BOQUET, CHARLES, a donné of the Society of Jesus; b. c. 1630; d. some time after 1681.

We have no information concerning Charles Boquet’s life until 1657; after this date he appears fairly frequently in the Journal des Jésuites and the Relations. Indeed, up to 1667 he appears to have been one of the best of the guides and interpreters on the expeditions to the Iroquois country; in any event he accompanied all important missions that went there. In 1657 he was a member of the mission of Father Louis Mercier to Sainte-Marie-de-Ganentaa, and the following year he took an active part in the secret flight of the French. He returned three times to the Iroquois country in 1666: once in February and March as an interpreter to Father Pierre Raffeix* and to Governor Rémy de Courcelle’s troops; then in July with Father Thierry Beschefer* and the embassy proceeding to Fort Orange (Albany); lastly from September to November, with Father Charles Albanel and Prouville de Tracy’s expedition.

He took part with Fathers Jacques Frémin and Jean Pierron in the reopening of the Iroquois mission in 1667. Between 1658 and 1666 his chief employment seems to have been that of supervising the transporting of supplies between the Jesuit residences at Quebec and Trois-Rivières. In 1669 Mother Marie de l’Incarnation [see Guyart], described him in very warm terms of praise as a courier doing his rounds between the places where the fathers were. “He knows all the routes perfectly,” she said, “[and] he is known by all the Indians, who esteem and fear him.” The 1681 census – in most cases an unreliable source – states that he was about 51 years old, and was one of the donnés residing at the Jesuit college at Quebec.

J. Monet