Chaumonot, Joseph Marie

Chaumonot, Joseph Marie (zhôzĕf` märē` shōmônō`), 1611–93, French Jesuit missionary to the New World. He arrived in 1639 in Quebec. He worked first with Brébeuf among the Huron near Georgian Bay until the time of the massacres and destruction by the Iroquois (1649); he escaped and led 400 Huron to the reservation appointed for them on the Île d'Orléans at Quebec. He next went into central New York to preach to the Iroquois (1655–58) and then returned to Quebec, where he remained. His autobiography is important, and his Huron grammar is unique.