Black Robe Dramatizes the First Movie Review

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The Huron convert out of fear and self-interest, and ultimately the French mission is destroyed after the entire tribe is massacred by the Iroquois.

Black Robe is intensely realistic in its portrayal of disease, inter-tribe conflict, and the worldview of the Jesuit priest. It is also realistic by showing how relationships between white men and native women were common, even though the Europeans would often disparage the native population as inferior. It refuses to show one side as 'good' or 'bad,' given the moral complexities posed by warfare. The Jesuits, unlike later colonizers, do not seem to be self-interested in an economic fashion, and Father Laforgue risks everything in his attempt to reach the Huron. The Indians are not pure, and are just as fractious as the Europeans in their tribal rivalries. However, the incursion of European influence clearly has long-term negative fallout, as symbolized in the death of Chomina, the most moral religious figure of the tribe in the film, and the Pyrrhic victory wrought by converting the native population.

Although the characters have been fictionalized, the events depicted seen to accurately reflect the historical record.

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Wrote one missionary, of the responses elicited in his efforts at conversion: "I wish to go where my relations and ancestors have gone,' was a common reply [of natives]. 'Heaven is a good place for Frenchmen,' said another; 'but I wish to be among Indians, for the French will give me nothing to eat when I get there'" ("The Huron and the Jesuits." Native American Nations, 2011). The missionary saw this as evidence of the Huron's ignorance. Other Indians said that they did not want to go to the Jesuit's heaven where there was no war, hunting, and fishing because they feared becoming lazy. The Jesuit missionary describes the smallpox, which the Europeans brought and suffered from, to the Huron community as ironically one of the few things that terrified some Huron into converting. "It was clear to the Fathers, that their ministrations were valued solely because their religion was supposed by many to be a 'medicine,' or charm, efficacious against famine, disease, and death" ("The Huron and the Jesuits." Native American Nations, 2011).

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