Background
Le Sueur was born in Artois, France around 1657. He was the son of Victor and Anne (Honneur) le Sueur.
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Pierre Le Sueur
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In 1679 or earlier Le Sueur came to Canada as a servant or donné for the Jesuit missionaries. In this capacity he was sent to Sault Ste. Marie, where the lure of the fur trade tempted him to abandon the religious profession. As early as 1681 he was denounced as a coureur de bois and subjected to a fine; nevertheless he persisted in his adventures and by 1682 was among the Sioux Indians on the upper Mississippi.
The early name for the Minnesota River--the St. Pierre--is believed to have been assigned in his honor. Not much is known of Le Sueur's movements for six years after 1683; in 1689 he was with Perrot on the upper Mississippi, when possession of all Sioux territory was taken for France. When Duluth was recalled from the West, Le Sueur was sent in 1693 to negotiate with the Sioux and to persuade them to keep peace with the Chippewa. To further this end he built a fort on Madeline Island and in 1695 one at the end of the Brulé-St. Croix portage, Prairie Island, Mississippi River. Some time earlier he had built a fort on the west shore of Lake Pepin, opposite the mouth of Chippewa River.
In 1695 he achieved his greatest diplomatic triumph: bringing to Canada a Sioux chief and his wife together with a Chippewa chief, so that the former might make an alliance with Governor Frontenac, and peace between the hereditary enemies might be publicly ratified. Le Sueur next went to France to obtain permission to work a mine he thought he had discovered, but on the return voyage was captured by an English vessel off Newfoundland. Held prisoner for a time, he was released by the Peace of Ryswick, and made a second attempt to reach his mine, but before he succeeded his permit was confiscated and he was recalled.
In 1700 he made a new effort to open his supposed mine; he joined Iberville in Louisiana and, going up the Mississippi in a sailing vessel, built Fort l'Huillier on a branch of the St. Pierre River, and left there a company to continue mining. The enterprise failed; the ore proved to be only colored earths, and Le Sueur's men abandoned the fort when attacked by hostile tribesmen. The site of this fort was marked in 1926 by the Minnesota Historical Society. In April 1702 Le Sueur returned to France to obtain new concessions. On his way back to Louisiana some years later he died.
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Le Sueur married Marguerite Messier at Boucherville, Canada, March 29, 1690.
