Louis-François Richer Laflèche
Canadian missionary (1818–1898)
Louis-François Laflèche (September 4, 1818 – July 14, 1898) was a Catholic bishop of the diocese of Trois-Rivières, in the province of Quebec, Canada.
Early life and career
Laflèche was born on September 4, 1818, in the village of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade to Louis-Modeste Richer dit Laflèche and Marie-Anne Richer dit Laflèche (née Joubin dit Boisvert). His family held the secondary surname of Laflèche because their ancestor, Jean Richer, was from an area in France called La Flèche, near Anjou. His grandmother from his mother's side was a Métis.
Laflèche studied at the Nicolet Seminary College in Nicolet, Lower Canada, from 1831 to 1839. Following his education, he taught classics and science while continuing courses in theology. He was ordained a priest on January 7, 1844.
In 1844, he headed a mission near the Red River of the North. As a missionary Oblate Laflèche educated himself in three Native American languages spoken in the North-Western Territory: Cree, Chipewyan, and Anishinaabe. He was the first to reduce the Chipewyan language to grammatical form.
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This entry incorporates text from “Louis-François Richer Laflèche” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.