M. The writer, 60 [recte 59], vicar general of the dioceses of Bardstown and Cincinnati, for 25 years missionary in Kentucky, describes in detail the state of religion in the territories of Michigan and Northwest. The report is subdivided in the following chapters: "I. Indiani et alii postulant Pastores, quibus carent à sexaginta quatuor annis"; "II. Media enumerantur ad Missionem Indianorum instaurandam et fovendam"; "III. Multas pro Indianis scholas erexerunt haeretici"; "Enumerantur loca, ubi maximè necessarii sunt Missionarii"; "V. Patres et Fratres Societatis Iesu praecipue desiderantur".
The Sulpician Richard, vicar general of the bp. of Cincinnati [E.D. Fenwick], another missionary [Déjean], arrived less than two years before [on 1 September 1824, in New York], are mentioned, and the activities of the Propagation de la Foi [established 1822] are described. Also mentioned a letter written on 24 January by Oiseau Noir, and Indian chief of Mackinaw, to Richard, and Richard's own letter [to Badin?] of 28 January 1825.
The main problem of the diocese of Cincinnati (216,128 square miles, containing the states of Ohio and the Michigan and Northwest territories), is the lack of missionaries and schools to counter the efforts of the American government ($10,000 spent every year) and of the Protestant missionaries (32 schools built since 1824, 916 students currently enrolled). The Treaty of Paris ([10 February] 1763) and the Treaty of Paris[-Versailles] ([3 September] 1783) are recalled, and the British Government's [i.e., George III's] instructions of [3 January] 1775 and [22 October] 1811 [see C 042] (printed in May 1814) to the governors of Canada [Carleton, Prevost] to replace all Catholic missionaries with the Indians by Protestant missionaries.
To these efforts Catholics can only oppose four priests in Ohio (a school for 20 Indian boys is kept by the Jesuits at Florissant, Missouri), three [Richard, Badin, Dejean] in Michigan, none in the Northwest, and two pious ladies teaching Indian girls in Mackinaw. Indians, French-Canadians in the United States, Irish refugees constantly ask for a spiritual assistance that the bp. of Cincinnati cannot provide. There is a need for a total of 15 missionaries in Ohio, eight (including a bp.) in Michigan, and five in the Northwest.
As for the Northwest, where no missionary resides since the suppression of the Society of Jesus [brief Dominus ac Redemptor, 21 July 1773], two should serve the French-Canadians of Mackinaw and the Indians at L'Arbre-Croche (at two miles from Mackinaw, together they form the Saint-Ignace mission), with jurisdiction also over L'Isle-Drummond and Sault Ste. Marie, a third one around [the church of] Saint-François-Xavier at Green Bay, and another two Prairie-du-Chien on the Mississippi river. Ottawa, Potawatomis, Hurons (in Ohio) and Chicago are also mentioned. PF notes. B: folio 22r.
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