Early Ethnographer: Antoine-Simon le Page du Pratz

When Lewis and Clark were preparing their expedition to examine the vast tract of land that was the Louisiana Purchase, they prepared by gathering as much information about the peoples and places they would see.  One source was a Franco-Dutch ethnographer named Antoine-Simon le Page du Pratz (c 1695-1775).

Du Pratz was either born in Holland and raised in France, or born in France and raised in Holland, depending on which source tells the story.  He studied mathematics and was a professional engineer and architect, also serving as a in the French army as a dragoon during the War of the Spanish Succession/Queen Anne's War (1702-1715).  After the war, in 1718, du Pratz left France and headed for La Louisiane, as the colony was then known.  He lived in Louisiana from 1718-1734.  For part of that time he lived near Fort Rosalie, now Natchez, Mississippi, and owned a tobacco plantation.  He had a Native companion, a Chitimacha woman who bore him children and lived with him as his wife.  He also learned the Natchez language and befriended several Natchez leaders.  During his stay in Louisiana, he took extensive notes, focusing particularly on the Natchez culture.  He also met a Yazoo Native, Moncacht-Apee, who had traveled extensively, perhaps even reaching the West Coast of the United States.  According to Moncacht-Apee, oral histories along the Pacific Northwest coast told of an ancient land bridge to Asia.  More on this explorer later.

While in Louisiana, du Pratz also managed land for the French Company of the Indies.  He wrote in detail about the various Chickasaw uprisings, the Natchez Revolt, and a slave uprising.  After the Natchez Revolt (1729), the King seized the lands owned by the Indies Company and du Pratz to Louisiana.  Only fifteen years later did he publish his Histoire de la Louisiane, first as a serial in the French Journal Economique, and later as a three volume set.  After the British seized the territory in 1763, they translated and published a partial version of du Pratz's work.  It was this partial version which British authorities and later Lewis and Clark studied as they worked their way through the Louisiana Territory.  Through du Pratz, we get the most extensive description of the Natchez civilization, the last remnants of the Mississippian Culture, before it was almost completely wiped out.