DCB/DBC Mobile beta
+

As part of the funding agreement between the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and the Canadian Museum of History, we invite readers to take part in a short survey.

I’ll take the survey now.

Remind me later.

Don’t show me this message again.

I have already taken the questionnaire

DCB/DBC News

New Biographies

Minor Corrections

Biography of the Day

LESAGE, DAMASE – Volume XV (1921-1930)

b. 28 March 1849 in Sainte-Thérèse-de-Blainville (Sainte-Thérèse), Lower Canada

Confederation

Responsible Government

Sir John A. Macdonald

From the Red River Settlement to Manitoba (1812–70)

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Sir George-Étienne Cartier

Sports

The Fenians

Women in the DCB/DBC

The Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences of 1864

Introductory Essays of the DCB/DBC

The Acadians

For Educators

The War of 1812 

Canada’s Wartime Prime Ministers

The First World War

BARTHÉLEMY, a Parisian youth who accompanied Robert Cavelier de La Salle on his last and fatal expedition and who afterwards defamed him; fl. 1687.

After the murder of La Salle on a branch of the Trinity River in what is now the state of Texas, Barthélemy was one of the group under the leadership of Joutel, La Salle’s faithful companion, which started on the return trip to New France via Henri Tonty*’s post at the mouth of the Arkansas River. Although Joutel mentions that Barthélemy was left behind somewhere on the Arkansas, the boy must have made his way to the fort, because a “Relation” based on the report of Jean Couture, the commander of the post, contains Barthélemy’s statements.

The boy apparently said that his chief, La Salle, “was so enraged at his failures that he did not approach the sacraments for two years; that he nearly starved his brother Cavelier*, allowing him only a handful of meal a day; that he killed with his own hand ‘quantité de personnes’ who did not work to his liking; and that he killed the sick in their beds without mercy, under the pretence that they were counterfeiting sickness in order to escape work.” Parkman terms this a “ridiculous defamation.”

Henry B. M. Best

AN, Col., C13C, 3, f.118, “Relation de la Mort du Sr de la Salle, suivant le rapport d’un nommé Couture à qui M. Cavelier l’apprit en passant au pays des Akansa, avec toutes les circonstances que le dit Couture a apprises d’un François que M. avoit laissé au dit pays des Akansa, crainte qu’il ne gardât pas le secret” (translation in PAC Report, 1899, Supp., 21–23). Découvertes et établissements des Français (Margry), III, 91–534. V. W. Crane, The southern frontier, 1670–1732 (Durham, N.C., 1928, and Philadelphia, 1929), 42–43. Parkman, La Salle and the discovery of the great west (12th ed.), 408–9, 430.

General Bibliography

Cite This Article

Henry B. M. Best, “BARTHÉLEMY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 28, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/barthelemy_1E.html.

The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:


Permalink:   http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/barthelemy_1E.html
Author of Article:   Henry B. M. Best
Title of Article:   BARTHÉLEMY
Publication Name:   Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1
Publisher:   University of Toronto/Université Laval
Year of publication:   1966
Year of revision:   1979
Access Date:   March 28, 2024