Antoine Simon Maillard

An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations (Dodo Press) Antoine Simon Maillard

Antoine-Simon Maillard (1710-1762) was a French Roman Catholic Missionary. He was sent to Acadia by the French Seminary of Foreign Missions in 1735. In 1740 he was appointed vicar-general to the Bishop of Quebec, and resided at Louisbourg until its fall in 1745, after which he retired to the woods and ministered to the dispersed Acadians and First Nations of Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and the eastern coast of Nova Scotia. He studied the language of the Mi'kmaqs for eight years, and composed a hieroglyphic alphabet, a grammar, a dictionary, a prayerbook, a catechism, and a series of sermons. Maillard was the only Catholic priest allowed by the English to remain in Nova Scotia. When the First Nations fought the British occupation, the Government appealed to Maillard, who negotiated a peace. In recognition, he was invited to Halifax, where a church was built for him, and the government permitted the free exercise of Catholicism. He wrote his book An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations in 1758.