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Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, a French ethnographer, historian, and naturalist, is renowned for his Histoire de la Louisiane, a detailed account of his years in the Louisiana colony from 1718 to 1734. Published initially in installments (1751–1753) and later as a three-volume set in Paris (1758), the work offers unparalleled insights into the Native societies of the Mississippi region, particularly the Natchez people. Le Page’s observations, recorded with a rare attentiveness to Indigenous voices and traditions, made his memoir a cornerstone of early American ethnography and a guide for explorers such as Lewis and Clark. 

Le Page arrived in Louisiana in August 1718, part of the colonization initiative led by John Law's Company of the Indies. Settling near Fort Rosalie in Natchez (1720–1728), he cultivated tobacco on his land and engaged deeply with the Natchez people. He learned their language, participated in their rituals, and forged relationships with their leaders. These experiences formed the basis of his ethnographic work, particularly his accounts of Natchez culture, governance, and funerary practices. One of the most vivid passages in his memoir recounts the funeral rites of Tattooed Serpent, a high-ranking Natchez chief, in 1725. Through detailed descriptions and illustrations, he immortalized these rituals for European audiences. 

In 1728, Le Page relocated to New Orleans to manage a tobacco plantation owned by the Company of the Indies. Overseeing 200 enslaved laborers, he became an integral part of the colony’s agricultural economy. His move spared him from the Natchez Rebellion of 1729, during which Native groups, reacting to the French encroachment on their lands, attacked Fort Rosalie and killed nearly all the French men stationed there. Le Page’s account of the rebellion, written with the hindsight of more than two decades, captures the precarious nature of French-Indigenous relations in colonial Louisiana.

Following the rebellion, French forces retaliated, capturing and enslaving hundreds of Natchez people. By 1731, King Louis XV dissolved the Company of the Indies and placed Louisiana under direct royal control. Le Page’s role as plantation manager ended, and he returned to France in 1734, where he began reflecting on his time in the colony. 

Le Page’s writings stand apart from many colonial accounts due to his emphasis on Indigenous narratives. Among the most significant of these is the story of Moncacht-Apé, a Yazoo explorer who recounted his journey to the Pacific coast and back. Le Page devoted three chapters to Moncacht-Apé’s account, highlighting the explorer’s curiosity about the origins of his people. Moncacht-Apé’s oral history, relayed to Le Page, included references to a land bridge from Asia, a prescient insight later validated by modern archaeology.

Le Page’s observations reached beyond ethnography; his Histoire de la Louisiane also chronicled the colony’s history, geography, and European rivalries in the Americas. His maps and descriptions provided valuable information about the Mississippi River and its surrounding lands, becoming a resource for subsequent explorers, including Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who carried an English edition of his work during their 1804–1806 expedition.