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Pierre-Jean De Smet was born in Termonde, Belgium, on 30th January, 1801. He emigrated to America in 1821 and soon afterwards he entered the novitiate of the Jesuit order in Baltimore in 1821. Ordained in 1827 he taught at the University of St. Louis before travelling in Europe (1833-37).
On his return to America he decided to become a missionary with the objective of converting Native Americans to Christianity. In 1838 he was sent to the Potawatomi in Iowa. Two years later he joined a group of mountain men and visited the Flathead tribe in the Rocky Mountains. De Smet spent two months with the Flatheads before making his way to Fort Union at Yellowstone. He eventually arrived back in St. Louis in December 1840.
De Smet now decided to take a small party back to the Rocky Mountains. De Smet, two Jesuit fathers and three lay brothers boarded the riverboat at St. Louis on 24th April, 1841 and reached Westport, Missouri on 30th April. To help him travel to Oregon De Smet recruited five mountain men: Tom Fitzpatrick, Jim Baker, John Gray, George Simpson and William Mast. At Sapling Grove he joined forces with the wagon train led by John Bidwell.
After reaching Fort Hall he established the St. Mary's Mission in Bitterroot Valley. The following year he visited Fort Vancouver. He narrowly escaped drowning in the rapids of the Columbia but five of his party died in the accident.
De Smet returned to St. Louis in October 1842. He then visited Europe and recruited sisters from Notre Dame and priests from Belgium to establish a convent and school in the Williamette Valley in Oregon. It is estimated that De Smet travelled 180,000 miles during his lifetime.
In 1845 he toured Blackfeet country and secured a peace between them with the Flathead tribe. He then crossed the Canadian Rockies before travelling along the Saskatchewan River before wintering at a fur trading post in Canada. Later he met Brigham Young and a large group of Mormons near Council Bluffs.
De Smet was also given authority by William Sherman and the Grant Administration Peace Commissioners to carry out peace negotiations with the Sioux. De Smet met Sitting Bull in June 1868. An army officer, James Burns, claimed that "no white man has ever come close to equaling his universal appeal to the Indian." The talks were very successful and representatives of the Sioux agreed to sign a peace treaty at Fort Laramie.
Pierre-Jean De Smet died on 23rd May, 1873.
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(1) Pierre-Jean De Smet, journal (16th May, 1841)
I hope that the journey will end well; it has begun badly. One of our wagons was burned on the steamboat; a horse ran away and was never found; a second fell ill, which I was obliged to exchange for another at a loss. Some of the mules took fright and ran off, leaving their wagons; others, with wagons, have been stalled in the mud. We have faced perilous situations in crossing steep declivities, deep ravines, marshes and rivers.
(2) John Bidwell, Echoes of the Past (1900)
He (Pierre-Jean De Smet) was genial, of fine presence, and one of the saintliest men I have ever known, and I cannot wonder that the Indians were made to believe him divinely protected. He was a man of great kindness and great affability under all circumstances; nothing seemed to disturb his temper... Sometimes a cart would go over, breaking everything in it to pieces; and at such times Father de Smet would be just the same - beaming with good humor.
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