||La Vérendrye, François de, 1715-1794
||Journal of the Expedition of the Chevalier de La Vérendrye and One of His Brothers to Reach the Western Sea, Addressed to M. the Marquis de Beauharnois, 1742-43
||Burpee, Lawrence J. (editor). Journals and Letters of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la La Vérendrye and His Sons, with Correspondence between the Governors of Canada and the French Court, Touching the Search for the Western Sea. (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1927). Pages 406-432.
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La Vérendrye was the surname of a family of French fur traders
who traveled far into the West during the eighteenth century (see
AJ-108). The two youngest sons of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de
La Vérendrye (1685-1749)—François (1715-1794), and
Louis-Joseph (1717-1761)—are believed to have been the first
Europeans to view the Rocky Mountains.
Expedition of 1742-1743
When the two Frenchmen left behind at the Mandan village in 1739
returned (see AJ-108), they told of meeting an elderly man of a
visiting Indian nation who wore a cross, had lived among white people
far to the south, and described water unfit to drink that rose and
fell. Motivated by this clear account of the Spanish settlements,
the younger La Vérendryes decided to follow western tribes home
from the the Mandans if possible. They arrived among the Mandans
in May 1742, and moved ever further west from nation to nation for
the next eight months, until they came within sight of massive mountains
on January 1, 1743.
Unfortunately it is impossible to now identify the Indian
tribes that they encountered or the route that they took. The
Smithsonian Institution’s Handbook of North American Indians
(volume 13, part 2) suggests the following as the most
“Beaux Hommes” were the Crow; “Petits Renards” were most
likely the Tuhkiwaku; “Pioya” were possibly the Kiowa; “Gens des
Chevaux” are unidentifiable; “Gens de la Belle Riviere” were
likely the Arikara; “Gens de l’Arc” were most likely a band of
Arikara or Pawnee; “Gens de la Fleche Collee” were either the
western Sioux or Cheyenne; “Gens de la Petite Cerise” were an
Their route and its western terminus are equally uncertain.
Francis Parkman, who had not only examined their documents but
also traveled extensively among the Plains tribes in the 1840s,
believed they had reached the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Some
later scholars feel they may have gone no further west than the
Black Hills of South Dakota, but many others think they were
looking at the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. They reached the
Missouri River at present Fort Pierre, South Dakota, and
returned to Fort La Reine near Winnipeg on July 2, 1743.
This document, like AJ-108, is in the form of a letter to
Charles de la Boische Beauharnois, the governor of New France.
The original manuscript is in the French national archives in
Paris. It was first published by Pierre Margry in volume 6 of his
Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l'ouest et
dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale, 1614-1698.
Mémoires et documents inédits (Paris: D. Jouaust,
1876-1886). It was first translated into English in 1914, in
volume 7 of South Dakota Historical Collections.
Other Internet and Reference Sources
The best discussion of the 1742-1743 expedition, including a new
English translation and a thorough examination of its route, is
in G. Hubert Smith's Explorations of the La Verendryes in the
Northern Plains, 1738-43 (Lincoln: Univeristy of Nebraska Press,
The Virtual Museum of New France contains background data,
images, and maps at