"Natives in Summer"

 

Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz (Dutch or French, ca. 1695–1775)

"Natives in Summer"

From History of Louisiana

Paris: De Bure, l’âiné [etc.], 1758

Engraving

Upon arriving in Louisiana in 1718, the self-styled architect Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz obtained a land grant from the Mississippi Company, purchased two enslaved Africans and a Chitimacha woman who likely bore his children, and established himself as a tobacco planter in Natchez, where he learned the Natchez language and communed with Indigenous leaders. In 1728, he relocated to New Orleans to manage the plantation of France’s newly reestablished Indies Company. As a result, he avoided the Natchez revolt of 1729, when members of the Indigenous polity killed some 230 French colonists. Published many years later, and considered to be among the most accurate accounts of Louisiana at the time, his three-volume History of Louisiana nonetheless perpetuates stereotypes like that of the “noble savage.” Seen here is such an idealized youth, who looks European—apart from his hair, loincloth, and weapons.