Kateri Tekakwitha was born in Ossernenon, present-day Auriesville, New York, in 1656, as a member of the Kanien'kehá:ka, or Mohawk, tribe. When an outbreak of smallpox reached her village, Tekakwitha lost her parents, a Mohawk chief and a Christian Algonquin woman, to the disease. While she herself survived, Tekakwitha’s face was scarred and her vision impaired. Abhorring marriage from a young age, Tekakwitha would begin instructions in the Catholic faith at the age of eighteen, take on the name Catherine in honor of Saint Catherine of Siena at her baptism, and eventually make a vow of perpetual virginity after relocating to the Mission of Saint Francis Xavier, outside of Montreal. While there, she engaged in intense ascetic practices and grew a strong friendship with another native woman, Marie Thérèse Tegaianguenta. Though they desired to found a Native religious order, their proposal was rejected by Jesuit missionaries. Tekakwitha passed away in 1680 while in her early twenties, and is said to have appeared afterward to some of those close to her. Her canonization would not happen until 2012, over 300 years later, despite near-immediate veneration.

Tekakwitha leaves behind a complex legacy. Jesuit narratives from the time and Mohawk oral history contradict each other on the amount of suffering she faced as a result of her conversion. In addition, while some Indigenous people see Tekakwitha’s conversion as a betrayal of her heritage, others identify with her. Contemporary Indigenous Catholic devotion to her sees her as an embodiment of what it means to be both Indigenous and Catholic.

Sources:

Holmes, Paula Elizabeth. “The Narrative Repatriation of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.” Anthropologica 43, no. 1 (2001): 87–103. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25606011.

“Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680): The Lily of the Mohawks.” Saint Kateri National Shrine and Historic Site. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://www.katerishrine.org/st-kateri.

Koppedrayer, K. I. “The Making of the First Iroquois Virgin: Early Jesuit Biographies of the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.” Ethnohistory 40, no. 2 (1993): 277–306. https://doi.org/10.2307/482204.

You can read Saint Catherine Kateri Tekakwitha's pamphlet through JSTOR:

Kateri Catharine Tegakwitha: Lily of the Mohawks