Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan
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Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan (9 June 1666 – prior to 1716) served in the French military in Canada where traveled extensively in the Wisconsin and Minnesota region and the upper Mississippi Valley. Upon his return to Europe he wrote an enormously popular travelogue. In it he embellished his knowledge of the geography of the Great Lakes region and created several fictions. The immense popularity of the book resulted in his distorted cartography being accepted by several eminent cartographers who incorporated the "Lahontan" concepts into most of the maps of the 18th century.
He was born into the aristocracy and inherited the title Baron Lahontan upon his father's death in 1674. Through family influence, he joined the French Marine Corps and was sent to New France in 1683. He quickly learned the Indian languages and became adept in wilderness survival. He was sent to command Fort St. Joseph, near the present site of Port Huron, Michigan.
He was a restless commander and spent much of his time exploring the region. In 1688 he joined a party of Chippewa Indians in a raid on the Iroquois and later abandoned his fort and went to Michilimackinac. During the following winter he explored the upper Mississippi valley where he allegedly discovered the "Longue River". After several other adventures, including a successful attack on five English frigates in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, he eventually deserted the French military and returned to Europe.
Deprived of his inheritance and not being able to return to France, he eventually settled in Holland where he found favor with the Elector of Hanover. There he wrote his memoir, in which he embellished his adventures evidently in an attempt to bolster the popular appeal of the book. He invented the tale of the discovery of the "Longue River" that stretched from the Mississippi to a great range of mountains in the west. He depicted a short pass through the mountains from which another river flowed (presumably) into the Pacific. He included accounts of Indian tribes who lived on islands in a great lake near the source of the river, and tales of crocodiles filling the waterways. He also used the book, in the form of a dialogue with an Indian named Adario ("The Rat"), for a controversial attack on what were then the accepted doctrines of Christianity.
The story of a large river flowing from the west fired the imagination of his readers, since the early exploration of North America is inextricably linked with the quest for a route to the Orient. The book was an immediate success and became a best seller. Over twenty editions were published between 1703 and 1741, including editions in French, English, Dutch and German. The book was extremely controversial and immediately brought charges from several critics as to the legitimacy of his discoveries. Even so, it was to influence the cartography of North America for the next 100 years. Variations of the "Longue River" were incorporated into the maps of such respected cartographers as Herman Moll, John Senex, Henry Popple, Guillaume de L'Isle, and Henri Abraham Châtelain. The theory was finally laid to rest with the discoveries of Lewis and Clark.
