Antoine-Simon Le Page Du Pratz - Early Life

Early Life

Le Page Du Pratz was born either in the Netherlands or France, and was raised in the latter country. Serving with Louis XIV’s dragoons in the French Army, he saw service in Germany in 1713 during the War of the Spanish Succession.

On 25 May 1718, he left La Rochelle, France, with 800 men on one of three ships bound for Louisiana. He arrived on 25 August 1718. Le Page lived in Louisiana from 1718 to 1734, and from 1720 to 1728 at Natchez, Mississippi. His companion was a Chitimacha woman (and likely had children with her), learned the Natchez language, and befriended local native leaders.

When he finally wrote his memoir, Le Page directly used the words of many of his Native informants, rather than describing the "manners and customs of the Indians" in the detached fashion of so many colonial authors. Because of his own interest in the origins of Native Americas, Le Page was especially attentive to the account by the Yazoo explorer Moncacht-apé. He had traveled to the Pacific coast and back, a century before the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Le Page devoted three entire chapters to the Yazoo man's account of his travels. Moncacht-apé was curious about the origins of his people and traveled to learn more. When he reached the Pacific Coast, Moncacht-apé heard Native accounts with references to an ancient land bridge from Asia.

Le Page lived at Natchez from 1720 to 1728 under the colonization scheme organized by John Law and the Company of the West. His familiarity with the local Natchez, and knowledge of their language and customs, is the basis for some of the unique aspects of his writings. Because he returned to New Orleans to take an appointment as manager of the Company's plantation, he avoided being killed in the so-called Natchez Rebellion or Natchez Massacre of 1729. Tensions and retaliatory attacks had escalated as settlers encroached on Indian territory.

During the uprising by the Natchez, Chickasaw and Yazoo, which Le Page described in detail, the Natives destroyed the Fort Rosalie and killed nearly all of the male French colonists there. The Native Americans did not kill enslaved Africans or French women. After the massacre, the French king ended the concession of the Company of the West and seized control of the plantation which Le Page was managing. French troops put down the Natchez Rebellion by 1731. They sold several hundred captive Indians into slavery and transported them to Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean.