Isaac Jogues SJ (10 January 1607 – 18 October 1646) was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America.

[7] Jogues joined Jean de Brébeuf, the Superior of the Jesuit Mission, at their settlement on Lake Huron, the village of St-Joseph (Ihonatiria), on 11 September.

[8] Father Brébeuf conciliated them, and by the following year, relations had improved as evidenced by one of his reports: "We are gladly heard, and there is scarcely a village that has not invited us to go to it... And at last, it is understood from our whole conduct that we have not come to buy skins or to carry on any traffic, but solely to teach them and to procure them their souls' health.

This did not last long, however, as there were some Indigenous people who had been "among the English and Dutch settlers to the south" who spread reports that the missionaries brought "calamity wherever they went and that they had in consequence been driven out of Europe.

Their luck changed, however, when in 1639, the new superior of the Jesuit Mission, Father Jérôme Lalemant, entrusted the building of Fort Sainte-Marie to Jogues.

[5] On 3 August 1642, Jogues, Guillaume Couture, René Goupil, and a group of Christian Hurons were heading back from Quebec City when they were waylaid by a war party of the Mohawk Nation, part of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Jogues allegedly hid in reeds and bushes but decided to leave his hiding place to join the prisoners so that he could comfort them and ensure that their faith in Christianity remained strong.

The villagers marched them through a gauntlet, consisting of rows of Iroquois armed with rods and sticks, beating the prisoners walking in single-file.

Three days later, Jogues and the prisoners were marched from one village to another, where the Iroquois flogged them in gauntlets and jabbed sticks into their wounds and sores.

At the third village, Jogues was hung from a wooden plank and nearly lost consciousness until an Iroquois had pity on him and cut him free.

[9] Hearing of their capture, Arent van Curler, commis of Rensselaerswyck, visited the "first castle" and attempted to ransom them, but without success as the Mohawk were not inclined to release them at that time.

Perpetually malnourished and inadequately dressed for the harsh winters, he spent his days gathering wood, praying, and proselytizing his captors.

[7] Seeking solace in his faith, Jogues prayed so intensely that he had visions: in one, he suddenly appeared in a bookstore covered in crosses and bought a book that reminded him that, to enter into Heaven, it was necessary to experience many tribulations.

During this period, some noteworthy incidents were when he saved the life of a pregnant woman that had fallen into a deep, fast-flowing creek during the winter and when he baptized the Iroquois man who had freed him from the wooden torture device.

Pope Urban VIII considered Jogues a "living martyr" and gave him dispensation to say Mass with his mutilated hand.

Jogues was unable to follow this law after losing two fingers while in Iroquois captivity, resulting in the requirement for dispensation by the pope.

[12] In the spring of 1646, Jogues returned to Iroquois territory, along with Jean de Lalande, to act as the French ambassador to the Mohawk.

[12] Jogues and Lalande were met with hesitation upon arrival, as some Mohawk regarded missionaries as evil practitioners of foreign magic.

[13] Jogues' refusal to escape and how he embraced torture demonstrate selflessness that, like many other Jesuits in New France, he believed that being martyred would mean partaking in the torment that Jesus had endured on the cross.

This would indicate his acceptance "into the pantheon of heroes whose physical and spiritual strength had been equal to the cruel persecutions inflicted on the primitive church.

"[9] At another point, Jogues speaks of, "The procession [of torture victims] beginning to enter this narrow way of Paradise... it was indeed then that I could say with my Lord and master, Supra dorsum meum fabricaverunt peccatores,—'Sinners have built and left monuments and marks of their rage upon my back.

The living quarters for campers are named for North American Martyrs and others influenced by their ministry, including Kateri Tekakwitha, Jean de Brébeuf, Noël Chabanel, Antoine Daniel, Charles Garnier, René Goupil, Jean de Lalande, and Gabriel Lalemant.