Jude Bourassa

Biography

A visitor to Jude Bourassa's Kansas home in 1854 found a double log house with a furnished parlor and a piano. Jude's daughter Isabella played the Russian and Washington marches. Hutter's account describes a fire, a carpet and two beds in the room. These are observations of a particular household, made by a traveler whose descriptions also carried the prejudices of his time.

Jude had been born near the Galien River in southwestern Michigan on April 19, 1814, the son of Daniel Bourassa II and Theotis Pisange. He attended Carey Mission near Niles, Michigan, and then schools in New York and Kentucky. His education carried him beyond the Great Lakes while he was still young; the tribal biography identifies study at Hamilton and at the Choctaw Academy.

Land became an early point of conflict. A treaty provision had allotted him a quarter-section in Indiana. It was sold while he was a minor, and in 1837 he sought to recover it. His effort failed. The episode belongs to his life before removal: he had already tried to use legal and governmental channels to protect property in Indiana.

He married Marie Catherine Charet on June 21, 1833. Their children included Eugene, also known as Ugane, Bourassa. Jude was forced to what is now Kansas in 1840, two years after his parents' removal and three years after his brother Joseph's. He later operated a grain mill on Mill Creek and provided lodging for travelers. These enterprises placed the household near routes used by people moving through the reservation.

Hutter located the house about a mile and a half from Union Town, west of present-day Topeka near the Kansas River, a place associated with the distribution of government payments. The visitor's description catches domestic space within that setting: a log building containing a carpet and piano, and a daughter able to perform named pieces.

The tribal account places Jude's death from smallpox at Union Town in 1857. A mission-diary reference already calls Catherine a widow on January 2, 1858.

Catherine’s surname also appears as Charest. The tribal-history account connects Jude’s lodging business with Oregon Trail travellers and records his signing of the 1846 treaty.