned to Canada and set out once again in 1646 as a missionary to the Mohawks. As a result of his ordeal, he had learned several Indian languages. At first, he was well received by his former captors. Soon, however, disease broke out among the tribes and their crops failed. Some among the Mohawks blamed this on the “black robes”—as the Jesuits were known to the Indians. Jogues and a companion were recaptured. Stripped naked, beaten, slashed with knives, Jogues was led into the Indian village. As he entered a cabin, he was killed with a tomahawk. This, and the very similar fate of Jean de Brebeuf and several other young Jesuits, led the Catholic Church to declare Isaac Jogues and his brothers martyrs and saints.

The French mastered the internal waterways of the North American continent. Voyageurs—who succeeded the coureurs—set forth in birch bark canoes with nearly the same skill as the Indians. In 1682, the Sieur de La Salle managed an incredible feat: he sailed and rowed down the Mississippi River to a point below the site of present-day New Orleans. La Salle claimed the whole region for France and named it for King Louis XIV—Louisiana. (On a second voyage, this time to the Texas coast, La Salle was murdered by his own men. They were themselves then massacred by the Comanche tribe—a testament to the continued dangers of exploration.)

The French sought control of the Ohio River, a major tributary of the Mississippi. The region was rich in furs. To get them, they had to ward off the English. With the aid of Indian allies, the French staged raids against the neighboring colonies. The governor of New France was the fierce Louis de Bouade, the comte de Frontenac. He used his Indian forces to terrorize the English settlements on the frontiers of New York and New England in 1690–92. Frontenac reasoned if he could terrorize the English in their home colonies, they would not move west into the Ohio Valley. Massacres of women and children, accompanied by scalping and the torture of victims, embittered the two nations against one another—and their colonists were especially hostile.