[1] First Nations peoples historically called French Jesuit priests "Black Robes" because of their religious habit.

In Quebec, a tribe of Algonquian agree in exchange for muskets to guide the "Black Robe" (Father Laforgue) and his 20-year-old French assistant, Daniel Davost, for a few weeks upriver to a spot beyond a set of rapids.

The novel's colonialism theme is the collision of two cultures as seen through the spiritual beliefs and practices of heathen Indians and Jesuit priests.

"[3] Writing in The New York Times, novelist James Carroll described Black Robe as "an extraordinary novel... in which Brian Moore has brought vividly to life a radically different world and populated it with men and women wholly unlike us.

[1] Anstiss Drake in the Chicago Tribune praises the novel's "economy of style, vivid characterizations, spellbinding story and a master's touch...