René Goupil was an Angevin surgeon who twice attempted the Jesuit novitiate in France but was forced to leave for reasons of health. In 1640, then thirty-two, he sailed to New France as a 'donné' — a lay associate, not a religious, but bound by promise to serve the Jesuit missions for life. He worked at the small infirmary at the Jesuit mission of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons in Huronia, treating both French and indigenous patients.
In August 1642 he was returning to Quebec with Father Isaac Jogues and a small party of Hurons when their canoe convoy on Lake Saint-Pierre was ambushed by Mohawk warriors. Jogues, Goupil, and several Hurons were taken captive across the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk village of Ossernenon (modern Auriesville, New York), where they were tortured for several days.
On September 29, 1642, in the village, Goupil was killed by a Mohawk who, observing him making the sign of the cross over a Mohawk infant in catechetical greeting, decided he was casting a spell. He was killed with a tomahawk to the head — the first martyr of the Catholic mission in North America. (Isaac Jogues, kept as slave, escaped to the Dutch at Fort Orange in August 1643, returned to France, came back to New France in 1644, and was eventually killed at the same village on October 18, 1646 — see the Jogues entry already in the catalogue.) Canonized 1930 as part of the eight Canadian Martyrs.