Jean-Baptiste L'Heureux, a white man with short dark hair and a long bear. He wears a suit and two medals.
Content warning for genocide, missionaries
To discuss the life of Jean-Baptiste L'Heureux is to take every account with a grain of salt. Beyond the fact that the man himself was a notorious liar and spent much of his life making up new backstories for himself, he was also a man with many enemies. Specifically, enemies within the Canadian government and various Christian institutions, as he spent just as much time making fools of them as anything else. The most reliable source to determine facts about his life and legacy would be the Blackfoot people. The reality is that the continued genocide against Indigenous peoples in Canada has wiped away much of the histories they kept. The stories that are still known are not among the most reliable sources, generally left on the accounts of religious authorities he offended and government officials he annoyed.
L'Heureux was born in 1837. Historians theorize his birthplace to be somewhere in lower Canada, L'Acadie, France, or somewhere in Montreal, where he said he attended seminary. The seminary has contested this as well. The Oblate priests said that he studied with them but was expelled before graduating. However, they could not decide whether it was for homosexuality or stealing.
Even in early records from 1861, his escapades seem to be relatively well known, as Father Albert Lacombe referred to him as the "famous L'Heureux." By the time he arrived for a mission near For Edmonton, his life was a followed event. He was promptly thrown out again, possibly for homosexuality. Eventually, the priest sent him away to a band of Blackfoot who were trading in the area, and he followed them to Montana. Around the same time, some stories claim he also sent false gold samples to prospectors, telling them he could lead them to a lode. When the prospectors tried to take him up on this offer, they went on a wild goose chase that lasted weeks. In the end, they were unable to find him. He is also said to be associated with a legend of a lost mine that remains unfound.
His time with the Blackfoot is said to have gone far better. He still impersonated a priest and switched orders depending on whom he wanted to ingratiate himself. While he was gaining a somewhat negative reputation with the missionaries, he got along quite well with the Blackfoot people. He discovered they did not object to his sexuality. While he seemed to have given a half-hearted attempt to convert them, he found their beliefs worked well enough alongside his own. He tried to convince other clergymen that their religion was not mutually exclusive with the Blackfoot's. He was, unfortunately, unable to convince many.
His preaching seems to have been seen mostly as an oddity and earned him the name Nio'kskatapi, "three persons," in reference to his sharing of the Christian mythological figures of Jesus, the holy spirit, and God.
During his time with the Blackfoot, he would perform baptisms and marriages. While most missionaries did not like him, they could not deny his growing wealth of knowledge of the Blackfoot people and their land. They used him both as an intermediary for trades and an interpreter. With the Blackfoot people, he found his place and began to act with some level of integrity. He started writing a Blackfoot to English dictionary, did a census of Blackfoot tribes, described Blackfoot land, and wrote a manuscript of stone effigies. His writing is the first mention from colonists' records of the Dinosaur remains for which Alberta would later become known. In 1865, during a measles epidemic, L'Heureux was forced to seek help from the religious order he had offended.
He brought Father Lacombe to a Blackfoot camp in an attempt to get help. When Father Lacombe contracted the disease, he took care of him, forming a bond between the two men that would last both of their lives. He rode to Fort Edmonton to beg for medicine, then to the West Mounted Police in Calgary to beg for food.
While he seemed to have found his place, the religious order he was rejected from carried a grudge, and he was written out of history. It is only because of the Blackfoot and other Indigenous peoples in Canada that we have some accounts of his continued misadventures. During one, he tried to stop a gunfight and ended up getting Lacombe shot.
He was well versed enough in various languages taught to him by various Indigenous tribes. Though he was not significant enough to be mentioned by the clergy history keepers, they asked him to translate for the Canadian government as they negotiated Treaty Seven. He turned them down, choosing to interpret for Crowfoot and other Chiefs. The Candian government seemed to hope that this gave them an inside man. On the contrary, another man who attended the event, Frank Oliver, later said:
"He stood unswervingly with the [Indigenous people] as an [Indigenous person]."
He remained close with the Indigenous people he encountered throughout his life and spent most of his time with the Blackfoot. However, this does not make him blameless in the Canadian government's genocide. He is guilty of the inherent harm of attempting to convert Indigenous people and betraying them. When revolutionary Louis Riel approached him for help in seizing land back for the Indigenous and Metis people, he informed the Canadian government. He also worked for the Department of Indian Affairs, a department that did untold damage to the Indigenous people of Canada, partly with the help of the information he gave them.
In the end, L'Heureux was also fired from that job when he was accused of giving preferential treatment to Catholic religious teachings. He would then move to live with Father Lacombe for a while and eventually moved to the Lacombe Home in Midnapore, where he died in 1919.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Allen, K. (2018). Our Past Matters: Stories of Gay Calgary. Calgary Gay History. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Our_Past_Matters/V1NRwAEACAAJ?hl=en
Anderson, F. W. (2006). Lost Lemon Mine. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lost-lemon-mine
Delisle, J. (2009, October 8). Through the Lens of History: Jean L’Heureux: Interpreter, false priest and Robin Hood. Travaux publics et Services gouvernmentaux Canada. https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/favart/index-fra.html?lang=fra&lettr=indx_titls&page=91UdTzY3NS4A.html
Dempsey, H. A. (1998). L’HEUREUX, JEAN. In Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol. 14). University of Toronto. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/l_heureux_jean_14E.html
Dempsey, H. A. (2008). Jean-Baptiste L’Heureux. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jean-baptiste-lheureux