(« J'ai lu, dans ma jeunesse, les relations des mœurs et d...)
« J'ai lu, dans ma jeunesse, les relations des mœurs et des manières des Sauvages écrites par des religieux qui, quoique les auteurs passent pour des saints, étaient pleines d'absurdités et de contradictions. » Trudeau ne mâche pas ses mots. Au moment où
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Jean Baptiste Trudeau was born on December 11, 1748 in Montreal, Canada. He was the son of Joseph and Catherine (Menard) Truteau. He always spelled the name Truteau but was generally referred to as Trudeau. His own children adopted this corrupt spelling.
He established himself as school-master of the village of St. Louis in 1774 and continued to teach for more than forty years.
In June 1794 he was engaged by the Missouri Trading Company for a term of three years to take charge of an exploring expedition under the direction of Jacques Clamorgan and Antoine Reihle. This company was organized in that year by some St. Louis merchants under the advice of Zenon Trudeau, the Spanish lieutenant-governor, who took a great interest in the exploration of the Upper Missouri country and the expansion of the fur trade.
The avowed object was to exploit the fur trade of the Upper Missouri and to penetrate the sources of the Missouri River, and "beyond to the Southern Ocean, " a term applied in that day to the Pacific Ocean. The instructions given to Truteau, approved by the governor, directed him to keep a record of all that should come under his observation.
Accordingly, Truteau began his journal June 7, 1794, the day of his departure. It was in two parts, the first to Mar. 26, 1795 (in American Historical Review, Jan. 1914), and the second from May 24, 1795, to July 20, 1795 (in Missouri Historical Society Collections, vol. IV, 1912, with biographical sketch).
This journal came to the attention of Thomas Jefferson, who sent extracts from it to Capt. Meriwether Lewis on Nov. 16, 1803, and on Jan. 22, 1804, a translation of the whole journal.
Truteau's journal proved a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the Upper Missouri and its tribes of Indians, especially applicable to the years 1794 and 1795.
The expedition, however, was not a profitable venture on account of desertions, jealousies, and lack of confidence in Jacques Clamorgan, who was one of the most active among the organizers.
He was at home in 1798, and the following year Governor Trudeau made a gift of a mortgage debt on Truteau's dwelling, amounting to four hundred dollars, to the school-master's two sons, "under grateful acknowledgments for having educated my numerous family and for many favors. " This dwelling was a stone house known as 18 and 20 North Main Street in St. Louis.
Governor Trudeau described the schoolmaster as his kinsman.
Jean Baptiste Truteau was a man of importance in the village of St. Louis, and his name appeared in public documents of the time with many of the principal citizens. A subscription list of "well-to-do people, " making patriotic gifts to aid Spain in war, mentions his name.
He died in the neighboring village of St. Louis and was buried in Carondelet.
(« J'ai lu, dans ma jeunesse, les relations des mœurs et d...)
He was married on May 1, 1781, to Madeleine Le Roy, the widow of François Herbert dit Bellhomme and the daughter of Julien and Marie (Saucier) Le Roy. They had five children.
