Grace Period, 8: St. Michael's Mission
About Grace Period Revised December 22, 2022 Introduction : In 1844, as he had in 1842 and 1843, Pierre-Jean De Smet, Superior of the Rocky Mountain Mission, continued to expand his mission. In July, he introduced a new batch of recruits to the region, and in the early fall, he directed two of the priests who had arrived in the Rocky Mountains the year before to establish a third mission in the Inland Northwest. De Smet would spend Christmas at this mission, St. Michael's, in fellowship with the people for whom it was established, the Qlispe. Epidemic Throughout 1844, a “contagious, flulike ailment” plagued the Pacific Northwest. De Smet, three Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, and one of the new Jesuit missionaries, Father John Accolti, contracted the disease shortly after their landing in the Pacific Northwest toward the end of July. De Smet and the other Europeans recovered, but many region's Indigenous people did not. “Hundreds of Indians,” writes Carriker, “died, and coun...