Hennepin, Louis

Hennepin, Louis a Recollect missionary and traveler, was born in Flanders about 1640. In 1675 he was sent to Canada, and in 1678 started to accompany the traveler Lasalle. He founded a convent at Fort Cataracouy, and with two other monks followed Lasalle in his tour among the Canadian lakes in 1679. Lasalle sent him, in 1680, with another person named Dacan, to find the sources of the Mississippi. They followed the stream tip to the 46° lat. north, but were stopped by a fall which Hennepin called Sault de St. Antoine de Padoue. He was then for eight months a prisoner among the Sioux, but was liberated by the French, and returned to Quebec April 5, 1682. After his return to Europe he was-for a while keeper of the convent of Renty, in Artois, and finally retired to Holland. The date of his death is not ascertained. Hennepin disparaged the Jesuits as missionaries, and was, in turn, disparaged by the Jesuit Charlevoix. He wrote Description de la Louisiane, etc., avec la carte du pays, les moeurs et la maniere de vivre des sauvages (Paris, 1683 and 1688, 12mo; 1688, 4to): — Nouvelle Decouverte d'un tris grand pays situe dans l'Amneique, entre le Nouveau Mexique et la mitner Glaciale, avec cartes, etc., et les avantages que l'on en peut tirer par l'etablissement des colonies (Utrecht, 1697, 12mo, and in the Recueil des Voyages au Nord, vol. 9:etc.): — Nouveau Voyage dans un pays, etc., depuis 1679 jusqu'à 1682, avec les reflexions sur les entreprises du sieur Lasalle (Utrecht, 1698, 12mo; Recueil des Voyages au Nord, vol. 5, 1734). — See Charlevoix, Hist. Géneralé de la Nouvelle France; Dinaux, Archives hist. du Nord; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé, 23 940 sq. (J. N. P.)