Benjamin Petit

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Benjamin Marie Petit (April 8, 1811 - February 10, 1839). A native of Rennes in Brittany, Petit was a Catholic missionary sent to the Potawatomi nation of Native Americans in Indiana in 1837. In 1838, when the United States forced the removal of a band of 859 Potawatomi from the vicinity of Plymouth, Indiana, to the present-day site of Osawatomie, Kansas, Petit accompanied them on most of the two-month march, now called the Potawatomi Trail of Death. More than 40 of the Potawatomi died of disease and the stress of the march. Petit himself became ill during the march and died on February 10, 1839 in Saint Louis, Missouri, while trying to return to Indiana. In his book The Trail of Death, Irving McKee writes in his conclusion: "Father Petit did not live to see his Bishop again. Exhausted by his strenuous journey and weakened by successive attacks of fever, he died at St. Louis on February 10, 1839. He was not quite twenty nine years old." [1] . Father Petit died in the Jesuit seminary building at 9th and Washington Streets and was buried in the old cemetery at 7th Street and St. Charles Avenue. In 1856 the cemetery was moved to make way for downtown St. Louis. At that time, Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C. took Father Petit's body back to Indiana. Father Petit's remains rest under the Log Chapel at the University of Notre Dame. Because of his service to the Potawatomi, Petit is remembered by the Catholic Church as a martyr of charity.

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[edit] References

  1. ^ McKee, Irving, The Trail of Death, Indianapolis, 1941
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