Brébeuf was nearly expelled from the Society when he contracted tuberculosis in 1620—a severe and usually fatal illness that prevented his studying and teaching for the traditional periods.

In June 1625, Brébeuf arrived in Québec with Fathers Charles Lalemant and Énemond Massé, together with the lay brothers Francois Charton and Gilbert Burel.

Along with Antoine Daniel and Ambroise Davost, Brébeuf chose Ihonatiria (Saint-Joseph I) as the centre for missionary activity with the Huron.

[13] Despite his efforts to learn their ways, he considered Huron spiritual beliefs to be undeveloped and "foolish delusions"; he was determined to convert them to Christianity.

With their loved ones dying before their eyes, many Huron began to listen to the words of Jesuit missionaries who, unaffected by the disease, appeared to be men of great power.

He wrote a detailed account in 1636 of The Huron Feast of the Dead, a mass reburial of remains of loved ones after a community moved the location of its village.

Current Catholic theology tried to reconcile knowledge of world languages with accounts in the Bible of the tower of Babel, as this was the basis of European history.

[21] His commitment to this work demonstrates he understood that mutual intelligibility was vital for communicating complex and abstract religious ideas.

He believed learning native languages was imperative for the Jesuit missions, but noted that it was so difficult a task that it consumed most of the priest's time.

The Iroquois took the priests to the occupied village of Taenhatenteron (also known as St. Ignace), where they subjected the missionaries and native converts to ritual torture before killing them.

[29] Charles Garnier was killed by Iroquois in December 1649 in a Petun (Tobacco People) village,[30] and Noel Chabanel was also martyred that year in the conflict between the Mohawk and other tribes.

[31] The Jesuits considered the priests' martyrdom as proof that the mission to the Native Americans was blessed by God and would be successful.

As part of the ritual, the Iroquois drank his blood and ate his heart, as they wanted to absorb Brébeuf's courage in enduring the pain.

[35] The Jesuits Christophe Regnault and Paul Ragueneau provided the two accounts of the deaths of Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant.

Jesuit accounts of his torture emphasize his stoic nature and acceptance, claiming that he suffered silently without complaining.

Historian Allan Greer notes that "his death seemed to fit the profile of a perfect martyr's end" and was preceded by what were considered religious signs pointing to correspondences with the Passion of Christ, which added to the significance of Brébeuf.

[43] In the late spring of 1649, Christophe Regnault prepared the skeletal remains of Brébeuf and Lalemant for transportation to Québec for safekeeping.

Regnault boiled away the remaining flesh and reburied it in the mission church, scraped the bones and dried them in an oven, wrapped each relic in separate silk, deposited them in two small chests, and sent them to Québec.

He formalized this material in a document, to be used as the foundation of canonization proceedings, entitled Memoires touchant la mort et les vertus (des Pères Jesuits), or the Manuscript of 1652.

[47] The religious communities in New France considered the Jesuit martyrs as imitators of previous saints in the Catholic Church.

[48] Catherine de Saint-Augustin said that Brébeuf appeared to her in a vision at the Québec Hôtel-Dieu while she was in a state of "mystical ecstasy", and he acted as her spiritual advisor.

[45] According to one account, Catherine de Saint-Augustin ground up part of Brébeuf's relic bone and gave it in a drink to a heretical and mortally ill man.

[49] In another instance, in 1660–61, a possessed woman was exorcised by the aid of one of Brébeuf's ribs, again while under the care of Catherine de Saint-Augustin.

[6] A contemporary newspaper account of the canonization declares: "Brébeuf, the 'Ajax of the mission', stands out among them [others made saints with him] because of his giant frame, a man of noble birth, of vigorous passions tamed by religion," describing both the man and his defining drive according to formal terms of hagiography.

A plaque near the grave of Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant was unearthed during excavations at Ste Marie in 1954.

[53] In September 1984, Pope John Paul II prayed over Brébeuf's skull before fully joining in an outdoor ecumenical service on the grounds of the nearby Martyrs' Shrine.

There is also a unit at Camp Ondessonk in the Shawnee National Forest named after Jean de Brébeuf.