User:Paris1127/Pierre François Pinet

Father Pierre François Pinet S.J. (10 November 1660 – 1 August 1701) was a French Jesuit and missionary in North America.

Biography
Born in Périgueux, Pierre François Pinet entered Jesuit novitiate at Bordeaux in 1682. He was sent to Canada in 1694, first arriving in Quebec City before traveling to Ville-Marie (now Montreal) and Michilimackinac. In 1696, he founded the Mission of the Guardian Angel (Mission de l'Ange gardien) in the Illinois Country near what is now Chicago to convert he Miami, but he soon closed it after the intervention of Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor General of New France. In 1698, François de Laval, the Bishop of Quebec, dispatched Pinet back to re-establish the mission. Some time after 1700, the Miamis began to move towards the Maumee River and Wabash River valleys in what is now Indiana, and the mission was abandoned permanently. After the mission's closure, Pinet worked with the Illinois people near Cahokia. He then left Cahokia with the Illinois to travel to Kaskaskia. A letter from Père Bergier, dated 1 March 1703, indicates that Pinet died near the River des Peres (near what is now St. Louis) on 1 August the previous year.