Synopses & Reviews
In 1719, Jean-Francois-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, son of a Paris lawyer, set sail for Louisiana with a commission as a lieutenant after a year in Quebec. During his peregrinations over the next eighteen years, Dumont came to challenge corrupt officials, found himself in jail, eked out a living as a colonial subsistence farmer, survived life-threatening storms and epidemics, encountered pirates, witnessed the 1719 battle for Pensacola, described the 1729 Natchez Uprising, and gave account of the 1739-1740 French expedition against the Chickasaws. This English translation of the unabridged memoir features a new introduction, maps, and a biographical dictionary to enhance the text.
Review
"Dodging death and success from La Rochelle to Biloxi and back, with some gardening in between, Dumont de Montigny survived to put quill to paper. His restless memoir, now briskly translated, offers a stereotype-shattering window onto eighteenth-century transatlantic life and writing."--Catherine Desbarats, McGill University
About the Author
Carla Zecher is director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library and author of Sounding Objects: Musical Instruments, Poetry, and Art in Renaissance France. Gordon M. Sayre is professor of English and folklore at the University of Oregon and author of The Indian Chief as Tragic Hero: Native Resistance and the Literatures of America, from Moctezuma to Tecumseh.