'Harvest of souls' : tropes of transformation and domination in the Jesuit relations

An analysis of the discourse in the Jesuit Relations indicates that the Jesuits' representation of Huron and Montagnais Indians is informed by a colonial ideology. The Jesuits' attempt to identify Indians according to permanent customs and manners is compared to conventional ethnographic description and is shown to result in a reductive, essentializing discourse. In their elaboration of the category of 'savagery' Jesuits metaphorically equated Indians with wild animals. They then stressed the need for reclaiming the Indians' humanity through conversion to Christianity. The Jesuits' figuration of the spiritual realm as a territory to be subdued and conquered is discussed, and the language of conversion is revealed as a language of control and conquest. It is finally argued that Jesuit representations of Indians functioned as an instrument of colonial domination. The analysis points to the need for decolonization of textual and historical spaces dominated by Eurocolonial discourses