LACOMBE, Pere Albert

Born in 1827 at Saint-Sulpice in Quebec, ordained in 1849, the celebrated missionary was closely identified with the early history of the Canadian Prairies. Viewing as inevitable and necessary the transition from Hudson’s Bay Company rule to white settlement that caused the collapse of their way of life, Lacombe encouraged Plains Amerindians to become sedentary, educated, and Christian. His pronounced social skills made him an intermediary among increasingly desperate and aggressive tribes and between Aboriginal and white societies. He fought for Louis Riel’s amnesty after the uprising of 1869; persuaded angry Blackfoot to renounce treaty land selected by the CPR for the railway; lobbied for Aboriginal industrial schools, establishing one at Dunbow, Alberta; dissuaded Amerindians from joining the second Riel uprising (1885); and published dictionaries, catechisms, and New Testament translations in Aboriginal languages. Although a firm believer in Canada’s bicultural character, his efforts to attract French-speaking immigrants to the West were unsuccessful. With fellow Oblate Alexandre-Antonin Taché, Archbishop of Saint-Boniface, and his successor, Adélard Langevin, Lacombe played a critical role in the Manitoba schools question, lobbying hard for remedial legislation despite partisan and public accusations of Conservative bias. His encounters with the rich and powerful never deterred him from the simple lifestyle of an early Prairie missionary. He died in 1916.

Bibliography of sitter:

K. A. Hughes, Father Lacombe: The Black-robe Voyageur (1911)

J. G. Macgregor, Father Lacombe (1975)

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According to records at the Minnesota Historical Society, James J. Hill paid $800 for a portrait of Father Albert Lacombe on 12 August 1895 (Voucher 1355), in answer to his letter that same day.  The entry says that in January 1904 it was presented to Lacombe, and amongst Hill’s papers should be a letter dated 16 January 1904, which has not been located, though an index card records that this was a carbon from Mr Toomey to D. S. Elliott stating: ‘We are arranging on behalf of Mr. James J. Hill to forward to the Right Reverend Legal, St. Albert, Alberta, via Edmonton, as a gift from Mr. Hill, a portrait in oil of the Reverend A. Lacombe, framed, painted by A. Muller-Ury of New York.’ Emile Legal was Bishop of St Albert, now part of the Archdiocese of Edmonton and a copy of a letter exists in the Archdiocese of Edmonton Archives (Bound Letterbook 1902-1904) dated 9 March 1904 to James J. Hill from Legal which says in part:

‘The splendid oil painting of himself that Father Lacombe has found here on his arrival has caused him an immense pleasure; and we expect, any day, the portrait of yourself, which I am informed, has also been forwarded some time ago.’