Early River Travel in the Interior of North America: Etienne Philippe dit Dulongpré (originally published 2019)

This week's theme is "Dear Diary" but, sadly, I have not come across any diaries or journals written by my ancestors. Yet.
There's always a bit of hope in the search.

I have found several travel journals written by other people who were in the right place at the right time to have experienced the same things as my ancestors.

Less well known than the diaries written by people traveling west by covered wagon are the journals kept by
Frenchmen navigating the rivers of North America. 

One of my favorite travel journals was written by Diron D'Artaguiette in 1722-1723.
D'Artaguiette was appointed Inspector General of the Western Company (a French fur trading company), and the founder of Baton Rouge. This journal was part of his report to the commissioners on the state of the colony, including the Illinois Country. He chronicles much of his journey from New Orleans to what is now Kaskaskia, Illinois, and back. Like any good explorer, he documents things he notices along the way including the natural wonders he encounters, Native American tribes and their customs, and the Frenchmen he meets. Some of these Frenchmen are named, and others are not. Usually he only provides a surname, and I have yet to prove some of these as my ancestors. Whether they were or not, D'Artaguiette's journey and its hardships are things my ancestors 

would have found familiar.

Some excerpts follow:

“Dec. 22 – 3 leagues. We departed from New Orleans in a boat manned with fourteen men, nine soldiers and the rest sailors, accompanied by a pirogue manned with six men belonging to a certain Dulongpré, a Canadian living at the Ilinnois, who is returning there under our escort. The same day we reached the Chapitoulas and put in for the night.”

*The Dulongpré mentioned is possibly my ancestor, Etienne Philippe dit Dulongpré.

The time and place are correct. 

Regarding the Natchez Tribe on January 16:

“The women are fairly passable [as to looks] for Americans, and are all precocious in matters of love. . . They blacken their teeth with a certain root, a practice which is greatly esteemed among them.”

“Feb. 17. We are in great need of meat. Our men begin to grumble, and our Indian has hunted without having killed anything, which has determined us to leave for Grande Pointe Coupée to endeavor to kill some buffaloes, for we are reduced to Indian corn, without either meat or flour, and with no hope of killing any buffaloes from here to the Arkansas. That nation having come to hunt in these quarters, has caused these animals to withdraw into the back country.”

“Feb. 26. . . . The same day at 2 o’clock in the afternoon we embarked in a little Indian pirogue and arrived at about 4 o’clock in the evening at the post, where are the troops commanded by Sr. La Boulaye. There is no fort at all. The commandant there has only a little hut. There are also in the vicinity of this post, on the banks of the river, many French habitants, who are all men dismissed from the concession belonging heretofore to M. Law. The Jesuit father baptized there two French children and performed two marriage ceremonies.”

*Most settlements had no priest and the people there had to wait for one to visit their village. This priest was traveling with D’Artaguiette.

You can read the journal here:

 The Journal of Diron D'Artaguiette