BIGOT, VINCENT, priest, Jesuit, missionary to the Abenakis, brother of Jacques Bigot; b. 15 May 1649 at Bourges, France; d. 7 Sept. 1720 in Paris.

Vincent Bigot had entered the Jesuit noviciate in Paris on 2 Sept. 1664. He arrived in Canada in 1680 and was first attached, in 1681–82, to the Algonkin mission at Sillery, then in 1682–83 to the mission to the Iroquois at La Prairie-de-la-Magdeleine. He returned to Sillery in 1683 and was superior of the mission until 1690. Then, when his brother Jacques returned to France, he took his place at the Saint-François de Sales mission at the falls on the Chaudière River. In 1694 he went to found the mission to the Abenakis at Pentagouet in Acadia. He directed this mission for more than seven years, transferring it in 1698 to Naurakamig on the Androscoggin River. This locality was better suited to farming. He baptized the majority of the Indians of this village. During the summer of 1698 he fell ill and was replaced for some months by his brother Jacques, whose place he took at the Chaudière mission. It was from there that on 25 Sept. 1699 he wrote to renew the union of prayers between the Abenakis and the canons of the cathedral of Chartres, to whom he sent a belt, six feet long, composed of 11 strings of wampum. In return the canons sent the Abenakis a small silver statue of the Virgin, a copy of an ancient wooden statue which is kept in the underground church of the cathedral of Chartres.

According to tradition it was Vincent Bigot who founded the Abenaki mission at Bécancour in 1700; in reality this mission was founded by Father Sébastien Rale, but not until after 1705. Bigot returned to his Acadian mission in 1700, but was withdrawn from it by his superior the following year. It was claimed that he was not sufficiently zealous in keeping his Abenakis attached to the interests of France. On 6 Oct. 1701 Brouillan [Monbeton], the governor of Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal, N.S.), wrote to the minister, Pontchartrain: “It is certain . . . that he has not been able to prevent the Indians from entering into negotiations with the English and that these negotiations have progressed to the point where they have received the presents and have promised to make peace with them.”

After attending the meeting of the Indian tribes which opened on 25 July 1701 at Montreal to ratify the peace of 1700, Vincent Bigot went to aid his brother at the Saint-François mission, concerning himself particularly with training the Abenakis in church singing. From 1704 to 1710 he was at Quebec, where he held the office of superior general of the Jesuit missions in Canada. During these years he had rescued from the hands of the Abenakis two English prisoners: Marie-Anne Davis, who became a nun at the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec in 1710, and Esther Wheelwright*, who entered the Ursuline convent in Quebec and was elected superior in 1760. In 1713 Father Bigot returned to France, where he held the office of procurator of the missions in Canada until his death on 7 Sept. 1720.

Thomas Charland