Rasles, Sébastien

Rasles, Sébastien (sābästyăN` räl), 1657?–1724, French Jesuit missionary in North America. Arriving in present-day Maine in 1689, he spent two years with the Abnaki in Acadia. He then became a missionary among the Illinois. In 1693 he was recalled to take charge of the mission of the Abnaki, now at Norridgewock, Maine, which was then disputed territory of the French and British. When in 1721 the British invaded the camp, Father Rasles escaped, but his dictionary of the Abnaki language, which he had been carefully compiling, was carried off. It was not published until 1833. He was killed in 1724 when the British raided the settlement. His name also appears as Rale.