Note 85 — Chapter VI

Henri de Tonty (Italian form, Tonti) was the son of an Italian refugee at Paris. The father was the originator of the form of life insurance known from the inventor as tontine. In 1678 Henri sailed from Rochelle with La Salle, and with him (1682) descended the Mississippi. After this expedition, Tonty returned to the Illinois and was there engaged in the fur-trade until 1702. In 1686, hearing of La Salle’s ill-fated attempt to found a colony on the Texas coast, he sought in vain to find him with a relief party. (See Cuming’s Tour, volume iv of our series, note 195.) In 1702 he joined D’Iberville in lower Louisiana, and his subsequent career is unknown. Tonty having lost a hand by the explosion of a grenade in the Sicilian wars, wore in place of the lost member a metal hand covered with a glove, which on several occasions he used to good purpose on disorderly Indians, gaining their regard as great “medicine.”

Nuttall is in error in assigning the first visit of Tonty to the Quapaw to the year 1685. La Salle and his followers ascended the Arkansas in March, 1682, and in the open space in the midst of the Quapaw village raised a cross bearing the arms of France, taking formal possession of the country in the name of their king. The official report of this occurrence was dated March 13–14, 1682. See document in Margry, Découvertes et Établissements des Français (Paris, 1877), ii, p. 181. For a secondary account, see Parkman, La Salle (Boston, 1892), index. In 1686, as Tonty ascended the Mississippi after his vain search for La Salle, he visited the Arkansas village and left six men to hold a post. Nuttall seems to have confused the two visits.—Ed.