Did It Happen: Moncacht-Ape of the Yazoo and His Epic Journey

To Americans, the first explorers to traverse the North American Continent were Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806.  Canadians accord that honor to Alexander MacKenzie in 1793.  But could a Native person have done so decades before any of them?

One of the most intriguing details in Antoine-Simon le Page du Pratz tells of his friendship with a Yazoo Native named Moncacht-Ape.  Moncacht-Ape, whose name means "Killer of Pain" in his own language, was well-known to the French in Louisiana, nicknamed The Interpreter because of his ability with several Native languages.  He apparently also picked up enough French to enable him to communicate effectively with settlers, as he is known to have told his story to du Pratz, as well as to another army officer, Jean-Francois-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, who translates his name as Moncachtabbe.  Dumont de Montigny also took careful notes while in Louisiana, and later published his Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiana upon his return to France.

According to both Frenchmen, they were drawn to Moncacht-Ape because of a desire to learn more about the origin of the various tribes in Louisiana Territory.  According to him, a need to learn more about the origin of his own people had led him on an epic journey many years before the French came to Louisiana.  He was an old man when he met du Pratz and de Montigny, who knew each other though they both wrote independently of each other.  No other details of Moncachtabbe's life are known, such as when he was born or died, or exactly when he made his journey.  He told the Frenchmen that he had set out from near what is now Natchez Mississippi, up the Mississippi River to the Ohio Valley, and eventually to Niagara Falls in what is now New York.  He retraced his steps to the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers near present-day St. Louis.  He then followed the Missouri into what is now Montana, crossed a great chain of mountains, and followed a river to the Pacific Coast, possibly a tributary of the Columbia River, before returning home.  According to him, the people he had met along the Pacific Coast told stories of a land bridge over which their ancestors had walked from what is now Asia.

Du Pratz and de Montigny left Louisiana and returned to France, each later publishing their memoirs.  Both were later translated to English and used at least by Lewis and Clark in planning their route west.  But some sources cast doubt on the Moncacht-Abe story, saying that there exists no proof of his journey other than the memoirs of two men who knew him.  Unlike MacKenzie and Lewis and Clark, who journeyed at the request of their governments, with planned expeditions, and brought back careful notes, maps and specimens, the only evidence of Moncachtabbe's journey is his own word and amazing stories.  Such doubt fails to take into account the power of oral tradition among Native peoples.  Historical events and personal accounts were transmitted word-of-mouth.  Further, what seemed to settlers to be trackless wilderness filled with individual tribes was actually a network of trading routes and connections between various peoples.  Using these systems, and the waterways which would have guided his journey, it's entirely possible that one man pulled off an epic feat of adventuring and lived to tell the tale. 

Where there's a will, there's a way.