The Death and Afterlife of the North American Martyrs

Emma Anderson

“Emma Anderson has done something awe-inspiring: she has breathed life into the evocative story of the North American martyrs and their legacy. What’s most exciting is that she has accomplished this with both the hand of a great storyteller and the mind of a brilliant scholar.”—Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce

“This beautifully written study of how the Jesuit martyrs have been remembered and reinvented in the popular Catholic imagination is without rival in terms of its scope, ambition, and achievement. I enthusiastically recommend it.”—Kathleen Sprows Cummings, author of New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era

“The eight men who became North America’s first canonized saints have been imagined and appropriated in many ways by both Euro-Americans and Amerindians on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border. With vivid style and powerful insight, Anderson explores the history and changing interpretations of the martyrs’ deaths, which, three centuries later, continue to serve as powerful cultural and spiritual symbols.”—Dominique Deslandres, author of Croire et faire croire: Les missions francaises au XVIIe siecle

“In a lively and engaging style, Anderson recreates the story of Jesuit missionaries killed in the seventeenth century. More importantly, she uncovers the different meanings given to their deaths by American Catholics, Canadian nationalists, and Native people across the years. A fascinating book.”—Allan Greer, author of Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits

“This richly imagined book is a delight to read. In prose of exquisite, often sensuous detail and striking immediacy, Anderson offers a compelling history that opens up important questions in the study of religion. Her account of Brébeuf’s torture and death is a tour-de-force, while her treatment of the interactions between Native Americans and Europeans is psychologically acute and emotionally resonant.”—Robert A. Orsi, author of Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them