- Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz
Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz (1695?-1775) [ [http://www.lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2372 www.lewis-clark.org "Memoir of a French Visitor"] ] was an
ethnographer ,historian , andnaturalist who is best known for his "Histoire de la Louisiane" which was published in three volumes inParis in 1758.Early Life
He was born either in the Netherlands or France and was raised in the latter country. Serving with
Louis XIV ’s dragoons in theFrench Army , he saw service inGermany in 1713 during theWar of the Spanish Succession . OnMay 25 ,1718 he leftLa Rochelle, France , with 800 men on one of three ships bound for Louisiana. He arrived onAugust 25, 1718 . Le Page lived inLouisiana from 1718 to 1734, the first eight of those years atNatchez, Mississippi , where he lived with aChitimacha woman, learned theNatchez language, and befriended local native leaders. Rather than describing the "manners and customs of the Indians" in the detached, homogenizing fashion of so many other colonial authors, Le Page recorded many pages of the words of his native informants, the Yazoo explorer among them. [ [http://www.common-place.org/vol-05/no-04/sayre/index.shtml www.common-place.org "A Native American Scoops Lewis and Clark"] ]He lived at Natchez from 1720 to 1728, under the colonization scheme organized by
John Law and the Company of the West. His familiarity with the local Natchez, and knowledge of their language and customs, is the basis for some of the unique and fascinating parts of his writings. He returned toNew Orleans to take an appointment as manager of the Company's plantation, and thereby avoided being killed in the so-called Natchez Massacre of 1729. This uprising, which he described in detail, destroyed the FrenchFort Rosalie and nearly all the colonists there, and led to the King ending the concession of the Company of the West, and seizing control of the plantation that Le Page du Pratz was managing. [ [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~gsayre/LPDP.html darkwing.uoregon.edu "A Biographical Outline"] ]Writings
Le Page du Pratz waited more than fifteen years after his return to
France before he published his experience in Louisiana. The "Memoire sur la Louisiane" was published in the Journal Oeconomique, a Paris periodical devoted to scientific and commercial topics, between September 1751 and February 1753. In 1758 appeared the three octavo volumes of the "Histoire de la Louisiane". Part of the book is devoted to ethnographic description of the native peoples of Louisiana, particularly the Natchez. Other sections describe the history of the colony, from the Spanish and French explorers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through establishment of the French settlements along theMississippi . In 1763, a partial translation of Le Page du Pratz's work was published inLondon . The title, "The History of Louisiana", subordinated the former French colony to its English neighbors to the east, and its preface asserted that English "nation may now reap some advantages from those countries...by learning from the experience of others, what they do or are likely to produce, that may turn to account." [ [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~gsayre/LPDP.html darkwing.uoregon.edu "A Biographical Outline"] ] Later, Le Page's work was used to guide theLewis and Clark Expedition . [ [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/resources.html www.nationalgeographic.com "Lewis & Clark—Expedition—Supplies"] ]References
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