The Mémoires of Dumont de Montigny: Empire and Misadventure in Colonial Louisiana, 1715-1747

FAIN: RQ-50075-04

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
Carla Zecher (Project Director: November 2003 to April 2008)

Preparation of a scholarly edition of the 1747 manuscript of Jean François Benjamin Dumont de Montigny's narrative of colonial Québec and Louisiana.

The Newberry Library requests funding to support preparation of an edition of a mid-18th century French illustrated manuscript in the Newberry collections, the memoir of a colonial adventurer named Dumont de Montigny. In this first-person narrative Dumont recounts his travels in Quebec, Louisiana, and Brittany, from 1715 to 1747. Until now, only portions of the document have been available, in a substantially reworked form, in a 1753 printed edition. Dumont was for Louisiana what John Smith was for Virginia. He wrote at some points with the grand purpose of a history of the colony, at others with an autobiographical aim. His account illuminates the history of colonial Louisiana and of the Native peoples of the Old Southwest.

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