Investigating the mysterious journey of Moncacht-Apé involves a lot of research. On this page, you will find a growing list of primary and secondary sources used in this project, along with summaries about certain sources and links when available. For now, I’ve added just some of the most critical sources. As time allows, I will continue to expand the list.
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Histoire de la Louisiane by Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, 1758. The original French book in three volumes can be viewed or downloaded at Internet Archive. The Moncacht-Apé narrative is found in Volume 3, chapters 6-8, pages 87-140. Click here to view the original narrative in French.
The History of Louisiana, 1763. The first English translation of Le Page’s book was heavily abridged and published in two volumes. This is a decent source to read for a general sense of the entire book. However, the Moncacht-Apé narrative was thoroughly condensed and revised from its original 54 pages to about ten, making it an unsuitable source for investigating the journey. The Internet Archive has the 1763 English edition, with the found in Volume 2, Book 4, Chapter 1, pages 120-130. Click here to view.
In 1774, a version identical to the 1763 was published as a single volume, and this is available online as a text file from Gutenberg.org by clicking here.
Memoire Sur la Louisiane by Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz. Published in twelve installments in Journal Oeconomique between September 1751 and February 1753, these were Le Page’s original publications about his time in French Louisiana. This multipart memoir is similar but not necessarily identical to Le Page’s 1758 book, and unique material can be found in each, making both sources helpful to the investigation. The Moncacht-Apé narrative is found in the eighth and ninth installments, August and September 1752, respectively. The issues are available online from the National Library of France by clicking here.
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Memoires Historiques Sur La Louisane by Dumont de Montigny, 1753. A third primary source comes from Chapter 41 in the memoirs of a French colonial army lieutenant stationed in the Louisiana territory. Dumont came to recognized for embellishment and sensationalizing the truth about his own experiences, partly in hopes of outselling his rival, Le Page. More specifically, after Le Page began publishing his multipart memoir in Journal Oeconomique, Dumont rushed his book to publication, claiming his rival’s stories were false and this his own book was truth. In reality, the situation was the opposite. Among other fictionalizations, Dumont turned the Moncacht-Apé narrative into a bizarre romance in a strange land that bears little resemblance to the account published by Le Page, nor the accurate geography the Yazoo explorer described, which was later confirmed by U.S. explorers and surveyors. Though he does make some mistakes, Le Page is widely considered to be the more accurate historian and chronicler of events, of nature, and of the Native tribes of the Mississippi River Valley, during what otherwise was a little-known place and time in colonial French Louisiana.
In the future, I will have more to share about Dumont, the implications of his rivalry with Le Page, and how Dumont’s fictionalizations perhaps helped later U.S. historians to dismiss Le Page’s narrative of Moncacht-Apé’s journey. In the meantime, one important take-away from Dumont is that, in the preface of his book, he claimed to have personally known Moncacht-Apé. This claim is believable when considering that Dumont was stationed at Fort St. Pierre, which was established on the Yazoo River for the purpose of establishing relations with the Yazoo Nation. Their main village was located a mile away, and this was the likely home of an older Moncacht-Apé after his return from the West.
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More discussion coming soon about the following sources and translations:
A French and English Dictionary by Randle Cotgrave, 1673
Nugent’s New French and English Dictionary, 1816
“Journey Across the Continent of North America by an Indian Chief…” by Andrew Stuart, 1829
“Les Voyages de Moncacht-Apé” by Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau, 1881.
“The Journey of Moncacht-Apé” by Andrew McFarland Davis, 1883.
The Discovery of the Oregon Trail: Robert Stuart’s Narratives of His Overland Trip Eastward from Astoria in 1812-13, edited by Philip Ashton Rollins, 1935, reprinted Bison Books, 1995.
A Glossary of Mississippi Valley French: 1673-1850 by John Francis McDermott, 1941.
The Way to the Western Sea: Lewis & Clark Across the Continent by David Lavendar, 1989, reprinted by Bison Books, 2001.
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose, Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition, edited by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr, Vintage Books, 2006
Yazoo Mingo: The Journeys of Moncacht-Apé Across North America, 1687-1700, a novel by Jonathan Reynolds Cronin, 2002
“Dumont de Montigny and Le Page du Pratz” and other works by Gordon Sayre, ~2010s
Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities, senior editor Albert Valdman et al, University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South by Elizabeth N Ellis, U. Pennsylvania Press, 2023
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk, Yale University Press, 2023.
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That’s all for now! I am using hundreds of sources for this investigation, and I’ll add more selections to this list soon. If you have any suggestions for additional sources, I welcome your input. Please reach out with this contact form.