Life in Lower French Louisiana
Tonti experienced several financial difficulties in the 1690s, and in early 1700, he commenced a journey down the Mississippi to make contact with Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had established the Louisiana (New France) colony. Tonti reached French Louisiana and joined the colony.
In 1702, at Old Mobile, he was chosen by Iberville as an ambassador to the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes and conducted several negotiations. De Tonti, for whom the historic district north of present-day downtown Mobile is named, returned to the Old Mobile Site, with three Chickasaw chiefs and four Choctaw chiefs. The chiefs were rivals, but after Iberville had finished addressing them and presenting them gifts of guns and ammunition, they agreed to aid the settlers. The 22-year-old Bienville (a younger brother of Iberville) translated for Iberville.
Tonti also led punitive expeditions until 1704.
In August 1704 Tonti contracted yellow fever and died at Old Mobile, north of present day Mobile, Alabama.
Read more about this topic: Henri De Tonti
Famous quotes containing the words life, french and/or louisiana:
“The best thing in life is doing things people say you can’t do.”
—Jennifer Moore (b. 1972)
“Much that is urged on us new parents is useless, because we didn’t really choose it. It was pushed on us. It—whether it be Raffi videos, French lessons, or the complete works of Brazelton—might be just right for you and your particular child. But it is only right when you feel that it is. You know your family best; you decide.”
—Sonia Taitz (20th century)
“I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark
green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone
there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)