FLÉCHÉ, JESSÉ, also called Jossé Flesche (Biard), Josué Fleche (Champlain), Fleuchy and Fleuche; priest, missionary in Acadia; b. at Lantages in the diocese of Langres (France); d. possibly in 1611 in France.

In 1607 Henri IV had allowed Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt to continue his colonizing endeavours in Acadia, but on condition that he take some Jesuits there to preach the gospel to Indigenous people. Not desiring the presence of Jesuits, Poutrincourt, when he finally sailed from Dieppe on 25 Feb. 1610, took with him only one priest, Abbé Fléché. The latter, according to Marc Lescarbot, may have received his powers from the Nuncio Roberto Ubaldini. Rochemonteix, however, questions this statement, “for the Nuncio,” he said, “was not unaware that the king had appointed two Jesuits for the Canadian mission,” Fathers Pierre Biard and Énemond Massé.

Fléché landed at Port-Royal at the end of May or the beginning of June 1610. On 24 June, less than a month after his arrival, he administered baptism to the Micmac (Mi’kmaw) chief Membertou and 20 members of his family. One may justifiably be surprised at such haste, even if Lescarbot tells us that during Poutrincourt’s first stay in Acadia, in 1606 and 1607, these Micmac had received some instruction. Since Fléché did not know their language, it was Charles de Biencourt, Poutrincourt’s son, who at his father’s request undertook to teach them the catechism.

In moving so quickly Fléché had apparently yielded to the pressure of Poutrincourt. The lieutenant-governor hoped that his zeal for evangelization would enable him to retain royal favour and secure the financial support of pious and wealthy individuals, and also to prove to the court at the same time that the Jesuit ministry was not really necessary in Acadia. Samuel de Champlain perhaps provides the explanation for this haste when he writes that shortly after the ceremony the governor sent his son Biencourt to France “to carry the good news of the baptism of the Indians.” It appears certain that Poutrincourt, although genuinely desirous of winning over converts to the faith, had good reasons – perhaps of a financial nature – for displaying such fervent apostolic zeal.

Lescarbot tells us that more than a hundred Indigenous people were thus baptized in 1610 and 1611. When the Jesuits Biard and Massé finally arrived in 1611, they were astounded to discover that the newly baptized were ignorant of even the rudiments of the faith. A fresh start to teach the gospel had to be made. The learned theologians of the Sorbonne, moreover, disapproved of this speedy fashion of conferring baptism. The Jesuits put this experience to good use: from then on they baptized adults in good health only after a long probation.

Jessé Fléché, whom the Indigenous people called the “Patriarch,” sailed for France in June 1611, possibly on the 10th or 11th. According to some historians he died in France that year, while others contend that he died much later, in 1645, and was buried in Ligny-le-Châtel in Yonne.

André Vachon

Champlain, Œuvres (Laverdière). JR (Thwaites). Lescarbot, Histoire (Tross). Huguet, Poutrincourt. Rochemonteix, Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle-France au XVII^e siècle.

Bibliography for the revised version:
For more information about Jessé Fléché’s death, consult the work by Robert Piart “Enquête sur une rumeur concernant Jessé Fléché, premier missionnaire des Mi’kmaqs,” Soc. Hist. Acadienne, Cahiers (Moncton), 35 (2004): 84–88.

Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (6 tomes en 7v., Montréal, 1955–99), 2 (Le comptoir, 1604–1627): 105.