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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
La Harpe's Post: Tales of French-Wichita Contact on the Eastern Plains

La Harpe's Post: Tales of French-Wichita Contact on the Eastern Plains

Paperback

Native American HistoryExplorationGeneral United States History

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ISBN10: 0817311629
ISBN13: 9780817311629
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Published: Sep 18 2002
Pages: 464
Weight: 1.45
Height: 1.01 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.38
Language: English

This major contribution to contact period studies points to the Lasley Vore site in modern Oklahoma as the most likely first meeting place of Plains Indians and Europeans more than 300 years ago.

In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Bénard, Sieur de la Harpe, departed St. Malo in Brittany for the New World. La Harpe, a member of the French bourgeoisie, arrived at Dauphin Island on the Gulf coast to take up the entrepreneurial concession provided by the director of the French colony, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne de Bienville. La Harpe's charge was to open a trading post on the Red River just above a Caddoan village not far from present-day Texarkana. Following the establishment of this post, La Harpe ventured farther north to extend his trade market into the region occupied by the Wichita Indians. Here he encountered a Tawakoni village with an estimated 6,000 inhabitants, a number that swelled to 7,000 during the ten-day visit.

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General United States History