The Incredible Journey of Moncacht Apé Across North America

Anyone else out there love reading the travel accounts of people like Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, and Herodotus? I'm a bit of a travel nerd and I love reading these accounts. They allow you to glimpse into great moments of discovery and to see lands and people long gone. When we consider such accounts and think of the Americas, we think of Europeans exploring the vast American continents because, by and large, those are the accounts that were written down and that we still have today. Sadly, we don't have any historical accounts of indigenous people making such journeys. Or do we? It turns out we do. Today we are going to look at the story of perhaps the most well-traveled indigenous person that we know of, Mon Cachetapé, the man who traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Before we introduce Mon Cachetapé, let's discuss our sources really quick. The only account of Mon Cachetapé's story was written down by one Monsieur Antoine Lepage had been in French Louisiana since 1718 and settled down on a farm near the Natchez nation. His close contact with the Natchez gave him a deep appreciation and sympathy for them. He even learned their language and wrote about them and their customs extensively. He was pretty much an ethnographer before professional ethnography. All this material, including his interview with Mon Cachetapé, Pardon me please, I do not speak French. Ironically, this actually wasn't the first time that the account of Mon Cachetapé was published because during his stay in Louisiana, Lepage encountered a French officer named Jean-François Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, with whom he shared his notes about the Natchez and also Mon Cachetapé's story. Dumont published his memoirs in 1753 and we are certain that the abbreviated version of story is from Lepage because he explicitly cites him as the source of the account. If all this sounds pedantic, the reason I bring this up is that there are some very notable differences in Mon Cachetapé's story that we cannot and should not overlook. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, just keep it in the back of your head. Okay, we got our stage set. Let's get to the show by introducing Mon Cachetapé. Mon Cachetapé was a member of the Yazoo nation who lived at the end of the 17th century and early 18th century. The Yazoo lived on the lower part of the Yazoo River near the modern city of Vicksburg as agriculturalists. His name in his own language meant one who kills difficulties or fatigue. I wish we had a picture of him but sadly no picture was ever made so we are going to use this image but keep in mind that this is not him. However, Lepage described him as a man of courage and spirit. Lepage had been introduced to him after asking his Natchez informants about their origins. The Natchez had told him a bit vaguely that they had come from the northwest and after expressing some dissatisfaction with that answer, they directed him to the wise and well-traveled Mon Cachetapé. The French were actually already acquainted with Mon Cachetapé. They knew him as the interpreter because of his ability to speak so many languages, a skill that would play a big role in this story. When the two finally met in roughly 1725, Mon Cachetapé was an old man but in good health. Lepage noted that the travels of many years did not affect his physique. Mon Cachetapé was asked to retell his travels to Lepage to which he happily obliged over the next few days. Mon Cachetapé's story begins on a tragic note when he was a young man. He had been married and had a family but all of them had died although the account does not specify from what exactly. After this event, Mon Cachetapé left his village to stay with the neighboring Chickasaw. During his stay, he began to wonder where his ancestors, all their ancestors for that matter, had come from but the Chickasaw could not tell him anything that he didn't already know. To discover more, he decided to venture to the northeastern coast. In his own words, For this reason, I resolved to go to the nations on the coast where the sun rises to learn about them and to know if their old language was the same. With this knowledge in hand, he set out to the north before arriving in Shawnee Territory. This was the Ohio River Valley although Mon Cachetapé refers to it as the Wabash. This should not be confused with the Wabash River in Indiana. The Shawnee inhabited Ohio and western Pennsylvania. They may or may not have been the descendants of the Fort Ancient culture but scholars are not certain. From here, Mon Cachetapé went up the Ohio River to the lands of the Haudenosaunee or as they are more commonly called the Iroquois. He didn't stick around too long and kept going until he reached an Abenaki village. The Abenaki are an Algonquian speaking people who inhabited the area stretching from modern day Vermont to Maine and up into Quebec. In this village, he stayed for the winter which he described as very long and cold. Anyone from the north has probably heard of a southern transplant complained about the cold and been like, what? What do you mean it's cold? It's not even freezing yet. Ah, some things never change. Anyways, during this winter respite, Mon Cachetapé developed a friendship with an older man who was also fond of traveling. The man knew the region well and offered to take Mon Cachetapé to the great water, the Atlantic Ocean. The text doesn't explicitly state this but I think it's safe to assume that Mon Cachetapé would have also spent the winter learning the Abenaki language. This Algonquian language would have been completely different Once the winter was over, Mon Cachetapé and his new friend set out toward the great water and rested frequently due to the rough terrain that Mon Cachetapé was unused to. Finally, after several days, they arrived at the great water in the evening and made camp. Mon Cachetapé notes that the noise from the great water prevented him from getting a good night's sleep. When they awoke, they watched the dawn from the shore. I can only imagine what a beautiful sight it was. Well, that is until Mon Cachetapé lost his nerve and fled uphill. See, he had noticed the tide coming in and had panicked thinking that the water would overtake them both. His friend had to explain how the tides regularly ebbed and flowed and that they would not be drowned. Now, reassured that they would survive, he returned to the shore. The old man went on to explain how the French came over the water in their floating villages and how their land was on the other side of the great water. The French had told him that the great water touched all the lands and was as large as the earth. In the evening, they set out back for the village and after arriving, they shared their trip with the community. During the discussion, another old man told Mon Cachetapé about a waterfall over the great river that made such a noise that it could be heard a half a day away. As you can probably guess from this description, they were describing the St. Lawrence River and Niagara Falls. Intrigued by this, Mon Cachetapé asked his partner if he'd accompany him to these falls to which he agreed. The trip must have taken some time because Mon Cachetapé ended up staying another long winter in the village. Interestingly, there's a comment about how hard it was for him to hunt in the winter because of having to wear snowshoes. Once the spring arrived and provisions were made, the two set out for the falls by going to the great river and following its course on foot. During the trip, they were able to hunt abundant game as well as bison. If that sounds odd, remember, American bison used to exist as far east as New York up to the late 18th century. They were all over the continent. As they neared Niagara Falls, Mon Cachetapé could hear the roar of the water before they ever saw it, just as the old man back in the village had said. He had also urged both of them to take buffalo wool with them to put in their ears to protect their hearing. With their buffalo wool in their ears, they finally came to the falls. Mon Cachetapé remembered the moment like this. I'd never been able to believe what the old man had told me, but when my eyes and senses beheld, I thought he had not said enough for that which my eyes saw. This river does not fall. It is as if it were cast, the same as when an arrow falls to the ground. This sight made my hair stand on end and my flesh creep. After leaving the falls, they headed south to the Ohio River, where they both fashioned a small dugout canoe to take Mon Cachetapé back home to his village. His friend had packed a hatchet specifically for this purpose, since going by boat would have sped up the return home. On their last day together, they killed two buffalo, smoked the meat, and split up for their respective journeys. We parted with hearts bound together like good friends who love one another. If he had been without a wife and children, he would have joined me on my trip to the west, of which I have spoken. Mon Cachetapé was able to continue down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers without incident, only noting a brief encounter with two canoes full of Quepa who were taking a calumet, or peace pipe, to the Illinois Confederation. Making his way back to the Yazoo River, he was able to return to his village to the joy of his friends and relatives. This was the conclusion of his first journey to the northeast, to the Atlantic coast, and to Niagara Falls. As cool as that trip was, it ultimately didn't answer Mon Cachetapé's original questions about the origins of his people, and this really kept him restless. He wanted to trace his ancestors' footsteps and travel to wherever they had come from, so he made preparations to undertake a new journey to the west. This is a good time to note that we don't know exactly when these travels took place, but it's commonly thought that these happened around or before 1700. When everything was ready, or as Mon Cachetapé says, when the grain was ripe, he departed his When he arrived at the Ohio River, he built a raft and floated across the river. Once across the river and into the prairie, he made his way to the Tamaroas, who were part of the Illinois Confederacy. After staying with them briefly, he continued up the Mississippi until he reached the Missouri River. Basically, he reached Cahokia, for all intents and purposes, but there's no comments on the site, which in fairness had long been abandoned by this point. Bummer. Like he did at the Ohio, he built a raft, paddled across the Mississippi, and resumed his trek along the north bank of the Missouri. Continuing up the river, he made his way to the Nuachi Nation, also known as the Missouria, where he stopped to wait out the winter and the waist-deep snow. His time among the Nuachi also served another practical purpose, and that was allowing him to learn the local language and to get as much information about the territories ahead as he could. The Nuachi were a Siouan-speaking people that had migrated from the northern Great Lakes region long ago and had adapted to life on the plains. Mon Cachete recalled how they lived almost exclusively on buffalo meat, though they also grew some maize to supplement this. Once the winter was over, he resumed his journey west along the Missouri until he encountered the Kanza, or the Caw Nation. Hopefully you're beginning to notice a pattern with western state names and their former inhabitants. Like the Nuachi, they too were a Siouan-speaking people, so Mon Cachete's time among the Nuachi was paying some serious dividends. As he always did, he sought out information about where he could go find the origins of his people. The Kanza explained that he would need to continue up the Missouri River for about another month until he reached the headwaters, at which point he should turn north and continue until he found a river going from east to west. Basically, this would allow him to cross the continental divide. Following this river west would take him to the With all that under his belt, Mon Cachete set out to find the headwaters. Now according to Mon Cachete, he says that he continued up the Missouri. I've seen some people suggest that instead of going up the Missouri, he likely took the Platte River. This route is more direct, but it doesn't get you quite as far into the mountains as the meandering Missouri does. I should point out though that in order to have taken the Platte, Mon Cachete would have had to have crossed the Missouri to get to the North Bank, and there's no record of it, unlike his crossing of the Ohio and Mississippi, which suggests that he may very well have stuck to the Missouri after all. One way or another, he continued northwest for about a month before coming to the feet of the Rocky Mountains, and as luck would have it, he actually spotted a column of smoke and followed it to find a group of 30 people, who he assumed might be the otter people or a people who knew them. When he made contact, they were very surprised to see him, even though he didn't know their language, they were able to communicate in signs. I'm not sure if this is a reference to plain sign language, but that would be very interesting if Mon Cachete had learned this as well. After three days with them, a man and a woman in the group decided to return to their village and offered to take Mon Cachete with them. For nine days, the three traveled along the Missouri before turning north for another five days before reaching the beautiful river, which most people associate with the Columbia River or one of its tributaries. Upon reaching the river, the husband and wife asked by signs if he wanted to bathe in the river. Mon Cachete was hesitant and explained as best he could that he was wary of crocodiles in the river, which the couple eventually made clear that there were none, and he was able to bathe. Lord knows he probably could have used it after crossing the Rockies. Quick aside here, this part of the account piqued my curiosity, and I wanted to see if the continental divide can be crossed in this way. Is it really possible to follow the Missouri and its tributaries to a spot where you can go north, cross the continental divide, and head downstream to the Pacific Ocean? After poring over Google Maps for way too long, I discovered to my surprise that this isn't only possible, but actually easier than I expected, assuming that you know where you're going. Now, I want to preface this by saying that this may not be the route that Mon Cachete and his companions took. It is only a possible and hypothetical route. There are other ways to get across. However, I think it's worth a look so that we can visualize how this may have been done. So let's zoom in and check this out. Starting out at the Missouri River, you would continue until you reached its headwaters near the modern city of Three Forks, Montana. One of the tributaries, the Jefferson River, continues west, and that's the river that will follow. Up the stream near Twin Bridges, the Jefferson splits into the Big Hole River and the Beaverhead River. If you continue along the Big Hole River, you'll arrive at the continental divide around 30 kilometers or 20 miles south of Butte, Montana, where you can cross by going through a valley. If you've driven on Interstate 15 south of Butte, then you've basically driven this route. Once you cross the valley, you arrive at the Silver Bow Creek, which will take you to the Clark Fork, which will take you to the Columbia River. Assuming you have a local guide or good directions from the locals, this looks like an easy way to get across the continental divide. With that said, let's get back to Moncastapé. The three continued down the bank of the beautiful river until the couple found their canoes and then continued down the river together until they arrived at their village. Moncastapé reported that he was well received by the community and treated very well. He spoke glowingly about their kindness and honesty. After some time in the village, he began to learn their language. He makes an interesting observation about language instruction among the peoples that he met. According to his recollection, language was taught by older men because they delighted in teaching their language to those that were younger than them. The young enjoyed being instructed and the elders enjoyed teaching. One particular elder in the village that spent time with Moncastapé was named Saltier and he'll come up again later. With his grasp of the language improving, he was able to confirm that these people were the otters that he had been searching for. After some time in the village, Moncastapé began to make plans to resume his journey. He joined an envoy going down the river but the otters persuaded him to stay with them for the winter so that he could learn the language of the nation that he would encounter further downstream. The people in the village told him that the nation further downstream would be able to lead him to the great water to the west. The following year, Moncastapé left the otters that he was so fond of and went downstream in his canoe. Soon he encountered a small tribe who were surprised by his arrival. Now this tribe was probably one of the Pacific Northwest tribes like the Salish or the Chinook. They had a rigid class society and one mark of status was the length of their hair. Men typically wore their hair long while slaves wore their hair short. Moncastapé had kept his hair short so he would have stood out to them. Upon his arrival, the chief asked Moncastapé who he was and he explained that he had come from the otter nation up the river. The chief could tell that he was not one of the otters and wondered how he spoke their language. Moncastapé told him that he had stayed with the otters and learned their language from a man named Saltier. In his account, Moncastapé makes it clear that he wasn't a huge fan of this tribe and that they spoke rudely to each other and as he was about to disembark from them, the chief stopped him and explained that he was a friend of Saltier and invited Moncastapé to stay with them. Apparently, Saltier was kind of a big deal. Now back in the otter nation, Saltier had requested that Moncastapé seek out an old man named Big Roebuck so Moncastapé asked about this man and was informed that he was the chief's father. Once they were at the village, they summoned Big Roebuck who had to be led to Moncastapé due to his failing eyesight. Big Roebuck had Moncastapé's supplies brought from his canoe back to his cabin where he described the other nations and tribes in the area. He advised him that the coastal nations would receive him well if he told them that he was a friend of Big Roebuck. Remember kids, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Moncastapé remained with Big Roebuck for two days and noted a porridge that Big Roebuck made for him out of some small grains that were very delicious. Scholars aren't sure what these grains would have been but it's possible that they may have been a type of wild pea. Moncastapé noted that these grains grew wildly and were not sown. They were so delicious that the tribe would actually kill wild birds that fed on them so that the grains could be saved. Finally, after the two days were up, Moncastapé departed Big Roebuck and the rest of the tribe and continued downriver, stopping no more than a day to meet each tribe downstream. The last of these tribes lived a day's trip away from the great water and welcomed Moncastapé into their community. The account notes that they ate the same grain that Big Roebuck had served him but that they also ate fish and shellfish from the river. Moncastapé describes one animal with a head shaped like a young buffalo but not of the same color that would come ashore to eat grass. This baffling description is most likely a seal though it's uncertain why or how he thought it ate grass. Even though these people lived well, they lived away from the river to conceal themselves from the people they called the bearded men. These bearded men would come from the west, make landfall, and try to carry off their young. As for the men themselves, Moncastapé was given this description. They told me that these men were white and that they had long black beards which fell upon their breasts, that they appeared to be short and thick with large heads which they covered with cloth, that they always wore their clothes even in the hottest weather, that their coats felt at the middle of the legs which as well as the feet were covered with red or yellow cloth. For the rest, they did not know of what their clothing was made because they had never been able to kill one, their arms making a great noise and great flame, that they nevertheless retire when they see more red men than their own numbers, that then they go aboard their pirogue where there are sometimes 30 or even more. They added that these strangers came from where the sun sets to seek upon this coast the yellow and bad smelling wood which dyes a beautiful yellow. Okay, that's a pretty colorful description and we'll discuss their identity later, but for now let's continue with the account. These men were such a regular nuisance that the locals had actually begun to cut down the sought after trees in the area to deter the bearded men from coming, so much so that they actually deforested the banks of the river, but this only appears to have had limited success because the bearded men found new areas with the trees that they still returned to every year to get more of this wood and its dye. That year though, the local tribes had decided that enough was enough and to drive off the bearded men once and for all by assembling all their warriors. Mon Cachete was curious about these bearded men and he offered to accompany the warriors. Remember, he had dealt with European settlers and he wasn't afraid of their firearms. They left the village and traveled five days to the river where the bearded men would arrive to collect wood. This spot up the river was between two cliffs which would provide cover. At first, the group planned to wait for the bearded men behind the cliffs and then ambush them to prevent them from landing. Mon Cachete wasn't very enthusiastic about this plan and opined that even though he had never made war on the whites, he knew that using this plan they would not be able to kill many of the bearded men. He instead proposed that they leave two men on the cliffs to alert the rest about the bearded men's arrival. The others would hide in the woods and wait for the men to come ashore and cut wood and then ambush them. With this plan, Mon Cachete assured them that even if some of the bearded men got away, they would be able to kill many of the others. Everyone agreed with Mon Cachete's plan and they dug in and waited. After 17 days, the bearded men arrived in two boats as expected. They landed near the cliffs and for four days the warriors kept watch until they came ashore to collect wood. The attack was launched as planned but to Mon Cachete's disappointment, they were only able to kill 11 of the men. The others were able to get in their boats and race back to the ocean. Mon Cachete reflected on his disappointment. I do not know why it is that red men who shoot so surely at game aim so badly at their enemies. They were as much afraid of our numbers as we were of their firearms. Upon examining the dead, Mon Cachete personally observed. They were much smaller than we were and very white. They had large heads and bodies sufficiently large for their height. Their hair was only long in the middle of the head. They did not wear hats like you, but their heads were twisted around with cloth. Their clothes were neither woollen nor bark, you would say silk, but something similar to your old shirts, without doubt cotton, very soft and of different colors. That which covered their limbs and their feet was of a single piece. I wish to try on one of these coverings, but my feet would not enter it. Mon Cachete also noted that their guns were rather heavy and poor in range. The group then divided up the garments, personal effects, and scalps of the dead and then set off for their homes. Speculation about the identity of these bearded men abounds and it's probably the one part of the narrative that really strains belief. So who were they? If they were truly coming from the west, they could have been Japanese or Chinese sailors. Japanese vessels were known to occasionally get swept out to sea and to shipwreck in the Pacific Northwest. However, the account makes it clear that these visitors came so regularly that their arrival could be predicted and there's no current evidence that I could find that Asian sailors were making regular voyages to the Americas at this time. Now, it's possible that coming from the west is not literal and just referred to anyone coming from the coast. With that in mind, these bearded men could have also been Europeans, but Mon Cachete's descriptions and his own opinions don't really support this either. Of course, another possibility worth considering is that they were other indigenous people who had had contact with Europeans and had firearms. Now, before everybody smashes their caps lock and rushes to the comments to tell me that Native Americans did not have beards, let me just acknowledge that yes, facial hair is much less common in indigenous people, but that doesn't mean that it's non-existent and there are depictions and reports of indigenous people with facial hair that pop up from time to time. Also, Pacific Northwestern tribes were known to abduct young people in slave raids, so that much fits at least. Honestly, this is a wide open question and there's no good answer that fits Mon Cachete's description, so take it all how you will. Another problem is the trees that the bearded men sought. No one is sure what is meant by these smelly trees with the yellow wood. I actually tried searching for trees that produce yellow dyes and the only ones that I could find, like sassafras and the eastern black oak, do not grow west of the Rockies. Rats. Anyways, let's get back to the story. With the bearded men dealt with, Mon Cachete decided to continue his journey and joined those in the group who lived to the west further up the coast. When they reached their village, he stayed for several days to study the next route. Mon Cachete noted in this northern area that the days became longer and the nights shorter. When he asked the old men, they could not tell him why this was so. However, they did advise that it was useless to continue further north, because the coast continued northwest before turning west until being cut off by the great water. They reported that the land further north was barren, cold, and uninhabited. One of the elders even told him that as a young man, he had journeyed up the coast and had seen the land himself, but that it was not worth it and that Mon Cachete should return to his home. With that, he turned back and made his way back the way he had come. Lepage ends the account by estimating the total time this trip to the west took, and arrives at a reasonable figure of five years. Strangely, there's no mention of whether or not he found an answer to his original question. That's a little bit frustrating. As a side note, although we can't map out Mon Cachete's exact route with certainty, you can do a rough estimate of the distances he traveled, and those numbers are stunning. According to Google Map, a trip from Vicksburg to the coast of Maine is roughly 2,900 kilometers or 1,800 miles. A trip from Vicksburg to the northwest coast is over 4,000 kilometers or 2,500 miles. Keep in mind that these are just rough estimates, but I think it helps put all that traveling into perspective. So the next time you feel like a champ for hiking the Appalachian Trail, just remember that Mon Cachete would have left you in the dust. So what are we to make of this? Is this account believable? Before we answer that, we need to look at the second account that I mentioned earlier from Jean-Francois Benjamin Dumont de Montigny. Dumont's account of the story, first published in 1753, is much more abbreviated than Lepage's, but the ending is where things really diverge. According to Dumont, Mon Cachete continues down the beautiful river until he's prevented from continuing to the sea because of a war between two nations further down. Rather than turning back right away, Mon Cachete stuck around with his hosts and actually joined them in two slave raids. In the second, they captured four people, one of them a woman whom took back to the village and married. In this account, she describes her home, which was only two days from the sea, and also describes the arrival of men from a large sailing vessel who came ashore to get wood and water. She describes the men in vaguely similar terms as the bearded men in Lepage's account, but without their firearms. Shortly after this description of the bearded men, Dumont's version ends. There's no account of Mon Cachete's return, and the final words are Mon Cachete lamenting that he never got to see the great water. Why is this so different? It's very noticeable that the bearded men are almost completely absent from this account. While they are the most mysterious element of Lepage's account, Dumont fails to make any mention of the west coast or the Alaskan coast that Mon Cachete's informants told him about. This may seem innocuous, but it becomes more important when we consider the state of geographic knowledge at that time. See, in the 1700s, there was a spirited debate about the geography of western North America. Cartographers were still trying to pin down the details of the west coast. Voyages by figures such as Juan de Fuca and Bartolomeu de Fonte and the account of Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado fueled some pretty wild theories about the Pacific Northwest. In particular, the presence of a Northwest Passage south of the Arctic. Sometimes these flew in the face of established facts. A good example is the island of California. Wait, the island of California? Yes, because in many old maps, California appears as an island, despite Spanish explorers proving that it was not an island over a century before. In many contemporary maps, North America and Asia were shown to be separated by the Strait of Anean, which created a Northwest Passage via the Hudson Bay. One fantastic element that is of particular importance to us and that these cartographers proposed was a vast inland sea in the Pacific Northwest that shrank the width of the North American continent considerably. French cartographers were big believers in this. They really wanted that Northwest Passage to exist. Unfortunately for them, Montcastapé's account makes no mention of such a body of water. In believing Montcastapé's account, Lepage had to reject the notion of a Sea of the West and put himself on the wrong side of French academia. And he would even admit to this when he wrote, Dumont appears to reconcile this by keeping Montcastapé out of the coast and keeping the account as credulous as possible. In doing so, he would have remained in the graces of his fellow Frenchmen. In fact, Dumont outright dismisses the geographic implications of Lepage's account. It's also safe to say that there was a rivalry between the two. Despite using Lepage as a resource for his own writings, Dumont was probably aware that Lepage was looking to publish his writings of Louisiana and likely wanted to get his work out the door first to be recognized as the authority on the subject. Despite Dumont's editorializing and jabs, Lepage doesn't seem very concerned with any such controversy, even though he was probably aware of Dumont's writings. Or maybe he was ignorant of Dumont's publishings. Or maybe he was just trying to stay above the No one is certain. But looking at Lepage, how credible is this account? I don't want to dismiss the idea that Lepage could have engaged in exaggeration or embellishment. He certainly may have. By the time Lepage published his account in 1758, more detailed geographic information about the Pacific coast was becoming available, and he could have embraced this as he edited the account. Of course, we have no way to know for certain. One criticism that has been leveled at this account is that Mon Castape doesn't go into much detail about the size and scale of the Rocky Mountains. I personally find this critique a bit off the mark. It's possible that this was pretty common knowledge to indigenous people and that Mon Castape assumed that Lepage was familiar and didn't want to elaborate on them. Maybe they were just the boring bits between the rivers where all the action was. I don't really know. The part that I personally find a bit suspicious is that it only took a month to get from the Kanza to the Missouri headwaters. If that's true, he must have been hauling it. Another point that is often brought up are the descriptions of the bearded men. Even today, they are mysterious, and identifying them is an elusive task which doesn't lend itself to easy credulity. Another criticism of this account has materialized pretty recently. Back in 2007, an unpublished manuscript map drawn by Lepage was discovered, and people noticed some differences between this map and the map that was later published in the Histoire de la Louisiane. In the published map, Lepage notes the route that Mon Castape took between the Missouri and the beautiful river, but that is absent from this draft which was likely drawn up after the interview with Mon Castape. In fact, the entire Pacific coast is missing from the manuscript. This has struck some scholars as very peculiar, because had he known about Mon Castape's travels, he would have noted the passage to the Pacific which would have been of great interest to current and potential colonists. Now, I can't find anything to corroborate whether or not this map was meant to be published, or that it was in any way final. The source I have doesn't confirm this, so it may be too quick a judgment. However, Lepage's account does contain some good details. The route to the Pacific that is described makes sense. The geography lines up rather nicely with our knowledge of the Pacific Northwest, despite contradicting the geographic notions at that time. Many of the people and cultures that are mentioned in the account match up with the people and cultures that we know were there. Cultural practices such as slavery and war among the nations of the Pacific Northwest is attested by other ethnographies. Lepage himself vouched for Mon Castape's honesty for what that's worth. Regardless of how you consider the arguments though, we will never be able to prove the In case you haven't already guessed, I really want to believe this account. But even if it's untrue or greatly exaggerated, I still think that this is a story worth telling because it speaks to the incredible ability of indigenous people to navigate the land around them. Contrary to what we might think, indigenous people in the Americas were not living in isolated tribes unaware of the wider world. Like any other humans anywhere, they were naturally curious and inquisitive about their surroundings and would have wanted to know what was beyond the horizon just as much as we do. We also know from archaeology that lots of trade goods were moving huge distances through North America. In some cases, there's actually compelling evidence that these goods were not traded down the line but brought back by one person. Recall how many people in Mon Castape's account had also traveled great distances and could relay information to him. Anyone who has read the account of Cabeza de Vaca and his trek across the American South and Western Mexico can appreciate how indigenous people could journey great distances through many different lands among many different peoples. Such well-traveled and knowledgeable people were indispensable to European exploration and conquest. No one epitomizes this better than Sacagawea, who aided Lewis and Clark in their expedition across the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific. Without her knowledge about the land and its inhabitants, the expedition would have been a much more difficult endeavor. Such figures show us that indigenous people were always moving around, interacting with those around them, and sharing knowledge. Before we wrap up, let's take a last look at Mon Castape. There's sadly no record of Mon Castape after his meeting with Lepage. There is, however, further history about the Yazoo and sadly, it's not very pretty. In 1729, the Yazoo joined the Natchez in an uprising against the French and drove them out of their territory and back to New Orleans. But the French allied themselves with the Choctaw and struck back at the Natchez and Yazoo and inflicted a crushing defeat. Many captured Yazoo were sold into slavery in the Caribbean and the remaining Yazoo were absorbed by the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations. Whether Mon Castape met his demise in this uprising is unknown, but if he was still alive when it happened, it definitely would have been a traumatic experience that displaced him one way or another. Mon Castape's account, however, has one last hurrah in the annals of history. Thomas Jefferson kept an English translation of Lepage's account and actually gave the copy to two nobodies named Meriwether Lewis and William Clark so that they could refer to Mon Castape's travels across the continent before they set out for the Pacific. The rest, as they say, is history. And that's gonna wrap us up for today. I hope you enjoyed the story of Mon Castape and his trek across the continent. Special thanks to my patrons listed here. You guys are the best. If you would like to join the ranks of these fine individuals and support the show, you may do so on Patreon. 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