La Potherie (1722)
Bacqueville de La Potherie, Claude-Charles (1663-1736). Histoire de l'Amérique septentrionale [...]. Paris: Jean-Luc Nion et Francois Didot, 1722.
Born in Paris in 1663, Claude-Charles Le Roy, known as Bacqueville de La Potherie, joined the navy administration in the early 1690s. In 1697, as a navy commissioner, he accompanied the squadron which under
Iberville's orders captured Fort York on Hudson Bay. The following year he was named controller general of the navy and of the fortifications in Canada. He stayed in Quebec City from 1698 to 1701, when he was promoted to lieutenant of a navy company stationed in Guadeloupe, where he lived until his death in 1736.
La Potherie must have written Histoire de l'Amérique septentrionale during his stay in Quebec City, for he submitted the manuscript to the royal censor in 1702, on the occasion of a trip to Paris. However, he was refused permission to print it. The reason was probably that the French were in the midst of a war and wanted to avoid giving out information about a country coveted by the English. The work, composed of four volumes, finally appeared in 1722.
La Potherie wanted to instruct rather than to please:"Not to utter a falsehood; not to hush up the truth". Histoire, underestimated by modern authors, still gives an important and valuable account of its time. As an observer and participant in Iberville's exploit on Hudson Bay in 1697, he left us a detailed eye-witness account of it. La Potherie also painted a complete and accurate picture of the Canada of the time; he described the settlements and the way of life of the inhabitants and gave statistics on population and sources of income - nothing escaped his attention.
Finally, La Potherie left us valuable information about the Indians of North America, information gathered from credible witnesses, especially from Nicolas Perrot. An interpreter and fur trader, Perrot lived for many years among the Indian nations of the west. At the request of the colonial authorities, he wrote several reports about these nations, but nearly all them are now lost. However, those that remain are known to us for the most part thanks to La Potherie, who had included them in the second volume of Histoire.
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