Jean-Pierre Aulneau - Aftermath

Aftermath

When members of the friendly Cree tribe reported the massacre to La Verendrye, he gave orders for the heads of the 19 voyageurs and the decapitated remains of his son and Father Aulneau to be returned to Fort St. Charles. The bodies of Father Aulneau and young La Verendrye were encased in a rough hewn coffin and buried beneath the altar of the fortress chapel. The heads of the 19 voyageurs were buried together in a nearby trench.

For a time, the massacre ended the Church's project of a mission to the Mandan. There was no other priest further west than Fort Michilimackinac. It was not until 1741 that Father Claude-Godefroy Coquart, a replacement for Father Aulneau, began his journey west. He would have spent some time at Fort St. Charles before moving on to join the La Vérendryes at Fort La Reine (presently Portage la Prairie, Manitoba) in 1743. Coquart was the first recorded missionary in present-day Manitoba and the first to travel beyond Lake of the Woods.