Kateri Tekakwitha (1656 – April 17, 1680) was a Mohawk woman who converted to Catholicism. Committing to live as a virgin, she became known for her devotion to Jesus Christ, diligent work ethic, and dedicated prayers for her fellow Native people. She was canonized in 2012, becoming the first Native American saint. She is known as "the Lily of the Mohawks", "the Protectress of Canada", and "the Genevieve of New France".
Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, in present-day New York, she and her family contracted smallpox in an epidemic; she was the only one of the family to survive, but had scarring on her face. She was influenced by French Jesuit missionaries and converted to Catholicism at age 19, taking the baptismal name Catherine (or Kateri).
After taking a vow of perpetual virginity, she left her village, and moved to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, just south of Montreal. There she died five years later, respected for her piety and good works.
She was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II, and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 October 2012, along with six others: Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria of Mt Carmel Salles y Barangueras, Marianne of Molokaʻi, and Anna Schäffer.
She was born around 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, in what is now northeastern New York. Her given name was Tekakwitha or Tekaouïta, meaning "she who bumps into things" in the Mohawk language.
She was the daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Kahenta, an Algonquin woman who had been captured in a raid and then adopted and assimilated into the tribe. Kahenta had been baptized Catholic and educated by French missionaries in Trois-Rivières, east of Montreal. Mohawk warriors captured her and took her to their homeland. Kahenta eventually married Kenneronkwa. Tekakwitha was the first of their two children. A brother followed.
Tekakwitha's original village was highly diverse. The Mohawks absorbed captured Native people of other tribes, particularly their competitors, the Hurons, to replace people who died from warfare and diseases.
When Tekakwitha was around four years old, her parents and her brother died of smallpox. Tekakwitha survived, but suffered from facial scars and impaired eyesight. Due to her scars, she wore head covering and cloths to cover them. She was soon adopted and went to live with her father's sister and her husband, a chief of the Turtle Clan.
At age 11, Tekakwitha was visited by three members of the Society of Jesus. Tekakwitha was greatly impressed by these Jesuits, who were likely the first white Christians she had encountered in her life. Tekakwitha began to lead a life according to the teachings of the three Jesuits. She was staying with an uncle at the time, and he and other people of her tribe opposed her conversion.
The Jesuits' account of Tekakwitha said that she was a modest girl who avoided social gatherings and covered her head because of her scars. She was skilled at making clothing, weaving mats, preparing food and other traditional women's arts. As was the custom, she was pressured to think about marriage around age thirteen, but she refused. When speaking to her confessor, she stated, "I can have no spouse but Jesus." She followed by proclaiming, "I have the strongest aversion to marriage."
Tekakwitha grew up in a period of upheaval, as the Mohawks interacted with French and Dutch colonists, who were competing in the lucrative fur trade. Trying to make inroads in Iroquois territory, the French attacked the Mohawks in present-day central New York in 1666. After driving the people from their homes, the French burned the three Mohawk villages. Tekakwitha, around ten years old, fled with her new family.
After being defeated by the French forces, the Mohawks accepted a peace treaty that required them to tolerate Jesuit missionaries in their villages. The Jesuits established a mission near present-day Auriesville, New York. They spoke of Christianity in terms with which the Mohawsk could identify.
The Mohawsk rebuilt Caughnawaga on the north bank of the river later named for them. (The present-day town of Fonda, New York developed just east of here in the mid-18th century.) In 1667, when Tekakwitha was 11 years old, she met Jesuit missionaries Jacques Frémin, Jacques Bruyas, and Jean Pierron, who had come to the village. Her uncle opposed any contact with them because he did not want her to convert to Christianity. One of his older daughters had already become Catholic.
In the summer of 1669, several hundred Mohican warriors, advancing from the east, launched an attack on Caughnawaga. Tekakwitha, at that point around 13 years old, joined other girls to help priest Jean Pierron tend to the wounded, bury the dead, and carry food and water.
Later in 1669, the Iroquois Feast of the Dead was convened at Caughnawaga. The remains of Tekakwitha's parents, along with others, were to be part of the ceremony. Father Pierron criticized the Feast of the Dead, but the assembled Iroquois ordered him to be silent. Afterward, however, they relented and promised to give up the feast.
By the time Tekakwitha turned 17, around 1673, her adoptive mother and aunt tried to arrange her marriage to a young Mohawk man. Tekakwitha fled the cabin and hid in a nearby field and continued to resist marriage. Eventually, her aunts gave up their efforts to get her to marry.
In the spring of 1674, at age eighteen, Tekakwitha met the Jesuit priest Jacques de Lamberville, who was visiting the village. In the presence of others, Tekakwitha told him her story and her desire to become a Christian. She started studying the catechism with him.
In his journal, Lamberville wrote about Tekakwitha in the years after her death. This text described her before she was baptized as a mild-mannered girl. Lamberville also stated that Tekakwitha did everything she could to practice her Catholic faith in a non-Catholic society, which often caused minor conflicts with her longhouse residents. The journal, however, does not mention violence toward Tekakwitha, while other sources do.