Antoine Simon Le Page Dupratz

Background

The date of Antoine Simon Le Page Dupratz' birth is given variously by secondary authorities as 1689 or 1690; and the place, as Holland, the Low Countries, and Belgium.  

Education

Dupratz was educated, graduating from a French cours de mathematiques, and identified as an engineer and professional architect.

Career

Dupratz is said to have seen military service in Germany. His own narrative begins with 1718, in which year he obtained a concession and came to Louisiana to seek his fortune.  He reached New Orleans when it had but one cabin.  He settled first on Bayou St. John, but dampness and the likelihood of floods led him to take up his abode near Fort Rosalie among the Natchez.  Later he was granted a duchy in the Arkansas region.  He explored the interior of Louisiana, going as far as the "South Sea. " 

In 1726 he became overseer of a plantation near New Orleans, belonging to the Company of the Indies.  This tract, which soon passed into the king's hands, Dupratz managed to the best of his ability, but the venture proved too costly and the post was abolished.  

He refused Bienville's invitation to remain in Louisiana, and in 1734 returned to La Rochelle whence he had sailed sixteen years before.  

In 1758 Dupratz published in Paris a three-volume work: Histoire de la Louisiane,  Contenant la decouverte de ce vaste pays, sa description geographique: un voyage dans les terres, l'Histoire naturelle, les moeurs, coutumes, et religion des Naturels avec leur origine; deux voyages dans le Nord du Nouveau Mexique dont un jusqu'a la Mer du Sud, illustrated with two maps and forty copper-plate engravings.

The author used the accounts of Louisiana by Carlevoix and Dumont to check his own.  Certain aspects of the man himself appear in his writing.  He knew something of astronomy and engineering, and his account includes a consideration of the hydraulic problem at the mouth of the Mississippi.  

As a historian, he told the story of the relations between French and Indians, depicted Bienville smoking the calumet with the Tchitimachas, described the massacre at Fort Rosalie, and recorded precious material on pioneer life.  He had vision, and saw even at that early date the possibilities latent in the vast territory of Louisiana.  

As a geographer, he noted the prodigious fertility of the soil, the favorable climate, the abundant streams, the fur-bearing animals, the plant life, the salt mines.  He studied the natives, their tribal organization,  languages, religion, manners, customs, ceremonies,  history.  Although discursive in manner, the book is written in a pleasing style and abounds in personal anecdotes which hold the interest of the reader.

Little is known of Dupratz after the publication of this volume.  It is stated by Eyries (post) that his death occurred in 1775.  

Achievements

• Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz is remembered for his account of Louisiana. Le Page's book was carried as a guide by the Lewis and Clark Expedition as it explored the Louisiana Purchase starting in 1804.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Histoire De La Louisiane... (French Edition)

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Histoire de la Louisiane, Vol. 1: Contenant la Découverte de ce Vaste Pays, Sa Description Géographique, un Voyage dans les Terres, l'Histoire ... Voyages dans le Nord du No (French Edition)

    (Excerpt from Histoire de la Louisiane, Vol. 1: Contenant ...)

Religion

Devoted to his Church, he refused an opportunity to marry an Indian princess and urged the baptism of all slaves.

Personality

Dupratz was apparently kind to his Negroes and was highly esteemed by the Indians. He was ever loyal to his superiors.

References

• The Greening Of Literary Scholarship: Literature, Theory, and he Environment