Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649), a French missionary to Canada, was a Jesuit priest who suffered martyrdom in North America.

Jean de Brébeuf was born on March 25, 1593, in Condé-sur-Vire, Normandy, where his family belonged to the petty landed aristocracy. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1617 and was ordained in 1622. For the next 3 years he was treasurer at the Jesuit secondary school in Rouen. In 1625, at his own request, he went to the newly opened Jesuit mission in New France.

In order to master the native tongue, Brébeuf left Quebec in October 1625 and lived for 5 months among the Montagnais, who belonged to the Algonquin nation. His missionary labors concentrated on the conversion of the Huron in southeastern Ontario.

Brébeuf was the first apostle to contact the Hurons, and evangelization involved the severest physical hardships, augmented by surroundings revolting to...