Joseph Anthony de la Rivière Poncet (b. at Paris, 17 May 1610; d. at Martinique, 18 June 1675) was a French Jesuit missionary to Canada.
[2] In August 1653, after returning to Quebec he was captured at Cap-Rouge by the Iroquois while attempting to get some persons to cut the harvest of a poor widow.
He lost the index finger of his left hand due to torture, but was then adopted by an old woman in place of a relative that had been killed.
[3] Although Johannes Dyckman, commissary at Fort Orange treated him coldly, an elderly Walloon offered him hospitality, while others provided him with clothes, and a Scotch matron sent a surgeon to tend his wounds.
"Father Poncet had an attractive personality, and did not lack talent, virtues, or zeal, although his suspicious and irritable character made him unhappy and difficult to handle.